"When it comes to the global climate, what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic. The latest proof comes in new research connecting the unusually brutal winter of 2014–15 along the East Coast of North America to rapidly vanishing summer sea ice on the western side of the Arctic Ocean." Emily J. Gertz Take Part's Assoiciate editor for environment and wildlife
The eastern U.S. may see winter extremes—such as these human-size icebergs on Massachusetts' Cape Cod National Seashore in 2015—for the next few decades. (Photo: Dapixara/Twitter)
The rapidly melting Arctic sea ice during summer will be the driver of extreme bitter winter cold in the world's lower latitudes for decades to come.
Take Part reports on a new study published Monday by the journal Nature Geoscience. The study concludes that growing scientific evidence on these record breaking extremes that the Northeast experienced last winter "have not been a pause in the advance of human-driven climate change but a result of it."
The newly published study, led by Jong-Seong Kug of South Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology, used climate and weather observations as well as climate change modeling to investigate potential connections between these and other extreme cold winter weather systems over North America and South Asia last winter and historically low levels of summer sea ice in areas of the Arctic Ocean.Kug and his colleagues determined that the reduced extent of summer sea ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas during the summer of 2014 led to a bulge of warmer temperatures in the lower atmosphere.
Those warm-temperature areas are “an indication that the jet stream is taking a big northward swing, creating what we call a very strong ridge,” said Jennifer Francis, an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers University who studies Arctic ice and its effects on weather patterns in lower latitudes of the northern hemisphere.
“Downstream of that ridge, the effect is like taking a jump rope and giving it a big whip: It creates a big wave further downstream, a southward dip in the jet stream,” Francis said. “That means that cold air is able to plunge down into that area from the Arctic, and that’s been contributing to these very cold winters in eastern North America.”
The same conditions also formed high above the Barents and Kara seas, on the Atlantic side of the Arctic Ocean, and drove severe cold weather in South Asia during the winter
.The President is in Alaska attending the GLACIER conference and made a passionate speech regarding the dire consequences that await us with Abrupt Climate Change. The press once again ignores this phenomenon even with Obama's historic trip. Hillary's emails seems to be the topic du jour today, tomorrow maybe Donald Trump once again spews some nasty comment sliming whole populations of his fellow Americans. I am not surprised by the media, but I am very sad. We are in for a world of hurt and more than likely there is nothing we can do about it at this point. But can we at least stop digging our graves deeper and deeper? We will find out in December when the Paris talks begin what the world will do.