Just this week, much of the United States saw dangerously frigid temperatures and a historic snowstorm blanketed places like Houston, New Orleans, and the Florida panhandle. As counter intuitive as it may seem, rapid warming in the Arctic, a result of global warming, may be partially responsible for some unusual cold outbreaks.
Arctic warming is believed to be having an impact on the polar jet stream – that band of typically strong winds some 30,000 feet above ground level where jets usually fly. The jet stream impacts the movement of storm systems and serves as the boundary between warm and cold air masses around the globe.
Arctic warming appears to be creating a slower and wavier polar jet stream that occasionally sends bitterly cold Arctic air diving unusually far south into usually mild places like along the US Gulf Coast. |
