Global warming causes more snow. According to the National Center for Atmospheric Research, oceans are warmer than they were 30 years ago. This means there’s approximately 4% more water vapor rising over oceans. What goes up in the air as water vapor comes down as snow if it’s cold enough. According to the Web site Weather Underground, it is average temperatures – not snow – that measures climate change. Temperatures have warmed about 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 100 years and that isn’t enough warming to end snow. Saying it is would be a “snow job”.

Global warming also causes less fog. According to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the high pressure cell off California’s coast in summer, plus the cold ocean and the land gradient combine to make fog. However, over the past century there’s been about a 30% decline in fog frequency – which translates into about 3 hours less fog daily. The leaves of California redwoods absorb fog. It provides them with 30%-40% of their yearly water. The future of the redwoods depends on the future of California’s fog, which depends on how global warming affects California. Predictions are “foggy”.

Global warming was predicted to cause the extinction of pikas. The small, chinchilla-like animals are disappearing from the Great Basin. The chronically warm temperatures have risen above 78-85 degrees Fahrenheit – making it too hot for pikas to survive. The good news is pikas are thriving in the Sierra Nevada Mountains., where it is cooler. The freezing and thawing of exposed rock has formed fields of beach-ball-sized rocks and the caverns between those rocks provide pikas with an excellent, cool habitat. If only the legislators fighting over global warning would learn to keep their “cool”.

However, legislators could learn that white roofs would reduce city heat. The black tar roofs, black asphalt roads and other black artificial surfaces that are prevalent in cities absorb the sun’s heat, creating the “urban heat island effect”. This effect makes temperatures on average 2-5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than in rural areas. White surfaces have the reverse effect. They reflect most of the light that hits them. A study done by the National Center for Atmospheric Research suggested if every city roof were painted white, the urban heat island effect could be reduced one-third. The world’s cities would be .7 degrees cooler by “white-outing” heat.