Extreme cold doesn't contradict climate change
By Mathew Barlow / For The Conversation
Extremely cold Arctic air and severe winter weather swept southward into much of the U.S. in mid-January, breaking daily low temperature records from Washington, east to Montana and south to Texas. Tens of millions of people were affected by dangerously cold temperatures, and heavy lake-effect snow and snow squalls have had severe effects across the Great Lakes and Northeast regions.
These severe cold events occur when the polar jet stream — the familiar jet stream of winter that runs along the boundary between Arctic and more temperate air — dips deeply southward, bringing the cold Arctic air to regions that don’t often experience it.
An interesting aspect of these events is that they often occur in association with changes to another river of air even higher above the jet stream: the stratospheric polar vortex, a great stream of air moving around the North Pole in the middle of the stratosphere.
When this stratospheric vortex becomes disrupted or stretched, it can distort the jet stream as well, pushing it southward in some areas and causing cold air outbreaks.
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