Josh :D

thepoliticalpartygirl:

If we’re going to be incredibly simplistic about global warming, blame this dude: El Nino.

What’s behind a lot of this winter’s weather is El Nino, the tropical weather pattern that starts in the Pacific.

Scientists knew last summer that this was going to be an El Nino year. But it wasn’t until the winter that its effects really hit the United States.

The strong El Nino and the subsequent precipitation are a result of something that started thousands of miles out in the Pacific Ocean.

“Ocean temperatures across the equatorial and tropical Pacific Ocean are somewhere upwards of two degrees above average,” says Mike Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “So we have had what we would characterize as a strong El Nino.” (NPR)

Yes, it’s true that scientists are unsure as to whether climate change caused these uncharacteristically warm Pacific temperatures, although they are certain climate change causes extreme weather. But hey, the conservatives like Sen. Igloo Inhofe (R-OK), Sen. DeMint (R-SC), and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) aren’t letting “scientific facts” stop them from making baseless assertions.

Here’s the thing, Gore skeptics: it’s “climate change,” not global warming. But if you want to play that game, the extreme winter in the US was caused by warmer global temperatures, so one could argue that it was indeed caused by global warming. But that’s not as fun as using your family to pull a political stunt or snarking on Twitter, is it?