Climate Change: Severe Weather
Quite often, when people comment upon the effects of global warming, they comment that winters can still be quite severe. The fact that blizzards are still frequent occurrences is used as 'proof' of the persistence of climate change. However, although the temperature of the earth is steadily increasing, the effects of climate change mean that more intense storms are likely in the future, including blizzards. This is largely due to the melting of the polar ice caps. "In addition to affecting the ocean circulation patterns, Arctic sea ice is melting more rapidly and for longer periods each year, and is unable to replenish itself at the historical thickness levels in the briefer, warmer winter season. This can destabilize the polar vortex (see below) and raise the barometric pressure within it" ("It's Cold and My Car is Buried in Snow").
Destabilizing the polar vortex can result in more unpredictable weather. In recent winters, the polar vortex, i.e. "a large area of low pressure and cold air surrounding both of Earth's poles," became elongated and "when a deep trough occurs over eastern North America, this creates colder than usual weather for those areas as a general...
Thus while the winters of recent years may have been unusually cold in North America, due to the destabilized vortex, this was paradoxically caused by global warming.
As well as global warming destabilizing the jet stream, "global warming means hotter air, and hotter air can hold more moisture" ("It's Cold and My Car is Buried in Snow"). Hotter, moisture-laden air means more precipitation in winter, and more intense storms than previously was the case. "This translates into heavier precipitation in the form of more intense rain or snow, simply because more moisture is available to storms. Therefore, less of a region's precipitation is likely to fall in light storms and more of it in heavy storms" ("It's Cold and My Car is Buried in Snow"). When it does snow, very intense blizzards are more apt to form.
This explains the common complaint that winters remain very cold despite the hopeful logic of people that they will be able to save on heating bills in an age of global warming, despite the fact they must crank their air conditioners higher during the summer. In fact, global warming simply means dealing with more severe weather, both hot and…
