The DC Blizzard: More Proof of Global Warming!

Robert Book / February 10, 2010

We knew this was coming eventually. It came from Bryan Walsh, writing in Time:

As the blizzard-bound residents of the mid-Atlantic region get ready to dig themselves out of the third major storm of the season, they may stop to wonder two things: Why haven’t we bothered to invest in a snow blower, and what happened to climate change?
…
…There is some evidence that climate change could in fact make such massive snowstorms more common, even as the world continues to warm. … That’s in part because of global warming — hotter air can hold more moisture, so when a storm gathers it can unleash massive amounts of snow.

The real problem is not that this explanation is wrong — in fact, the “more-moisture-there, more-snow-here” theory is actually somewhat plausible. Of course, in the next sentence Walsh points out the opposite: (more…)