Does Climate Change Make Winter Cold Snaps Worse? More Evidence On That

Frozen Texas last February.  A new study indicates 
climate change might occasionally "stretch" the winter
Polar Vortex, increasing the chances of freeze 
disasters like this one. 

 It's a little early to be thinking about intense winter cold, but new information suggests that a warming Arctic puts us at risk of sharper, more dangerous cold snaps.  

This idea has been the subject of debate among climate scientists for years, and I've brought this up from time to time. But new information paints a weirder, darker picture of that horrible cold wave last February in Texas.

Remember that? Temperatures fell to record, sometimes unprecedented levels across much of Texas, and in  big sections of the Plains and South for that matter. That's the cold wave in which Texas Senator Ted Cruz briefly fled to Cancun to escape the cold until nationwide derision brought him back to frigid U.S soil.

Anyway, to review. You've heard of the Polar Vortex, right? It's that roughly circular pool of frigid air that roams the Arctic, especially in winter. If it moves closer to the United States, it gets cold here. If it moves closer to Europe, it gets cold there.

All that is perfectly normal is just the way the atmosphere works.  Except lately, the polar vortex seems not to be always working the way it is supposed to.

This brings us to a recent news about the Polar Vortex.  As the Washington Post reported early this month:

"In a study released (earlier this month) in the journal Science, the devastating Texas cold wave in February is linked to a stretching of the polar vortex in the stratosphere miles above ground. This stretching mode, only recently categorized, has become more common over the last 40 years, the paper finds, and the increase may be related to human-caused climate change."

When you stretch the polar vortex, or split it in two, it can rearrange the jet stream to direct frigid air from the Arctic right down well into the mid-latitudes, including the United States, including Texas.

Until now, scientists have looked more at how splitting the polar vortex into two or more pieces can cause severe mid-latitude frigid outbreaks, because often one of the pieces of the polar vortex in this scenario sinks south, bringing the gelid air with it. 

The new study indicates that a stretched polar vortex delivers icy air south more effectively than a vortex that has been split up. That stretched vortex is what happened in Texas and much of the rest of the middle United States last February.

The study also suggests that this stretching of the polar vortex has become more common since around 1980, the Washington Post reports. 

It appears that changes in Arctic sea ice and snow cover in far northern Europe and Asia,   seem to be contributing to this more frequent polar vortex stretching.  Scientist think this is related to climate change (of course!) but the view is not unanimous.  It could be just natural variability.   

However the early read on this is there might be some natural variability involved, but climate change seems to be screwing around with the polar vortex, too.

Which means we will probably be faced with the following scenario: Winters in general will continue to get warmer. But those more often than not warmer winters will be punctuated by periods of extreme record cold.

And you never know where these Arctic plunges will occur.  Last February's intense cold pretty much missed us here in Vermont.  We might not be so lucky next time.

Like everything else involving possible links to climate change, this messes up all kinds of things for us humans.

The obvious is the suffering and deadly consequences of these intense winter cold spells, as we saw in Texas last year. 

Another issue I thought of is this.  There are few bright sides to climate change, but maybe crops and other plants that used to be confined to the South can spread north a bit. Not if a super bad cold snap one every couple of few winters kills them off. 

The sad fact of the matter is climate change will continually provide unhappy, sometimes dangerous surprises.