Ted Rall for February 21, 2020

We normally (80% about) get enough of a hard freeze to kill slugs. Not this year. Not last year either. Climate change may increase the sales of beer…

(think about it)

A “nice day” in February around these parts means it’s above Zero and it didn’t snow.

Where I live we would generally have a second or third 7 inches of snow by now, but it has been raining for two months and the temperature has been in the sixties. Last year was almost as bad. The ground is saturated and the trees are coming down everywhere. I’m sure if this is better than the three years of drought we had four or five years ago. This change is nothing to deny.

Winter will have new attributes from now on. Hopefully, we can find ways to adjust to it.

Cheer up Ted soon it will be too hot to enjoy.

I realized a couple of days ago that the new snow blower I bought at the beginning of last winter has only been used three times in two years. The other times all it took was scraping the driveway with a snow shovel.

Terrifyingly true. February is typically “snow month” here in Boston. Not only does it often get down into the teens Fahrenheit, we usually get the most snow. We have had no more than a dusting or two. (The usual total, as I recall, is 108 inches [2.74 meters]. I doubt we’ve gone over maybe a dozen inches.)

The average according to one weather site is 32° F (0° C). (https://www.holiday-weather.com/boston/february/2020/)

According to AccuWeather (https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/boston-ma/02108/february-weather/348735), we had the highest daily temperatures that low… once this month (50s twice so far!). El Niño ended in December.

The current average for February 2020 to date in Boston is 43.3° F (6.3° C)

And for the remaining nine days of February, it’s only predicted to go into the thirties 3 times (forties 3 times, and fifties 3 times); the predicted average for February 2020 overall is now 43.8°.

I have observed that people often think of climate change as smoothly incremental (e.g., “who cares if the oceans are just an inch higher?” “I’d love a few degrees higher in winter!”). But it’s chunkier than that, and even incremental change has many follow-up effects.

E.g.: higher ocean levels doesn’t just mean higher tides, it means worse storm surges, and a warmer atmosphere means more energetic weather – more variance, more violence. An inch or two doesn’t seem like much, but when you get a five foot storm surge smacking the coast, it adds up.

E.g.: insects that normally die in winter are showing up, which means of course that there are more of them. I’ve seen mosquitos where I live north of Boston in January. Deer ticks (which carry Lyme disease) have moved up to the top of Maine.

E.g.: our crops are tailored to our climate. What happens as the Midwest wheat belt becomes more like Mexico? People blithely say “life will adapt.” Life “adapts” by most of it dying off with a few hardy survivors remaining…

enjoy it while it lasts, I guess. Or while WE last.

I admit I hate cold weather and winter. So I have mixed feelings. I know the science well enough to know warmer winters are not good in so many other ways.

So the ice caps melting has a glass half full appeal with the notion it’s allowing access to new travel routes and access to possible new resources. The glass half empty is extreme climate changes (long term effects, not short term weather), rising sea levels endangering coastal population centers, and effects to sea life. Yep. Long as people enjoying beach weather in the winter, who cares, right?

Yes!

That’s me.