Global What? Widespread severe cold makes people wonder about climate
Posted by JAC on 1/7/2010, 7:01 am


Valerie and Maik Jordan of Frankfurt, Germany, enjoy an unconventional day at the beach in Miami Beach, Fla.


THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 7, 2010

Beijing had its coldest morning in almost 40 years and its biggest snowfall since 1951. Britain is suffering through its longest cold snap since 1981. And freezing weather is gripping the Deep South, including Florida's orange groves and beaches.

Whatever happened to global warming?

Such weather doesn't seem to fit with warnings from scientists that the Earth is warming because of greenhouse gases. But experts say that the cold snap doesn't disprove global warming at all -- it's just a blip in the long-term heating trend.

"It's part of natural variability," said Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. With global warming, he said, "we'll still have record-cold temperatures. We'll just have fewer of them."

Deke Arndt of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., noted that 2009 will rank among the 10 warmest years for Earth since 1880.

Scientists say that man-made climate change does have the potential to cause more frequent and more severe weather extremes, such as heat waves, storms, floods, droughts and even cold spells. But experts interviewed by The Associated Press did not connect the current cold blast to climate change.

So what is going on?

"We basically have seen just a big outbreak of Arctic air" over populated areas of the Northern Hemisphere, Arndt said. "The Arctic air has really turned itself loose on us."

In the atmosphere, large rivers of air travel roughly west to east around the globe between the Arctic and the tropics. This air flow acts like a fence to keep Arctic air confined.

But recently, this air flow has become bent into a pronounced zigzag pattern, meandering north and south. If you live in a place where it brings air up from the south, you get warm weather. In fact, record highs were reported this week in Washington state and Alaska.

But in the eastern United States, like some other unlucky parts of the globe, Arctic air is swooping down from the north. And that's how you get a temperature of 3 degrees in Beijing, a reading of minus 42 in mainland Norway, and 18 inches of snow in parts of Britain, where a member of Parliament who said that the snow "clearly indicates a cooling trend" was jeered by colleagues.

The zigzag pattern arises naturally from time to time, but it is not clear why it's so strong right now, said Michelle L'Heureux, a meteorologist at the Climate Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The center says that the pattern should begin to weaken in a week or two.

Jeff Masters, the director of meteorology for Weather Underground, a forecasting service, said he expects more typical winter weather across North America early next week.

That will be welcome news in the South, where farmers have been trying to salvage millions of dollars' worth of strawberries and other crops.

Julie and John Arnold's 260-acre orange grove in the central Florida town of Clermont was filled yesterday with large icicles dangling from trees. And nearby canals were nearly a foot below average because of all the water the Arnolds and their neighbors have sprayed on crops to protect them.

They estimated that about 10 percent of the Temple oranges on their land were lost, but that type of citrus is a small part of their total. Their other oranges were almost entirely intact.

The couple have been working around-the-clock for nearly two days to save their crops. Far colder weather has descended on their trees in the past, but the cold usually does not last so long.

"I've done a half-marathon before. This is much more nerve-wracking, much more exhausting," Julie said. "This is the ultimate endurance race."

State officials in Tallahassee were optimistic that crop damage was minimal, but they cautioned that it was too early to tell for sure.

"That's the $64,000 question," said Terence McElroy, spokesman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. "The preliminary indications are that there has not been any catastrophic damage."

On Miami Beach, tourists bundled up in woolen winter coats and hooded sweatshirts yesterday beneath a clear blue sky. Some brazenly let the water wash over their feet and a few even lay out in bikinis and swimming trunks. A brisk wind blew and temperatures hovered in the 50s.

"Last year, we were swimming every day," said Olivia Ruedinger of Hamburg, Germany.

"I miss that."

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Global What? Widespread severe cold makes people wonder about climate - JAC, 1/7/2010, 7:01 am
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