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Wrexham & Clwyd South Liberal DemocratsCampaigning with Bill Brereton for Wrexham and Aled Roberts for North Wales |
Cold Weather and Climate Change
January 18, 2010 1:38 PM
So does the recent cold spell mean we no longer have to worry about climate change?
A question many people will currently be asking is that if the world is warming, why have we, and so many other places in the northern hemisphere been experience such a cold?
The simple answer is that a single period of extreme weather proves nothing about climate change. Climate is the average weather over a number of decades.
The recent bout of cold weather was a result of cold Arctic air moving in over the UK, driven by winds from the north and east. Usually our winters are dominated by mild wet air blown in off the Atlantic by westerly winds.
The result of all this cold Arctic air spilling southwards has been freezing weather across large swathes of the northern hemisphere from US and China to the UK. At the same time, however, much of the Mediterranean, southern Asia as well as Greenland and the Arctic are experiencing warmer temperatures than usual. In consequence the average temperature for January of this year in the northern hemisphere could be no colder than usual.
In fact, with Australia and other areas in the southern hemisphere swelter under record high temperatures, the average global temperature for January 2010 could make it one of the warmest on record!
The question that scientists are working to answer is whether the recent cold spell is just one of those weather events which happens from time to time (the UK experienced similar weather conditions in the winters of 1947, 1962/63 and of course the winter of discontent in 1979) or is it a harbinger of long term changes in our weather patterns?
Colleagues at the International Arctic Research Center in Fairbanks, Alaska, have reported that atmospheric circulation patterns in the high Arctic have changed drastically on account of the record levels of warming experienced in the Arctic over recent years (as exemplified by the record retreat of the Arctic sea ice cover during the summers of 2007, 2008 and 2009). Whilst nothing has yet been proven, these changes could have contributed to the recent unusually cold weather.
Whatever their conclusion, the evidence is unequivocal that the planet has warmed significantly since the middle of the 20th century.
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