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posted by martyb on Monday January 28 2019, @07:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the Meanwhile-Carnarvon-Airport-(Australia)-Reached-113.7°F-(45.4°C) dept.

Extreme Cold Weather Grips U.S., Dispelling Doubts About Climate Change

A poll released Tuesday showed that more people are starting to believe climate change is credible, partly due to the frigid weather which has gripped the United States.

The poll released by Associated Press showed that 48 percent of respondents found the science of human-induced climate change more convincing when the poll was taken in November 2018 than they did five years ago, compared to 14 percent who thought it less convincing.

Eighty-three percent of those polled who believe in climate change want the federal government to take actions to mitigate it, and 80 percent want their state governments to act, the survey found.

More people than expected supported a carbon tax to help curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to the survey.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/23/c_137768179.htm

Prolonged, Life-Threatening Cold to Grip Midwestern US This Week as Polar Vortex Plunges South

The coldest weather in years will put millions of people and animals throughout the midwestern United States at risk for frostbite to occur in minutes and hypothermia during the final days of January.

The deep freeze continued across the Upper Midwest on Sunday with temperatures plummeting well below zero in the morning. The low of 45 below zero F [-43°C] in International Falls, Minnesota, shattered the day's record of 36 below zero F [-38°C] from 1966.

As harsh as Sunday morning was, the worst is yet to come as the polar vortex gets displaced from the Arctic Circle and dives into the Midwest in the wake of the disruptive snowstorm starting this week.

https://news.yahoo.com/prolonged-life-threatening-cold-grip-165320957.html

Climate Change Cooks up Ideal Conditions for Snow

Look at all that snow in the Alps; has global warming taken a break? Alas, no, it turns out that the recent record-breaking dumps of snow across much of southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria are more likely a consequence of global warming. Why? Balmy temperatures in the North Sea and Baltic Sea are cooking up the ideal conditions to create snow.
[...]
Global warming enhances the current snowfall … Anomalously high sea surface temperatures in the North Sea and Baltic are loading winds from the north with moisture,” tweeted Stefan Rahmstorf of the University of Potsdam last week.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jan/21/weatherwatch-climate-change-cooks-up-ideal-conditions-snow


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @09:42PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @09:42PM (#793235)

    ... for the rest of us who weren't born yesterday cold and snow in January are quite normal. It is what is supposed to happen. Also, these temperatures are well within the norm. Teens in the upper midwest and rockies? That is dead normal. Temperatures below zero are also quite common this time of year.

    Ottawa, Ontario was affected by the same cold weather system as the midwest and northeastern US.

    To call it "quite normal" in Ottawa is to seriously understate what is happening in the weather over the past week or so. Literally nobody alive today has seen anything in Ottawa comparable to the snowstorm that hit it on Jan 20, 2019, because the last time a similar storm occurred was in the late 19th century on Feb 8, 1895.

    Sure, sometimes Ottawa has really cold winter days and sometimes there are really snowy winter days. But on Jan 20, it was, simultaneously exceptionally cold (with a maximum temperature of -18°C) and exceptionally snowy (between 20-30cm of accumulation). Super cold days do not normally get significant precipitation due to the lack of moisture in the air.

    It was a bit exciting because at -18°C road salt simply does not work, so the mess persisted for about 3 days afterwards at which point the cold went away, promptly being replaced with freezing rain because Ottawa.

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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday January 29 2019, @08:41PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday January 29 2019, @08:41PM (#793727) Journal

    Those temperatures and that snowfall from one storm are the furthest thing from extraordinary or freakish in that region. I lived in Chicago 6 years, which is roughly in the same weather zone, the Great Lakes, as the area you're talking about, and getting down to 0F/-18C is normal. Getting a foot of snow in a storm is a respectable amount, but quite far from OMG IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!! argle bargle grumble rumble...

    What is not normal is for it to be in the 50s (F) in January, which it has been.

    Chicago and most of the Midwest use road salt no matter the cold. In the northern Rockies where we got more snow and it was colder we used sand and gravel.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.