VOX: Winter Has Disappeared Thanks to Climate Change
14 hours ago Eric Worrall 60 Comments
Essay by Eric Worrall
Record breaking cold in China, Russia and Europe doesn’t count, because “sleddable” deep snow hasn’t fallen in New York’s Central Park for 650 days.
Missing the feeling of a white Christmas? That might be solastalgia.
Finally, a term that explains the sadness of a whole season — and a way of life — melting before our eyes.
By Anna North Dec 21, 2023, 7:00am EST
A snowy winter in New York City brings with it a kind of magic. The air goes crisp, then bitter, and fragile snowflakes sift down in the early dark, silvering the trees and blanketing the sledding hills in the parks. After the first big snow, children and adults alike rush out to make snowmen, creations that delight passersby for the next two frigid months, until the snow finally thaws. When I took my older son, then a toddler, out for his first-ever sledding session, he squealed with awe at the crystalline world before him, shouting, “It looks like Frozen!”
Today he’s 5, and I doubt he remembers what sledding feels like. It’s been more than 650 days since Central Park, where snow is measured daily, got more than an inch of snowfall at one time; last winter, the park got just 2.3 inches in total, less than one-tenth the normal amount. In early December, Brooklyn saw a few anemic flurries, and my son told me excitedly that his friends had tried to build a snowman during recess. But there was nowhere near enough material to work with. They settled for “a pile of snowflakes.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/12/22/vox-winter-has-disappeared-thanks-to-climate-change/
