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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
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday May 25 2014, @07:07PM
Here in SW BC it was another warm dry winter, many days without rain and only a couple of inches of snow here where normal is more like a foot or 2 of snow. Cold wet spring with more snow in March then all winter. This has been the pattern for the last 4 years and if it follows the late summer will be hot and dry again. :)
Thing is there has always been cycles and its hard to judge if it is just another warm cycle or more extreme due to climate change and I don't have the skills or data to judge what is normal.
Now to stare at the rain