Unless you've been under a rock for the last week, you've been inundated with "coverage" of the recent cold temperatures affecting the eastern United States. Allow me to sum up: "Boy is it cold out there!"
The frustrating part of how these weather events have been portrayed in the mainstream media is the lack of explanation of the underlying causes. Maybe that's because the evening news is just not the appropriate format for explaining the science of extreme weather events. Network coverage tends to be more "Wow! look at this!" Even the local news emphasized that it has been 18 years since it was below zero (Fahrenheit) in Cleveland, suggesting (rather disingenuously, in my opinion) that such cold temperatures are anomalies; and always have been.
So I was pleased to find an elegant and powerful frame on one of my favorite webcomics, XKCD.
This comic from XKCD (by way of Treehugger) puts the recent mediagasm about the polar vortex into its proper context.
XKCD "Cold" Used under Creative Commons 2.5 license
And it got me thinking: what are the comparable dates for my home town, Cleveland? So I did a little digging, and found the
National Climate Data Center's searchable database. A few screens later, I had a "shopping cart" with an "order" for daily summary information for Cleveland from 1970-present. Specifically, daily minimum air temperatures. A little number crunching, and a few minutes later out pops this lovely Excel chart, showing the number of days below 0ºF, just like in the webcomic:
Number of days below 0ºF in Cleveland, by year
The pattern in Cleveland isn't as stark as it is in St. Louis. It still dips below 0º here on a handful of days every year. But it's been
twenty years since we've had temps below zero more than five times a year.
If I had more time, I'd run this down for more cities. Unfortunately there are a lot of variations on "Brrr! it's cold here in (fill in the blank)," and only one of me. So let's crowdsource this. The data is there, and free, for anyone to access on the a href='http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/search'>NCDC website. Pick out your city, or one you think might be interesting. Maybe Washington DC (yes, I'm looking at you, Inhofe) or the hometown of some other climate change deniers. Maybe I'll give a prize for the city with the longest span since its last below-zero day. This could be fun!
The crowdsourcing of Project Climate Chaos: It's Cold! has another advantage. You can use these anecdotes to people you know, who are familiar with the weather where you (and they) live, and illustrate how climate change has already affected them. And do it without being confrontational.
OK, the TWO advantages of this approach are localizing climate change, its non-confrontational nature, and that it's simple enough for even science-challenged Americans to comprehend. Right. The THREE advantages... oh, let me come in again.
This comic from XKCD...