Summary
A historic winter storm swept through southern U.S. cities, bringing record-breaking snowfall and widespread disruptions.
Memphis, Tennessee, experienced 7.5 inches (19 cm) of snow, the city’s largest single-day snowfall in 40 years. Atlanta, Georgia, recorded 2.1 inches (5.3 cm), the most in seven years. Other areas were hit even harder, with Arkansas receiving up to 14 inches (35.6 cm), Oklahoma up to 12 inches (30.5 cm), Texas up to 10 inches (25.4 cm), and northern Alabama around 5 inches (12.7 cm).
The storm caused significant travel chaos, with over 300 flight cancellations in Georgia and icy road warnings issued in Tennessee, Texas, and other states.
As the storm moves northward, sub-zero wind chills are expected to grip parts of the U.S. next week.
That’s a big reason why Global Warming is not a good name. Climate change or climate disruption is much better at conveying that the climate is changing in an abnormal way, instead of just warming up.
The planet is warming though, so the term is not without merit. We have headlines every day about 1.5C of warming. The problem has always been that the earth’s systems are too complicated for regular folks and they don’t understand that a more energetic system can produce all sorts of anomalies in any given location. There’s no magical term that will resonate with denialists anyway so why bother trying?
It’s one less argument for them to use. Just think of all these morons conflating weather and climate, and denying climate change because “snow in my garden”.
Words and language have a massive power over people’s minds, might as well use them in a way to reduce confusion.
I almost feel like it should be called “planet sloshing” as an analogy to what happens when you add (mechanical) energy to a cup of water: the surface goes from calm to wavy, with higher highs and lower lows.
“They used to call it global warming…”