Hi everybody!
This is early January. We are supposed to be snowed in. Every day we should have to clear ice from the car windows, maybe even warm up the engine before driving. The ground should be like iron. There should be no flowers. All plants should be dead or dormant. It should be very cold. We should wear boots, heavy coats and cover our heads and hands. The snow should be deep. The snow plows should often be out at night. They should be putting sand on the roads so cars don't slip. I mean, we should be in the deep, depths of winter.
Instead it is mild. The ground is soft and spongy. My Douglas Fir tree is not dark as in winter, it is lighter and softer green. Instead of no robins at all, because they have all flown south, there is a big flock of robins around here. We have had floods from the melting snow. Rain instead of snow. A hillside near here collapsed on a road because of the fast melting. There is no snow on the mountains I see across the lake. It is very pleasant. But it hardly seems normal. Especially when I hear that it is the same as this almost all across Canada. It is not known why. Some say that the arctic air is not coming down and keeping the warm southern air out. Some say this heat it coming from Hawaii. Some say it is coming from California. So they don't know. I hope it gets cold and stays that way for awhile. That would be normal. That would also kill insects that are not good for plants. I don't want the trees to begin to bud and flower and then to be killed by a frost, either.
This mornig I heard on the radio that the carbon dioxide snowcaps on Mars are growing smaller. They are saying that there may be a slight increase in the sun's power that is causing the warming on Mars and the Earth. Myself, I believe that humans are also causing some of this on earth, and that it is going to be a handy way to say that we don't need to change some of our ways and be more careful in order to protect the planet.
Whatever it is, there was great cold and snow in Germany when there shouldn't have been. There are other unusual things in other places this year. How is your weather in all of China? Are you having odd things this year, too? I really hope not!
Anyway, the tundra in our north is melting and the roads are not open half as long as before because they melt and the trucks sink. There are changes for the better and for the worse from warming, whether it is caused by the sun or by us. The nations are going to have to adjust to all the things that warming will cause. What do you think? What have you heard there?
Mary
