Global warming, a very popular subject nowadays.
They talk about it on the radio, they write books about it, they make television shows about it. Some people even get awards for what they have written about it.
This subject seems to be the ‘in’ thing to talk about. Something new to think about, to worry about.
I’m sorry to have to tell you that it is not so new. I think the first article about global warming that I noticed was somewhere in the Forties, then I saw one or two in the Fifties, they didn’t write very many in those days.
It wasn’t the ‘in’ thing to write about back then.
In 1968 the Fleet correspondent wrote something that caught my eye.

January 11, 1968
“Fleet Activities
“According to the people who take note of such things the North Atlantic has been gradually warming up, over a period of time.
One result of this trend is that European fishermen have to go farther north to catch cod fish. Cod fish apparently don’t like warm enervating surroundings.
“It is believed that when the Norsemen were making their voyages to America the North Atlantic weather was warmer than it was a couple of hundred years later.”

Warmer? Does this mean that the people who promote the “weather goes in cycles” theory might have something? I like that idea, not so much doom and gloom in that theory.
Actually at some point in my life I did read something about weather patterns going in 70 year cycles.
This tidbit popped into my head again when I was going through the papers of the late Thirties.
I had noticed that the winters of the last two years that I had read were very similar to the winters we had just gone through.
Just for the heck of it I made a note of what the next winter was like, and so far it was very much like the one we are having now.
Sooooo, all I will say is, if this is a repeat cycle then don’t put your snow shovel away until May.
The winter I noted had very little snow and hardly any cold snaps, meaning the -40 F., -45 F. degree weather, all through December, January, and February. Much like this winter.
March made up for it. There was snow storm after snow storm and this went on into April.
Don’t worry folks, we don’t get the seven foot deep, mile long snowdrifts that they did, but we might get a few two foot drifts.

Back to Back In Time page