In the morning we all wake up and listen to either the news or check the weather report online for the day. We want to know if the outfit that we have picked out in our head for the day will be just right for the weather. But, what if we were to get the climate change report for the area we were in as well? Would climate change be more at the forefront of your mind?
Well WXSHIFT a weather and climate reporting website has started such a trend in weather reporting. The webpage collects 100 years of U.S. temperature data from over 2,000 weather stations. If you were to go on to their webpage it will automatically pick up your location and give you the weather. Then once you pass the weather forecast you are given the climate change report. The climate change report gives marks on the areas climate indicators. These include extreme heat, ocean acidification, sea level rise and el Nino.
So since SJVCEO’s office is based in Fresno we will pull up the weather report and see what is given to us.
As you can see the webpage brings up Fresno’s current weather for the day (pictured above). Then when you look off to the right side you see where it states that Fresno’s Septembers are warming. Now since it has peaked our interest we click on the red button that states show me. Once we do we are able to see the graph that shows data points for each September in Fresno over the past almost 50 years. On the graph it also shows a very thick yellow line. The yellow line demonstrates the average temperature per year, which shows an upward trend in temperatures.
Sooo I now pose my questions to you, the reader, after a brief demonstration. Would you appreciate your weather source or weather page giving you climate change information for your area? I know from my viewpoint (which doesn’t really count) I would greatly appreciate to see the data. How does that saying go; out of sight out of mind? That saying doesn’t ring more true than with the topic of climate change. We all wake up and have our daily routines and only want to know if we need a tank top or umbrella for our work day when we check the weather. Maybe if we were confronted on a daily basis of what our human impact is on our environment we may have more of a motivation to change our behavior.
I know that everyone has their own take on how they look at climate change, but SJVCEO is very interested to hear our readers take on it. So I go back to my first question, would climate change be more at the forefront of your mind if data was shown to you every day?