The Weather Notebook: The End of Winter

The End of Winter
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I don't want to sound like an old timer, but has anybody else noticed that winter isn't quite as harsh as it used to be? Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow for the Mount Washington Observatory and this is The Weather Notebook. Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben seems to think that winters are getting weaker and he's not happy about it.

Snow in woods while stopping by on the Gulf of Slides Ski Trail, Mount Washington. Snowcover Photo
BM: "I'm very predisposed to mountains and to winter, that's one of the reasons that I take so personally the prospect of climate change and global warming because one of the first casualties is a proper winter."

Ten years ago McKibben wrote a book called "The End of Nature," feeding what is now a crucial discussion about climate change and about how we humans affect nature.

BM: "Winter, in the last thirty years has gotten on average seven days shorter across the northern hemisphere, which is a big change. And it may have all sorts of dire consequences in terms of carbon cycling and that sort of thing, but it also just means a shorter winter, which I oppose on principle."

Warmth isn't the real problem in New York's Adirondack Mountains, where Bill and his family live. It's the consequences of that warmth; changes in vegetation, stress from acid rain, blight, disease, things that a true winter can appropriately coral.

BM: "Well you know if you spend a lot of time in the woods anymore one can't help but notice that in many places the woods are kind of sick. In the winter, you don't have to think about that quite as much. The woods are kind of asleep and quiet then and beautiful in a different way."

It would be a tragedy then to see winter subside even in the tiniest way.

The Weather Notebook is supported by Subaru and the National Science Foundation.