Weatherwatch: Boris was right winters are getting colder

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Snow in London
A man walks with his dogs next to Queen's Mere pond in the snow on Wimbledon common in London, England. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, caused a storm last week when he suggested we might be heading into a mini-ice age. For most scientists his reasoning doesn't add up, but Boris did get one thing right: winters are getting colder.

Here in the UK sub zero temperatures and thick snow are becoming regular winter features. The story is repeated in Europe and Asia, with temperatures plummeting as much as 10 degrees below the winter average during extreme cold snaps. Records show that major freezes occurred across Eurasia in February 2012, January 2010, December 2009, January 2008 and January 2006. In each case the cold conditions were widespread, causing disruption, damage to infrastructure and loss of life. Overall the world is warming, so what is going on with winters across Europe and Asia?

Xiangdong Zhang, a climate scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, analysed the weather patterns over the last thirty years and has shown that the extreme winters are associated with a strong Siberian high pressure system, hovering over Eurasia, which sucks cold polar air down to mid latitudes.

In the journal Environmental Research Letters, Zhang and his colleagues explain how Siberian highs have intensified, possibly due to warmer Arctic temperatures and thinner sea ice. Temperature redistribution, and weakening mid-latitude westerlies, help to spin up stronger Siberian winter highs. So it seems colder winters will remain.

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