“ I’M DREAMING OF an ozone layer , Just like the one I used to know / Which keep out UV irradiation / Before aerosol spray / And allowed for actual snow . ”
OK , so this week ’s lyricalNew Yorker essayon climate change Christmas carols is a blazing simplism of a serious offspring — but it is not out of true that our warming planet is slowly kill aspect of the holiday tradition we ’ve taken for allot .
Not least of which is the very headquarters of Christmastime , the North Pole , where ice sheets are melting at such a rapid clip Santa ’s shop has actuallydrifted slightly to the south . In an clause put out on Christmas Eve 2012 titled ” The Polar Express , ” the New Yorker ( understandably a self-aggrandizing fan of Christmas mood change punning ) writes that finally , “ you ’ll be able-bodied to cross the North Pole in a canoe . ” And scientists say the subsequent rising sea level may really tilt the distribution of weighting on the Earth andchange the major planet ’s rotation , all the while our melt arctic is causing ageopolitical battle for ownershipof Santa ’s abode .
Then there are the tree . Arecent reportfound climate change is threatening the Norwegian spruce — the traditional Christmas Tree of Scandinavia and the kindlit up right-hand nowin New York City ’s Rockefeller Center . “ C. P. Snow can be astonishingly cosy — acting like loft facing to prevent sub - zero air penetrating the soil,”Sirkka Sutinenof the Finnish Forest Research Institute told New Scientist . “ Less of the white stuff means polar soil that takes longer to thawing in spring . This restrict trees ’ newfangled growth and at last has a knocking - on outcome on wellness . ” tree diagram farms here in the U.S. , meanwhile , are forced to conform to the increasingly erratic weather .
Speaking of which , WTF , temperatures in the 50s on Christmas solar day ? In the Northeast ? ! ? We ’ve had two days of rain and it ’s surd not remember that if it were n’t for global warming it would be snow instead , particularly when my childhood memories are fulfil with witching white snowy Christmas dayspring . patently having had the same persuasion , the NOAAtracked down data point for the average late - December snow over the last two decades . The outcome were nuanced ; parts of the land are in reality seeing more coke now other area less . They made a map :
It show we should n’t be too prompt to blame a snowless holiday on the warming planet . But , the way also points out that analyzing just one week out of the year is n’t the best style to do science ( and to be fair , neither is thinking back to your puerility ) and snow is indeed meld before each yr at the close of the cold time of year .
The EPA has also previously linkedclimate change with a decrease in snowfall . But the effects we ’re probable to really acknowledge in descend old age has more to do with climate change get extreme conditions of all sort . Sure enoughresearchers at MITrecently predicted that even if it snows less , the storm we do get are go to be crazy acute superblizzards .
Which is roughshod for holiday travel , but in reality fathom middling nice right about now . It ’s Christmas Eve , and I ’m staring out the window at a sprawling immature grassy plain in New England . Just does n’t seem right .
Top image : AP
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