How was the weather?
Unless you stay indoors, all the time, weather matters. You want to know what is ahead, and, for many, you care about how the weather was… before. Are you curious about the storm on the day you were born? There are way, many ways, to find out. Check the archives in our local newspaper, to start.
But for a small group, the need to know about what came before is deep. I do not mean last weekend, or last summer. Let’s get serious, and check the weather from back in the fifth century, just for fun.
There are, as I mentioned, people that take this seriously. They pull logs out of bogs, and count the tree rings. They drill into the ice camps, and count the rings. They check the rocks. They even visit the archives in other parts of the world. A need to know, that goes beyond idle curiosity.
I get it. I guess. If you want to claim warming, show that it was colder, before. If you want to find out whether a desert is recent, check the old weather. Find out when a volcano got overly active by performing analysis on the ice. So many ways.
Most of us do not want to know about anything more ancient than last week, but we do have science on our side. The techniques are improving, and we can now say that it was colder/warmer, centuries ago.
Let us be fair. Knowing that it was colder, or warmer, does little to predict the future. This is all because we are powerless to get a nice day when we want to be on the beach.
