Frustration over warm winter in Dane County Wisconsin? "We really ought to be worrying about the bigger picture."

 

Top headline:  Wisconsin State Journal, 1/13/2023

Photo by Retiring Guy

Bottom headline:  New York Times, 1/10/2022

From the State Journal

Dan Wallace isn’t happy about the unseasonably warm temperatures that are putting some winter sports on hold this month. 

Wallace, 73, a cross-country skier for 53 years, was driving north Thursday in search of better ski conditions. Reached by phone halfway between Stevens Point and Wausau, Wallace said he didn’t see any snow cover until he got 100 miles north of Madison. “ 

We as cross-country skiers are being seriously affected by the lack of snow,” he said. 

It’s not just skiers. Many people looking for a Wisconsin winter upside — ice-skating, sledding, snowshoeing through the woods — are wondering what season this is. Neither fall, nor winter, nor spring.

From the New York Times 

The eight warmest years on record have now occurred since 2014, the scientists, from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, reported, and 2016 remains the hottest year ever. 

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also issued analyses of global temperatures for 2022 on Thursday, and their findings were similar. NASA’s analysis ranked 2022 as tied with 2015 for fifth warmest, while NOAA had last year as the sixth warmest. 

“But ranks only tell you part of the story,” said Russell Vose, a NOAA scientist. What’s more important, he said, is that the past eight years are the warmest ever. “They really do stand apart,” he said. 

Each of the past four decades has been warmer than one that preceded it, Dr. Vose added.