Front page story in today's Deseret Morning News: "Has Bad Air Helped Drought?: Pollution and cold actually kept valley snow from melting"
The argument: In the recent temperature inversion, warmer air in the mountains trapped colder air in the valley, leading to horrible smog (some days I could barely see the Angel Moroni on the top of the LDS temple--that's one block away and a couple hundred feet up). But the cold air also kept snow from melting, which could help relieve the drought.
Um, anonymous headline writer? That's not the pollution keeping the valley snow from melting. The temperature inversion aggravated the pollution and also kept the snow from melting. But if we had fixed the pollution--say, by instituting emission controls--we still would've got the benefits of the cold weather.
I don't think you need a PhD in philosophy to figure this out. Any hard questions should probably be referred to Carolina Sartorio.
Posted by Matt Weiner at February 10, 2004 06:50 PM