The nice folks at the Twin Cities weather service have provided a delightful graph showing that the days now keep getting warmer, on average. We haven't forgotten last January's polar vortex at month's end, with outside actual temperatures dropping to twenty to more than thirty below (without wind chill). How long do you think average daily highs and lows will hold up with the increased volatility of the weather? Do you think we can count on having turned a corner in this year's Winter's onslaught?
January 31, 2019 = -31℉
Photo by J. Harrington
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Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Glacier
(after Wallace Stevens)Craig Santos Perez
IAmong starving polar bears,The only moving thingWas the edge of a glacier.
IIWe are of one ecologyLike a planetIn which there are 200,000 glaciers.
IIIThe glacier absorbed greenhouse gases.We are a large part of the biosphere.
IVHumans and animalsAre kin.Humans and animals and glaciersAre kin.
VWe do not know which to fear more,The terror of changeOr the terror of uncertainty,The glacier calvingOr just after.
VIIcebergs fill the vast OceanWith titanic wrecks.The mass of the glacierDisappears, to and fro.The threatHidden in the crevasseAn unavoidable cause.
VIIO vulnerable humans,Why do you engineer sea walls?Do you not see how the glacierAlready floods the streetsOf the cities around you?
VIIII know king tides,And lurid, inescapable storms;But I know, too,That the glacier is involvedIn what I know.
IXWhen the glacial terminus broke,It marked the beginningOf one of many waves.
XAt the rumble of a glacierLosing its equilibrium,Every tourist in the new Arcticchased ice quickly.
XIThey explored the polesfor offshore drilling.Once, we blocked them,In that we understoodThe risk of an oil spillFor a glacier.
XIIThe sea is rising.The glacier must be retreating.
XIIIIt was summer all winter.It was meltingAnd it was going to melt.The glacier fitsIn our warm-hands.
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