For years now we’ve assumed the dark-sided trade-off of global warming would be the melting of the polar ice caps, in exchange for palm trees in Toronto and New York. But National Geographic is reporting that things are much more complicated than we first assumed. Take, for example, this year’s craptacularly cold and neverending winter in the northern hemisphere, and our current spring which is not exactly filling us with sunshine and tulip blossoms as of yet. National Geographic just published new research which shows that all this melting arctic ice is the culprit behind this year’s horrendous winter weather. “Less Arctic sea ice—which is caused by global warming—alters atmospheric circulation in a way that leads to more snow and ice, said climate scientist Jiping Liu, who led a 2012 study on the topic published by the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences … Wout a substantial ice cover, Arctic wind is less constrained. The jet stream—the belt of cool air that regulates weather around most of the Northern Hemisphere—then dips farther and farther south, bringing cold air from the Arctic closer to the Equator.” You can read the full story by visiting National Geographic.
