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Patchwork of Past Reveals What Humanity Has Weathered Storm's Page Climate5 1st edition Cyan Magenta Yellow Black Bangor Daily News, Thursday, January 12, 2006 OUR CHANGING WORLD 5 IMPACT: 1962 The ice storm was dramatic, but, Storm’s record snowfall according to Zielinski, it likely was unrelated to global warming or any other type of climate change. bombarded Bangor Although some climate models pre- dict more ice and less snow in Maine if warming trends continue, the The Interstate was down to one hundred miles away to help clear weather patterns that brought about barely passable lane, and hundreds away the 20-foot drifts of new snow. the ice storm could occur again with- of travelers abandoned their cars to “I’ve seen nothing like that one. out such warming, he said. huddle together in booths at the old Never,” now-retired milkman Tom “Things weren’t moving, cold air Pilots Grill, waiting out the storm of Spellman told a reporter on the 40th was trapped in a vacuum — it was the century. anniversary of the day he waded the classic textbook example of how On Dec. 30, 1962, Bangor was hit through waist-deep snow to make his freezing rain is produced,” he said. with 25.5 inches of snow in a single rounds. The recent warming trend in glob- About 600 travelers (inse day, the highest daily tally in the his- Snowstorms are a fact of life in t) took refuge in Pilots Gr al average temperatures has affected blizzard buffeted B ill when a recond tory of climate records in Maine. Maine, regardless of small climate angor late in 1962. Resid Maine’s climate. Temperature aver- Main Stree ents walk along a buried The forecast had been for “occa- shifts, but in this case, there may be t (above) after the storm. ages in coastal Maine are increasing, sional snow or flurries,” leaving resi- something to parents’ arguments Zielinski said, while average temper- dents utterly unprepared for the that their childhood was far colder, Recent years have had mild weath- atures in northern Maine may be onslaught. Then the thermometer snowier and more onerous than that er because of the behavior of the gency and called in the National cooling. Statewide in the 1990s, dropped 16 degrees in a single hour, of their offspring. North Atlantic Oscillation, but scien- Guard. Now, eight years later, it’s Maine experienced several of its and the flakes began to fall. More snow fell in 1962 than in any tists predict the pattern could switch known simply as the ice storm. hottest years. A pregnant woman went into year before or since. The years from back to stormy cold weather in the More than 300,000 people were But temperature records alone, labor during the storm, tied on her 1951 to 1972, clearly a cold, stormy near future. trapped in their homes without heat like individual storms, don’t repre- boots and walked several blocks to phase in Maine’s history, were tied to Just a few years ago, central or electricity, or were living as sent climate change accurately. The the hospital before giving birth. a shift in the atmospheric system Maine spent the start of the new refugees at friends’ houses or local record-high temperature in Maine’s Another mother and her six children that is responsible for much of year at the mercy of nature. motels. Mainers spoke of ice-covered history occurred long before cli- were rescued from their Dixmont Maine’s weather, a pattern known as On Jan. 6, 1998, freezing rain fell “pine limbs going off like shotguns” mate change was a common phrase home by a soldier on a snowmobile. the North Atlantic Oscillation, state on Maine for three days. Then-Gov. as they snapped and crashed into — 105 degrees in North Bridgton on Plows traveled from more than a climatologist Greg Zielinski said. Angus King declared a state of emer- cars and homes. July 4, 1911. IMPACT: 1816 Volcanic eruption in Indonesia made for ‘Year Without a Summer’ in Maine On June 6, 1816, more than 5 “We had a killing frost every The volcanic dust traveled destroyed, the plant being frozen to portion of Massachusetts that inches of snow fell in communities month at this latitude. No crops around the world, blocking the sun the seed,” reported the American became Maine in 1820 fled to green- across Maine. came to fruition,” said Harold and suddenly cooling average tem- Advocate in Hallowell after the er fields. “The extraordinary cold state of Borns of the University of Maine peratures worldwide by about 5.5 snowstorm hit in June that year. Larger eruptions have occurred, the atmosphere during the week past, Climate Change Institute. degrees Fahrenheit. “Fears are entertained for the most notably a volcano called Toba surpasses the recollection of the old- Though people at the time were “The volcano