Climate change: the new normal

And speaking of Dr. Shepherd, he was quoted on the New York Times Green blog this weekend, per how he answers questions related to the changing global climate:

Climate scientists, like the rest of us, have friends and relatives who wonder what is happening. So I asked the scientists: When you see your extended family over Thanksgiving or Christmas and they ask about the weather, what do you tell them?

“My answer on that has evolved,” replied one, J. Marshall Shepherd. He’s the head of atmospheric sciences at the University of Georgia and the president-elect of the American Meteorological Society, the leading group for scientists seeking to understand and predict weather and climate.

“I used to say things like, ‘It’s really difficult to attribute any one single event to climate change, but some of these are certainly consistent with what our broad body of science says is occurring,’” Dr. Shepherd said. “More recently, I’ve been saying: ‘We may already be seeing examples of a new normal.’”

Diplomatically put, sir. Increasingly, whether it's politics in the Maldives or the future of Venice, climate change stories are cropping up all over the web - so maybe we can say there is a new normal there, as well.

Relatedly, UGA will host an internaitonal conference tomorrow, Climate Change and Environmental Health: Shifting Tides in Disease Emergence?