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Why climate change is real
Published: 7/11/2012 7:00 AM
Last Modified: 7/11/2012 10:32 AM

These graphs from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show the global temperature averages compared to the 1961-1990 average.

I went to the Gilcrease Museum several months ago on one of their free museum days and found myself completely captivated—as so many do—by Thomas Moran’s “Shoshone Falls on the Snake River.”

To say the painting is huge is an understatement. The oil on canvas is 6 feet by 11 feet, with the custom ornate frame adding about a foot.

It grabbed and held my attention for a good 20 to 30 minutes. You have to stand back about five feet or more from the painting to see and appreciate the grand scale. But to really understand it, you have to get close. Obviously not too close (the museum security folks don’t like that), but where you can see the brush strokes and colors that make up the full picture.

That’s the same relationship between our climate and our weather. Our weather is the brush stroke that makes up the bigger, grander picture of our climate. To fully understand and comprehend the climate, one must see the totality of events and look beyond a speck in time and space to see the grand scale.

Unlike Moran’s painting, our climate is changing. Brush strokes now are broader and more dramatic. That makes our painting different than what it was.

Like Althea, I am not a scientist or a meteorologist. But my experience working with them, like her, has educated and informed my thoughts on the matter to bring me to the conclusion that the Earth is warming and climate is changing, through both natural and anthropogenic means.

Tulsa has experienced the warmest January to June period in recorded history. Monumental droughts gripped the state during last summer’s again brutal heat wave. Nationwide, what you see is more of the same. A lot of use of the term "warm."

While it may be easy to point to those and a slew of other events as evidence of climate change, like I said earlier, it’s not the full picture.

Heidi Cullen is the chief climatologist for Climate Central, an independent, nonprofit research organization that focuses on climate science and collaborates with various national news organizations. She put it to me this way during an interview I had with her last year:

"It's trying to help people understand that climate is like this big orchestra where you have all these different instruments playing. It's this complex orchestra, within the background now, we can measure and we can see that there is this steady drumbeat of warming - a trend as opposed to a cycle - imprinted on the background of this chaotic orchestra. What scientists are trying to untangle is how does our fingerprint on that complex system, how does it push it in any direction."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that through broad global observations from several sources, “warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”

This page from NASA provides a wealth of data, is written in layman’s terms and provides information on what remains uncertain.

Global temperature has increased by an average of 1.5 degrees since 1880, according to NASA and NOAA. Arctic sea ice decreases at an average of 12 percent every decade, according to NASA’s observation.

This is happening. It has been and is being measured and observed. It’s a change in our climate.

Whether or not you believe that climate change is real and whether or not you believe humans may play some role, I think there are points on which we can all agree: Rhetoric has become so loud that sitting down and calmly examining evidence is nearly impossible (like it is with nearly every controversial subject). I think we can also agree that taking materials that were once in the Earth, burning them and sending those byproducts into the air is not good.

I know that this is a minority opinion in Oklahoma, but all I ask is that people stop for a moment, learn and think critically. Whatever conclusion you reach will be yours. And be civil about sharing that opinion. Maybe I should have posted that point before the vitriol Althea experienced. Yikes, guys.

Whatever you see when you observe “Shoshone Falls on the Snake River” may not be exactly what I see or interpret. But we should be able to civilly discuss and explain what we see.

--Jerry Wofford

Here is Althea's post from yesterday, which explains why she does not believe climate change is real, at least not yet.

Reader Comments

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DomoArrigato (7 months ago)

This fall when the El Nino, La Nina scenario flips to the wetter mode, it will be wet, cold, and with plenty of SNOW...We can discuss Global Warming then also.

217324 (7 months ago)

This article points out that over 160 years there has been a rise of a degree - big deal! It also points to the fact that this has been the warmest 6 months ever - I wonder about that as the Weather Channel quit publishing the record dates which most often showed the highest temperature records back in the 20's and 30's. I think that is why they no longer publish the numbers.

Why did Jerry ignore the winter of 2001 in his citings?

Tulsa World Staff Writer Althea Peterson (7 months ago)

Hooray, comments on the weather blog work again! One of my favorite Thomas Moran works is "Grand Canal, Venice" which is on display at OU's Fred Jones Museum of Art :)

Thank you in advance for civil discussion on this polarizing topic.

Long Live Gusty! (7 months ago)

Thanks for your opinion piece, Mr. Woffard. This type of informed, balanced writing that you and Ms. Peterson provided is refreshing.

Danomite Dandy Dan (7 months ago)

I have a print of that magnificent piece of art hanging above the fireplace.

My thought on Man's effect on the climate is this:
If we have the power to destroy this earth with nuclear blasts,
how easily is it for us to inadvertantly destroy it?
I'd think we're fairly capable of screwing up our atmosphere.
Look at L.A. smog forty years ago. Photos of burning rivers.
Or look at Tulsa's belching refinery smokestackes in days past.

We've improved problems. But we're a far larger population today.

232867 (7 months ago)

You think we have the power to destroy the earth with atomic blasts? You've been watching too many science fiction movies.
And those belching smokestacks - that's steam.

Danomite Dandy Dan (7 months ago)

Check out 1940 aerial photos of Tulsa in the Beryl Ford Collection online at the Tulsa City-County Library website. A little steam - a lot of black smoke.

I don't watch much science fiction.
I do remember schools drills for nuclear threats.

billwilcox (7 months ago)

nut case wacko

Danomite Dandy Dan (7 months ago)

So much for politely sharing ideas. LOL

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Almanac

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

TEMPERATURE

RAINFALL

SNOWFALL

Weather World

Follow Jerry Wofford on Twitter for updates during severe weather conditions.

Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
Read regular updates on Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and learn more about meteorology from the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service.

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Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

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