NY Times (2/14): The End of Snow? Reality (1/15): Winter Weather Bringing NYC State to a Halt

nysnow

“In the last 47 years, a million square miles of spring snow cover has disappeared from the Northern Hemisphere. Europe has lost half of its Alpine glacial ice since the 1850s, and if climate change is not reined in, two-thirds of European ski resorts will be likely to close by 2100.

The same could happen in the United States, where in the Northeast, more than half of the 103 ski resorts may no longer be viable in 30 years because of warmer winters. As far for the Western part of the country, it will lose an estimated 25 to 100 percent of its snowpack by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are not curtailed — reducing the snowpack in Park City, Utah, to zero and relegating skiing to the top quarter of Ajax Mountain in Aspen. The facts are straightforward: The planet is getting hotter.

It’s easy to blame the big oil companies and the billions of dollars they spend on influencing the media and popular opinion. But the real reason is a lack of knowledge. I know, because I, too, was ignorant until I began researching the issue for a book on the future of snow.

If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise — they grew 41 percent between 1990 and 2008 — then snowfall, winter and skiing will no longer exist as we know them by the end of the century.

This is no longer a scientific debate. It is scientific fact. The greatest fear of most climate scientists is continued complacency that leads to a series of natural climatic feedbacks — like the melting of the methane-rich permafrost of Arctic Canada.”

From the NYDaily News (1/15):

“Get off the roads, get off the streets, get off the sidewalks. That was the order from Mayor de Blasio on Monday as a potentially historic blizzard bore down on New York City and threatened to bury the city under more than 2 feet of snow.

“What you are going to see in a few hours is something that hits very hard and very fast,” de Blasio said. “This is most likely to be one of the largest blizzards in the history of New York City. People need to be ready.”

More than 1,400 flights in and out of the metro area’s three major airports were canceled Monday morning, according to the website FlightAware. United Airlines started scaling back operations well before the storm appeared and canceled all flights Tuesday at Newark, LaGuardia and JFK, as well as Boston and Philadelphia, a spokeswoman said.

The blizzard warning was issued for a 250-mile stretch of the Northeast, stretching all the way from Philadelphia past Boston and up the Maine coast.”