Weather

Things which have changed (2)

The Weather.

I had not originally planned to post the following entry this week. But, then, there were the tornados in the middle west…

One would think that the weather is, in its variable way, a constant.

And Albuquerque's weather is really rather nice. It is far warmer here than it is in the East—though, keep in mind, it is not tropical. The number of Easterners and Europeans who come here expecting it to be a kind of States-side Sahara—only to end freezing their tails off—is remarkably large. You see, the city is in a desert, but it is high desert…a mountain desert. It is dry, but it can get very, very cold. If you come here in winter, don't come in Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts.

Still, winter here is better than in Boston if only because there is so very little snow. Most of the time, if simply doesn't appear, or it does, then it comes as dusting and is gone by mid-morning.

Hard on children, of course, and I can remember spending many a depressing morning trudging off to school when everyone in every neighboring state had the day off because of some happy blizzard or another. But, for me, after thirty years on post at Ice Station Zebra (a.k.a., the Northeast), it is quite welcome.

If I never see another snow shovel again, I'll be perfectly happy.


*

Actually, Albuquerque gets even less snow that surrounding areas in the state. The mountains on the eastside, and the volcanoes on the west, act like walls against the weather. Storm clouds tend to lose their punch on the way over them.

Locals call Albuquerque "the snow hole," because it will be dry when everywhere else in the state is under three feet of drift. Just this winter, for instance, the highway that leads east of the city was blocked by a massive storm. The police set up roadblocks and kept cars and trucks from going any further.

But, here, on this side of the Sandias, it was warm and sunny. We were walking about in shirtsleeves, or, at most, with a sweater.

Unfortunately, this can lead to problems. People believe the evidence of their eyes, not official reports. And so, every once in a while you hear tales of someone or many someones who come the road block and simply don't believe that things could possibly be so bad on the other side of the mountains. They will assume the authorities are being overcautious. They will proclaim to that those who listen to such warnings are cowards.

And so they've figure a way around the block. Maybe they'll even go back into the city, up the River on route 25, and then attempt the "unimproved" road that leads from the tiny village of Placitas through the National Forest and finally back down to the Valley.

And sometimes, they are not heard from again.


*

But I was saying the weather has changed In spite of what I've already written, I think it has. In small ways, yes, but changed.

Things seem minutely drier. The sage and the brush is ever slightly more brown…becomes brown sooner in the year, stays so into the spring. The "fire danger" level in the National Forests and campgrounds is now always "high," where thirty yers ago you might occasionally see a "moderate" or even a "low." Weather seems ever slightly more extreme.

I can only assume that I'm seeing the effects of global warming. And, by the way, I don't think anyone can pretend any longer that it isn't happening. The data are just too overwhelming.

Oh, perhaps, it isn't entirely 100% proven that climate change is the result of human activity—that I'll grant you. But to say that it is not underway is be an idiot or a liar. And, alas, we have so many both sorts among us, as well as various combinations of the two.

The latter point, the presence of fools and frauds, is the one I want to make. There is, you see, a danger here. To deny the obvious, to refuse to see it, to not prepare for what may be coming, is to court disaster.


*

I don't know what will genuinely happen. Prophecy is beyond me. And I don't think that climate science is now sufficiently advanced to offer any real predictions on climate change. The world may grow hotter, as the anti-CO2 crowd never tires of telling us. Or it may be grow colder. I've heard it suggested that, by releasing tons of super-chill water into the oceans, the melting of the ice caps might actually return us to a new period of world glaciations.

But change of some sort is coming. That is the one thing that history teaches about climate—the one thing of which we may be ABSOLUTELY certain—is that climate is variable. It changes.

And when it changes, it inevitably means that someone is adversely affected. It means that crops do not grow in places where they grew before. It means that rain does not fall where it was once plentiful. It means that some people in some place become hungry and desperate. It means those desperate hordes must go elsewhere to survive…regardless of the cost to themselves.

Don't believe it? Look at East Africa, which has known drought and famine for decades now.

Look at Somalia and Ethiopia, whose leaders saw the handwriting on the wall…knew what was happening as early as the 1970s…yet did nothing to prepare.

Consider the consequences.


*

I'll end with a personal experience. Or rather, one of my wife's.

I had warned her that during Spring, New Mexico is windy place. Fifty-six years ago, when my father interviewed at Sandia Labs, they told him, "In Spring, most of our scenery is mobile."

It was a joke but it was true. Wind and sand and dust are norm here in the space between winter's cold and summer's heat. If you wear contacts, you learn to also wear sunglasses even at dusk. If you have allergies, you resign yourself to sneezing.

But this year…my first Spring back…

We had gone out for lunch. We were at a little Italian restaurant on the North side of town. It was nothing special, but nice enough. And the place had huge glass windows that looked out into the street and the mountains.

Our meals had just come when I heard someone say, Look.

I turned. Martha turned. The window glass was shaking now. There was the sound of a million grains of hard sand striking the metal skins of the cars in the parking lot. Where before it had been bright and sunny, now the sky was brown with dirt, and boiling…

We watched. Everyone in the restaurant watched, speechless. Outside, the suddenly, inexplicable wind raged…

Later, Martha said to me, in a voice a little tinged with fear, "You didn't me it would be like that."

How could I tell her that no? No, I didn't. Hadn't.

Because I did not know.

And that my fear was every bit as real as hers.