was positioned in safety of various fruits and vegeta- that affected the global climate for est person among us,” reads the Port- more likely to attribute the freeze the right direction that it shot ash bles,” wrote the Portland Gazette. centuries when it erupted 75,000 land Argus from the week after. to divine intervention, scientists right up into the atmosphere,” Some Mainers subsisted on years ago. Even smaller eruptions, Historians call 1816 ”The Year now know that it was the result of Borns said. “It was just like a clover heads stewed in butter when such as the 1991 eruption of Without a Summer” or “Eighteen- one of the most violent volcanic shade.” their grain crops failed. Hundreds Mount Pinatubo in the Philip- Hundred-and-Froze-to-Death.” periods in modern human history. In circa 1816 New England, the of others became so disheartened pines, have the power to change Temperatures didn’t rise above In 1815, Mount Tambora, located growing season was truncated that they packed up their belong- the world’s weather for several the 40s for days, and a chill on the Sumbawa Island of Indone- enough that crops could not ings and left the state for the West years. enveloped the world as ash and sia, sent tons of dust into the strat- mature, and food shortages — a condition known locally as However, scientists today still dust from massive volcanic erup- osphere in what geologists call “the resulted. “Ohio fever.” turn to 1815-16 as the prime exam- tions drastically changed the global most powerful eruption in recorded “We have heard that in some Historians estimate that as many ple of the lingering impact a vol- climate. history.” instances, the corn is totally as half of the people living in the cano can have on Earth’s climate. Patchwork of past reveals what humanity has weathered It was “an old ring-tail Layers in ice cores can be an atmospheric scientist with building temples and expanding early weather station at Dart- snorter of a snowstorm,” wrote precisely dated by tying a layer the University of Maine Cli- its population, Sandweiss said. mouth College in New Hamp- New Englander George Lang in of volcanic dust to recorded mate Change Institute. But when the El Nino cycle shire and from climate-related his February 1893 diary — not human events, such as the erup- In other cases, archaeological changed around 2,500 years ago, entries from William Bradford’s exactly scientific precision, but tion of Mount Vesuvius at Pom- digs tell the tale. Dan bringing dramatic and unpre- diary, written at Plymouth a vivid statement nonetheless. peii in A.D. 79. Sandweiss studies climate dictable weather shifts every Plantation in 1623. Descriptive climate observa- Historic “instrument change through the institute, few years, temple building About 300,000 items have tions can bring tallies of tem- records” — the exact measure- but he has never taken an ice stopped as the culture waned, been digitized so that peratures and rainfalls to life, ments of rainfall and snowfall core, never visited a glacier. he said. researchers can search by loca- but increasingly scientists are — have survived from many The University of Maine Elsewhere, researchers tap tion or date. But that’s just a turning to historical accounts cultures. European records anthropologist studies climate records of the wine harvest, fraction of the data that exist, and archaeological digs to fill were the first heralds of the change to understand ancient fluctuations in grain prices and untapped in the attics and base- gaps in the climatological Little Ice Age, which later was civilizations. His analysis of personal diaries to bring the ments of every small town, said record. verified by ice core data. In mollusk shells left behind in scientific data about the Little state climatologist Greg Zielins- Initially, scientists were hesi- China, centuries of observa- Peruvian settlements shed light Ice Age and El Nino to life. ki, one of the project’s organiz- tant to work alongside their tions are just now being ana- on how the El Nino weather For many years, faculty and ers. counterparts in the humanities, lyzed by a growing community pattern functioned thousands of students at the Climate Change “You could do this for years,” and for historians, climate has of climate experts. But precise years ago and how it affected Institute have collected these he said. rarely been considered a major measurements are limited. human societies. accounts into an internal factor. But over the past 20 “In the 1800s, there were just About 5,000 years ago, at a library of climate change in To explore the database of New years the two disciplines have a couple of thermometers here time when El Nino was pre- New England.
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