Yes, Global Warming Could Be Cause of D.C. Snowstorm
Posted:02/13/10There's bipartisan agreement on at least one thing in Washington this week: There's a whole lot of snow outside. After two paralyzing storms swept through the District in quick succession, the area was blanketed in almost two and a half feet of snow.Climate change skeptics quickly pointed to the winter storms as proof that Al Gore and climate researchers have their facts exactly backward. Sen. Jim Demint (R-S.C.), for example, twittered during the storm on Tuesday, "It's going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries 'uncle.'" And Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), on his Facebook page, posted photos of his family building a snow fort on the National Mall, the tag on top reading "Al Gore's New Home!"But, in a press conference sponsored by the Center for American Progress on Thursday, Dr. Jeff Masters, director of meteorology for the online weather service Weather Underground, pointed out that snow in the winter -- even a lot of it -- doesn't mean that average temperatures aren't nevertheless on the rise.
"Individual weather is not climate," said Masters. "The point I've tried to make is we're in a warming trend. Last decade was the warmest on record, replacing the '90s, which replaced the 80's as the warmest decade."
In fact, increasingly severe storms -- even winter ones like D.C.'s recent blizzards -- are consistent with climate change models, said Masters. "We still have winter, even if temperatures are rising," he said, noting that as average temperatures have risen, moisture levels in the atmosphere have also risen over 4 percent in the last 20 years, which has the potential to increase the severity of storms.There's no denying it was an unusual weather week in the mid-Atlantic -- one storm of this size is unusual enough, but Washington hasn't seen this much snow at one time in over a century. The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang noted on Thursday that with almost 55 inches of snow already, this is the District's snowiest year ever -- 1899 was the last time we even approached this level -- and more than half of the year's snow had arrived over the course of just one week.But the issue is not just about changing climate patterns, but whether all the sturm und drang over the snow could still have a political impact, first on the 2010 election cycle and, ultimately, on cap and trade legislation, which would put restrictions on the greenhouse emissions that contribute to climate change.An ad from the Virginia GOP, which appeared shortly after the week's first big snowstorm, targets two Virginia Democrats who voted for the Waxman Markey cap and trade bill that narrowly passed through the House over the summer. The ad shows a reel of images of the wintery weather and suggests that Virginians give Reps. Rick Boucher and Tom Perriello a call to tell them how climate change was affecting them this week, adding, "Maybe they'll come help you shovel."
Both men are up for re-election in 2010 in districts where their votes for the cap and trade bill were controversial -- and the ad came less than two weeks after Boucher announced that he would indeed be seeking another term.
The fiercest fight, though, may be around impending cap and trade legislation in the Senate. A November 2009 poll from ABC News/Washington Post showed 72 percent of Americans believed in global climate change. But that percentage had slipped markedly from 2006, when it topped 85 percent. The drop occurred mostly along party lines -- which could forebode a pitched battle on the Senate floor. And, with health care reform's second round dominating the agenda again, a few seasons may well go by before we see a bill.Follow PoliticsDaily On Facebook and Twitter,
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