News Article

With December’s cold temperatures statewide and the increased snow in Washington state and the Northern United States, some wonder what it all means, if anything, for global warming?

Click to View a GU Snow Slideshow

“As the old adage goes, climate is what you expect and weather is what you get,” said Karin Bumbaco, assistant state climatologist for the Office of the Washington State Climatologist at the University of Washington. "Weather is what happens day-to-day; there are always going to be large variations in weather. Climate, however, is defined as at least a 30-year average of weather conditions.”

Global warming, which is actually global climate change, is an increase in the average global temperature due to rising greenhouse gases. Scientists study greenhouse gases and their role in the climate by examining variations across large areas over extended durations of time.

“Local extreme events, like our two-week period cold and snow, are exciting but tell us little about climate change,” Bumbaco said. “It's a little like the stock market. You don’t use a single stock to understand whether, say, a certain tax policy leads to better long-term growth: you would use a set of broad economic indicators and compare different periods, or different countries.”