Ellie Sherry — Reporter
On Nov. 4, Patrick Dilger, director of Integrated Communications and Marketing, sent out a campus wide email about winter being right around the corner because of the threat of snow later in the week and the following week.
However, I would be very surprised if we were to see snow in November and early December. There will be snow in general since we are in the Northeast, but I do not think it will come until much later.
From what I have noticed, the time frame for winter seems to be shifting. Instead of seeing snow as early as October, as our parents’ generation might have, we typically see snow for the first time in early to mid-December.
More recently, winter has been lasting longer into what should be spring. Instead of seeing warmer temperatures in early April, as one might expect, the average low is 38 degrees according to US Climate Data. So maybe we should change the phrase from “April showers bring May flowers” to “May showers bring June flowers.”
“Snow-friendly temperatures are declining across the country. In the last halfcentury, winters have warmed by more than two degrees Fahrenheit in 78 percent of the 244 cities analyzed and 17 cities have warmed up five degrees Fahrenheit,” Climate Central, a science and news website, stated. According to Climate Central, since 1970, the average temperature in Connecticut has gone up 3.9 degrees. While 3.9 degrees may not seem like a substantial enough number to worry about, scientists have indicated otherwise.
The slight raise in temperature in our state alone is concerning. However, if one were to look elsewhere, they would find that a similar trend is being seen all across the world. According to NASA, the entire globe is getting warmer.
For the entire planet to raise its average temperature by even one degree is concerning.
However, in the last century alone, the Earth has warmed 0.7 degrees,
which is about 10 times faster than it took for the Earth’s ice age recovery warming, according to NASA.
“According to an ongoing temperature analysis conducted by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the average global temperature on Earth has increased by about 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.4° degrees Fahrenheit) since 1880. Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20 degrees Celsius per decade,” stated NASA’s Earth Observatory.
The most important part of that statement is that two-thirds of the overall temperature rise occurred since 1975. If we continue in this trend of upward temperatures, then we might end up with more uninhabitable spaces on our planet, and, with the population of the world steadily growing, that is not something we can have.
So while the seasons might be changing and winter is drawing nearer and nearer, we still have to be cognizant of the temperature changes that are happening on a global scale.
