For many people, especially people living in the south, the Arctic outbreak that has gripped the heart of the nation over the past week is the kind of cold that only happens once a century. Record record cold temperatures were set. Conditions overwhelmed the Texas Power Grid, cutting off electricity to millions and busting water pipes, creating a humanitarian crisis.
But with climate change generating generally warmer winters and causing heat registers to exceed 2 to 1 cold registers globally over the past decade, this historical cold history may seem counterintuitive. It is not. In fact, paradoxically, a warmer climate may have really contributed to the extreme cold.
The science of meteorology has come a long way in recent decades, so much so that meteorologists He saw this extreme winter weather coming many weeks in advance. This is because this extreme pattern was initiated by a broad and recognizable phenomenon that developed in the Arctic earlier this year called Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW).
CBS News previewed the wild winter weather Article of January 7, explaining how over the course of a few days in late December and early January, high atmospheric temperatures above the North Pole warmed 100 degrees Fahrenheit, jumping from minus-110 degrees Fahrenheit to minus -10.
SSWs are a natural occurrence that happens every two winters and predict extreme weather in the following weeks. This is because, when the Arctic warms rapidly, it interrupts a rotating mass of cold air (the polar vortex), a semi-permanent weather system present every winter.
Normally, the jet stream wraps around the vortex and acts as a kind of loop, keeping the cold air trapped inside. But when it is hot in the Arctic, the lightning current weakens and lengthens, allowing cold air to fall to the south.
This allows a large mountain of warm air to form over the Arctic, temporarily supplanting the cold vortex. The warm mountain acts as an atmospheric block, redirecting the jet stream and the cold, bitter air to the south.
While this mass of cold, bitter air was certainly memorable for the upper Midwest, it was nothing out of the ordinary for them. The record set in 1899 was much more widespread and severe in the northern United States
What made this particular situation historic was that the core of the cold air, a piece of the polar vortex, sank much farther south than it really ever does: 4,000 full miles from its usual home. near the north pole.
As a result, hundreds of minimum daily records were set over the past week, focusing on the states of the central-southern plains. Dozens of historical records were also set as the unprecedented cold gripped cities and towns unaccustomed and unprepared for the bitter explosion. The animated loop below shows the monthly records in dark blue dots and the historical cold record in black dots.
This has produced some amazing images. An icy waterfall in the Arkansas Ozarks.
And frozen swamps in Louisiana.
This is despite a long-term trend in which winters have warmed across the United States and the cold has subsided. In Minneapolis-St. Paul, for example, from 1970 to 2020, the coldest temperature of the year has risen by 12.1 degrees Fahrenheit.
The recent extreme weather was not limited to the United States. When lightning current is extreme in one region, it is often extreme worldwide. In Saudi Arabia, snow-covered camels were rare, but not unheard of.
It also snowed in Jerusalem and parts of Jordan and Syria, while record heat impacted other parts of the Middle East, such as Iraq, where the temperature rose to 93 degrees in winter.
How extreme cold and extreme heat connect
While this extreme cold coupled with extreme heat may seem strange, it is actually what meteorologists would expect from a wavy ray. Think of it this way: what goes up must go down. When the atmosphere forces cold air southward, there must be an equal and opposite reaction that forces warm air northward. When air masses move to places they don’t usually visit, the weather extremes and the impacts they produce on society are followed.
Several climate scientists think that climate change can not only make sudden stratospheric warming more likely, but that climate change itself can have a similar effect in the Arctic, as it also causes significant warming. Due to human-induced climate change, the Arctic is heating up at three times the pace of the world average.
Wavy ray current theory, with respect to climate change, was a pioneer Dra. Jennifer Francis at the Woodwell Climate Research Center. The theory makes logical sense: Arctic warming reduces the gradient between warm and cold air and therefore weakens the temperature contrast mechanism that enhances the strength of the jet stream. This causes a weaker, wavy ray of lightning, which is more likely to pour its cold air southward.
The theory has been adopted by many other climate scientists, who view growing apparent extremes, such as this latest bitter explosion, as a sign that the theory has merit. But a sizable group of other scientists have their doubts about the impact of climate change and Arctic amplification to the lightning current.
This is partly because the atmosphere is very noisy and climate models are not yet able to reproduce the finer details of a complex system. Therefore, finding evidence to definitively prove or disprove the theory has been a challenge. But many long-term meteorologists I believe that the logic, research, and qualitative evidence they have observed are sufficient to support the case.
What all meteorologists and climate scientists can agree on is that this extreme fact was set in motion by a sudden stratospheric warming. That was the engine.
For those tired of cold and snow, good news: it looks like the extreme pattern has followed its course. The balloon is about to return to a more normal pattern. This does not prevent cold air outbreaks and snowstorms in the United States as we enter spring, but it should allow the weather to return to a certain degree of normalcy.