2010: The Year Global Warming Froze Florida
Energy Tribune Mar. 08, 2010 Art Horn
energytribune.com
Floridians have suffered through the coldest winter in almost 30 years. In some parts of South Florida, it’s been colder than anytime in the last 83 years. So many records were smashed that if they were stacked, they would rival the thickness of Al Gore’s investment portfolio. In fact, Gore’s claims that global warming will produce dramatic and cataclysmic warming appear to be melting faster than any glacier.
Gore is hardly alone in his poor forecasting record. Ten years ago, David Viner from the University of East Anglia said “Snowfall will become a very rare and exciting event.” “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.”
Reality check: On February 13th, 49 of 50 states had snow on the ground.
Here are more cold hard facts from Frozen Florida: Miami Beach had its coldest January-February since record-keeping began in1927. It was the second-coldest at West Palm Beach since records were started in 1888. Naples had its 3rd coldest January-February since records began in 1942. Only in the winters of 1940, 1958, 1977 and 1981 did the January-February average temperature approach the bone chilling cold of 2010.
People took desperate measures to stay warm. Families used space heaters to fight off the cold. Many were not experienced at using portable heating devices and fires broke out in some homes. Several people had to be treated for carbon monoxide poisoning from using charcoal grills inside their homes. On one of the coldest mornings, the power demand was so great that 35,000 customers lost power.
The first 13 days of 2010 were cold across all of Florida. During this period, temperatures at West Palm Beach ranged between 43 and 32 degrees with an average of 39. The average temperature is 56 degrees. On nine of those mornings the low was in the 30s. A friend of mine who lives in West Palm Beach told me his car thermometer actually read 27 degrees on the morning of the 10th. Amazingly on the 10th the high temperature at Fort Lauderdale, Miami, West Palm Beach and Naples were all at or below 50 degrees.
At West Palm Beach, the average temperature from January 2nd to the 13th was 49.9 degrees. That made it the coldest 12-day period since records began in 1888 beating out January 16th to the 27th 1977 by a full degree. On the morning of January 7th the low temperature fell to 37 degrees at Palm Beach International Airport. That broke the record of 38 set in 1903.
The agricultural losses have been enormous, with estimate crop losses of $500 million. The agricultural areas of Glades, Hendry, Collier counties had up to 7 days of below-freezing temperatures. Citrus trees were damaged as temperatures in the orange groves fell below the critical 28 degrees for more than four hours. Some 100,000 tropical fish being raised on a fish farm froze to death costing the farmer an estimated $535,000. The Miami Metro Zoo closed its doors for the first time in 30 years due to the record cold. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said Iguanas were falling from trees and some were dying as a result of temperatures falling below 40 degrees.
The record cold weather is continuing into March. Low temperatures in the upper 30s and low 40s continued into the first weekend. The El Niño winds over Florida will continue well into March which means the state could have more record cold later this month.
Ask anyone in South Florida what they think of global warming. They’ll probably tell you “my lips are too numb to talk!” |
