Climate scientists are blaming the cold weather on Arctic ice loss.
Bombshell: Study Ties Epic California Drought, ‘Frigid East’ To Manmade Climate Change
BY JOE ROMM ON APRIL 15, 2014 AT 4:52 PM
Natural variability alone cannot explain the extreme weather pattern that has driven both the record-setting California drought and the cooler weather seen in the Midwest and East this winter, a major new study finds.
We’ve reported before that climate scientists had predicted a decade ago that warming-driven Arctic ice loss would lead to worsening drought in California. In particular, they predicted it would lead to a “blocking pattern” that would shift the jet stream (and the rain it could bring) away from the state — in this case a “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” of high pressure.
A new study in Geophysical Research Letters (subs. req’d) takes the warming link to the California drought to the next level of understanding. It concludes, “there is a traceable anthropogenic warming footprint in the enormous intensity of the anomalous ridge during winter 2013-14, the associated drought and its intensity.”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/15/3426810/california-drought-climate-change/
Other than the facts that Arctic ice extent is almost exactly at the 30 year median, and that the same weather pattern has happened lots of times before – I see no problem with this junk science.
In 1977, a nearly identical pattern set up with warmth in Alaska, drought in California, and cold in Florida. Arctic sea ice was near a peak at the time.
