Got winter? Blame global warming.

Have you noticed the weather getting more severe? As Frank Bruni said in his Op-Ed, "The Land of the Binge," in the February 9th edition of The New York Times, "Even our weather is extreme: superstorms, Frankenstorms, snowmageddons."

Granted, he was mainly talking about our American society's inability to take things in moderation, particuarly with our intake of food. But still, it's hard to get past the weather we've been having of late. Historic droughts followed by historic storms.

Is it global warming? The evidence says yes. Even though we have tracked a decrease in snowfall in recent winters, it really packs a wallop when a storm hits. That's mainly because the air and the waters are warmer, meaning they pull in more moisture. So when it's cold enough for a snow storm, it easily becomes a blizzard. When it's just a little rain shower, it doesn't take much to suddenly dump inches of rain.

See this article originally reported by the Associated Press.

Climate contradiction: Less snow, more blizzards
By SETH BORENSTEIN | Associated Press – Tue, Feb 19, 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) — With scant snowfall and barren ski slopes in parts of the Midwest and Northeast the past couple of years, some scientists have pointed to global warming as the culprit.

Then, when a whopper of a blizzard smacked the Northeast with more than 2 feet of snow in some places earlier this month, some of the same people again blamed global warming.

How can that be? It's been a joke among skeptics, pointing to what seems to be a brazen contradiction.

But the answer lies in atmospheric physics. A warmer atmosphere can hold, and dump, more moisture, snow experts say. And two soon-to-be-published studies demonstrate how there can be more giant blizzards yet less snow overall each year. Projections are that that's likely to continue with manmade global warming.

To read more, click here.

Image courtesy of The New York Times.