Skeptics seize upon cold winter

Climate change skeptics, including the communications director for the Republican minority in the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, have seized upon  the unusually cold winter in North America as evidence that global warming is not really happening.  There is no doubt that this year’s La Niña has led to cooler winter weather over North America than we have seen for the past decade (see figure from NYT: 1980-2008 trend), but even this cooler weather is above the 1960-1990 monthly winter average.