Global warming and El Nino are receiving the blame for Muncie's roller-coaster weather, but this is simply irrational, David Arnold, Ball State associate professor of geography, said.
"I think we should be very concerned about global warming," Arnold said. "I just don't think it's caused us to have a blizzard, extreme cold, an ice storm and a flood within a 30-day period of time."
Global warming occurs when the temperature of the world's atmosphere gradually increases as a result of the burning of fossil fuels, which adds polluting gases such as carbon dioxide---an efficient absorber of heat energy---to the air, Arnold said.
According to the National Climatic Data Center, global warming has caused a slight increase in heavy rainstorms and blizzards in the United States as well as an increase in floods worldwide.
Arnold said Muncie residents and students blamed the mild winters of 1997 through 1999 on global warming. However, there is no evidence as to whether those mild winters or today's freezing temperatures are connected to the phenomenon, he said.
"There's a big misunderstanding in the scale," Arnold said. "You can't possibly blame something on such short term on something as big as global warming."
According to the National Weather Service in Indianapolis, finding a link between Muncie's recent weather and El Nino is just as difficult.
"You'd have to look at the whole winter," Phil Gray, hydro-meteorological technician for the National Weather Service, said. "You can't look at a week or two and say that would be the result of it."
El Nino refers to the warming of the surface waters around the Pacific Ocean along the western coast of South America, which disrupts typical regional weather patterns, affecting the climate of the continental United States, Gray said.
In December, the temperature in Indianapolis was slightly above normal and the precipitation was below normal, Gray said. He said the temperature this month, however, is nearly 10 degrees above normal and the precipitation is almost 8 inches above the norm, which completely goes against the dry winter he expected for this year.
"Through exhaustive research and better data acquisition over the last 10 to 15 years, we've been able to point these changes out," Gray said.
The weather of East Central Indiana has admittedly been a bit unusual and will continue to be extreme this winter, but only because Muncie is in a cold weather pattern much like the one that caused the harsh Winter of 2002 through 2003 -- not because of El Nino or global warming, Arnold said.
"In the freezing temperatures we're seeing today and in the next few weeks, I don't think many people are going to be thinking about global warming," Arnold said. "I think many people will be thinking about how cold it is."
He said many people aren't aware of the myths associated with global warming or El Nino because they don't take the time to research the issue. Further study is necessary before accurately linking weather patterns to these natural phenomena, he said.
"In this case, people are looking for a scapegoat," Arnold said. "These are natural cyclical things in the atmosphere."
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