A new study challenges a commonly accepted explanation that a "sudden stratospheric warming" caused the unusually cold weather over the U.S. early last year, a view which was widely reported in the media and discussed among scientists at the time.
A new study challenges a commonly accepted explanation that a "sudden stratospheric warming" caused the unusually cold weather over the U.S. early last year, a view which was widely reported in the media and discussed among scientists at the time.
Instead, the research finds that the spike in temperature of the normally frigid air mass locked high above the Arctic on Jan. 5, 2021 — and the accompanying disruption of the polar vortex — did not significantly impact weather in the weeks that followed, including the unprecedented and brutal cold snap that gripped Texas that February.
The research findings are valuable for scientists who are working to extend weather forecasts beyond today’s two-week window and who are increasingly focused on events in the stratosphere as possible sources of longer-term predictability. Sudden stratospheric warmings, for example, occur on average every other year during winter, and in the month that follows, a predictable pattern of weather tends to unfold, including cold air outbreaks in the United States. However, the mechanism that might connect the events is not well understood.
Read more at: National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Life cycle greenhouse gas emissions for each vehicle class and powertrain. Average lifetime emissions account for differences in grid emissions for electricity balancing areas and county-level differences in drive cycle and temperature effect on fuel economy. (Photo credit: From Woody et al. in Environmental Research Letters, 20220
