Right now, it's Tuesday, January 7, 2014, and it just might be the coldest day on average in American history. I mean, really, the highs, to my understanding, are not really supposed to break into the fifties (Fahrenheit) anywhere in the lower 48. Places like Miami, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, places that you generally think of as being warm all year round, are experiencing unusually cold temperatures. And the wind chill factor all across the country is colder than normal for just about every part of the country, and is ridiculously, even dangerously cold for much of the country.
Here is a map of what the wind chill factor makes it feel like right now across the nation:
http://www.intellicast.com/National/Temperature/WindChill.aspx
It feels like it is in the 30's in northern Mexico, and in the 40's in Los Angeles and normally sunny southern California. But that is downright balmy, compared with the interior, as well as further east in the nation. It is below freezing in the American South, in places like Atlanta, which has single digit temperatures. Here in New Jersey, it is back to being in the single digits, just as it was before this past horrendous weekend, and the wind chill factor makes it feel like below zero Fahrenheit.
But it is more in the interior where it is really, really bad. The temperatures in places like Minnesota and North Dakota are already well below zero, but when you factor in the wind chill factor, it will feel like -40 degrees Fahrenheit!
It's so cold (how cold is it?) that the National Weather Service made this announcement:
ANYONE STUCK OUTSIDE FOR ANY LENGTH OF TIME WILL BE AT SERIOUS RISK FOR INJURY OR DEATH.
It's so cold, that school closures were announced ahead of the projected cold temperatures for much of the country, including Atlanta, of all places!
It's so cold, that the projected highs today in Chicago are supposed to break current record cold temperatures!
It's so cold, that Indianapolis banned cars from city streets, and is contemplating doing it again today! (here's the link to that article: "Indianapolis mayor wants another day of closures", Associated Press, January 6, 2014 http://www.ibj.com/indianapolis-mayor-wants-another-day-of-closures/PARAMS/article/45448)
That is pretty damn cold! Here's a bit from an article I borrowed some of this information from in order to write this blog entry (see link at bottom of the page):
The coldest weather in decades has begun its march across much of the eastern two-thirds of the country. On Monday and Tuesday, the “polar vortex” will push southward with a ferocity nearly unmatched in the last 140 years of record-keeping.
There was a time when I was working in Pomona, New York, well over a decade ago now. And I worked with a guy who considered himself a Christian conservative. One story to illustrate this was that he was in favor of the Iraq invasion, and he had told his daughter, who was against the war, something so shocking, that she had literally not known how to react, and had flipped. He then told me what he had said, and I guess he was hoping to shock me in a similar manner. He said that he could not wait to see images of Iraqi children burning. I quickly responded by saying, "That's very Christian of you." He wound up being a bit shocked, and he began to justify what he had said, although he spoke loudly and seemed irritated, and continued to talk as he walked out of the room.
Anyway, he was highly skeptical of "left wing conspiracy theories", of which, he included Global Warming. And one day, when it had dumped maybe a foot or two of snow, and it was obviously very cold and wintry, he told me that he guessed this shot the shit out of the "global warming theory".
I responded by saying, "It's not because it's a cold day in Pomona, New York, that the Global Warming Theory has been proven wrong." I went on and told him that he should not criticize what he did not understand, and that if he had even bothered to gain a deeper understanding of "global warming", he would understand that it called for more extreme conditions in general, including, at least initially, more snow storms of greater severity.
In any case, it may be tempting for detractors of the "theory" to take a day like today, with record cold all across the North American continent, as evidence that "Global Warming" is not real. But the reality, simply, is that this does not disprove Global Warming and that, moreover, it might be further evidence that it is, indeed, real.
Here are three reasons, from the same article (see link below) to suggest how this can be:
1) The Arctic rapidly warming: It's always going to be colder at the North Pole than it is in Miami, but the difference in temperature between those two places may already be shrinking. The Arctic is quickly losing sea ice, which is being replaced by relatively warmer open ocean. Liquid water tends to trap heat more effectively than ice, which in turn discourages the future formation of ice. It's a feedback loop that is not working in our favor, and as a result, the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world.
2) The jet stream is slowing down: The coldest air in the Northern Hemisphere is typically trapped in the far northern Arctic by the jet stream. However, with a little help from climate change, that barrier is starting to break down. As the temperature contrast between the warmer tropics decreases, the jet stream, whichexists due to that contrast, weakens and becomes more elongated and chaotic. Think of navigating a car through slow-moving traffic: it's a lot less straightforward to find a quick route from point A to point B.
3) As a result, extreme weather ensures: With a slower, more chaotic jet stream, there's a much greater likelihood of weather systems getting stuck on their paths around the planet. When weather systems stagnate, they have a tendency to intensify, sometimes breaking records for heat, cold, snow, and rain in the process. Also, when increasingly elongated paths are taken by jet stream winds, it's easier for them to pull exceptionally cold air further southwards, which is exactly what's happening this week.
He then sums up his article by reminding us that it's called "Global Warming" for a reason:
For those that still doubt, here's something else that's happening:
It's so hot right now in Australia, they're frying eggs on shovels. Isn't science neat?
Here is the link to the article that I borrowed from quite a bit to write this piece:
"Global Warming Is Freezing You" by Eric Holthaus of The Daily Beast, January 6, 2014:
http://news.yahoo.com/global-warming-freezing-104500272--politics.html
And here's another link where, Eric Holthaus proves the point further:
http://lbfromlv.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/thank-global-warming-for-freezing-you-right-now-by-eric-holthaus-u-s-news/
Here are some other links to illustrate just how cold it is, or has been, recently: the first are some amazing pictures of a frozen Lake Michigan, while the other is more humorous, than anything else:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/06/9-stunning-images-of-lake-michigan-frozen_n_4551952.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
http://jezebel.com/this-is-what-40-f-feels-like-1495629103?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
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