Snow storms in North America and Europe may give the impression that “global cooling” is taking place. Nothing is further from the truth. The cooling is a consequence of the weakening of the Arctic jet stream boundary, allowing freezing air masses to flow out of the Arctic circle.
The northern freeze
Warnings by leading climate scientists regarding the high sensitivity of the atmosphere in response to abrupt compostional changes, such as near-doubling of greenhouse gas concentrations, are now manifest: According to Wallace Broecker (the “father” of climate science):
“The paleoclimate record shouts out to us that, far from being self-stabilizing, the Earth’s climate system is an ornery beast which overreacts to even small nudges, and humans have already given the climate a substantial nudge”.
As stated by James Zachos,
“The Paleocene hot spell should serve as a reminder of the unpredictable nature of climate.”
As snow storms sweep the northern continents, reaching as far south as Texas and Greece, those who still question the reality and consequences of global climate change, including in our government, may rejoice since in their view they may have an argument against global warming.
Unfortunately, climate science indicates these fronts are the consequence of a weakened circum-Arctic jet stream boundary, the result of the warming of the Arctic and therefore a reduced contrast between the Arctic and high latitude zones in Europe and America.
The reduced contrast allows migration of masses of cold Arctic air southward and of tropical air northward, ensuing in a fundamental shift in the global climate pattern.
Major consequences of the current shift in state of the climate system pertain to the weakening of the polar boundaries and the migration of climate zones toward the poles. Transient cooling pauses are projected as a result of the flow of cold ice melt water from Greenland and Antarctica into the oceans, leading to stadial cooling intervals.
The extreme rate at which the global warming and the shift of climate zones are taking place, virtually within one generation, faster than major past warming events such as at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary 56 million years ago, renders the term “climate change” hardly appropriate, since what we are looking at is a sudden and abrupt event.
According to Giger (2021):
“Tipping points could fundamentally disrupt the planet and produce abrupt change in the climate. A mass methane release could put us on an irreversible path to full land-ice melt, causing sea levels to rise by up to 30 meters. We must take immediate action to reduce global warming and build resilience with these tipping points in mind.”
Computer modelling does not always capture the sensitivity, complexity and feedbacks of the atmosphere-ocean-land system as observed from paleoclimate studies. Many models portray gradual or linear responses of the atmosphere to compositional variations, which overlook self-amplifying effects and transient reversals associated with melting of the ice sheets and cooling of the oceans by the flow of ice melt.
Further to NASA’s reported mean land-ocean temperature rise of +1.18°C in March 2020 above pre-industrial temperatures, relative to the 1951-1980 baseline, large parts of the continents, including central Asia, west Africa, eastern South America and Australia are warming toward mean temperatures of +2°C and higher.
The late 20th century to early 21st century global greenhouse gas levels and regional warming rates have reached a high factor to an order of magnitude faster than those of past geological and mass extinction events, with major implications for the nature and speed of extreme weather events.
For these reasons the term “climate change” for the extreme warming, which is reaching +1.5°C over the continents and more than +3°C over the Arctic over a period of less than 100 years, no longer applies. What the world is looking at is a fundamental abrupt shift in the conditions which have allowed civilization to rise.
Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleoclimate scientist.
Comments
14 responses to “Snow storms in North America and Europe: real-time consequences of climate change”
Thanks Andrew.
We should all stop using the term ‘climate change’, preferring ‘climate catastrophe’ + suitable adjectives.
Solar output is falling, allowing ‘cosmic’ rays to increase annually. That causes cloud cover. Clouds are composed of greenhouse gas. They reflect heat back to space, preventing it from warming the Earth. CO2? Irrelevant. Warming? Untrue!
That is just simplistic rubbish that would not stand up to any scientific scrutiny.
That is balderdash; you should be ashamed of a post so in conflict with the facts. The science regarding the role of CO2 in warming the atmosphere, the greenhouse effect, was established in the 19th century. See the roles played by Fourier, Tyndal, Arrhenius.
https://history.aip.org/climate/co2.htm
Currently the ~11 years-long sun spot cycle is at a low with a count of 50-100 spots (http://www.solarsystemcentral.com/sunspot_cycles_page.html). Despite of this global air/surface temperatures are accelerating (https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/) and are about or more than +1.5 degrees over the continents above pre-industrial levels, and near +3C in the Arctic, due to the rising concentration of greenhouse gases, currently at 415.52 ppm CO2 (compare with the ~280 ppm pre-industrial level) (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/). Greenhouse gases are dispersed through the atmosphere not only in clouds. Cloud cover over the polar regions is low to very low yet it is these regions which are warming the fastest. For the role of CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases, look at “The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect” (https://history.aip.org/climate/co2.htm) and the basic laws of physics (https://www.britannica.com/science/blackbody-radiation).
And how nicely the Australian media edited out any reference to climate change and polar vortex changes with reporting on recent events in Texas and Nebraska. Yet these events are becoming a regular feature in the US and throughout Europe.
Indeed.
Poor ‘science’ is everywhere, is it not?
The power of the fossil fuel industry pseudo-science spinners, our government’s total allegiance to the same industry, and now widespread neo-medieval thinking often fuelled by right wing religious groups and some in the new age wellbeing groups that easily fall victim to belief in anything, especially unfounded conspiracy theories.
With this last group I was shocked by one conspiracy theory last year in that they claimed the fires in Australia were not affected by climate change but all about establishing a very fast train along the entire length of Eastern Australia.
Notably in your earlier comment.
Agree.
Yes, and this includes the ABC, currently highlighting the search for water and life on Mars, as if there is a substitute to saving habitats and species on Earth, diverting people’s attention from the climate crisis and giving the impression as if the search for life on planets could replace attempts at saving species on Earth.
Yes, and this includes the ABC, currently highlighting the search for water and life on Mars, as if there is a substitute to saving habitats and species on Earth, diverting people’s attention from the climate crisis and giving the impression as if the search for life on planets could replace attempts at saving species on Earth.
I agree, for much of the media the projection is that we’ll all have more fun days at the beach or local swimming pool.
I don’t know what it takes to get this across to people but right now most of the media are in denial here.
The media constitutes the “tail which wags the dog”, and when the tail is owned by a few media moguls the consequences are not hard to predict. Just look how the horrible rape events around parliament have overtaken the 24 hours news cycle, relegating any meaningful media consideration of the future of life on Earth to the back pages, as pointed out by Noam Chomsky: ““The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow lively debate within that spectrum”.