Equinox

Spring officially arrives today. From the astronomical perspective anyway. Sun crossing the equator. Equal day and night lengths. There was a neat weather guy on one of the local Cleveland TV stations when I was going to Kent State University who always said that meteorological spring started on March 1. And that the other seasons started at the beginning of their respective months, as well (summer on June 1, fall on September 1, winter on December 1). His thought was that those dates were about the time when the climatic patterns changed (as in from winter to spring).

I always found that to be pretty much on target. Around March 1 or so the bitter cold breaks. The winds come more and more from the southwest, and less from Canada. There still might be snow, but it will be gone soon.

Of course that was all back in the late 1970s. Things have changed since then. More greenhouse gases above us. More heat trapped in the atmosphere and oceans. Climatic patterns changing as a result. I don't know what date meteorological spring would start these days. But I'd bet it's before March 1.

Recent polls would indicate that about 41% of US adults would think about now that I'm exaggerating the impacts of greenhouse gases on climate change. But as I watch the hundreds of cars each day go back and forth on the George Washington Parkway in front of our house, pushed along by the combustion of dinosaurs-now-oil, I find it hard to believe that the earth won't be roasting after very many more years.