On Friday afternoon it got about 60 degrees out, and all our previous snow melted over that day and the weekend. It’s been nice to take my toddlers to the park a few blocks away. I also got pretty excited about hooking back up [with] my side laser in the garage…
…but we’re supposed to get about 20 inches of snow next weekend. Really mother nature!? Give us a break!
We usually have it in the teens, some years below 0… yesterday I saw the first plum tree blooming in the backyard.
About 0 chance that tree will give fruit as we get late frosts often into may.
2 or so weeks ago, we had record heat of almost 80 on a Saturday. It snowed Sunday. Welcome to Colorado where you can have all 4 seasons in 24 hours.
75 and windy tomorrow snow by Thursday. I’m ready for thunderstorm season
I’m in Michigan, on the southeast end of Lake Michigan. It’s been really nice here, but I think someone was really pushing it over this past weekend. While walking the beach on Saturday, I noticed barefoot prints in the sand. I’m usually one of the first to be barefoot in the spring and the last one on the fall, but really, there was still ice under the sand.
I don’t expect the fruit trees will produce much this year. I noticed all of the sap running out of a maple tree I put an eye-bolt into last fall. There should not be sap flowing this early 
Probably hobbits.
I feel you’re pain. Here in South Texas it’s been as crazy as I can remember. One morning I’m dropping off my son for Jr. High track practice and it’s 32 degrees, by afternoon it’s 70, by the next day it’s in the upper 80’s, day after we’re back in the 30’s . My poor heater/air conditioner is so confused 
Some people are still in denial about global climate change, like the guy in this video. He must think the ice in the Great Lakes States will always be thick and strong even in February
http://www.kare11.com/weather/truck-ice-house-fall-through-the-ice-of-lake-michigan/410082141
Okay, I’ll poke the tiger and grab the tail I’ll publically admit I’m a little bit of a skeptic on the official climate change position that’s mainstream right now. Here are my reasons, before you crucify me. First, our meteorological data only covers a very brief time (with any detail), about the last century or so. As far as weather cycles go, that’s not even a drop in the bucket. Sure, we have computer models that go backward and forward in time, but those are all based on what we know now. There are still too many unknown variables to act like we’ve completely nailed it down. And while I have no doubt burning petroleum is having an impact on our weather and our planet, I’m unsatisfied by the research to stop looking into additional possibilities as well. Too much of what’s put out (on both sides of the issue) feel too much like political rhetoric and less like objective investigation.
Again, before anyone crucifies me, YES, I think we are having a negative impact on our planet and our weather cycles. NO, I don’t know exactly how much is us and how much might be a cycle we’re just not old or smart enough yet to fully perceive. YES, we need to act on what we know to take care of this planet, it’s currently the only one we have, and even if we get others, I’m still going to be sentimentally attached to this one, it was the first, after all .
I’ll give one example that’s not often given much time. Urban sprawl and development. Not the cars or power plants, but the sprawl its self. Consider how much pavement, roofing shingles, etc reflect the heat of the sun back into the atmosphere. I’ve looked a couple of times but can’t find many studies on the changes the concrete and asphalt jungle have caused outside concerns about emissions. Why would we not investigate this more closely? Becuase it’s politically unpopular. It’s okay to bash big industry, but if it possibly makes my life a little harder or uncomfortable, then it can’t be that critical, can it?
Sorry if I’m ranting (it’s Monday, that happens sometimes) but I love science, always have. I find it sad that some within that realm have become so enamored with their own intelligence and seemingly having all the answers that they’ve stopped asking questions the way they should - heaven forbid I prove myself wrong, where’s the grant money in that? Again, there are many scientific fields that aren’t given to the same emotional or intellectual defects, but so many seem to these days - And I applaud anyone within those fields that have remained intellectually honest and inquisitive, I know there are many of you still out there, I wish you the absolute best.
At least in Matt Cremona’s next video he won’t be freezing.
I agree --on so many levels. There appears to be a lot more variables and plausible cause and effects than just blaming it on oil. And surely if we put our minds to it, we can certainly come up with more sustainable energy solutions.
Here in the US… Its all that ground hog’s fault…I think he’s bipolar…lol
True, but if movies have taught us anything, killing the groundhog accomplishes nothing in the end 
Politicians debating climate change.
