Sam (archaeologist, not dog) sent me this fascinating link today about how changes in weather patterns can affect The Big Lake They Call Gitchee Gumee. And she also asked a rather provocative question, which was whether I thought it was sunnier up in Sault Ste. Siberia in the winter (when I was a child) than it is on the Planet Ann Arbor.

I grew up on Lake Superior. It always annoyed (annoys) me when I tell people from the west coast that and they kind of yawn and poo-poo me and ask something like, “Well. Can you see the other side?” No, you can’t see the other side. Now that I have seen the blasted Pacific Ocean a couple of times, I am humbled. But. I didn’t live *on* Lake Superior year-round anyway. When we weren’t at the cabin, we had a small but respectable house on the south side of Sault Ste. Siberia with a flushy toilet and everything.

Winter in the Yoop? I do remember gorgeous winter days in the Yoop when the sun shone gloriously and we would be outside carving caves into the huge piles of snow that the plows and our parents’ shovels created. Those snowbanks would get so tall that we could actually slide down them on sleds or even pieces of cardboard. Into the street. Yes, that was relatively safe then and there. I *loved* to play outside when I was a kid (except when I wanted to read or draw or whatever) and I wonder if I remember those gorgeously cold and sunny days the best. And I remember the days when, as a moom on the Planet Ann Arbor, I was frustrated that it wasn’t nice enough or snowy enough for my kids to want to play outside. I just don’t know. Some winters are snowier than others no matter where you are although Michigan’s UP can usually count on some pretty heavy snow that may not leave the deep dark woods until about Memorial Day weekend.

I don’t know about weather in general. Global warming? Climate change? Do we really have enough data collected at this point in history to be able to accurately predict more than a few days of weather? I don’t think so. We have warm winters. We have cold winters. We have snow or we don’t have snow. We have summers on our beach when it is cold, rainy, and blowing an onshore gale (seemingly) every day. We have summers when the prevailing winds come out of the swamp and it is almost too hot to sit on the beach. Don’t even ask me about the summer of 1988 on the Planet Ann Arbor when it was 95-104 degrees for DAYS on end and I didn’t have A/C either in my house or any of our cars. This summer? Did we get past 80? Maybe for a few days.

Are we heading toward climate change/global warming? I don’t know. I still don’t think we have enough data. Don’t get me wrong. I am not in favor of spewing all kinds of crap into the atmosphere and I think that in the long run, we all need to reduce our footprints.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 8:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.