Global Warming
The state of Minnesota is stereotypically known for getting a lot of snow. But, in the past five years, that has changed. We just don’t get the amount of snow we used to. The last real blizzard we had was about 6 years ago.
Some say it is just a weather cycle, which could be the case, others cite El Niño and its sister La Niña which are out of season increases in ocean temperature. Of course there is also the possiblity of our sun being the factor that is causing the average snow to diminish. The sun goes in 11 year cycles where the surface activities ebb and flow. These cycles effect the amount of energy that reaches Earth. This, in turn, can change the average seasonal temperature and determine if there is rain, snow, or no precipitation. There is a possiblity of one of these concepts being the reason for less snow, but another very convincing possiblity is global warming.
Global warming is caused by the large amounts of CO2 released by humans into the atmosphere. These “greenhouse gases” trap heat and raise the Earth temperature. Because of the gradual and steady increase in Minnesota winter temperatures, global warming seems to be a possible cause of the resulting lack of snow. This may sound far fetched, but some cities in Europe got regular snow 20 years ago; now they get no snow. Sounds scary, huh? Well there is no real proof that global warming is occuring in Minnesota, it is only a theory. Lets hope global warming isn’t for real and we can start to get snow again!