Why extreme cold weather events still happen in a warming world

The Conversation ^ | Jan 21, 2024 | Mathew Barlow

[MinorityRepublican]

Extremely cold Arctic air and severe winter weather swept southward into much of the U.S. in mid-January 2024, breaking daily low temperature records from Montana to Texas. Tens of millions of people were affected by dangerously cold temperatures, and heavy lake-effect snow and snow squalls have had severe effects across the Great Lakes and Northeast regions.

These severe cold events occur when the polar jet stream – the familiar jet stream of winter that runs along the boundary between Arctic and more temperate air – dips deeply southward, bringing the cold Arctic air to regions that don’t often experience it.

Surface temperatures at 7 a.m. EST on Jan. 16, 2024. Temperatures below freezing are in blue; those above freezing are in red. The jet stream is indicated by the light blue line with arrows. Image provided by Mathew Barlow/UMass Lowell, CC BY

An interesting aspect of these events is that they often occur in association with changes to another river of air even higher above the jet stream: the stratospheric polar vortex, a great stream of air moving around the North Pole in the middle of the stratosphere.

When this stratospheric vortex becomes disrupted or stretched, it can distort the jet stream as well, pushing it southward in some areas and causing cold air outbreaks.

[DoughtyOne]

Utter nonsense...

In other news rivers and lakes with high water levels are
actually a sign of a drought.

Birds under a wind turban are actually good for nature.

Solar panels with big holes from hail are sure to provide
enough power to keep our lights on at night.

Stay tuned for more propaganda when you least expect it.

[fireman15]

It was warmer in the 1930s than it is now. The late 60s and early 70s were the coldest years since the “little ice age”. When I was in school we were told the next ice age was around the corner.

https://iseethics.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/the-cooling-world-newsweek-april-28-1975.pdf

[ronnie raygun]

Much like a man can be a women and get pregnant

[FLT-bird]

If it gets colder, it must be global warming.

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[Tell It Right]

Except that the world hasn't warmed in the last 20 years.

Agree. Like you, I chuckle every time they say that warming is worse this year than ever before, when our overall trend for the past couple of decades has been to get cooler. LOL

Of course, I'm not ready to say that the Modern Warm Period is over. There's historical precedent from prior warming and cooling periods having decades long hiccups. (i.e. IIRC, the Little Ice Age had about 50 years of warming from around AD 1470 to 1520, then resumed cooling until the 1800's.). Likewise, our current two decades of cooling probably doesn't mean the Modern Warm Period is over (it probably has 2 to 4 more centuries left, assuming it'll last as long as the past few warming periods).

[jeffc]

North Central Florida going to 67 today and 83 for the rest of the week! I think I have to mow my yard now....

[Pardeeville Liberator]

It’s because John Kerry’s Hot Air is not enough to Warm the Planet.

[norwaypinesavage]

"Hurricanes, cyclones, tornados, and twisters, are heat exchangers. "

Correct! And the greatest 'heat exchangers" of all are the simple thunderstorms, because there are so many of them. They pump warm moist air above the stratosphere, where it radiates their excess heat into the near absolute zero void of space. These all are earth's thermostats, that have kept earth's temperatures within a narrow range for billions of years. When it gets too warm, they simply form, and pump the excess heat away.

[Openurmind]

This thing is going down all the way to Guatemala.

https://zoom.earth/maps/satellite/#view=33.4,-114.7,4z

[logi_cal869]

I object to your post sourcing.

Please request admin to correct your source to “OPB”.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

1962! Brutal record breaking cold in January across the Plains states from New Mexico to the Ozarks! The weather men and politicians had not yet realized they could blame it on US and tax US to death to “prevent” it from happening again!
1970 the Coming Ice Age scam began.
1977 a brutal January winter proved THE COMING ICE AGE was upon us!
2023 A VERY MILD summer here “proved” GLO-BULL WARMING!
2024, A brutal January “proved” GLO-BULL WARMING!

Set back a week or two. The weather forecast will change.

I bet the news media is wishing all us oldsters who remember weather clear back to the 1950s would die off so as not to upset their current “forecasts”.

[cp124]

The warming is causing the cooling. It’s settled science.

[TigersEye]

I'm not sure it is accurate to say that we are fully out of the Little Ice Age. It's at least debatable.