Pirate's Cove

We can solve this with a tax, you know. And remembering that this is what is known as “winter”

Expect more ‘bomb cyclones’, courtesy climate change

A severe winter storm or ‘bomb cyclone’ has seized large parts of the United States and Canada, enveloping them in snow and rain. Several video clips out of affected areas seem straight out of apocalyptic movies. Such events may become more common with global warming not being abated any time soon.

The bomb cyclone is a mid-latitude storm fuelled by the interaction of cold Arctic air and warm air over subtropical regions. The storm named Elliot has taken the lives of more than 30 people and affected around 250 million people across the US and Canada.

Elliot has caused record levels of snowfall, rainfall and winds in many regions, all across the United States, right from the border with Canada up to the border with Mexico, an expanse of more than 3,000 kilometres.

Heck, at this time it’s still snowing in the Buffalo and Watertown, NY areas.

The rapid intensification was caused by the interaction of the low-pressure system with the cold air from the Arctic. An undulating polar jet stream across the Arctic region brought the cold air so far south.

The undulation of the polar jet stream — a swift swirling band of winds that encircles the Earth — usually happens during winter months. The formation of a bomb cyclone is rather rare. But it happened in 2019 as well.

The Arctic region warms much faster than the rest of the world. This happens due to a positive feedback climate mechanism called the albedo effect, as ice is reflective and returns a large part of the sun’s rays back to the atmosphere.(snip)

As the Earth warms further due to human-emitted greenhouse gases, such events could become much more frequent in the near future — one of the many impacts of climate change.

So, extreme winter weather is created by *checks notes* heat trapping gases? Good grief.