Climate change in the Arctic linked to Texas' severe winter weather
By
Lauren Fox, AccuWeather staff writer
Updated Sep 23, 2021 9:36 PM EDT
Experts say impacts from climate change contributed to a stretched polar vortex event, causing the February deep freeze and winter storm in Texas.
The state of Texas battled a devastating deep freeze last winter that resulted in up to $155 billion in damages and economic loss, according to AccuWeather estimates, and a new study published in the journal Science reveals connections between the weather disaster that occurred in Texas last year and climate change in the Arctic.
The study, which was published in early September, revealed a connection between Arctic temperatures and the Valentine's Week Freeze that inundated Texas this past February. The severe winter weather led to at least 210 fatalities, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
"Clearly an extreme event like this is very unusual in a place like Texas, so it is hard for many people and policymakers to react and take the threat seriously," AccuWeather Meteorologist Brett Anderson said. "The biggest dangers people faced were a lack of heat in homes that had no backup power or heat sources."
Many homes in Texas are not properly insulated to handle the level of extreme cold that gripped Texas that week back in February. Homes were flooded when pipes burst due to the extreme cold, and some residents even had icicles form in their homes and apartment buildings, including one from Dallas, Texas, who shared a photo to social media of icicles hanging from a ceiling fan on Feb. 15.
At the worst of the historic cold snap, the temperature at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport bottomed out at 2 degrees below zero in the early-morning hours on Feb. 16 as Arctic air from the polar vortex rushed into the region.
The polar vortex is a band of strong westerly winds that sits about 10-30 miles above the North Pole and traps extremely cold air. Rising temperatures in the Arctic can cause an area of strong high pressure to develop in the atmosphere surrounding the North Pole, which can "push" the polar vortex farther south, into places like North America or Europe and Asia, Anderson explained.
"Think of the strengthening high-pressure area over the polar region as an expanding balloon and a pocket of air outside the balloon as the polar vortex," Anderson said. "As the balloon fills up with air the pocket of air outside of the balloon -- the polar vortex -- gets pushed farther away, and, in this case, it is being pushed farther south into the mid-latitudes."
Judah Cohen, the lead author of the study, told AccuWeather in an interview that the research revealed that the severe weather in Texas was due to what the scientists described as a stretched polar vortex event.
Cohen explained that sometimes stretched polar vortex events can make the polar vortex appear to be the shape of a dumbbell, with one spot of energy focused in North America and another in Asia.
While the February cold snap in Texas was a memorable one, Cohen said there are many modern-day examples of stretched polar vortex events in recent memory, and that at least one event happens practically every year, although not every event reaches the caliber that the one in Texas did.
Vehicles maneuver along a snow-covered Fuller-Wiser Street in Euless, Texas, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Ainsworth)
“The poster child for these types of events is the winter of 2013-14," Cohen said. “It happened repeatedly that winter. It really led to the extreme cold, especially in the Great Lakes.”
The study published in Science also provided some more insight into these polar vortex events that may leave some reason for concern because they are becoming more and more frequent. According to Cohen, the paper shows that the frequency of these events has nearly doubled since the 1980s.
"I believe there will continue to be an increasing trend in extreme events as the planet continues to warm," Anderson said. "That does not mean every year will be worse. There will be periods of more normal weather," he added, pointing out that some years will bring fewer extremes. "But the long-term trend is very likely to continue to rise."
City of Richardson worker Kaleb Love works to clear ice from a water fountain Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Richardson, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
According to Anderson, policymakers will need to get on board with climate change legislation and infrastructure, which he said, in many cases, are very outdated and need to be upgraded in order to properly prepare for more incidents like the one in Texas.
The study goes against many people's assumptions of what climate change is, Cohen explained, as it is typically associated with warm weather.
“Climate change can lead to more heat waves, more flooding events, more drought, wildfires in the West," Cohen said. "A lot of extreme weather events that we’re seeing this summer."
Pointing out what may be proving to be a misconception about climate change, Cohen said, “The assumption was that climate change can lead to milder winters, less snowfall -- it intuitively makes sense. So our study comes to this counterintuitive conclusion," Cohen continued. "This Arctic change can lead to more extreme winter weather events, like the Texas cold wave.”
For the latest weather news check back on AccuWeather.com. Watch AccuWeather Network on DIRECTV, DIRECTVstream, Frontier, Spectrum, fuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios. AccuWeatherNOW is streaming on Roku and XUMO.
