As the curtains close on one of the most erratic winters in memory across North America and Europe, governments and business are left to consider what next year may have in store for them. The ‘Polar Vortex’ (the intensely cold arctic air mass held poleward by the stratospheric jetstream) was named as the culprit for millions of disgruntled Americans as they dealt with record minimum temperatures across the central and eastern parts of the country (see a simple explanation here and the NASA version here). In Chicago alone, NBC news reported school cancellations, electricity shortages, railway service cuts and 515 flight cancellations as a result of the weather.
One fascinating aspect of this weather event, and one that went somewhat un-noted in mainstream media, is its demonstration of connectivity in global climate system. While reports focused on the cold experienced in Canada and the US, little mention was made of one of the warmest ever January’s in Alaska, which faced a constant flow of warm moist southerly air from the Northern Pacific. It was so warm in Alaska during January that the main ski resort in the state Alyeska, which is at 62 degrees Latitude, was forced to close for days because there was no snow at the base of the mountain.
Europe also indirectly copped the brunt of ‘polar vortex’, as the cold arctic air flowed out over the North Western Atlantic combining with an overactive jetstream to supercharge a string of storms directed straight toward Europe. Consequently, inland flooding, ice storms, and the damage to commercial, public and private ocean frontages (see some incredible imagery here) across the European west coast have sparked mass insurance claims and led the British Prime Minister to announce a £10 million assistance package to business’s effected by the weather events.
Echoing these international events, extreme weather continues to make news in Australia. In March 2014 the Climate Council released a report noting that 156 weather records were broken in the 2013-14 summer season.
Climate, the study of averages, patterns and variations across the world, is affected by localised extreme weather events although it’s trends and changeability will never be proven or disproven by singular events. However, in the face of mounting population pressures and the resultant habitation of disaster prone or marginal areas – has the extreme events of the 2013/14 Northern hemisphere winter been a taste of things to come?