Keep in mind that global warming is "global". The Eastern US is a very small part of the globe. While we've been having weather that's as cold as what we last had in the 80's, the western US has been warm and dry. Europe has been having a very warm winter, with temperatures way above freezing almost all winter.
Global warming means that heat is added to the atmosphere. Heat is energy, and it can push things around. The primary predictions of global warming are that wet areas will get wetter and dry areas will get dryer (as a very simple approximation). Rain events will become big storms. It seems quite likely that this could include something like occasionally pushing a cold air mass south, away from the north pole where it normally sits.
You can't point to a specific weather event and say that it was a result of global warming. Or global cooling. Or any other specific climate trend. It is true that heat drives weather. And if there's more heat, then the weather events can be expected to become more extreme.
Consider that hot air rises. If the middle of America gets hotter, then the air there should rise, and colder, heavier air from the arctic come down to fill in under the rising hot air. This is not to say that global warming caused the diversion in the arctic jet-stream, however, the intrusion of the cold arctic air farther south into middle America is not incompatible with hotter weather in middle America.
The obvious reason for the cold weather in the east (and the warm weather in the west) has been a nearly stationary upper level ridge on the west coast and upper level trough on the east. That pattern has now broken down. I don't think anyone can say at the moment whether global warming is responsible for the persistence of the pattern--certainly it occurs in warmed environment.
It's worth pointing out that the northern hemisphere winter has been much warmer than usual so far, despite the cold in the eastern U.S.
As you can see, this is quite the heated political debate. Global warming, the way it is general referred to, happens over a large period of time. Little up and down trends happen all the time, but global warming's impact over the past year or so is far too miniscule to notice that easily. Think of it like an ocean surface. Some times its very flat with tiny ripple waves, and sometimes it is rough with enormous triple over head hurricane waves, but the change in overall ocean level is very small and gradual.
Indirectly. The polar vortex is an ever present weather system that normally keeps the coldest air confined to polar latitudes. But this winter, it's considerable weaker and spilling. This may be due to the recent shift in the jet stream, which was caused by global warming.
no , this is a very temporary thing . the US government is using the HAARP in alaska to wobble the polar vortex down to southern canada . this is bringing very cold air to the US , but the whole purpose is to bring WARM air up on the other side of the earth , like as in sochi . we are doing this just to mess with putins winter olympics by melting his snow .
after the olympics is over , we will get an " early " spring .
ANd where I am we swelter under record hight temps. It's global not local until you understand that, your carping is a tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing
At last! A question being asked that is recognized as a WEATHER event!
Actually, this last cold blast was not colder than "normal". "Deep Freeze Recap" - http://www.weather.com/news/weather-wint...
"Polar vortex of 2014 lackluster compared to past cold waves" - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capi...
No. Bad grammar is also not caused by global warming, although denial of climate science is associated with an increased probability of illiteracy events.
Could be but really the polar vortex went very far south effecting the jet stream and it has been unseasonably cold for almost all of January. The polar vortex is an occasional effect in winter but this time it went much further south than it normally does plaguing some southern areas as well as the eastern seaboard.
If this were to become the norm for a few years, then I would say yes it is GW Keep in mind that for some time, GW was expected to result in blizzards as well as intense heat, like Australia has been having. Predictions were for blizzards and for some to occur in areas that don't normally see blizzards
Bottom line is that AGW is a reality and we will see permanent climate change in many parts if the world No matter how much the deniers cry about it and no matter how many stupid bullsh*t links they post, they just can;t change reality
The Earth has a fever. Don't you know? Just ask Al Gore. It is not cold. Repeat after me, "It is not cold."
The Eastern part of the US had cold weather before Al Gore was born. It is normal.
Yes, because cold is the new warm in global warming la la land.
Yes. Global warming is the cause of increasing cold temperatures or increasing warm temperatures or any temperature stasis. Global warming is also responsible for either an increase in snow, a decrease in snow or about the same amount of snow. Global warming also causes an increase in rain, or a decrease in rain or about the same amount of rain as before.
Now, as in the past, climate change deniers are using the extreme, cold weather as an opportunity to call climate change a hoax. The recent “polar vortex” has conservative ideologues such as Rush Limbaugh and Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) feeling frisky.
As temperatures in some parts of the country dropped to 30+ degrees below zero this week, some conservatives have jumped on the opportunity to revive their previous, misguided notion that cold weather disproves the existence of climate change.
On Monday, Sen. Inhofe, a notorious climate science denier, said that, due to recent cold temperatures across the country, climate change science is “laughable.” On Tuesday, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said scientists’ claim that global warming may have caused the polar vortex is a “hoax,” and said the media invented the term “polar vortex” to contribute to the deception.