@kennethclapp, Goood skepticism is the tool of science. I respect your position, but the science is out there.
I am amused by the people who accuse scientists of lying, which betrays how little they understand the scientific method. A new hypothesis is attacked with every tool science has. Scientists live to prove things wrong - or right. it’s what they do. A lie absolutely cannot stand. all that remains is what cannot be proven wrong.
I laughed so hard at the congressman who brought a snowball into the chamber to argue against the science.
First, you have to understand the difference between weather and climate. It is cold in the Winter, and hot in the Summer - that’s weather. The trend across decades is climate.
You are right that there are many factors, our influence is the newest, and we are still trying to understand and quantify it.
The major underlying factors in Earth’s changing climate are known as the 'Milankovitch cycles. Changes in Earth’s orbit. Eccentricity, precession and tilt that run on cycles of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years. Think Ice Ages.
Yes, our sample size is tiny in terms of our records, but study of Dendrochronology, ice cores where atmospheric gas bubbles trapped in ice thousands of years old is analyzed, archaeology and geology give us evidence across what to us is deep time.
I watch coal trains hauling ancient carbon to be dumped into the atmosphere by the gigaton. I quit school but even I understand you cant add to a closed system and not affect it.
I have a fundamental understanding of the issue, and taller minds than mine have devoted themselves to it’s understanding.
Suffice it to say, I’m not a skeptic. What is painfully clear to me is that our policy makers need to be scientifically literate. Most politicians are lawyers, professional arguers. We need science to have a voice.
To base the decision on economics is not a sound path. It will be bad when we have to tell our children that “Yes, we knew there was a problem, but the solution was financially uncomfortable.”
Wow, living on Lake Michigan, I know the ice on the lake is very unpredictable. It’s rare that I even walk out on it even a short distance from shore. In the couple cases where I did a few years ago, it had been near 0F for a couple weeks. Even then what appeared to be solid ice as far out as I could see from 80 feet above the lake was in fact just an ice flow, which was reviled a couple days later when the wind shifted direction and the ice moved to revel open water only a couple hundred feet from shore.
I just came from a walk on the beach it’s 67F this afternoon. I love this lake, but also know how dangerous it can be both in the summer with storms and the winter ice.
I completely agree. I guess my problem is my faith that the science you are mentioning actually came to be through the values you say it did. I hope you are right and my skepticism of the scientific establishment is wrong and unwarranted, but my experiences have shown even in the sciences those who say what others want to hear tend to get the funds. It’s a very hard temptation to pass up.
And I am amused by those that think scientists can’t and don’t lie and aren’t influenced themselves by external temptations and pressures, considering most work for companies that are in it for the profit in the end (including universities). But, politicians aside, I REALLY LOVE the scientists that have been working on my Glowforge!
Is that science from the same scientists who were warning of global cooling back in the 70s?
Ummm…Yes 
Somewhere I have a scanned copy of the Newsweek article on the coming ice age and political unrest to follow.
I’m sure they got it right this time 
I remain agnostic - don’t know it’s true, doubt the ability of man to “fix” it, not sure what the “right” temp target we should aim for (maybe June 21, 1650*?), and do know people including scientists lie for money.
*(BTW, 1650 was the middle of a little ice age that caused a fair amount of starvation and generally unpleasant times and known as the first climactic minimum, preceded by the medieval warm period around the first millennium.)
Sometimes I think the climate change issue obfuscates the global presence of atmospheric terrestrial and aquatic pollution. There is no doubt that humans globe wide are pumping out nasty stuff that will stick with us. There seems to be a disagreement as to how much any nation needs to be responsible.
Well, if you’re not gonna then I’m not gonna.
Most politicians that deny climate change I have noticed are heavily backed by the fossil fuel industry which is a very dirty one and expensive to keep as clean as possible.
But even ignoring climate change we should be forcing the companies to keep it as clean as possible anyway because we have lungs and like to breathe 
The ocean has gotten 25% more acidic in the last two centuries since the industrial revolution then it has changed over 300 million years. So, that would be suspicious in my book 
Global cooling, global warming, is all climate change. The point you missed is scientists have known since the 70s we are really messing stuff up with pollutants 
