I envy those of you who are in parts of the world where it's winter right now. I'd give anything for some cool or cold weather.

On the global warming topic, I tend to believe that the upward trend in global temperatures themselves (this being the warmest year on record) is likely the result of global warming, but I really believe this heat wave is just a typical summertime high-pressure system like we frequently have. The area of high pressure just happens to be very big at the moment and covers a lot of the United States.

Everything I've read from the folks at NOAA about the specific hurricanes, storms, flooding, drought, and heat different areas of the U.S. have experienced this year and last makes me believe that we're just experiencing a peak in extreme weather activity, and those peaks have happened for as long as the record-keepers can recall, with the high points about every 20 - 30 years or so. We're at the crest of a peak right now.

From what the NOAA experts have said, it's the overall upward temperature trend and the melting polar ice caps that are indicative of global warming. A lot of folks want to attribute our current crazy weather to global warming, and that makes sense because the weather we're experiencing is what we can see and feel, but apparently it's the more subtle overall upward trend that the climatologists are worried about.