This spring semester has undoubtedly called for a diverse closet from each student. At this time of year, getting ready each day requires preparation for anything and frequent checking of weather apps. Just one week can require everything from sweatpants and puffer coats to shorts and tank tops.
Amid ever-warming winters and weather extremes, the concept of climate change is called forth. This term, familiar to many, has been the topic of ongoing debate in American politics and society for decades. Arguments and debates on the matter go back and forth, all boiling down to one central issue: is climate change real, or is it just a myth?
According to NASA, “climate change” refers to a long-term shift in weather patterns that define global and local environments. It is a naturally occurring process involving greenhouse gases, which absorb heat emitted by the Sun.
Boniface Fosu, a professor in the meteorology department at Mississippi State University, explained this process of warming and balance.
“Climate change is linked to the orbit of our planet around the sun,” Fosu said. “The orbit of our planet does not stay constant. It changes. As it changes, the amount of solar energy we receive and the distribution of it also changes, and this causes our climate to change naturally — but it’s very, very slow.”
Historically, climate change is a natural, gradual process that is necessary for the Earth to maintain a balanced climate. However, what happens when human-produced emissions contribute excess greenhouse gases to the environment? Suddenly, the natural balance has a new factor to maintain and correct for.
“The climate has always changed, but the changes until now have always been natural,” Fosu said. “This is the first time that humans have been causing the climate to change.”
A 2016 study in the online science journal Nature uses oceanic records and simulations to place the beginning of the shift towards human-caused warming as early as the 1830s, around the end of the British Industrial Revolution and just before the larger second Industrial Revolution. Although the impacts of this warming period were not recognized until the 1950s, these records show evidence of almost 200 years of human-caused climate change. As technological advancement has grown rapidly, so have the effects of excess carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.
Consequently, the Earth, having maintained a delicate balance of the climate and weather for hundreds of thousands of years, now faces a new factor that it is unprepared to account for. As a result, the climate has been thrown into a frenzy as Earth seeks a new balance. As technology continues to advance, the Earth struggles to keep up with the rate at which humans are putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
“When the change is slow, the system has time to adjust. But, when the change is happening too fast, the system is responding just as fast,” Fosu said. “The system is always trying to find a balance… and it has to adjust as fast as we are adding CO2.”
It feels easy to dismiss the technological jargon and historical records of climate change and greenhouse gases as something irrelevant to a small town in north Mississippi. Yet, 200 years later, a snowstorm that shuts down college campuses is followed two weeks later by swimsuit weather in February.
As March infamously swings from icy snow flurries to pool weather, the state of Mississippi showcases weather that many residents inaccurately label as “bipolar.” This refers to the rapid and unpredictable changes in temperature and precipitation, as demonstrated in a 2024 study in the International Journal of Environmental Sustainability and Social Science that traces the history of weather events and extremes in the Southeastern United States.
Flowers and trees bloom early in a false spring and are extinguished by harsh ice mere days later. Torrential rain floods the streets, only to be followed by extreme droughts and warm weather. All of this is considered normal and typically does not raise red flags for Mississippi residents.
However, upon viewing the rapid changes in our climate through a broader lens, it is clearly indicative of the “weather whiplash” effect characteristic of climate change.
Fosu described “Weather whiplash” as the phenomenon of experiencing multiple weather extremes and precipitation in a short span of time. Fosu described it as a common side effect of climate change as the environmental system attempts to combat excess greenhouse gases and restore balance.
“Extreme weather has always been a part of our climate, and it’s a natural thing, but when the climate is changing really fast, the system becomes chaotic,” Fosu said. “You tend to get a lot of extremes, sometimes within the same season.”
The reflection of this effect in our local weather reinforces the reality of climate change in our modern world. On observing this definition of “weather whiplash,” it becomes evident that intense weather extremes common in Mississippi are textbook examples of the effects of climate change. Dismissing the weather extremes with the label of “bipolar Mississippi weather” diminishes the truth that evidence of climate change exists, even within the town of Starkville.
Colby Sheehan, a junior Broadcast Meteorology major at MSU, reflected on these intense weather extremes that are so familiar to the state of Mississippi.
“What we should really be concerned with is the general climate changing,” said Sheehan. “It’s more erratic. This is how you get mile-wide tornadoes in the south and inches of snow in the north.”
Although it is easy to write off the extreme weather as a common occurrence of our region, it is important to remember that regularity does not equal normality. Scientists and professionals have stated that climate change, once a normal, healthy process, has become undeniably more rapid and unpredictable.
In fact, our own wild weeks of winter coats and tank tops back-to-back are evidence of a chaotic climate that is undoubtedly changing due to humankind and is undeniably concerning for the long-term state of the environment.
