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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

This winter harshest on record

The Spokesman-Review

There’s no doubt that the winter of 2007-08 will be remembered as one of the harshest in recent memory. As of Tuesday, snow is still plentiful in the lower elevations, especially in Coeur d’Alene, Hayden and other towns in North Idaho. In the Spokane and Spokane Valley areas, most of the snow has melted.

The first day of spring begins in less than a week, March 19 at 10:48 p.m., but winterlike conditions are still expected through the rest of this month. Although we’ve seen temperatures climb into the 50s on numerous occasions in the Valley, readings in the higher mountains have been much cooler. There are still large amounts of snow above 5,000 feet. Many of the ski resorts are reporting snow depths of more than 100 inches. Some isolated spots have more than 150 inches of snow on the ground. If we see a big warm-up in early April, along with rain and gusty winds, many areas near streams and rivers will be faced with flooding.

Snow cover over the Northern Hemisphere in early 2008 was greater than at any time since 1966. The U.S. National Climatic Date Center reported that record cold temperatures were observed across many American cities and towns in January and February. We’ve seen frigid temperatures as low as minus-20 degrees to minus-30 degrees near the Canadian border, unusual for so late in the season. Rare snows fell as far south as Mississippi, Texas and Arkansas last week. Much of Ohio and Upstate New York were buried under one to 2 feet of new snow late last week.

Average global temperatures for January, according to the National Climatic Data Center, were 0.3 degrees cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average. There has been about a degree drop in the Earth’s temperature since August 2007.

As mentioned last week, China is suffering through its most brutal winter since 1210. Power lines in many Chinese cities have fallen because it has been too cold and icy to repair them. Ontario and Quebec, Canada, have been dealing with one ice storm after another over the past two months. Record snows have been reported across many cities and towns in southern Canada and the northern U.S.

The winter was so severe that the Arctic sea ice has returned. Forecasters for the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa say that “the ice has not only recovered, but it’s now thicker in many places than at the same time last year.”

Many scientists are blaming the Earth’s recent cooling on La Niña, the cooler than normal sea-surface temperatures off the west coast of South America and the equatorial regions. However, other scientists, including Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Sciences, say that the drop in temperature is due to a major decrease in solar activity. There is concern that we may be in for a long period of severe cold if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

The last time the sun was this inactive, our planet was enduring the “Little Ice Age.” It was a cold period that lasted for about 500 years and finally ended around 1850. During that time, there were widespread crop failures, freezing rivers and harbors, and famine.

It’s still too early to tell exactly where Earth’s temperature will be heading later this year. One cold winter does not determine the end to global warming or a new ice age. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a reversal in these temperatures since we in the middle of the worst cycle of climatological extremes in about 1,000 years.