Political advocates on both sides of the global climate change debate have attempted to use this particularly cold winter to forward their respective arguments. Many conservatives claim the cold is proof that global warming is a liberal hoax, while many liberals claim it's proof of greater variability due to the warming atmosphere.
One thing is true. It has been a particularly cold winter across much of the United States, as well as many other parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Not only that, but the rapid rise of temperatures observed during the 1980s and 1990s appears to have leveled off in many parts of the world.
However, weather has always gone hot and cold. And most of our personal memories about weather are vague and unreliable. So to draw firm conclusions about a system as complex as the climate, one way or the other, based on a few cold winters or a few mild ones is short-sighted.
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