It has now become all too common. Peculiar weather precipitates
immediate blame on global warming by some, and equally immediate
pronouncements by others (curiously, quite often the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in recent years) that
global warming can’t possibly be to blame. The reality, as we’ve
often remarked here before, is that absolute statements of
neither sort are scientifically defensible. Meteorological
anomalies cannot be purely attributed to deterministic factors,
let alone any one specific such factor (e.g. either global
warming or a hypothetical long-term climate oscillation). Lets
consider the latest such example. In an odd repeat of last year
(the ‘groundhog day’ analogy growing ever more appropriate), we
find ourselves well into the meteorological Northern Hemisphere
winter (Dec-Feb) with little evidence over large parts of the
country (most noteably the eastern and central U.S.) that it
ever really began. Unsurprisingly, numerous news stories have
popped up asking whether g