Are Cold Waves Increasing Under Global Warming? The Answer is Clearly No.

Yeah winter's getting to be a no-show here.

 

Young people today must think temperature was always like Lake Wobegon (the daily average) and hurricanes were always mild. Now you can see we are getting extreme variations on a daily basis, since it is never average, even the cold today is due to climate change, right?

In truth is the jet stream was always fickle

 

Hummm, looks like Global Warming is a coastal effect:


Source: State of the climate: How the world warmed in 2018 | Carbon Brief

A number of records for the Earth’s climate were set in 2018:

• It was the warmest year on record for ocean heat content, which increased markedly between 2017 and 2018.
• It was the fourth warmest year on record for surface temperature.
• It was the sixth warmest year in the lower troposphere – the lower part of the atmosphere.
• Greenhouse gas concentrations reached record levels for CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide.
• Sea ice was well below the long-term average at both poles for most of the year. The summer Arctic sea ice minimum was the sixth lowest since records began in the late 1970s.

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Nice summary that helps explain the coastal warming.

Bob Wilson

 

Yes, there has always been variability with the jet stream.
However, the jet stream is slowing as the temperature gradient betrween the North Pole and the air around it has become less.
This has led to wilder swings of the jet stream.
Similar to a spinning top. As it slows it gets less stable.

 

Is the linked study from the former epa or current?

 

The question should really be if wide temperature swings are increasing? Thursday was 15F in Philly. Sunday is forecasted to be in the 50's.
I remember cold winters. I remember mild ones. I don't recall swinging ones like the past few.

 

Less stable is obvious... with both weather patterns and oil market.

In other words, emphasis on the word "change".

 

According to the Climate Science Special Report (CSSR) for the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), temperature extremes are actually becoming less severe over the past century, in the U.S. anyway, especially with regard to cold temperature extremes.

It is my experience as a former National Weather Service operational meteorologist (retired in 2012) that there tends to be decreases in the amplitude of upper level flow ("jet stream") as the temperature gradient between the poles and tropics decreases (e.g., typical of mid to late summer). Highly amplified upper-level toughs are the cause of extreme cold waves. That being said, we are entering uncharted territory as the poles continue to warm relatively faster than the tropics or subtropics.

 

Yeah it got cold here, well: cold for us. Just a dusting of snow so far, but supposed to stay cold for a while. I put a second foam tube on the lower grill just now, 100% lower block.

It's off to the dentist for me, in about an hour.