PLEA Network

11 January 2018, Arctic cause of loopier cold weather? A QUICK SUMMARY: The Science Linking Arctic Warming to This Crazy-Cold Winter: It’s well known that the rapidly warming Arctic is melting sea ice, thawing permafrost, and accelerating sea-level rise. But a growing body of research suggests, counter intuitively, that it could also be amplifying cold snaps, much like the brutal one now freezing the East Coast. ANOTHER VIEW: US cold snap was a freak of nature, quick analysis finds. The cold snap that gripped the East Coast and Midwest region was a rarity that bucks the warming trend, said researcher Claudia Tebaldi of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the private organization Climate Central.