Extreme Weather Events Linked to Global Warming and Anomalies in Polar Vortex

It is common knowledge that global warming can lead to record-breaking weather events, such as sweltering heat and freezing weather. The name itself suggests that the global average temperatures result in more heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Now, an international team of researchers suggests that extreme heat and cold have similar underlying processes. The study titled "Extreme Cold Events from East Asia to North America in Winter 2020/21: Comparisons, Causes, and Future Implications," published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, explains how global warming can cause both extreme heat and cold weather events.

The team looked into three impactful events from the past winter to understand the underlying forces of such swings in temperature and weather.

(Photo: Pixabay)
Extreme Heat and Cold Weather Events May Share Underlying Process With Global Warming As Common Denominator

What Is the Connection Between Extreme Heat and Cold Weather Events?

According to ZME Science, the study showed that harsh winters and blazing summers are connected with global warming as their common denominator. The study has linked the collapse of the polar vortex to extreme sub-zero temperature events.

This is because the abrupt increase of temperature due to global warming would cause the alteration of the interaction between the polar vortex and jet stream, resulting in extreme weather events and amplified by ocean temperature or the Arctic sea ice.

The researchers looked into two record-breaking cold air outbreaks that occurred in China from December to January 2021. Xiangdong Zhang, a professor of climate and atmospheric sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, showed that the cities of Beijing and Tianjin during those times recorded their lowest temperature in 54 years at -3.46°F (-19.7°C) and -3.82°F (-19.9°C), respectively.

Moreover, North America's midwest and deep south also recorded its coldest temperature in 100 years in February 2021 at 8°F (-13.3°C) in Texas, and 17°F ( -8.3°C) in Austin.

Researchers also used available observational data from the past 42 winters and simulated models to analyze how the sea and atmospheric events could cause extreme weather when they compare it to the 2020-2021 winter.

Study co-author James Overland, the research oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in the US, said that extreme weather events in their study appear to occur intermittently and not annually.

"This is because they are caused by a combination of new global warming and extreme, but naturally occurring, precursor weather conditions in the jet stream and polar vortex," Overland explained as quoted in Phys.org.

The study showed that anomalies in ocean temperatures and atmospheric events play a critical role in extreme weather events that can be different but share similar underlying mechanisms.

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China and the US Must Collaborate To Tackle Global Warming

As Global Times reported, experts call on China and the United States to join hands in limiting global warming and tackle climate change, being the two biggest carbon dioxide emitters.

The recent report issued by the United Nations (UN) on Monday warned against human-induced irreversible climate change and called for global efforts to combat it.

Experts believe that the US-China collaboration against climate change will restore the balance of collaboration between the two nations as well as the EU on the issue and form a united, cooperative system to tackle global warming.