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News / Climate
Climate change in the Arctic linked to Texas' severe winter weather
By Lauren Fox, AccuWeather staff writer
Updated Sep 23, 2021 9:36 PM EDT
Experts say impacts from climate change contributed to a stretched polar vortex event, causing the February deep freeze and winter storm in Texas.
The state of Texas battled a devastating deep freeze last winter that resulted in up to $155 billion in damages and economic loss, according to AccuWeather estimates, and a new study published in the journal Science reveals connections between the weather disaster that occurred in Texas last year and climate change in the Arctic.
The study, which was published in early September, revealed a connection between Arctic temperatures and the Valentine's Week Freeze that inundated Texas this past February. The severe winter weather led to at least 210 fatalities, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
"Clearly an extreme event like this is very unusual in a place like Texas, so it is hard for many people and policymakers to react and take the threat seriously," AccuWeather Meteorologist Brett Anderson said. "The biggest dangers people faced were a lack of heat in homes that had no backup power or heat sources."
Many homes in Texas are not properly insulated to handle the level of extreme cold that gripped Texas that week back in February. Homes were flooded when pipes burst due to the extreme cold, and some residents even had icicles form in their homes and apartment buildings, including one from Dallas, Texas, who shared a photo to social media of icicles hanging from a ceiling fan on Feb. 15.
At the worst of the historic cold snap, the temperature at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport bottomed out at 2 degrees below zero in the early-morning hours on Feb. 16 as Arctic air from the polar vortex rushed into the region.
The polar vortex is a band of strong westerly winds that sits about 10-30 miles above the North Pole and traps extremely cold air. Rising temperatures in the Arctic can cause an area of strong high pressure to develop in the atmosphere surrounding the North Pole, which can "push" the polar vortex farther south, into places like North America or Europe and Asia, Anderson explained.
"Think of the strengthening high-pressure area over the polar region as an expanding balloon and a pocket of air outside the balloon as the polar vortex," Anderson said. "As the balloon fills up with air the pocket of air outside of the balloon -- the polar vortex -- gets pushed farther away, and, in this case, it is being pushed farther south into the mid-latitudes."
Judah Cohen, the lead author of the study, told AccuWeather in an interview that the research revealed that the severe weather in Texas was due to what the scientists described as a stretched polar vortex event.
Cohen explained that sometimes stretched polar vortex events can make the polar vortex appear to be the shape of a dumbbell, with one spot of energy focused in North America and another in Asia.
While the February cold snap in Texas was a memorable one, Cohen said there are many modern-day examples of stretched polar vortex events in recent memory, and that at least one event happens practically every year, although not every event reaches the caliber that the one in Texas did.
Vehicles maneuver along a snow-covered Fuller-Wiser Street in Euless, Texas, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Ainsworth)
“The poster child for these types of events is the winter of 2013-14," Cohen said. “It happened repeatedly that winter. It really led to the extreme cold, especially in the Great Lakes.”
The study published in Science also provided some more insight into these polar vortex events that may leave some reason for concern because they are becoming more and more frequent. According to Cohen, the paper shows that the frequency of these events has nearly doubled since the 1980s.
"I believe there will continue to be an increasing trend in extreme events as the planet continues to warm," Anderson said. "That does not mean every year will be worse. There will be periods of more normal weather," he added, pointing out that some years will bring fewer extremes. "But the long-term trend is very likely to continue to rise."
City of Richardson worker Kaleb Love works to clear ice from a water fountain Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Richardson, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
According to Anderson, policymakers will need to get on board with climate change legislation and infrastructure, which he said, in many cases, are very outdated and need to be upgraded in order to properly prepare for more incidents like the one in Texas.
The study goes against many people's assumptions of what climate change is, Cohen explained, as it is typically associated with warm weather.
“Climate change can lead to more heat waves, more flooding events, more drought, wildfires in the West," Cohen said. "A lot of extreme weather events that we’re seeing this summer."
Pointing out what may be proving to be a misconception about climate change, Cohen said, “The assumption was that climate change can lead to milder winters, less snowfall -- it intuitively makes sense. So our study comes to this counterintuitive conclusion," Cohen continued. "This Arctic change can lead to more extreme winter weather events, like the Texas cold wave.”
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For the latest weather news check back on AccuWeather.com. Watch AccuWeather Network on DIRECTV, DIRECTVstream, Frontier, Spectrum, fuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios. AccuWeatherNOW is streaming on Roku and XUMO.
Report a Typo