We like to speak about environmental issues from time to time, and many of our readers are curious about that. Why don’t we stick to the rocks? Well geology and geologists have become far more aware of the environment in recent decades. When we were young the typical geology major graduated and then ended up working in the industry. Such people (not us) rather expected to spend five years or so in places like Saudi Arabia (making enormous amounts of money!). But now it’s different; most of today’s young geologists plan to work in water resources. It’s far too late for the two of us but our ways of thinking do reflect modern times – at least to some extent - such as in today’s column.

   We have been enduring a horrible cold and snowy winter! Wasn’t global warming going to do away with that? Winters would simply disappear. That’s what Al Gore said. Have climate theorists been wrong? We wish that was true, but when you look at all of the evidence, it turns out that warming is still definitely going strong. Take a look at our first illustration, courtesy of the Washington Post. You will see that our northeast (blue) is, indeed, quite a bit on the cold side. But look to the far west and southwest (red). There you will see decidedly warmer weather. There has been what is being called a “snow drought” out there too. When we look around the globe it gets worse. About three quarters of the earth has been experiencing above average temperatures these past 12 months. You and we may be freezing but climate warming marches on.

   Why is that? Take a look at our second illustration, courtesy of the Weather Underground. That shows the jet stream, as it was on Feb 6th, just as the coldest weather of the winter was approaching. The jet stream is a high-altitude flow of wind lying at the boundary of cold arctic and warmer temperate air masses. Typically, it is bent into cold troughs such as the one you see in our northeast and warm ridges you see in the far west. On Feb 6th we were facing some horrible oncoming cold while things were warm and dry everywhere else.

   We have been watching the jet stream lately and the Weather Underground map has been typical of the whole season. So, our climate does not mark an end to global warming; it is an outlier of atypical weather. We are experiencing the worst of two worlds. We are freezing but global warming continues unabated. That’s a double bad!

   Contact the authors at randjtitus@prodigy.net. Join their facebook page “The Catskill Geologist.” Read their blogs at “thecatskillgeologist.com.