El Niño update

 

 

 First week of Meteorological winter, and the holiday lights are welcome in the long nights and earliest sunsets of the year now. The December Solstice on December 21.  The high temperature was 51 on December 7  under cloudless blue sky and sun. It was the warmest December 7 in 42 years, since 52 degrees in 1981! 

The sunset was spectacular, too. It was a beautiful day---but it didn't feet like December.  Today, December 8, it was even warmer, almost 60 degrees!  Yes, unseasonably warm.  Enjoy it while it lasts, people say. And if you are from Chicago,  you may say, we'll be paying for this in January. 

Is this part of the El Niño effect?  Global warming?  Climate change?  

Yes, weather folks are confident  in a strong El Niño lasting through the spring. This means a milder winter here,  and not as much snow.

Global warming caused by human activity affects the ocean waters, too, which in turn affect the jet stream, and the polar vortex, and weather all over the world.

Global warming and climate change are not the same thing. Global warming is part of climate change. Due to warmer temperatures, hurricanes may be more extreme, and intensify more rapidly.

 Climate change is weather over time, a pattern of more severe storms, heat waves, droughts and flooding. 

These changes affect everyone, everywhere--from melting icebergs in Antarctica, to fall foliage in New England,  fewer bees, more mosquitos, changes in crops and timing of flowering cherry trees.  

We are all part of these changing climate patterns,  even as private jets fly into Dubai.