Tisdale Montana

FTLComm - Tisdale - Sunday, November 18, 2001

Having grown up in the Southeastern part of Saskatchewan where it always seemed to have snow on the ground by the end of October it was a shock for me in the winter of 1966 to be working in Bengough, South of Moose Jaw near the Montana border and discover that winter there was just cold, dusty and brown. One day in November I drove over the border to travel along highway #5 until it ended in a desert town. It was winter but there was no snow just a bit of dust blowing down main street and the brown grass and leafless trees stood there waiting for the season to change.

So it seems today, to drive around Tisdale in late November with the sun crisply drawing shadows on everything and the temperature just above freezing. How unusual, it seems like we are living in Montana.

Essentially what we are witnessing is the continued warm spell that has been around for more than a decade as the temperature of the planet is creeping slowly upward and the climatic regions are slowly progressing North from the Equator and South of the Equator sneaking toward the South. Scientists are becoming increasingly alarmed as the rise in the ocean levels continues as the Arctic and Antarctic regions shrink. Last night CNN reported a truly massive Iceberg had left the Southern polar cap this thing is about the size of a township and will wander around the oceans until it melts away.

There is plenty of evidence of this having happened dozens of times before on this planet, it is part of the normal oscilation of climatic conditions and we are now in a prolonged warm period where the ocean temperatures rise, glaciers recede and polar caps melt. In the temperate zones the Savanah deserts move away from the tropics which also expand bringing desert to the grasslands while the grasslands shove the boreal forest toward the tundra. World wide climate changes are occuring and in Tisdale, it looks like Montana in November.

Timothy W. Shire