Mountains of snow line the street,
And some days I envy a beard.
Ask any shoveler you meet –
The weather this winter is weird!
How strange is it, really? Some wonder,
If sea-ice melt unleashed the Vortex.
Has warming torn systems asunder;
Should we invest big in Gore-Tex?
We’ve been gripped by deep-freeze before;
Sometimes it’s just wicked cold.
The overall trends worry more:
How will it be when we’re old?
Thermostat’s tending to heat;
We wait as the sea gently rises.
Our future we surely will meet,
And always, we’ll get some surprises.
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Photo Credit: Figure generated by Cameron Beccario (EARTH.NULLSCHOOL.NET); Results sourced from the NCEP/NOAA Global Forecast System
Further reading:
A letter in Science Magazine: “Global Warming and Winter Weather”
Maps of recent temperature anomalies: Climate Reanalyzer, University of Maine
This is one in a series of poems based on science news, written by Katherine Allen, a researcher in geochemistry and paleoclimate at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Visit Allen’s website for more.
