[hellosailor]

smurph, last night's network nooze had a video from somewhere in upstate ny, with a voiceover by the guberner hisself saying something like "folks say we don't have tornadoes in new York, but now they'd better believe we do".

There used to be a huge blowdown somewhere up in the Adirondacks from a big one that passed through in the 30's or 40's as I recall. And then about as many tornadoes as there are unicorn ranches, till I saw one in NY harbor around 1988/89. (A waterspout that made land in Staten Island.) To which I said "WTF, I am NOT IN KANSAS. This is NY and we don't have tornadoes in NY, if I wanted tornadoes I would MOVE TO KANSAS."

Well...they've become a fact of life. There have been confirmed tornado touchdowns in NYC in recent years. Welcome to global warming. Doesn't matter what's causing it, the wx is changing.

 

[hellosailor]

Minne, global warming COULD actually be a good thing. From the geological record, we're actually overdue for an ice age, and that wouldn't be so good for business either.

But if oyu ask anyone who lived in NYC or NYC anytime from WW2 to the 1980's "Do you ever get tornadoes?" you'd hear the loud guffaws all the way to the Rockies. Yes, there were some, notably starting in the 80's. And that was considered a true unicorn at the time. Now? Every emergency management agency has a tornado response plan, because it is the new norm.

Call it global dustdevils if you don't like global warming. But the wx HAS changed.

Folks also forget, there's a continental shelf because, ah, sea level is about 400' higher than it was not so long ago. There are whole villages to be found 300+ feet underwater, in the Black Sea, the Baltic, the Med, in fact, pretty much all over the world there are signs that people were living way below what is now sea level. So...global warming?

Doesn't matter what you call it, the environment is not static, and either we accept that and accommodate to it, or die. Makes no difference really, a little death improves the species.