A bit more on snowmageddon and climate change

As we’ve been writing about, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and some other conservatives are using the recent snowstorms to try and fuel skepticism about global warming, while liberals counter that climate scientists predict that more extreme storms are expected in a warming climate.

Time magazine is weighing in today with a story that succinctly lays out the issue. “There is some evidence that climate change could in fact make such massive snowstorms more common, even as the world continues to warm,” the story notes, adding that “hotter air can hold more moisture, so when a storm gathers it can unleash massive amounts of snow.”

The story by Bryan Walsh then calls for both sides to avoid reading too much into any given weather event.


“Ultimately, however, it's a mistake to use any one storm – or even a season's worth of storms – to disprove climate change (or to prove it; some environmentalists have wrongly tied the lack of snow in Vancouver, the site of the Winter Olympic Games, which begin this week, to global warming). Weather is what will happen next weekend; climate is what will happen over the next decades and centuries,” he writes.