Rising Temperatures in the Midst of Heavy Snow?

The last few months have been a bit odd. Too much snow in the mid-Atlantic. Too little for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. And a dusting nearly everywhere else. Meanwhile, a blizzard of confusing and often conflicting commentary has left many people asking: Is the climate really warming? Warming faster than ever? Or perhaps just weirding out?

Since NASA scientists have been tracking global temperatures and climate change for decades, we checked in with researchers from across the agency to get their take on the state of Earth’s climate (which, it’s worth noting, isn’t the same thing as Earth’s weather). The result is a collection of feature stories, videos, and web interactives that describe what we’ve found on NASA’s Global Climate Change Site. Here’s a sampling:

•     Why the Arctic Oscillation has made this winter one to remember (Article)

•     How the ocean’s natural rhythms can hide or accentuate global temperatures (Article)

•     Why the last decade has been the warmest on record (Article)

•     On the record about the temperature record (Q&A)

•     Piecing together the temperature puzzle (Video)

•    2009 Temperature update (Video)

•     Sorting out the squiqqles in the global temperature record (Interactive graphic)

•     Watching the world’s changing temperature (Data Visualization)

•     Snaps from space: The impact of a warming world (Image gallery)

–Adam Voiland, NASA’s Earth Science News Team

5 thoughts on “Rising Temperatures in the Midst of Heavy Snow?”

  1. Sends chills down my back about the facts.
    People,are interesting.(including myself.)
    Some believe it exists.I am one who think we people are ruining our climate.But i personally never understand why so many people object to it?I personally can’t really understand why some object,to it.
    I personally like Snow and Hot summers though,But i see why its bad.

  2. i think the note that the Earth’s climate is not the same as the Earth’s weather is an important point.

  3. Living in Australia, I am always interested in what happens throughout the world with climate change. It amazes me that the northern hemisphere has been blanketed in huge snow falls, while we in the Southern Hemisphere have faced one of our hottest summers on record, along with flash flooding and torrential rain.

    We run a pet friendly holiday house (www.auntymels.com) in Northern New South Wales in Australia, and each summer I watch as the river level rises and encroaches on our property.

    Its a worrying time for us, but I find it comforting to know that NASA is researching climate change and really helping us figure out what is going on.

  4. Greetings all!

    I would assume it would be possible to extrapolate an approximate assessment of what the Earth’s climate and weather patterns will have in store for us in the near future, several hundred years from now, perhaps thousands.

    The continuing decrease of the amount of ice across the globe brings about rising sea levels along with increased amounts of precipitation across the globe. Storms and flooding appear to have gotten frequent.

    The increase in the planets overall global temperature appears to be hastened by the existence of the human species. I would say it is safe to assume that if the human species did not exist most likely the Earth’s planetary ice would continue to decrease except at a somewhat slower rate.

    That being said….

    What can be done to control Earth’s atmospheric environment besides restricting our daily consumption of harmful producing atmospheric toxic products? What products or inventions have been created to control our atmosphere or to contribute to its health? This in itself would be quite a HUGE task, and possibly quite dangerous if we don’t know what we are doing.

    I see our weather climate continuing to become more violent. A few hundred degree days of heat is not healthy for our grass and trees as they perish due to the high temperatures. If the warming of the planet continues to increase at a most likely somewhat subtel exponential rate our air will become more toxic resulting in increased health concerns ultimately leading to what we perhaps don’t want to say. I’ll say it, I might be crazy though… Is this the slow destruction of the human race?

    The human species and plant life have required that the Earth remain an even balance of coldness and warmth to exist along with a seemingly infinite variety of other specifically required interactions. Dinosaurs are gone, although somewhat changed, I guess you could almost say that in a way they remain. The Earth has had a few ice ages that lasted for thousands of years at least and yet somehow life continues to flourish over many millions of years of our planet’s history.

    I would think that with the enormous amount of research by all interested people an approximate idea of the future of Earth’s climate should be published, if it hasn’t already. If it has, I’d be most interested to see it.

    What would happen to planet Earth and how would we survive if it continues to heat up?

    Thanks for listening…..

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