Environmental News Network - Scientists See Link Between Arctic Warming and Texas Cold Snap

Details: By Yale Environment 360; 03.Sep

Severe winter storms and unusual cold snaps, like the one that hit Texas in February, are, paradoxically, becoming more frequent as temperatures rise, and are linked to rapid warming in the Arctic, according to a new study.

Cheryl Porter

Severe winter storms and unusual cold snaps, like the one that hit Texas in February, are, paradoxically, becoming more frequent as temperatures rise, and are linked to rapid warming in the Arctic, according to a new study. For more than a decade, scientists have warned that a warming Arctic and the rapid loss of Arctic sea ice are weakening the polar vortex — a band of powerful, high-altitude winds encircling the North Pole — allowing frigid air to reach further south.

The new study links those changes in the polar vortex to cold snaps like the severe weather in Texas last winter.

“It is counterintuitive that a rapidly warming Arctic can lead to an increase in extreme cold in a place as far south as Texas, but the lesson from our analysis is to expect the unexpected with climate change,” Judah Cohen, a winter storm expert for Atmospheric Environmental Research and lead author of the study, told the Associated Press.

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Scientists See Link Between Arctic Warming and Texas Cold Snap