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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: 3, Interesting) by evilviper on Sunday May 25 2014, @10:11AM

    by evilviper (1760) on Sunday May 25 2014, @10:11AM (#47280) Homepage Journal

    The winter of 2014 was cold in the U.S., of that there was no doubt.

    Actually, the winter of 2014 was the mildest I can ever remember. There was a week here, and a week there, where it got cold, but then it'd warm up instead of staying cold. My gas bill still showed a rise verses the rest of the year, but only because of hot-water heating, as my heater barely ever came on. In fact I kept shutting off the pilot light because it was getting too warm in my house. Admittedly, I've got a couple big south facing windows, which keeps me naturally warmer than most, but the winter of 2014 was very warm, of that there was no doubt.

    I hear it sucked to be in the mid-west, but California was great, and I heard Florida was completely unscathed, too.

    --
    Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
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