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An orange glow struggles from behind the parade of clouds surrounding the Adirondack Mountains. Jim Turber greets the gray overcast sky and the biting cold air with a smile.

Turber, public relations representative for Stowe Mountain, welcomes the tokens of frosty white snow. Since January, Stowe and the surrounding Vermont ski resorts have experienced a significant decrease in profits due to unprecedented warm weather extending throughout the 2001-2002 winter season.

Stowe, like many mountains in the Northeast, relies on artificial snow to maintain its distinguishing tourist industry: skiing. Turber correlates this year's declining revenue as a direct result of the past summer drought. "Last summer we had the most severe drought we've had in Vermont in 30 years," he said. "It affected the early season up until just past Christmas. The mountains were pretty bleak because the water supply was too low."

He and his associates noticed the temperature drop around May, when a 2001 warm front dried out most of the Northeast region and left environmental scientists lurking under a dark cloud of theories.

Many continue to be puzzled by the prevailing question dawning on the new millennium: Are we in an age of global warming?

Some tourists may enjoy the mild winter, especially those who prefer Stowe's golf courses to their slopes, but according to the National Climatic Data Center, 2001 marked the second hottest year since 1880. The warmest year recorded was in 1998, when unseasonably warm conditions precipitated devastating floods in the lower Gulf Coast region and dehydrated most of the northern states.

This illustration depicts the precipitation trends of New York over the last century; notice how the Northeast has experienced a decline. Photo courtesy of www.epa.gov.

 

This year, the same trend has left Stowe's once crowded slopes practically barren. In early January, Vernon Kousky of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forewarned that warmer temperatures would extend throughout northern states while wetter conditions would counterbalance the southern Gulf Coast regions, persisting throughout the early part of this year.

"Last summer we had the most severe drought we've had in Vermont in 30 years."

Many expenses will accumulate on account of the reversing weather patterns. NOAA estimated damages during the previous episode of extreme climate change in 1998, which contributed to almost 10,000 deaths from heat stress and approximately $30 billion in agricultural losses. That year also resulted in a record number of forest fires throughout the United States.

Donald D. Adams, professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Plattsburgh State says that the greenhouse effect is an essential part of life. It absorbs vital greenhouse gases such as water vapors, carbon dioxide, and methane, in order to maintain existing temperatures in the atmosphere. When the sun radiates energy through infrared rays, greenhouse gases create a misty protective blanket that acts like a filter, absorbing necessary heat and reflecting dangerous light.

"Each gas we admit warms the earth in order to maintain a balance," Adams said. "We need the green house in order to keep us all from burning." Carbon dioxide and methane is an essential contributor in maintaining livable temperatures. Without it, Earth might appear like Mars, but the abuse of this gas, could mean extreme seasonal changes complete with a brown Christmas.

Vermont's precipitation trends over the last century are shown to the right; notice how the state has experienced a general stagnation creeping into a decline. Photo courtesy of www.epa.gov.

 

Picture a glass enclosed house full of exotic greenery. The enclosure protects plants from the outer chill. Naturally, a light mist hovers above the room because of the carbon dioxide emitted by the plants. A human or two in that glass house may balance the air, the vegetation emitting oxygen and thriving off the carbon dioxide exhaled from the botanists.

But, put ten humans in that house, then twenty. The glass becomes increasingly foggy and the room increasingly more hot and humid. Now, add a small fire in the middle of that whole mess. It turns up the heat a bit quicker.

Of course, the earth is tremendously larger then the average farmer's greenhouse and a million men could not produce the same effects, but when you factor in basic human activities complete with factories, cars and landfills, the flames will be fanned.

"We need the greenhouse in order to keep us all from burning."

Here on earth, that means energy builds in the atmosphere; the once pristine greenhouse becomes a nightmare of heavy precipitation, extreme winds, and a muddled mix of thunder and lightning storms. Glaciers slowly melt. Sea levels rise. Deserts expand. Like a snowball, each change in climate adds to the other. The weather becomes practically unpredictable and Mother earth traps more heat then she can handle.

Adams, who recently returned from a year of irrigation research in Kenya said, "We need to focus on our use, or rather, misuse of energy." Americans are one of the primary agitators of climate change. As one of the leaders in world technology, the 50 states alone consume one-forth of the fossil fuels around the globe.

Adams fears that the hotter climates will be the result of the United States' early environmental dismissals. The Bush administration's early resignation in the United Nations Kyoto Protocol, a pact binding 180 countries across the globe to lower overall carbon dioxide emissions by five percent, has resulted in a cluster of environmental worries.

The unseasonably warm weather this past winter has brought on early thaws, that scientists say, will cause much environmental disruption for years to come. Photo by Amy Sanger.

The president, in his 2002 State of the Union address, proposed an energy bill that would open the Arctic Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for oil drilling and focus on renewable fossil fuels.

But many still question if the President's response is an answer. The International Panel on Climate Change, composed of hundreds of environmental scientists across the globe, estimated a 90 percent chance of temperature increases over the next century.

Individually, Americans can help by recycling, driving less, using public transportation, and buying "smart" by checking that packages are environmentally friendly.

More importantly, Adams says, we need to write concern letters to our government officials. The future lies in our reach. Could you imagine a year without snow in Vermont? Would you want to? Jim Turber really did walk a mile in a blizzard to school. He laughs when suggesting that maybe now he should give his son that memory, hoping that the green mountains will continue to be white capped when his son must face the trip.

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