I suspect people have wished they could control the weather
since the dawn of time. While the ability to do so deliberately still
eludes us, there are several ways we as human beings inadvertently influence
the weather. The centers of our largest cities are heat islands. Networks of
pavement, concrete walls and tar roofs capture and radiate heat summer and
winter. The crops we plant – especially corn – can raise the dewpoint for miles
around. After harvest time the local humidity always plummets. Asphalt and
concrete roads and parking lots don’t absorb water like the ground they’ve
replaced; where there is more pavement, floods are more common and more
extreme. Poorly planned cities can channel existing winds and amplify them. And
while the global effect of greenhouse gases is apparently still up for debate,
trapped pollution during a temperature inversion can make breathing here in our
valley so much more difficult.
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