Global Warming Apparently Responsible for California Cold Snap

Global Warming Apparently Responsible for California Cold Snap
Brandon Dean
February 3, 2008

So the other night on the NIWECS radio broadcast, I mentioned that California has been experiencing an unusual cold snap for the last month. I just mentioned it, and I wanted to elaborate on it.
I live in Los Angeles, which is a very temperate zone. All "temperate climate" means is that the temperature does not vary much. Daytime highs in LA year-round range in the summer between 77-100 degrees with little humidity, to between 60-90 in the winters with alot of humidity, but not necessarily a lot of rain... It may seem like those are highly varying temperatures, but the reason it's temperate is because the changes between these conditions come so slow. The seasons here gradually show their faces, as opposed to most places where there are very defined seasons. There is green everywhere here in the winters. In fact, when it rains here, no matter what time of year, all of a sudden the hills are bright green with new growth within a day or two of the rain. When the first heavy rain comes, even if it's in December, that's when the new green of spring appears...
The reason is that after a cold period of a week and a half at the most, usually, it gets warm again, and you usually see temperatures in December and January up in the 80's for a couple days, then it cools off again.
First of all, it hasn't been above 80 degrees in LA since around the beginning of October, which is highly unusual, as it is now February, and we usually would have had at least two or three small heat waves since October by now. I'm 33 years old, and I've lived in LA for 28 of those years. I don't remember the last time we've had this cold of a winter.
So global warming's really doing a number on California this winter, all of which is experiencing a sever winter compared to the average winter.
What some may not realize is that California has some of the most extreme climates of any state in the union. A lot of folks tend to look at California as the sunny state, but in northern California they know what real winters are all about. Trust me, I spent a winter outside of Redbluff, California a few years ago, and there were several weeks of sub-zero temperatures. And we also have Death Valley, which, in the summers, gets up to the 140's...

{side note-when I was up there I also learned the truth about how the logging companies are supposedly killing off all our pine forests. I was a forest fire-fighter at the time, and let me tell you, to stand on top of a huge mountain with hundreds and hundreds of miles of forest all around you on every side gives you a new perspective. Because there, in the middle of the giant forest, was what appeared to be a tiny little patch of logged forest. It was miles away, and was probably a few thousand acres. We happened to fight a fire right there in the middle of the logging land (they have dirt roads out there for the logging companies already and the fire department uses them, so it's not too much of a coincidence...), and as we drove through it, I noticed the new forest gradually taking back over the previously logged forest as the logging company went along. It all seemed to make sense to me... Sorry, I've "digressed" as AJ would say...}

So now, in the last couple months it's been much colder on average than usual. I don't remember the temperature in the daytime getting above 68 degrees since the beginning of December, which is definitely unusual.
I thought I would just do my part to battle this false idea of global warming caused by humans by writing this. What the hell are they talking about? It just rained here for three weeks straight almost! That hasn't happened since I was a little kid here!

copyright Brandon Dean 2008