Green Energy

TIME: Global Warming Behind Record Breaking Cold Snap

From Time:

It’s polar bear weather today for much of the Midwest. Temperatures are in the -20sº F (-28º C) and -30sº F (-35º C) in eastern Montana, North Dakota, northeast South Dakota, Minnesota and northern Iowa. With the stiff wind, it’s even worse—wind chills in the -40sº F (-40º C) and -50sº F (-45º C) are common across Minnesota and North Dakota, cold enough for exposed skin to suffer frostbite in just five minutes. By tonight, the freeze will reach the East Coast, where temperatures from Florida to Maine are expected to be 30º F to 40º F (16º C to 22º C) degrees below normal, extremes that haven’t been seen in decades. The National Weather Service isn’t kidding when it calls the cold “life-threatening.”

Unsurprisingly, the extreme cold has brought out the climate change skeptics, who point to the freeze and the recent snowstorms and say, essentially, “nyah-nyah.” Now this is where I would usually point to the fact that the occasional cold snap—even one as extreme as much of the U.S. is experiencing now—doesn’t change the overall trajectory of a warming planet. Weather is what happens in the atmosphere day to day; climate is how the atmosphere behaves over long periods of time. Winters in the U.S. have been warming steadily over the past century, and even faster in recent decades, so it would take more than a few sub-zero days to cancel that out.

But not only does the cold spell not disprove climate change, it may well be that global warming could be making the occasional bout of extreme cold weather in the U.S. even more likely. Right now much of the U.S. is in the grip of a polar vortex, which is pretty much what it sounds like: a whirlwind of extremely cold, extremely dense air that forms near the poles. Usually the fast winds in the vortex—which can top 100 mph (161 k/h)—keep that cold air locked up in the Arctic. But when the winds weaken, the vortex can begin to wobble like a drunk on his fourth martini, and the Arctic air can escape and spill southward, bringing Arctic weather with it. In this case, nearly the entire polar vortex has tumbled southward, leading to record-breaking cold, as you can see in this weatherbell.com graphic:

- Greenpeace Co-founder: No Scientific Evidence Of Man-made Global Warming
Daily Caller:There is no scientific evidence that human activity is causing the planet to warm, according to Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, who testified in front of a Senate committee on Tuesday.Moore argued that the current argument that the burning...

-
CBS: Extreme Cold Caused by 'Excess Heat' SciFi Scientist and Expert On Weed-Smoking During the February 13 broadcast of CBS This Morning, host Charlie Rose and his guest turned to the topic of this year's harsh winter, calling the extreme...

- -138 Freaking Degrees?!?
Instantaneous Ice. 12 degrees colder than it ever has been before this year. WTF? How does it get that cold? Surely, it must be Global Warming: WASHINGTON (AP) — Feeling chilly? Here's cold comfort: You could be in East Antarctica which new data...

- Uk Met Office (on Global Warming) Admits That We Are Seeing Things That Could Have Happened Thanks To Natural Variability
From Gateway Pundit: (Financial Times) Cities along the US east coast face a looming “sea level rise crisis” from a growing number of disasters as severe as hurricane Sandy, according to research on links between extreme weather and climate change.Except,...

-
Epaminondas, Revere Rides Again, Jewel, Always on Watch, Midnight Rider are all freezing our asses off during this global warming business. What gives? Daily Mail: The mini ice age starts here By David Rose The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern...

Green Energy