Canada has its warmest winter ever, and other global warming news

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Looks like there might be something to this global warming stuff after all. Here’s AP:

TORONTO — The winter of 2005-06 has been Canada’s warmest on record and the federal agency Environment Canada said Monday that it was investigating whether it was a sign of global warming.

From December through February, which is considered meteorological winter, the country was 3.9 degrees above normal — the warmest winter season since temperatures were first recorded here in 1948.

Environment Canada climatologist Bob Whitewood said it smashed the previous record set in 1987 by 0.9 degrees.

….Whitewood said the last 10 winters had been warmer than normal and along with this winter reflect a trend that could be explained as global warming.

Hmm, yes, I can see how he might infer that.

Hockey-playing Canadians are said to be “disappointed” about thinner ice. No comment from the thousands of pregnant seals “forced to give birth on shore by unusually mild weather that has prevented the Gulf of St. Lawrence from freezing.”

Apropos, it’s been at least a day since we last drew attention to this Mother Jones story about the plight of adorable polar bears doomed to (probable) extinction thanks to pollution and global warming. (Their Arctic home is literally melting beneath their feet.)

In other climate change news, NASA has roused itself long enough to tout a survey it says confirms “climate warming is changing how much water remains locked in Earth’s largest storehouses of ice and snow.” The story has an agency researcher noting an “internal NASA change…to allow scientists greater freedom.” Which, if true–and don’t count on it–will be quite the cultural shift.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate