Global Warming Makes for a Cold Summer

Friday, June 19, 2009

Page 11

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Global Warming Makes for a Cold Summer

By J’AMY PACHECO

It’s been said that the planet is getting warmer.

If people who profess to know about such things are correct, the coming decades will see Earth’s glaciers melting, sea levels rising, coastal flooding, droughts and fires. Former Vice President Al Gore won a Nobel Peace Prize for telling the world how bad it might get.

If the global warming people are right, things are going to get pretty hot around here.

So why are my feet still cold in June?

I live in the High Desert, where winters are cold and summers are downright uncomfortable. (At least it’s a dry heat. I once spent Labor Day weekend in New England, and came to the conclusion that humidity can be terminal.)

Growing up in the desert, I remember experiencing hot, dry winds that came up every afternoon. What I most remember is that you could put bread on the counter to make a sandwich, turn around to get some peanut butter, and by the time you turned back, the bread would be dried out.

Of course, I also remember a blue sky so clear that I could see the fire roads that snaked up the far-off mountains that surround the desert in which I live. These days, that sky is so discolored by smog that some days, I can’t even see the mountains themselves.

We humans sure have a way of mucking things up.

I left the desert when I was 18 to spend a few years in Los Angeles County, and a few more in Orange County. I returned a dozen years later. I noticed a difference in climate – most notably, there seemed to be a lot more wind. It seemed like summers weren’t as hot as they used to be, either.

This year, we had a pretty interesting winter. It snowed long and hard enough that my daughter’s school shut down a week early for Christmas break. It was kind of nice, although it did leave me wondering if we were in for another ice age.

By May each year, I usually have to send my daughter to school slathered in sun block. It’s usually pretty hot by now – but not this year.

At the beginning of the month, when shorts weather should have been in full swing, the kids were still wearing long pants to school. A couple times, my daughter had to wear a sweatshirt to keep warm.

About two weeks ago, I drove home surrounded by heavy rain and lightening the likes of which I’d never seen in California. Once home, we unplugged all of our electronics. As thunder boomed loud and close enough to actually rattle our double-paned windows, I suggested to my daughter that we sit in the hallway outside the downstairs bathroom.

When she asked why, I admitted I had no idea how to behave in such a storm. Earthquakes, I can handle. Lightning storms are a mystery to me. It just seemed smart to move away from the exterior walls. So we did.

As of this writing, the floors in my home are still so cold that I’m wearing socks in the house. I usually like to sleep with my window open during cool summer nights, but it’s so cold at night that I have to close it up tightly.

By the time this appears in print, everything may have changed. I understand the county in which I live is opening up cooling centers this weekend – a move they usually make when high temperatures are expected.

I’m not complaining. I don’t have a pool, so it’s not like we’re missing out on some swim time. I don’t like using an air conditioner, because they often make my nose run. I’m grateful for the fact that it’s more than halfway through June and I haven’t yet had to turn ours on.

But this unusually cool summer has me wondering about whether or not we’ve mucked up more than just the sky around here. I know global warming is supposed to make things hotter, but here I am, freezing in my socks in the middle of June.

It makes me wonder if it’s just an extraordinarily cool summer, or if the global climate pendulum is about to swing my way. I guess I won’t know for a while.

If the polar ice caps continue melting, perhaps my desert home will become a beachfront cottage. We’ve already got the sand; if I could figure out how to get the stickers and all those ants out of it, it might end up being a lovely, temperate place to call home.

On the other hand, I could be cooking by tomorrow. At least I can be sure it won’t be humid.