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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: The Polar Vortex is Caused by Global Warming Now, a lot of people would think that it is counterintuitive that global warming would be causing the coldest weather in recorded history. I think this is why they changed the name from “global warming” to “climate change.” As now it can just refer to “weather that might be bad weather.” I haven’t really heard the term “global warming” in several years. Surprisingly, it is coming up again in reference to this polar vortex. CBS News: A counterintuitive theory about the polar vortex is gaining ground among some in the climate science community: Regional cold air outbreaks may be getting an “assist” from global warming. While it may not seem to make sense at first glance, scientifically it’s consistent with the extremes expected from climate change. Overall, Earth is warming due to climate change, but areas near the North Pole are warming more than 2 times faster than the rest of the globe. This “Arctic Amplification” is especially pronounced in winter. When warm air invades the Arctic Circle, it weakens the polar vortex, displacing cold air masses southward into Europe, Asia and the United States. You might think of it as a once tight-knit circulation unraveling, slinging pieces of cold air outward. Evidence for this was presented in a research paper published in the Journal of the American Meteorological Society. Essentially, it suggests climate change can contribute to a more extreme, wavy jet stream, hurling cold air masses farther south. It should be noted that this theory is relatively new and there is a lot of debate in the climate science community about the extent to which such a connection exists. CBS News reached out to two leading climate scientists for comment about whether or not a portion of the recent Arctic outbreaks can be traced to climate change. Here’s what they had to say: Dr. Judah Cohen, a climate scientist at Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER), told us: I have argued that low sea ice and extensive snow cover [in autumn] as a result of Arctic amplification have resulted in more frequent weakenings or disruptions of the polar vortex in recent decades. When the polar vortex is weak or “perturbed,” the flow of air is weaker and meanders north and south (rather than west to east). This allows a redistribution of air masses where cold air from the Arctic spills into the mid-latitudes and warm air from the subtropics is carried into the Arctic. Dr. Michael Mann, the director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said: These questions test the limits of both our available data (the apparent increase in frequency of these events is quite recent and so at best only just starting to emerge from the background noise) and the model simulations. As we showed in our recent Science article, current generation climate models don’t resolve some of the key processes involved in the jet stream dynamics behind many types of weather extremes. Honest scientists can legitimately differ based on reasonable interpretations of the evidence to date. I have always thought that any idea, no matter how complicated, should be able to be simplified into 50 words or less. If it can’t be, than it is probably bullshit, that is just being used to try and confuse you. To their credit, they do appear to be simplifying this idea. Apparently, they’re saying that because carbon dioxide is causing the air to become warmer, warm air is blowing up to the north pole and causing cold air to be forced downward. Does that make sense to you? They are even admitting that this is controversial. To me, it sounds like total bullshit. But of course, if you make that claim, they will just accuse you of being stupid and not “believing in science.” I’ll tell you: anyone who uses the term “believe in science” is lying to you. Science is not a “belief system,” it is a method of repeatable experimental testing designed to lead to working theories. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 7.
#2. To: Ada (#0)
polar vortexes have happened before, and on its face it says nothing about warming. It's a displacement of air. Polar air moves south, and warmer air, by necessity, moves into the polar region to fill in the gap.
Yes. Supposedly the Arctic Ocean was ice free during the last ice age.
I've never heard that, and wouldn't believe it off hand. But .... maybe. Obviously any warm air piped into the Artic would cool off in short order. So if that is true, then it would mean some permanent weather pattern developed which made that piping continuous. It suggests that during the Ice Ages, polar air simply mixed with warmer climates making temperatures more homogeneous globally. One theory is that the ice ages were caused by the ocean currents carrying warm water toward higher latitudes (e.g. the Gulf Stream) to shut down. In theory, most of Europe would be under ice if it were not for the Gulf Stream. But in my prior post, I was speaking of more of brief weather changes. I remember as a kid experiencing similar weather in MD and that was blamed on this exact thing. Polar air getting piped down to the states. It lasts for a few days then things go back to normal.
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