Source: Washington Post
Warmest winter on record, except in the most politically important part of the world
March 22, 2015 8:00pm by Barry Ritholtz
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It’s a little worse than that. That map is just February. The map for the full winter shows just how much warmer it was than normal for just about everyone else, and that the whole winter was colder in the US east, but it was mostly February. So a better title might be, “Warmest Winter in recorded history, except for February in the most politically important part of the world.”
Watch, next year we’ll get the polar vortex our way for two weeks or so out of the whole winter, and lots of people will *still* say “See!!! I can make a snowball, and it’s really cold out my door this week, so global warming *can’t* be happening!”
Yes, snow is pouring down right now in Chicago and the wind chill is 13 degrees (F).
It is “weird” that Eastern North America is/was the globally coldest area for the month, and season. It would be interesting to learn why the polar vortex didn’t create colder atmospheres anywhere else on the globe…
Let’s hope we Easterners have a better/less frigid time next Winter!
As I understand it, the cold from interior Siberia is normally captured in the polar vortex and distributed in northern latitudes. This year, because of the lack of the vortex, cold air was blowing from Siberia across the north pole and straight down to eastern US.
My understanding is that very warm water in the northeast Pacific shifted the jet stream east. Since the only mountain ranges east of the Rockies that can even slow down cold air are the Appalachians (they are fairly low because they are very old), arctic air can flow as far south as it wants until it is overcome by warm Gulf of Mexico air. So the east got the cold usually reserved for the Mid-West.
BTW – that continuous clash between arctic and Gulf air is why most of the tornados on the planet occur in the southern mid-West at that boundary. Other parts of the world don’t get them because they have large mountain cordilleras between the tropics and the northern areas. That provides a distinct climate demarcation unlike much of North America.
So, sometimes the market trades at a premium, other times at a discount – add ’em up over ‘x’ time frame and get an average.
The interesting part of this post to me is the DC-centric title. I wonder if the rest of the globe would still agree.
Watch out Barry. You’ll be labeled as liberal what with your facts and truths.
One “model” of climate change had the effects of the Gulf Stream on the eastern US diminished. This would reduce the moderating effects on the east coast and contribute to colder winters.
The Jetstream trended south more this year, which is not rare but not the normal.
When Boston winters look like Anchorage winters………………………
Ted Cruz will change Washington!
California is suffering from drought. With record high temps, but not to worry because it isn’t real.
All it will take to solve this problem is to defund NASA and quit looking at this problem. The world according to CRUZ.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-fifth-largest-food-supplier-is-almost-out-of-water-2015-3
California’s agriculture is toast. There is a 10 year time lag between greenhouse gas levels and climatic changes. The current projections are too optimistic. The feed-back loops will alter the climate exponentially resulting in large enough uncertainties in current modeling to make them virtually useless. The good news is that prior to the climate bringing about extinction the economy will collapse and the resulting chaos will get us first.
I actually think this discussion is more politics than science. Nearly everyone with an understanding of math will tell you that last year was more like a tie for the warmest year on record according to GISS.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2015/01/21/378665687/was-2014-the-hottest-year-on-record-or-not
“The three warmest years in the GISS temperature analysis, 2014, 2010, and 2005 in that order, can be considered to be in a statistical tie because of several sources of uncertainty, the largest source being incomplete spatial coverage of the data.”
In addition a better metric is satellite data which shows that it was the sixth warmest since the satellite data has been available (The late 70’s). http://dailycaller.com/2015/01/12/satellite-data-says-2014-actually-wasnt-the-warmest-on-record/
Meanwhile the Texas Legislature is hell bent on fracking every square inch of land even in cities. They care nothing for despoiling the air and water of human beings, but they sure love the rogue fracking companies who finance their political campaigns.
Now they’re even taking away the right of local municipalities to make their own fracking regulations.
If Texas would just tax all the natural gas they allow oil companies to burn off in the Eagle Ford shale, instead of collecting and selling it, Texas would have enough revenue to stop forcing cities to frack near homes. We might even do something positive about global warming for a change. Oh, I forgot, global warming is not real in Texas.