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Global Warming: Mother Nature's cold shoulder?

By Lydie-Claire Brown
On January 31, 2014

By this point, I'm sure you're all tired of hearing and saying, "SacrÃ© moo, it's cold!" Welcome to the world of the Polar Vortex. However, the next person to say to me, "Where's global warming NOW, huh??" gets a punch in the face. You are the reason we can't have a nice planet.

Most environmental scientists refer to it as global climate change, NOT global warming. In addition to seeing hotter summers, we can also expect to see colder winters. Our highs and lows will be getting more extreme. A VERY limited version of the problem is the world is simply losing insulation. Just as the insulation of your house keeps you cool in the summer and warm in the winter, so the atmosphere protect the Earth.

Here's the problem with climate change issues in the media: no one seems to scientifically discuss the problem. When doing research for this piece, one of the top stories was how real estate website Trulia had noticed an intake in searches for warm-weather properties. It's -15 in New York? Time to look for homes in Miami! How fascinating and not at all helpful, THANKS GOOGLE. 

Or, like Fox News has pointed out, we should always question the moral fiber of environmental scientists before believing their findings. They might be making up their results for money! I think Heisenberg did the same thing. Step 1: examine particles. Step 2: propose law of uncertainty. Step 3: profit.

Sorry to burst your bubble, climate change deniers, but you're fighting a losing battle. You're out on a sheet of melting ice along with the polar bears. The Polar Vortex is a real, regularly occurring atmospheric phenomenon, documented since the 1860s. In layman's terms: large pockets of frigid air develop in the Arctic when a lack of cloud cover lets heat escape into space. The air hangs out in the upper atmosphere, hemmed in by strong west-to-east jet winds.

Sometimes though, the jet winds are simply not strong enough to keep the bubble of frigidity in its normal spot, and it moves south like Sherman's army, leaving sadness and shivering in its wake. North America and Europe are hit with icy blasts worthy of Elsa of Arendelle, while Alaska, Siberia, and stretches of northern Asia are practically balmy with temperatures in the 50s. It's colder in Nashville, Tennessee than in Nome, Alaska. And that's where Balto is set!

The jet winds behaving erratically, moving cold air to the south, are just a symptom of the condition. Unfortunately, they're a symptom that's taking up all of our attention: Arctic scientists are currently finding Polytrichum mosses thawed for the first time in 44,000 years. If that's not enough proof about green house gasses and changing climates, then I have some great property in Kansas that will soon be oceanfront. So please, do us and the polar bears all a favor: stop complaining how it's so cold, doesn't Mother Nature know it's the South here, and the store ran out of bread. The cold descending where it doesn't belong is a symptom of our continued irresponsibility towards atmospheric preservation. Sometimes just desserts can be icy.


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