Guest Post by Kristinn Taylor
The Obama administration released a YouTube video on Wednesday by Obama Science Advisor Dr. John Holdren blaming ‘global warming’ for the recent polar vortex driven outbreak of sub-zero weather in North America.
The two-minute-twelve-second long official White House video opens with a satellite image dated January 7, 2014 of most of the central and eastern United States and Canada covered in clouds and snow (any evocation of the Day After Tomorrow is pure propaganda coincidence) . For the entire length of the video, Holdren speaks over a hypnotic synth-music track while varying graphics promoting global warming appear on the screen with him.
“If you’ve been hearing that extreme cold spells like the one that we’re having in the United States now disproves global warming, don’t believe it. The fact is that no single weather episode can either prove or disprove global climate change. Climate is the pattern of weather that we observe geographically and over the seasons. And it’s described in terms of averages, variations and probabilities.
“But a growing body of evidence suggests that the kind of extreme cold being experienced by much of the United States as we speak is a pattern that we can expect to see with increasing frequency as global warming continues. And the reason is this: In the warming world that we’re experiencing the far north, the Arctic, is warming roughly twice as rapidly as the mid-latitudes, such as the United States. That means that the temperature difference between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes is shrinking. And that temperature difference drives what is called the circumpolar vortex which is the great counter-clockwise swirling mass of cold air that hovers over the Arctic. As the temperature difference between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes declines, the polar vortex weakens and it becomes wavier. The waviness means that there can be increased larger excursions of cold air southward that is in to the mid-latitudes and in the other phase of the wave increased excursions of relatively warmer mid-latitude air in to the far north.
“Computer models tell us that there are many different factors influencing these patterns and as in all science there will be continuing debate about exactly what is happening. But I believe the odds are that we can expect as a result of global warming to see more of this pattern of extreme cold in the mid-latitudes and some extreme warm in the far north.”
(Video transcribed by Kristinn Taylor)