Just been on other forums not related to guns at all, say hockey, and people are bitching up in Canada because they can’t play on naturally frozen ponds/lakes like they used to. I wonder how much this is true because I lived in NJ for a year in Medford Lakes, and although I was in kinder during that year our lake behind our house we had a dock on froze, and had no problem skating and playing hockey. I don’t think temps these last few years would support a frozen lake where you would put a 6-7 year old kid out there.
Looking at temps around that area this year or the past few years I don’t see how a lake in NJ would be freezing like that. This latest cold spell up there is one thing…but it seems like 4-5 days and then back up well above freezing.
Just curious as to how people view this. No I am not pushing GW or that type of stuff. I was just curious seeing this stuff brought up on a hockey website, and Canadians saying the outdoor rinks they are used to not freezing anymore.
My parents remembered having to keep the ice broken out of the stock ponds all winter long when they were younger.
I have a large pond in my backyard and it very seldom has ice at all.
But I honestly remember it being warmer when I was younger and colder now. Seems like we have colder/wetter winters.
I have no doubt there is a difference but who is to say which part was different. Was it abnormally cold in the 1950’s or is it abnormally warm now?
I do know that I have a lot of friends in the northern most part of Minnesota and they had very thin and early ice melts last year with much less snow than normal.
Unfortunately I don’t think that we have good enough data over a long enough length of time to make any real determinations of changes. I think we are looking at the tip of the elephants tail and making a guess as to what the rest of it looks like.
I think weather cycles without any real consistency. Read up on documented weather history, etc. You’ll hear your grandparents say there used to be four feet of snow every Christmas, but you’re lucky to get a dusting nowadays. I think you’ll find it interesting if you study back further.
Weather around here has been warmer and drier. We still have a few cold snaps during the winter when temps can drop below zero, but not very damn often. We used to have a skating rink at the park down street the park department flooded every winter when I was in grade school. They haven’t done that in twenty years.
The trend since I was a little kid (circa 1960) has been warmer and drier. Last year was the driest year here since they started keeping records in 1937, with just a hair over 7 inches of rain (about half of normal). And it was the third hottest year since the late 1800s.
Blame it on whatever you want. Or don’t blame anything. I’m not interested in getting into the whole global warming debate either. But the weather around here has changed quite a bit since I was a kid.
The weather is all over the place the past few years. One year it’s freezing in Florida, the next it’s mild, and the next almost not a chill. It’s not just us. The question is what is the cause?
I can agree with that somewhat. But 30 years for a human is a good span when it comes to things like lakes freezing and whatnot.
I like to put friends and families locations on my Weather Channel app on my phone, and I have a buddy in Quantico right now. I have been really surprised at how warm it’s been there, and certainly no lake is going to freeze yet when I was playing hockey in south Jersey it seemed like it was an expected occurance. Not too far away, really. Then I read a few threads on a hockey forum, and all these guys saying the outdoor hockey scene in Canada is not so hot anymore because no one can find places with thick enough ice or stuff is not freezing at all anymore.
I pretty much had frost/ice on my windshield every morning during winters in the Bay Area for years. The locals didn’t act like it was out of the ordinary.
I am in my mid 30s, and the main thing that I have noticed is a perceived lack of precipitation. When I was a kid a snowplow was a worthwhile investment, but now it is wishful thinking. The same thing with summertime droughts that we are seeing now.
On temperature, I don’t really remember any of these freakish 20* one day 75* the next in January like I’ve seen lately in the Midwest.
That is why climate change is such a difficult topic to study.
Seeing a trend and PROVING a trend are two vastly different things. The amount of data required is astronomical and can be subject to all sorts of bias.
Let me put it this way: We built a machine at one of my jobs. It’s single function was to lay down 1000 nano-meters of Copper. We as humans, designed and built it. Do you think we had 100% understanding of how it worked?
It took 5 engineers full time to keep it running and even then there was a heck of a lot of guess work. Weather is a chaotic system in a mathematical sense–there are so many variables, so much we do not understand anyone who THINKS they understand it will be pictured in the dictionary under “Hubris”
Temps around me are about the same, but the area is getting drier. When the average rainfall is well below average for more than 5 years, I think it’s a little more than just a drought. I’m just not sure whether it’s a rainfall shortage, or a location shift. Either way, it sucks!
not sure but we know our earth has gone through a ice age and a tropical age so the earth does change radical amounts by proof of its past and we are here
I love to ask that about idiot climate change people ! how did the earth go through those earlier changes if man was not around ? crickets !
I remember one of the coldest days recorded in Lahaina one year and yet we were very close to record temps on the high end also ?
I do seem to remember more snow when I was a kid but then again I had a dif view on lots of things as a kid ! that turned out not to be what I really remember !
but our pool froze last week here in PHX where I am at now and that is pretty freaky cold if a pool freezes in PHX !
its like the ocean there are huge waves and on those big waves there are more waves some big some small in themselves and on those waves are more waves and so on a choppy rough sea is not perfect up and down cycles
to me our weather is like that while the trend might be in one way lots of other things are going to get in our way
and the fact that man cant seem to do anything good with trying to balance nature proves to me they sure cant predict it at all !!!
and yet we were very close to record temps on the high end also ?