Trakar
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With one, comes the other:
Spring in U.S. was warmest ever recorded
By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
June 9th, 2012
Catholic Online (Catholic Online)
Printer Friendly - Catholic Online
And the flip side -
Melting Arctic ice will bring colder winters
Posted on June 7, 2012 - 05:38 by Kate Taylor
Melting Arctic ice will bring colder winters | TG Daily
Spring in U.S. was warmest ever recorded
By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
June 9th, 2012
Catholic Online (Catholic Online)
Printer Friendly - Catholic Online
...Jake Crouch, who prepares the monthly climate reports for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told msnbc.com. "The fact that the U.S. has been in a warm pattern for several months is continuing to be the big story.
"Two things really jump out at me" he says. Temperatures through June 2011 through May 2012 "broke the record for warmest consecutive 12 months, which we just broke last month."
For the first time in the 117 years of record keeping, each of the last 12 months ranked in the top third of the historical distribution...
...For the months of March, April, and May, "all ranked as top-ten warm" -- also the first time that's happened.
Overall, spring averaged 57.1 degrees -- 2 degrees above the previous record set in 1910 and 5.2 degrees above the 1901-2000 average for spring.
Summer, autumn and winter were all above average: 2.4 degrees last summer, 1.3 degrees in fall, and 3.9 degrees in winter...
And the flip side -
Melting Arctic ice will bring colder winters
Posted on June 7, 2012 - 05:38 by Kate Taylor
Melting Arctic ice will bring colder winters | TG Daily
..."Everyone thinks of Arctic climate change as this remote phenomenon that has little effect on our everyday lives," says Charles H Greene of Cornell University. "But what goes on in the Arctic remotely forces our weather patterns here."
As sea ice melts during summer, it exposes darker ocean water to incoming sunlight. This causes increased absorption of solar radiation and greater heating of the ocean in summer further accelerating the ice melt.
The excess heat is released to the atmosphere, especially during the autumn, bringing the temperature and atmospheric pressure in the Arctic and middle latitudes closer together.
This lowering in the pressure gradient weakens the winds associated with the polar vortex and jet stream - and as the polar vortex normally retains cold Arctic air up above the Arctic Circle, its weakening allows it to invade lower latitudes.
"What's happening now is that we are changing the climate system, especially in the Arctic, and that's increasing the odds for the negative AO conditions that favor cold air invasions and severe winter weather outbreaks," says Greene. "It's something to think about, given our recent history."
While this past winter was one of the warmest recorded in the eastern US, there have been record snow storms in the region over the last two years.
"It's a great demonstration of the complexities of our climate system and how they influence our regional weather patterns," says Greene...