When I was a kid we had to walk miles through snow drifts up to our necks and below zero weather..
Yeah, you say, cutting me off and there's that part about running from the dinosaurs too..
Part of it turns out to be true. Winters in Montana were much colder when I was young than they are now. We saw -30° F (about -34°C) at least once a year and I remember a few excursions beyond -40° (F or C). When I was in high school one Winter produced a few weeks where the daytime highs stayed below zero F. It became something of a point of pride with more than a few people cheering as the all time record was broken. It was part of our cultural identity. (Jeri will probably remember the "we want a Chinook" chants)
Winters were colder in most of the world. The dramatic increase and acceleration of global temperatures has given us shorter and warmer Winters - much warmer in the higher latitudes. Weather is complex and dynamic giving excursions up and down. Some very warm almost Springlike days and periods of bitter cold give us some variety. In the past few years parts of the US has been visited by the dreaded Polar Vortex (the Beast from the East in Western Europe and real Winter in Siberia). Some sources have been telling us global warming is responsible for these plunges and suggest we can expect intense periods of the most extreme cold weather from here on out.
A nice story - more extreme events all around. The problem is that isn't correct.
The Polar Vortex is nothing new. It's a technical term used to describe a wind pattern in the Arctic that has been used for about eighty years. We had them in the past -- really brutal ones. A few years ago a paper hypothesized that the extreme warmth in the Arctic could weaken the vortex and send cold air plunging South. Its publication coincided with one of the coldest Winters in the Northeastern US in a decade along with very cold weather in Western Europe - again - very cold, but nothing spectacularly cold. There may be a connection, but the evidence is not strong and the temperature excursions would not be record breaking in any event.
The lows of last week were the coldest in two decades in much of the Midwestern US. Cold, but far from absolute records. So far this year a few dozen record warm days have been recorded in the US and no record cold. On average it's getting warmer. The town I grew up in just doesn't see the extreme cold anymore. Sure it's dangerous and interesting to talk about, but extremes now and going forward are going to be on the hotter side. We'll see blasts of cold, but they're getting lamer and lamer decade by decade. The last really cold deep Winters occurred in the early 1980s. Unless something dramatic happens like huge volcanic eruptions or a nuclear war we won't see that again in any of our lives.
What will probably happen for areas like the mid-Atlantic and New England states is more intense Winter precipitation. Most of the heat trapped by the extra carbon dioxide we've pumped into the atmosphere goes into the oceans - water has a much great heat capacity and land. Without that it would be much hotter than it is. The added heat represents extra energy for pumping moisture into the atmosphere. Depending on the air it intersects you'll get snow, ice or rain. The effect has been dramatic in the Northeastern US and Maritime Canada in the past decade.
It's frustrating when the real science is misinterpreted, but perhaps there's a silver lining. The media, some politicians, and environmental groups are missing the point by claiming global warming brought the temperature plunge. But I'm all for it if it moves people and governments towards taking real steps to fight global warming. Sometimes people will do the right thing based on a misconception.
Endnote
I'm biased. I love Winter. Some of the readers are Montanans, Canadians and from the Nordics and may well agree. Even when I lived in Pasadena the few days where it froze and a few flakes were in the area got me excited. The light and how it plays with ice crystals in the air - sun dogs, halos, light pillars. Knowing the certain squeaking sound really cold snow makes. All kinds of sound for that matter. The special light of February. That feeling when you've nailed the wax and the skis move with so little effort. Animal tracks. The sound of an ice storm. Those quiet still nights with huge flakes tumbling down through the light and those moonless clear nights in the country with fresh snow fields reflecting the playing with the starlight like millions of diamonds. Tolkein had a word to describe it: tingilinde.
a tip of the hat to the always wonderful xkcd for the image
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