Well, let me tell ya, this weather stuff, it ain’t as simple as lookin’ out the window no more. They got these fellas, what they call ’em, meteorogists, yeah, that’s it. They’re always jabberin’ on about climate and weather, like it’s two different things. But to me, it’s all just the sky doin’ its thing, sometimes it’s nice, sometimes it ain’t.
They say the weather, that’s like if it’s gonna rain tomorrow or if it’s gonna be hot today. But the climate, that’s the weather over a long, long time, like 30 years or somethin’. They keep talkin’ ’bout how the Earth is gettin’ hotter. I tell ya, I felt it myself, summers are gettin’ stickier and winters, well, they ain’t as cold as they used to be when I was a young’un.
And then they go on and on about us humans makin’ it worse. They say most of them smarty-pants scientists agree on it. Ninety-seven percent, that’s what I heard on the radio. That’s a whole lot of folks! They talk about somethin’ called “global warmin’,” sounds scary, don’t it? And “climate change,” like the weather’s gonna change its mind every five minutes.
- Hotter summers: I ain’t no scientist, but I can tell you, the summers are hotter. We used to get a cool breeze at night, now it’s just hot all the time.
- Less snow: Remember when we used to get piles of snow, high as your knees? Now, it’s just a little bit here and there. My grandkids, they don’t even know what a real snow day is like.
- More rain, sometimes too much rain: And the rain, oh boy, sometimes it pours and pours and pours. Floods everywhere, roads washed out. Other times, it don’t rain for weeks and everything dries up.
They say it’s all connected. The heat, the rain, the droughts. It’s all part of this climate changin’ thing. They even got these fancy machines up in space, satellites they call ’em, lookin’ down at us, tellin’ us what the weather’s gonna do.
And the storms, they’re gettin’ worse too. More storms, they say. And they’re stronger. I remember a time when a little wind wouldn’t bother nobody. Now, they got these hurricanes and tornadoes, tearin’ up everything in their path. It’s like the sky is angry or somethin’. It makes you think, maybe them scientists are right, maybe we are messin’ things up.
They keep track of all this stuff, the temperature, the rain, the wind. They got charts and graphs and all sorts of fancy tools. They say the heat from all them factories and cars and stuff, it’s way more than it used to be. Almost half again as much since, when was it, 1990? That’s a long time ago, but not that long ago if you think about it.
They even got these computers, they can make the storms happen again, but like they were back in the old days, before all this climate change stuff. Just to see how much worse it is now. It’s like playin’ God, if you ask me. They make a map or somethin’ and show you how hot it is now, or how much the water is getting high, or the snow is going away. They call it “Vital Signs of the Planet”. Sounds important I guess.
I heard on the news, some fellas over in Singapore, they say things ain’t lookin’ good. They put out a report, says we ain’t doin’ enough to stop this climate change. And then there’s these weather folks, all over the world, they’re tryin’ to figure this all out. They got a whole list of things they look at, 55 different things they say, to understand the weather and the climate. They need all this to tell people what’s happening.
And over in Africa, they’re usin’ this new thing, gets the weather info right away, helps them farmers decide when to plant and stuff. It’s all connected, you see. The weather, the climate, the food we grow, everything. I’m too old for all this technology and new things. I just hope the weather stays good for harvest.
So, that’s what I know about this weather and climate stuff. It’s complicated, but it’s important. We gotta pay attention to what them scientists are sayin’, even if we don’t always understand all their fancy words. Cause if we don’t, well, I don’t even want to think about what kind of weather we’ll be havin’ in the future.
Tags: [Climate Change, Weather, Global Warming, Meteorology, Extreme Weather, Climate Data, Climate Indicators]