The weather outside is frightful...

The past two weeks have brought frightfully cold weather to Minnesota. The past 14 days have been colder than normal. This morning was well below 0 degrees.

Last week brought about the UN climate change findings. With the cold weather here and amounts of snow elsewhere can be confusing. Global warming? where is it? With this weather it can't be happening! .... Some people have even commented that they would welcome a little global warming.

Well, there is a difference. What we are experiencing now is weather related. Weather is what happens on a day-to-day basis. While climate is long term. We should not confuse weather with climate!

What Weather Means

"Weather is basically the way the atmosphere is behaving, mainly with respect to its effects upon life and human activities. The difference between weather and climate is that weather consists of the short-term (minutes to months) changes in the atmosphere. Most people think of weather in terms of temperature, humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, brightness, visibility, wind, and atmospheric pressure, as in high and low pressure.

In most places, weather can change from minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day, and season-to-season. Climate, however, is the average of weather over time and space. An easy way to remember the difference is that climate is what you expect, like a very hot summer, and weather is what you get, like a hot day with pop-up thunderstorms. "

I found this image on arborday.org. It shows the changing climate between 1990-2006. I was surprised to learn that my zone has changed from zone 4 to zone 5! Click to see an animation which shows the drastic changes in climate.


How has your climate changed? This is happening. This is currently happening - not sometime in the future. It is happening now. How much will you do to cut your personal emissions?


In a few weeks I will be attending a local global warming conference and will have a Revive the Victory Garden table to share information about how people can change the impact of their food choices. On another note. I also created the posters for the conference. :)