GLOBAL warming could be making parts of the world colder. Yes, you read that right. Here’s why this is not a crazy thing to say.
There’s a strong outbreak of cold weather across parts of the United States this week. It’s similar in some ways to last year’s so-called polar vortex — that conveyor belt of frigid Arctic air which parked itself on top of large parts of the United States, bringing bitter cold for days.
The air in the Arctic is very cold!
Time magazine did a fair job of explaining all that earlier this year. We paraphrase a little here, but here’s how their theory works in regards to the polar vortex:
1. Sea ice is vanishing from the Arctic, which leaves behind dark open ocean water.
2. That water absorbs more of the heat from the sun than reflective ice.
3. Relatively warmer water is the main reason the Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the planet.
The air in the Arctic is warm, and melting the ice!
4. As the temperature difference between the polar north and more temperate latitudes diminishes, a band of high-level strong winds called the “jet stream” weakens.
5. For want of a more technical description, the jet stream kind of holds all the weather systems in place. Most of the time it keeps the cold stuff north and the warm stuff south.
6. But a weakened jet stream can develop what Time calls “kinks”. Time reported that an unusually large kink in the jet stream was what allowed all that Arctic air to flow much further south than normal during the polar vortex.
The air in the Arctic is very cold!
Climate change: Is global warming making some places colder?
So the Arctic is warm and the ice is melting, but then the warm Arctic air comes south, becomes super cold and forms record ice on the Great Lakes.
It is mind-boggling to me that any human could be this stupid, and still find their way out of the house in the morning.
