Al Gore is a hero of the environmental movement---his heart is definitely in the right place. Unfortunately, Al Gore doesn't always get the facts right about global warming, and sometimes his mis-statements and exaggerations about aspects of global warming make it too easy for for climate change skeptics to ridicule the whole idea of global climate change.
A case in point is Al Gore's "pro-snow" initiative, outlined on his "Climate Reality" website. The premise of the "pro-snow" idea is that global warming will lead to less snow and warmer winters, so all the folks who enjoy skiing and other winter sports should join Al Gore's "pro-snow" initiative now before its too late.
Al Gore's web site states:
Ski seasons are getting shorter. Winters are getting warmer. And we'll all see fewer powder days unless we stand up to climate disruption.
Its a nice and simple idea, but it just doesn't fit with the facts. Global Warming does not uniformly turn up the thermostat on the globe. The snow won't stop falling at every ski areas in the world at the same time. Global warming does not mean that every winter will be milder and shorter then preceding one.
This year's winter shows how complicated the earth's response to global warming actually is. The earth is at or very near record warm temperatures this winter, and while the winter was indeed very warm in the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades, with many ski areas hurt badly, the winter was long, cold and snowy in New England, with ski areas there having the most snow and most powder days during their longest season in many years. In Europe the Alps began the ski season with a very low snowpack but by the end of the ski season the ski resorts were in pretty good shape, and in Japan the ski resorts had an unusually good snow year, with the snowpack running about 20% higher then last winter.
The big story this winter has been the record snow year in New England. You could hardly blame the people in Boston and the rest of Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine for rolling their eyes in derision at Al Gore's predictions of less snow and warmer winters and you can hardly blame climate skeptics for seizing on Al Gore's prediction of less snow for a round of mockery.
The harsh winter we've seen this year in New England is due to increases in the sinuosity of the jet stream bringing more cold Arctic air south to meet moisture-rich air from the warmer-then-usual Atlantic Ocean, producing heavy snow. This is a complex interaction that is actually quite consistent with global warming.
It would help more people understand the true nature of global warming if Al Gore would use his unique access to the media to introduce people to the idea that climate change is complex and even unpredictable, and less time making oversimplified predictions about global warming that all too often have turned out to be wrong.
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