Here in Minnesota, until today it’s been a comfortable and warm fall. But apparently all that heat’s going to head north and displace a lot of cold, cold air, according to NewScientist (26 November 2016):
SOMETHING is rotten in the state of the Arctic. Temperatures there have been an extraordinary 20 °C higher than the norm at this time of year.
For a few days, the sea ice began melting at a time when it should have been forming fast. And even before this melt, the ocean had been freezing over so slowly that the seasonal extent of sea ice over the past month was already the lowest ever recorded at this time of the year.
These unprecedented events are the result of unusual weather. Cold air from the Arctic has spilled south as far as Beijing, resulting in unusually cold weather across large parts of Asia, while warm air has flowed north to replace it. Climate change may be increasing the likelihood of this kind of event, by weakening the fast winds that circle the Arctic and keep the cold air locked in.
They end by noting a meteorologist commenting that this may indicate “all bets are off”. Earlier today I noted a report on the next few weeks weather being colder than usual, so this may be taken as a bit of confirmation. Right now we lack the required snow cover for the perennials to survive the winter, to cushion them from the occasional crossing over the freezing mark. Will we get that? We have been fortunate in getting some precipitation during this unusually warm start to the winter, as a former farmer has pointed out to me – rather than running off in the spring, as it might normally do, it’s soaking into the ground and, hopefully, reaching the aquifers.
Although I wonder if that’ll have an impact downstream (that is, down the Mississippi River), or if the precipitation amount doesn’t really matter that much.
