As I write this, pictures of the massive F4 tornado that hit Winterset, Iowa are on the television screen. My first thought is of the destruction of Mayfield, Kentucky. This one is basically a winter tornado and rare or at least, it used to be rare. Climate change has upset historical weather data used for projections.

            People don’t realize all that a minor change in the levels of carbon dioxide and methane are doing to day-to-day weather, world climate, and sea levels. Young people today have a base reality different than people of my age. I remember the ground freezing five feet down. I remember temperatures of 20-25 degrees below zero and trying not to freeze my lungs. During the last couple decades seldom have I felt a few degrees below freezing and the ground froze only a few inches.

            I remember ice breakers trying to cut through the arctic ice cap in the summer. Now ice breakers can get between the northern land masses and the thick ice of the cap in winter. I remember seeing glaciers in glaciers in Glacier National Park in the early 1950s. Now they are almost all gone. Melting of the world’s glaciers is raising the ocean levels around the world. By the end of this century many o the world’ cities will be flooded or diked as a temporary stop-gap measure.