Weather, Melodies, Chords, and Climate Change

Here is an analogy that may help explain the difference between a weather event and climate change.

As so often noted by the Weather Service, a single weather event does not prove or disprove climate change and global warming. Nor can a single event be blamed on climate change. A single cold snap, heat wave, tornado, hurricane, drought or flooding rains cannot be use and definitive proof.

Why?

Perhaps looking at music and the difference between melody and chords can explain.

Music is made up of two main structures: melody and chords. Melodies are made up of a sequence of individual notes. Chords are made of notes played at the same time. If you listen to a song closely you discover that while there is melody, it exists in association with chords that provide the harmony. If the note is outside of the makeup of the chord, is will sound odd and dissonant. Usually what happens when the note is played, the accompanying chord changes to become one that includes that note.  It doesn’t sound weird.

One cannot identify a melody by a single note; one also cannot say to which chord the note belongs. One has to listen to the melody to understand the chord structure of that melody and how on note fits into that structure.

Climate is analogous to chord structure. One weather event is not sufficient to identify what is happening climatically. A long series of weather events make up the weather “chord.” If that chord has been getting warmer over the last century, and increasing in warmth recently, it should tell us something is indeed changing.

What we are faced with because of human behavior and hubris is a rapidly warming world. In the case of the Pacific Northwest, we will lose the snowpack we need for agriculture, fisheries, and drinking water. The increased warmth will probably change the type of forests we use, making them more susceptible to warm weather diseases and infestations. There will be crop failures when our soon to be inadequate crops lack the rain and temperature conditions they need to grow successfully.

Climate change is not a joke. It is going to bring about radical social and lifestyle changes. By looking at what is probably going to happen now, we can choose what kind of societies we want to be a part of, what we want to save, and what can be dropped in the name of efficiency, health, and security.

Yes, from what I have been reading, it is going to be that bad.