Our bitter cold winter has become one of the hottest topics of conversation in America.
Specifically, people are talking about how a severe cold snap can occur at the same time as global warming. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the debate on the Washington Post website. In this post, I’ll try to clear up two of the issues that emerged from that debate:
- What does a particular cold spell say about global warming, and
- If the recent cold spell doesn’t disprove global warming, does that also mean that other kinds of extreme weather, like heat waves, aren't caused by global warming?
Climate versus weather
All of the Post’s panelists were careful enough to explain the difference between weather and climate: Climate refers to the average weather over a long period. For the most part, they did not fall for the common mistake of interpreting a cold spell as evidence against global warming.
Here's what's been happening with the weather recently: There have indeed been below-average temperatures recently in much of the eastern U.S. and in parts of Europe, Russia, northern China, and northern India. But at the same time, there were above-average temperatures in the western U.S., eastern Canada and Greenland, some other parts of the Arctic, North Africa and Central Asia, as this map shows.
This distinct pattern of temperatures was caused by an unusually persistent version of an atmospheric flow pattern known as a “Greenland block.” This Greenland block diverted frigid Arctic air far to the south in eastern North America and Europe. (More about it on the Weather Channel: "Why So Cold? Blame the Greenland Block.")
It’s important to look at weather events like cold snaps in context—we can have a relatively brief spell of cold weather in certain regions even while the global climate is warming. All the evidence shows that the world overall has been warming over the past several decades. (See a chart in a post on this same topic by Lisa Moore in 2008.)
So how do we know if the climate is warming? We look at a wide range of long-term trends. Along with rising air and ocean temperatures, the other signs of a warming climate include rising sea level, retreat of glaciers in most regions, rapid shrinkage of summer sea ice in the Arctic, and shifts in species distributions and seasonal behavior.
Global warming does cause more extreme weather
Although the Post’s panelists were accurate on the first issue, there could have been more discussion on the fact that global warming does have an effect on some kinds of extreme weather. One of the panelists even claimed that extreme events like heat waves cannot be used as evidence of global warming. That is wrong, so let's look at how the frequency and intensity of certain extreme weather events are expected to increase under global warming.
Records indicate that there has already been an increase in intensity and frequency of heat waves and heavy rainfall in many parts of the world over the past several decades. (See “Frequently Asked Question” number 3.3 excerpted from the 2007 IPCC report [PDF].) Why? Global warming drives a rise in average temperature and atmospheric moisture, promoting more heat waves and torrential downpours. On top of that, changes in atmospheric circulation patterns caused by global warming are also thought to contribute to stronger heat waves.
There will still be variations from year to year, but on average, these extreme events will increase over time as the Earth warms. On the other hand, extremely cold temperatures are becoming less common — but can still occur — as heat builds up in the climate system.
Of course, individual weather events should not be blamed on global warming, just as an individual cold snap doesn’t disprove global warming. EDF has been careful not to attribute individual events to global warming. Instead, we point to examples of what we expect to see more and more of in the future if we don’t fight global warming.
And with the trends in extreme weather we’re already seeing, that future ain’t lookin’ pretty.
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