It was expected that the winter storm that hit the United States and Canada would be bad. Even before ice began coating the steep streets of Seattle, white-out conditions spread from the Plains to the Midwest and more than a foot of snow was dumped on Buffalo in a storm that killed more than two dozen people.
Climate change and extreme weather are related. In a warming planet, heat waves are hotter and summer rains are more severe.
When it comes to the recent storm, the links are less clear and the subject of vigorous scientific debate.
The United States and other parts of the world have been getting warmer in the winter. According to an analysis done by Climate Central, winter temperatures in the United States have increased over the past 50 years. Warming is most pronounced in the northern areas of the Great Lakes and the Northeast in winter.
The temperatures are not very hot. The cold snap that started a few days before Christmas was extreme.
There is an agreement about the nature of flora and fauna. A sweeping United Nations agreement to protect 30 percent of the planet's land and oceans by 2030 was approved by delegates at a meeting in Canada. The agreement comes at a time when the world's population is decreasing at an unprecedented rate.
The beginning of a new era? A group of scientists took a step towards declaring a new interval of geological time called the Anthropocene. The previous geologic period was brought to a close because of humankind's effects on the planet, according to the amended timelines.
A small nation is making diplomatic moves. The nation of Vanuatu has a population of over 300,000 people. The president wants the International Court of Justice to weigh in on whether nations are legally bound to protect themselves against climate risks.
There is a transition to renewable energy. According to the International Energy Agency, there will be double the amount of renewable power in the world in the next five years. Coal is expected to be the biggest source of electricity generation by early 2025, according to the agency.
The polar vortex was a mass of cold air that moved into Canada and the US. At a time of year when there is no sunlight over the North Pole, the air becomes very cold.
The cold air that entered Canada and the US caused temperatures and air pressure to plummet. Strong winds were generated by the pressure changes caused by the cold temperatures.
A bomb cyclone is a rotating, fierce storm that can bring heavy snow or rain and cause tides in coastal areas.
There is a lot of debate about what causes the polar vortex to go south.
According to some scientists, the rapid warming of theArctic is responsible. They say that the temperature difference between the pole and tropics gets smaller as the polar regions warm. Weakening of the high-altitude winds that make up the polar jet stream will allow the polar vortex to spread.
There is some evidence for the idea that the jet stream is weakened by climate change, but there is not much to support it. A short-term trend of a wavier jet stream and polar vortex excursions in the 1990s and 2000s has not continued, according to a study.
There is ongoing research on the topic.
Steve Vavrus, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin who was an author of a 2020 paper that reviewed current understanding of the subject, said, "We have figured out a few strands of this question." As more and more people research it, I believe we will continue to do so.
Warmer winters have a number of effects that are more certain. Increased winter temperatures in the Western United States have contributed to large scale die-offs of trees. Warming causes more precipitation to fall as rain, rather than snow, which leads to less snow in the winter, which is critical for water supplies.
It is possible for more snow to fall when it is cold enough for snow. Air can hold more water when it is warm. It's the cold-weather version of why the world is getting more rain.
It is difficult to say if this storm was snowier than it might have been without human-caused climate change, but in some areas it was off the charts. The Buffalo area received a record amount of snow on Friday.
Buffalo is in a part of the country that is subject to lake effect snow, which happens when cold, dry air blows across water and causes the snow to accumulate. The water is not frozen. The effect depends on the temperature difference between the air and water.
Lake-effect snow is expected to increase as the planet warms because lakes will be unfrozen for longer. At some point, winter temperatures in some areas could rise to a point where snow will diminish and be replaced by lake-effect rain.
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