Refereeing youth soccer: a way to clear my mind, get some exercise, interact with people, contribute to society, and to get yelled at by people who don’t have a clue about actual rules and regulations but who, because their child is on the field, is the world’s leading expert.
In early November, refereeing a tournament — game after after game — was a stunningly chilling experience. Actually, in terms of pure refereeing, this ‘All Stars’ tournament was actually a good experience. From the coaches and players in 11 games over two days, a lot of positive feedback (the sincere ‘it was against us but you made the right call’ sort of comments are nice to get in that end of game handshake) along with some complicated situations requiring actual judgment about how best to manage the game, to protect players while enabling them to play …
The tournament was — as above — stunningly chilling. Not normal to tell players, before a game, ‘it is cold — I don’t care if you are wearing winter coats, gloves, or hats as long as your jersey is on top, it is clear to all which team you’re on, and I can see your number …’
It was cold enough to — as Donald Trump would like you to understand — to prove that climate change is simply a Chinese Hoax.
This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps,and our GW scientists are stuck in ice
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2014
After all, Saturday cold set D.C. record, for first time this century in Nov.,Dec., Jan.
it was the first time that a record for lowest temperature had been set or matched in Washington for any date in November in this century.
Nor has a coldest-day record been set here this century in December or January, either.
D.C. dips to a record low, first in November in four decades and one of many across the Northeast
While the broader Northeast has been visited by many record highs over recent years, a record low is much less common these days. For instance, this is the first record low in November for Washington since 1976. It is the first record low overall in the city since February 2015. That one was the first since May 2002.
Right, a great day to be out on fields with essentially no wind breaks for a good 12 hours of so. Was quite happy to have some hot liquids at home afterwards each day.
Now, those Post articles had a sad element to it that is all too common when it comes to The Washington Post discussions of extreme weather situations: climate change is absent. That failure, sadly, is all too common across US media where underreporting climate change is all too common a case. Virtually no record low temperatures for an extended period — when there are lots of high temperature records — is, well, … without explanation as to potential (actual) causes?
#October 2017 was 35th consecutive month of more daily #recordhighs than lows in #NCEI #database @MichaelEMann https://t.co/CHxMSLRNHp pic.twitter.com/u7qVP1TBkS
— Guy Walton (@climateguyw) November 5, 2017
Guess readers are supposed to read between the lines to ‘know’ that this is the case.
Now, that was back in November. This past week, with the Polar Vortex bomb, the entire US East Coast has been hit with terrifying cold temperatures that make that November day look like a heat wave. In reading and watching news coverage of the East Coast’s beyond (below) frosty start to 2018, that gap is just as stunning. The primary driver of ‘this relates to climate change’ were the rare reactions to Trump’s tweeting and certainly not a major portion of the press coverage.
And, for those living under severe cold, there is little coverage telling them that the rest of the world is hotter than normal. Alaska is missing winter. California is dry, hot, and still smoldering from massive fires. And, well, Australia is almost literally burning up with highways literally melting.
The rollercoaster rumbles on!
Temperature records possible over next day or two for east coast of US (cold) and eastern Australia (heat). pic.twitter.com/0838oj7ZvZ
— Dave Throup (@DaveThroup) January 6, 2018
In the northeastern United States, temperatures dipped far into the negatives this week.
The streets of Boston were flooded with icy waters that carried dumpsters away. Cars in nearby Revere, Mass., were nearly buried in frozen floodwaters. Wind chills in parts of New Hampshire could hit 100 degrees below zero (That’s not a typo, as the New York Times points out).
In Australia, however, it’s summer — and a remarkably hot one. So hot that part of a freeway in Victoria on Australia’s southeastern coast was “melting.” Several hundred miles northeast, in the greater Sydney area, Australians spent Sunday in the most sweltering heat in nearly 80 years.
Such is the extreme weather greeting 2018 from opposite ends of the globe
So reads an online post from the Capital Weather Gang, The Washington Post Capital Weather Gang. The article points out these extremes and — unlike so many other Post pieces — actually has a discussion mentioning climate change.
Australia’s heat wave — and the United States’s bomb cyclone — both come on the heels of the second-warmest global year on record since the 1800s.
A new report, pointing to signs of climate change such as thawing of Arctic ice and wildfires, says the global average surface air temperature in 2017 exceeded 14.7 degrees Celsius (58.46 Fahrenheit), making last year a bit cooler than 2016, the warmest on record. But 2016 included the tail end of a strong El Niño in the tropical Pacific, and that bumped up temperatures that year, as well as in 2015
We all naturally focus on our own backyard — or our own soccer field/football pitch. “Global Warming”, climate change, is a global event. With global temperatures continuing their upward path, if (when) it is unusually cold in your backyard it is very likely that it is unusually hot in others’ backyards.
In any event, with temperatures barely cracking the teens in the past few days in my backyard, quite glad to be in front a roaring fireplace than out refereeing a tournament.