Four years ago, much the same debate arose as a result of a blizzard in the Mid-Atlantic States. Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert responded to Fox News reporters and others who said that the snow on the east coast was “breaking Al Gore’s heart” and “ruining his theory.”
“As you can see, the east coast is being slammed by a classic nor-easter,” Colbert said, referring to a map of the US. “Especially hard hit is Washington D.C., where, in the last week, it has snowed twice, therefore repudiating the theory of global warming.”
Multiple Fox News hosts jumped to question global warming after the winter storms in 2010, saying that if the weather was cold and snowy in some parts of the US, global warming must certainly not exist. “That is simple observational research,” Colbert noted after showing a clip of the hosts and their remarks. “Whatever just happened is the only thing that is happening. Ask any peek-a-boo-ologist,” he said, showing a picture of an infant.
Four years’ worth of scientific research later, conservatives are still determined to attempt to cast doubt on climate change. And, for some reason, individuals like Inhofe and Limbaugh still seem to believe their personal opinions are more valuable than a consensus by the vast majority of scientists and scientific research.
In an article entitled, Go Home Artic, You’re Drunk, bioanthropologist Greg Laden discusses why the existence of cold weather does not disprove global warming. Laden notes that the cold air mass that usually sits over the Arctic during Northern winter has shifted, so that it is not situated right above the pole as usual. “We are not seeing an expansion of cold, an ice age, or an anti-global warming phenomenon,” he notes. “We are seeing the usual cold polar air taking an excursion.”
Rick Grow of The Washington Post noted in December that a phenomenon known as sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) had recently commenced and was likely to impact a colder-than-normal January in parts of the United States. “Sustained Arctic outbreaks have occurred over the eastern half of the U.S. in the wake of several past SSW events,” he said. “The District [of Columbia] – and the East at large – will be turning very cold later this week.”
In fact, scientists have predicted that climate change will produce more frequent and more extreme weather events. And global warming may even be contributing to the record cold temperatures experienced across the US this week, according to some scientists. Quartz explains,
Snow and ice are disappearing from the Arctic region at unprecedented rates, leaving behind relatively warmer open water, which is much less reflective to incoming sunlight than ice. That, among other factors, is causing the northern polar region of our planet to warm at a faster rate than the rest of the northern hemisphere. (And, just to state the obvious, global warming describes a global trend toward warmer temperatures, which doesn’t preclude occasional cold-weather extremes.)
Since the difference in temperature between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes helps drive the jet stream (which, in turn, drives most US weather patterns), if that temperature difference decreases, it stands to reason that the jet stream’s winds will slow down.
Climate scientist Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University explains her theory that Arctic sea ice loss has driven these extreme changes in this short video. Atmospheric theory predicts that a slower jet stream will produce wavy weather patterns, leading to more frequent, more extreme weather, which is exactly what we’ve seen in recent years.
Dr. Kevin Trenberth, a senior climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research told ClimateProgress that he is skeptical of Francis’ assessment because it shows a correlation; however, correlation does not equal causation. “I am not saying there is no [climate change] influence, but in midwinter, the energy in these big storms is huge and the climate change influence is impossible to find statistically.”
“The answer to the oft-ask question of whether an event is caused by climate change is the wrong question,” he once wrote. “All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be.”
And science also tells us that the climate is changing at an “unprecedented” rate. A study released last year that looked at changes in global temperature over the past 11,300 years found that the earth is warming at an “amazing and atypical” rate and that current global temperatures are warmer than during 75 percent of the Holocene temperature history.
“Weather is what happens in the atmosphere day to day; climate is how the atmosphere behaves over long periods of time,” Bryan Walsh of Time Science notes. “Winters in the U.S. have been warming steadily over the past century, and even faster in recent decades, so it would take more than a few sub-zero days to cancel that out.”
Ninety seven percent of scientists and peer-reviewed scientific papers on the subject agree that man-made climate change is happening. This year, the United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change released a comprehensive report stating with 95 percent certainty that human influence has been the dominant cause of observed global warming since the mid-20th century.
On his show this week, Mr. Colbert addressed those who claim the polar vortex disproves climate change, including Donald Trump and several Fox News anchors. “If one day of below-average temperatures doesn’t make you question climate change, then maybe one minute of Fox & Friends will,” he said.
Referring to a clip of a Fox News report showing a picture of Al Gore’s book An Inconvenient Truth with a $1 sale price tag on the front (and of which a Fox anchor notes, “we don’t actually know where this picture was taken”), Colbert responds, “This anonymous twit pic is a major story because the only reason I ever believed global warming was real was because the Inconvenient Truth movie made a lot of money.”
