It's getting warmer

50 degrees in December:  winters in Waukegan and the Chicago area keep getting warmer and warmer!

Great Chicago Blizzard of 1978

Yesterday and today are very warm days for December in Waukegan, above 50 degrees. All around the world, temperatures have been increasing and in the United States, the Great Lakes area, which includes Waukegan, temperatures are increasing a quicker rate. Overall, the five warmest years on record have all occurred in the last decade. This indicates that the climate clearly is getting hotter. This fact does not mean winter will disappear. We will still have freezing and icy days, but the warmer than normal days will increase in number over time.

What is causing this warm up? It seems pretty clear that human activity is affecting the trend, but fossil fuel emissions for example, as well as increasing temperatures also have the effect of decreasing temperatures with the exhaust blocking the sun's rays and therefore increasing cooling. It is also important to remember that the earth's climate has shifted many times in its history. The fact that dinosaurs once roamed Waukegan while it was a tropical forest and at other times a tropical ocean and then later an glacier-covered tundra shows how much climates have varied in the past. 

Waukegan was once a warm, tropical, prehistoric (Silurian period) sea

Those of us who are older remember that in the Chicago area in the 1970's winter was much colder and much snowier than it has been recently. For example the great Chicago blizzard of 1978. But we will still have blizzards and freezing sub-zero temperatures, just fewer of them, until once again the climate changes. For now let's just enjoy today's warm temperatures.

Question: Do you like warmer weather during the holidays or a white Christmas/Hanukkah?

Much later in history, Waukegan was an ice-age tundra

50 degrees in December? Winter temps are rising across the country, and some of the biggest jumps are around the Great Lakes