Super Cold? Thank the Climate Crisis
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Winters are warming over much of the globe. And for many regions, including large swaths of the United States, it’s the season that’s warming the fastest.
Climate Central reports that winters in some 235 US cities have warmed by 4 degrees Fahrenheit on average over the last half century. The Upper Midwest and portions of the Northeast and the Ohio Valley have observed some of the most significant warming, with winters some 5 or more degrees warmer now than in 1970.
But you may say, hold on! I live in the southern US where it’s supposed to be mild and we had frigid temperatures and snow and ice just this week! That must prove that global warming isn’t happening! Right?
Wrong.
Despite the overall trend of warming winters, cold weather and snow can (and does) still happen as the globe continues to warm – as we’ve seen just this week and sometimes in areas not accustomed to it.
In fact, as counter intuitive as it may seem, rapid warming in the Arctic, a result of global warming, may be partially responsible for some unusual cold outbreaks.
Arctic warming is believed to be having an impact on the polar jet stream – that band of typically strong winds some 30,000 feet above ground level where jets usually fly. The jet stream impacts the movement of storm systems and serves as the boundary between warm and cold air masses around the globe.
Arctic warming appears to be creating a slower and wavier polar jet stream that occasionally sends bitterly cold Arctic air diving unusually far south into usually mild places like along the US Gulf Coast.
So rather than the unusual cold in some places being proof that global warming isn’t happening, it’s actually just another example for how human-induced warming is wreaking havoc with Earth’s ocean-atmosphere system.
The Bottom Line
Even though our planet is warming, and despite winters being the season that is warming the fastest for many, we still see periods of colder weather from time to time and sometimes in unexpected places. It doesn’t mean that climate change isn’t happening. And it certainly doesn’t mean that we can stop working to cut greenhouse gas emissions and solve the climate crisis.
