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posted by martyb on Sunday May 25 2014, @02:30AM   Printer-friendly

Tim Palmer, a climate scientist and professor at the University of Oxford in the U.K., has published a somewhat controversial Perspective piece in the journal Science. In it, he theorizes that heavy thunderstorms in the western tropical Pacific (due to global warming) this past winter caused changes to the flow pattern of the jet stream, which resulted in the "polar vortex" that chilled the northern part of North America for the first four months of 2014. The winter of 2014 was cold in the U.S., of that there was no doubt. Subzero temperatures became the norm and heating bills skyrocketed. At the time, very few who experienced it were blaming it on global warming, but that may very well have been the cause anyway, Palmer suggests--despite the fact that global temperatures haven't been rising lately.

The abstract (and link to paywalled journal article) can be found at: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6186/803

 
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by tathra on Sunday May 25 2014, @09:07AM

    by tathra (3367) on Sunday May 25 2014, @09:07AM (#47272)

    yup, "polar vortex" is a legitimate planetary phenomenon. the hexagonal polar storms at venus and saturnm, one of which has two centers/eyes; i'm not sure that there are many planets within our own solar system that dont have polar vortexes. in their natural states though, they stay basically confined to the polar regions.

    as as strange and contradictory as it sounds, global warming could cause an ice age. yes, you heard that right. if the melting glaciers from greenland and antarctica deposit too much warm, fresh water too fast into the pacific ocean, it could shut off thermohaline circulation [wikipedia.org], which is what is directly responsible for the temperate tempuratures of europe. without those ocean conveyors bringing warm water north, europe and other northern areas will freeze.

    this is established science fact. iirc, the last time thermohaline circulation got disrupted was when central america came into being, which was directly responsible for the ice age in which we've been for the past ~2-3 million years.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 25 2014, @10:50AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 25 2014, @10:50AM (#47287)

    the last time thermohaline circulation got disrupted was when central america came into being, which was directly responsible for the ice age in which we've been for the past ~2-3 million years.

    Well, I knew America had been responsible for many of the world's woes for some time, but didn't realise it was quite that long!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 25 2014, @03:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 25 2014, @03:46PM (#47320)

    Ice ages occur in cycles according to the Milankovitch cycles. We are scheduled to enter into another ice age sometime within the next thousand years or so. It has to do with how the position of the earth and average distance from the sun changes throughout the cycle. Go look it up.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by dry on Sunday May 25 2014, @06:54PM

      by dry (223) on Sunday May 25 2014, @06:54PM (#47341) Journal

      The configuration of the continents is a major driver of climate on geological time scales. As the above poster mentions, the closing of the isthmus of Panama majorly changed ocean currents, same with when S. America and Antarctica separated allowing the Southern Oceans currents to circle the Earth along with the accompanying winds which isolated Antarctica.
      Besides ocean currents, continents can be in configurations that encourage or discourage rainfall with rainfall causing weathering which removes CO2 from the atmosphere and turns it into limestone. Even the depth of the oceans varies over geological time scales which I'd guess could also have a large influence on climate.
      Long term climate is complex with orbital forcing being only a part of it. The thing that all these climate forcers have in common is gradual change. Continents move a couple of inches a year and orbits change gradually.