Why global warming means some Americans feel colder
Dec 26, 2016, 6:48 AM
Here comes the latest article to throw the climate discussion into turmoil. It appeared in the Washington Post over the weekend. Headline: “The Arctic is showing stunning winter warmth, and these scientists think they know why.”
It says that temperatures in the Arctic are spiking – much faster than expected. Last week, temperatures near the North Pole hit the freezing level, which is 40 degrees warmer than usual. That’s so warm that an area of ice the size of Michigan disappeared.
Related: Why forecasting failures unintentionally hurt global warming credibility
Buuuut – at the same time, these same scientists have noticed that these outbreaks of excessive warmth in the Arctic were balanced by excessively COLD temperatures in places like Siberia and Alaska.
And what appears to be happening is that polar warmth is actively redirecting the jet stream, so that instead of blowing west, it now zig zags to the south and back, like the pattern on Charlie Browns T-shirt.
For a while, it was zigging mostly into Siberia but lately it seems to prefer the northeastern United States.
Climate scientists aren’t in total agreement on this hypothesis, but never the less, there it is – the possibility that global warming leads to local cooling – not just occasionally but on a regular basis.
If this hypothesis is true, it doesn’t change the fact that the planet is getting warmer, it just means that in the process, there will be years when the polar ice cap might end up in Manhattan.
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