Global warming?

According to an article in the Winnipeg Free Press, spring has been late in the Canadian arctic this year:

It is the winter that refuses to go away in northern Manitoba and most of the eastern Arctic.

Prolonged cold snowy conditions in the Hudson Bay area are expected to obliterate the breeding season for migratory birds and most other species of wildlife this year.

There are two explanations for why we have this unusual spring. One is the global warming theory of greenhouse gasses, explained in the article:

According to NOAA scientists, although the Arctic is warming, more frequent annual oscillations in temperature are likely to occur, often resulting in late springs.

"Such major oscillations are part of a bumpy ride toward global warming," said Thomas Karl of the National Climate Center. "For awhile at least this will be the shape of things to come."

The other is a solar output theory, which notes that solar activity is not only at a low point in its cycle, but this cyclical low is unusually low. One of the problems is that the global warming theories seem to be non-falsifiable--they can be used to explain any and every event. That makes them non-scientific.

The Obama administration is betting big on the greenhouse theory even though there is increased skepticism about it among scientists. Time will tell if that is a good bet.

(It is remarkable how little attention the late arctic spring has gotten in the press. Shouldn't this be a bigger story? Thousands of adolescent geese will freeze to death this fall because they will not be big enough to fly south. Maybe the animal rights people should be mounting rescue efforts.)