what do your own personal observations and instincts tell you about how climate change has affected your area?

Question

i could write a journal about northern minnesota... new species moving in annually... earlier ice-outs on area lakes... lake superior at its lowest level EVER... ona dn on.

what can you tell me about YOUR area... from only your observations (no 'experts')?

Answer 1

We have brown recluse spiders now which were unknown outside of the South. Our years have been both warmer and wetter, with intermittent droughts, making bad growing conditions as well as producing tornadoes, another weather feature previously almost unknown in the foothills of the Catskill mountains. Storms come with heavy winds and much lightning and rain that doesn't soak the ground, but produces floods downriver. Many counties are disaster areas from the floods. Many of our lakes usually used for Ice fishing have not frozen the past three years.

[edit: Some need to realise the difference in lakes and their sources. Lakes fed from deep springs will not have the same changes of levels and ice that stream fed lakes experience. But the areas of icing on even spring fed lakes has been decreasing. It's also hard to explain warming to those who experience uncomfortable wet cold winters farther south while bird species are seen farther north. My bird feeder has even been drawing cardinals with grey and white markings in upstate New York, look that one up in your guides. My red raspberries have been hit by blights, producing poorly, drying on the vine before ripening.]

Answer 2

I can't really say that I have noticed any difference and I was here 50 years ago, too. The last 15 years or so, the scientists say there has been an infinitesimally small increase in deep ocean temperature. It is difficult to see how that would affect the surface without the surface changing temperature as well. Also, prior to that, most of the alleged increase was due to polar night time temperatures not being quite as cold. Not places I go at that time of day. Still, if you know someone who was in the USA in the 1930s you should ask them if the 1930s are getting cooler now - just like the constantly adjusted figures from NASA GISS suggest!

Answer 3

I would agree with you!

Here in South Dakota, I live up in the Black Hills and have forever, when I was little I remember snow all winter, rain all spring, beautiful weather all summer until 1 week in Aug where we would have over 100 degree weather and the evenings in the summer always required a lite jacket.and fall then was gorgeus as well.
Now we have snow and within a day or two it is melted and everyone is running around in summer clothes. That happens off and on all winter. Spring comes and we get maybe 3 rain showers. It also seems to hit earlier every year. Summer is HOT HOT HOT now and nights at 11 & midnight it is still 90 degrees outside (This NEVER happened when I was little). Fall we see more rain than spring and it is still hot around here usually in Nov. My Birthday falls on Valentines Day in Feb. and when growing up I couldn't have an outside birthday party. For years now though (34) at least 13 -14 years I could have had one outside every year except 1.

Our lakes are WAY down and our ponds....well most of them are dried up. As a kid I never saw fire flies here. I almost ran off the road 3 years ago looking at some flying around. I have also noticed other different bugs as well. Oh yeah, and humming birds, we NEVER had those and now I see them every summer.

I ask my hubby every year how people can't believe in global warming or at least something happening because I know we are not the only ones that notice the change.

Answer 4

The under ground springs have dried up for one. Went to swim up at Econfina and it was empty !!! The water that comes up from under the ground to feed everything had stopped. Just enough stagnant water to grow a dark green algae. Haven't been by there in a while to check on it. But I did drive by the other day, The place was totally empty, where it use to be packed out with people swimming in the freezing cold water. Cars would be parked up and down the sides of the road. Only tourist went to the beach, all the locals knew of the local swimming holes :)

And speaking of the beach, whats with the year around red tide? Use to, and I do not care who you were, you would stop and look at the beach because the water was soooooooo pretty. I'm serious. Now if you walk into that water you'll be walking out with a fine film all over you. And a bad case of upset stomach and striped throat.

Seen something kinda weird, a fish and a dark brown plastic bag. I was out on the Pier and someone had thrown a plastic bag in the water. A large brown fish was swimming next to the bag trying to buddy up with it :) Seriously, everyone thought it was two fish at first!! But it was one fish and his/her buddy Plastic Bag Fish :) And all the critters with trash tied around their necks and ankles. That is getting more common to. Not climate maybe, but it's something you can see.

Answer 5

As an observer of birds I can tell you that migratory species are arriving to their summer nesting grounds a few days earlier than just a couple of years ago. The average summer temperatures here in Northern California are also several degrees warmer than just a decade ago as well.

No doubt about it the climate is changing. The question that we need to solve is how much of it is natural cycles of the earth and how much is caused by human activities.

Answer 6

I'm from Minnesota and I fish at Lake of the Woods. Your observations are at the best misleading and in the case of ice out dates, flat out wrong. Although the planet may be experiencing symptoms of warming in certain localities, nothing that you may be observing is outside a normal range. Blaming Lake Superiors level on "global warming" is ludicrous and is the type of "fact" that exposes the political fraud of the global warming crowd. I also find it hilarious that the polar explorers Liv Arneson and Ann Bancroft blamed global warming for their failed spring trek across the arctic. One hundred degrees below zero outside and sixty below in the tent coupled with Liv's frostbite cancelled the trip in their first week. Yet their political agenda still found a way to blame the temperature on global warming. LMAO

Answer 7

Having been around a while, I can remember it being cold sometimes and hot sometimes but no real trend that I could notice. I will accept the scientific data that suggests it is about a degree warmer than it was a hundred years ago. My internal thermometer is not that accurate.

Lake Superior was created during the melting of continental glaciers of the last glacial period so to suggest that it was never lower is not quite correct. It may be lower than anytime in recent history. The fact that it is a glacier created lake implies that the warming we have experienced for thousands of years after the initial melt, has caused it to become lower and lower as the result of the natural warming trend.

Answer 8

PLEASE READ even though it's long .hey , im from NORTHERN NJ.winter was totally irregular ,it was 72 degrees, 72! on Jan.19th!i think only 4 days it snowed out of 3 months,mostly in the end of january and some parts of feb.I was overwhelmed by what my mom told me 2 days ago (Aug. 30) when she came to NJ/USA after leaving her home country in 1985 ,she told me when the 1st year she came, the snow usually started in oct.!she also said it snowed until april at one time!she also mentioned that the 22 yrs she'd been here she had NOT seen anything like this throughout 2 decades she's been here (meaning the 1st snowstorm of the season FINALLY in mid-january.)Plus try to get this, in Feb 2007 i was watching world news they said THIS was the warmest January /year i believe on record.most of winter 2006/07 was in the mid 40's to warm for winter.i absolutely LOVE winter and the cold i whined all winter everytime the temp was above 35 degrees ,cuz i loved the cold,i loved walking in the cold from school i HONESTLY an seriously told my aunt/grandfather not to pick me up just for that reason everytime it was cold/snowing.it never snowed on a school day.

Answer 9

Well, I live in Atlanta, Georgia, and here we are just beginning to see a drop in temperatures after a devastating heat wave, meteorologist tell us that it will continue to be from 82 degrees to about 90-92 degrees through September, and spring is coming earlier every year, summers are lasting longer, and winters are shorter than the have been in the past 13 years that I have lived here.

Answer 10

Well, I live in California, and nowadays, I cannot tell the difference between Winter and Summer sometimes!!! I haven't seen it rain this whole summer or spring [which is kind of weird], and it is HUMID here in California. I care about the environment, and I understand that one little person cannot change the world and that a LOT of people must change their ways [not recycling, driving gas guzzling cars, etc] to help each other; and the fact that some people still don't care is really sad.