With a cooler-than-usual winter and a mild temperatures leading up to the beginning of summer, global warming alarmists are finding they are losing steam in the debate. But "NBC Nightly News" won't give up the fight.
On the June 15 broadcast, anchor Brian Williams noted the peculiar weather patterns along the East Coast.
"The weather along the eastern seaboard has been more like Scotland in October lately," Williams said. "Then came the first of the Internet stories, some of them written by learned people in the weather field, wondering if summer as we know it was just not going to happen this year in some areas because of the high up air currents over this country that we can't see."
According to NBC chief environmental affairs correspondent Anne Thompson, the phenomena are caused by the a jet stream dropping deeper into the United States than is usual for this time of year.
"Though summer doesn't officially start for another week, the run up has been most unseasonable," Thompson said. "A soggy, chilly tableau for Chicago's weekend art fair. A tornado threat delaying America's pastime in Denver. Hail transforming the streets of Bend, Oregon. Driving the cold weather, since Memorial Day - the jet stream that has stayed farther south than usual."
But Thompson reliance told viewers not to let the current weather dispel any beliefs they have in global warming, because warmer weather is on the way.
"This less-than-beach-like weather may have you wondering about global warming," Thompson said. "This cold spell is a snapshot, just a couple of weeks. Global warming is something that happens over decades and centuries. So hang in there, summer and its warmth is on the horizon."
That news of warm weather and theory of global warming was reassuring for Williams. "Glad to hear that. I was beginning to worry," he said.
