An indirect effect of climate change will cause intense cold winters in the United Kingdom and United States.
Warming in the Arctic is expected to intensify the effects of the jet stream’s position which can cause extreme cold conditions in winter.
For instance, the winter of 2014/15 saw record snowfall in New York and bizarrely cold winters in the UK in 2009/10 and 2010/11.
The experts have found that the current pattern of cold winters is basically due to regular changes to the jet stream’s position, but the warming of the arctic seems to exert an influence on cold spells, however, the location of these can vary from year to year.
As per past studies, when the jet stream takes a “wavy” irregular path, there are more episodes of severe cold weather plunging south from the Arctic into mid-latitudes, bringing freezing conditions that continue for weeks at a time.
However, when the jet stream is flowing strongly and steadily from west to east and not very wavy, normal winter weather in the UK and other countries in the temperate belt between the tropics and the Arctic is seen.
We generally had years with wavy and not so wavy jet stream winds, but in the last one to two decades the warming Arctic may well have been strengthening the impacts of the wavy patterns.
This may have added to some frosty cold winter spells along the eastern seaboard of the US, in eastern Asia, and at times over the UK.
To find the reason behind this extreme cold weather fronts, experts were divided. One camp was certain that they are just the result of steady jet stream variability, but the other concluded that there is a connection with global warming.
Image Credit: beforeitnews.com
Hurry!!! To make Skymet Weather the "Website Of The Year 2016" under "Weather and Traffic" category, vote here https://websiteoftheyear.co.in/skymetweather