"Winter Wonderland"

NPR - WBUR - On Point
9 January 2007

We still can't get over the weather. Flips flops and cut-offs in January. Winter golf in Chicago. Temperatures ten and fifteen degrees above previous record highs, thirty and forty degrees above usual.

In Colorado, they're using artillery to manage avalanche threat after huge blizzards. In Washington, the cherry blossoms are sneaking out. In Minnesota, they're water-skiing on the Mississippi and canceling ice-fishing.

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Federal meteorologists say "no cause for alarm." It's a weather pattern, not a high-speed climate change. But right behind the warm front is a rising fear of global warming. Now Democrats run Congress. Will they act?
This hour On Point: freaky weather, fear of global warming, and the Democrats' playbook on climate change.

· Robert Henson, meteorologist and science writer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, author of The Rough Guide to Weather
· Gavin Schmidt, climate scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies
· Congressman Tom Udall (D) New Mexico
· Congressman Jay Inslee (D) Washington
· Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D) Oregon
· Juliet Eilperin, national environmental reporter for The Washington Post