Once again, eco-guru Al Gore has issued a pronouncement. His latest “Gorebasm” insists the recent record snow, ice, and cold is the result of mankind’s use of fossil fuels.
On his personal blog, Gore writes, “man-made warming” can “create all sorts of havoc,” including snowstorms becoming more severe. “Snow has two simple ingredients: cold and moisture,” he explains. “Warmer air collects moisture like a sponge until it hits a patch of cold air. When temperatures dip below freezing, a lot of moisture creates a lot of snow.”
Mr. Nobel Prize needs to take a crash course in climatology.
What’s causing this wild winter weather? An atmospheric pattern known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The NAO involves a mysterious change in the water currents of the North Atlantic. Like its cousin El Nino in the Pacific, no honest scientist can definitively explain why these patterns turn on and off, but when they do, the weather can become extreme.
Now the bad news: The NAO has what we call a “negative” and “positive” phase. Right now, we’ve entered the negative mode, which often lasts for decades. The last time it went negative was from 1955 to 1979. Many of the weather records that are being broken this winter were established during that frigid 24-year period.