No Evidence That Cold Extremes Are Becoming Less Frequent
/The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), whose assessment reports are the voice of authority for climate science, errs badly in its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) by claiming that cold weather extremes have become less frequent and severe. While that may be expected in a warming world, observational evidence shows that in fact, cold extremes are on the rise and may actually have become more severe.
Cold extremes include abnormally low temperatures, prolonged cold spells, unusually heavy snowfalls and longer winter seasons. That cold extremes are indeed increasing has been chronicled in detail by environmental scientist Madhav Khandekar in several recent research papers (here, here and here). While the emphasis of Khandekar’s publications has been on harsh winters in North America, he has catalogued cold extremes in South America, Europe and Asia as well.
The figure below shows the locations of 4,145 daily low-temperature records broken or tied in the northeastern U.S. during the ice-cold February of 2015; that year tied with 1904 for the coldest January to March period in the northeast, in records extending back to 1895. Of the 4,145 records, 3,573 were new record lows and the other 572 tied previous records.
Examples of cold extremes in recent years abound (see here and here). During the 2020 southern winter and northern summer, the Australian island state of Tasmania recorded its most frigid winter minimum ever, exceeding the previous low of −13.0 degrees Celsius (8.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit); Norway endured its chilliest July in 50 years; neighboring Sweden shivered through its coldest summer since 1962; and Russia was also bone-chilling cold.
In the northern autumn of 2020, bitterly cold temperatures afflicted many communities in the U.S. and Canada. The northern U.S state of Minnesota experienced its largest early-season snowstorm in recorded history, going back about 140 years. And in late December, the subfreezing polar vortex began to expand out of the Arctic.
Earlier in 2020, massive snowstorms covered much of Patagonia in more than 150 cm (60 inches) of snow, and buried alive at least 100,000 sheep and 5,000 cattle. Snowfalls not seen for decades occurred in other parts of South America, and in South Africa, southeastern Australia and New Zealand.
A 2021 example of a cold extreme was the North American cold wave in February, which brought record-breaking subfreezing temperatures to much of the central U.S., as well as Canada and northern Mexico. Texas experienced its coldest February in 43 years; the frigid conditions lasted several days and resulted in widespread power outages and damage to infrastructure. Curiously, the Texan deep freeze was ascribed to global warming by a team of climate scientists, who linked it to stretching of the Arctic polar vortex.
Other exceptional cold extremes in 2021 included the lowest average UK minimum temperature for April since 1922; record low temperatures in both Switzerland and Slovenia the same month; the coldest winter on record at the South Pole; and an all-time high April snowfall in Belgrade, in record books dating back to 1888.
In 2022, Australia and South America saw some of their coldest weather in a century. In May, Australia experienced the heaviest early-season mountain snow in more than 50 years. In June, Brisbane in normally temperate Queensland had its coldest start to winter since 1904. And in December, the state of Victoria set its coldest summer temperature record ever.
South America also suffered icy conditions in 2022, after an historically cold winter in 2021 which decimated crops. The same Antarctic cold front that froze Australia in May brought bone-numbing cold to northern Argentina, Paraguay and southern Brazil; Brazil’s capital Brasilia logged its lowest temperature in recorded history.
In December 2022, the U.S. set 126 monthly low-temperature records, while century-old low-temperature records tumbled in neighboring Canada. This followed all-time record-breaking snow in Japan, extra-heavy snow in the Himalayas which thwarted mountain climbers there, and heavy snow across China and South Korea.
Clearly, cold extremes are not going away or becoming less severe. And frequent statements by the mainstream media linking cold extremes to global warming are absurd, although such statements may fit the popular belief that global warming causes weather extremes in general. As I have explained in numerous blog posts and reports, this belief is mistaken and there is no evidence that weather extremes are worsening because of climate change.
Extreme weather conditions are produced by natural patterns in the climate system, not global warming. Khandekar links cold extremes to the North Atlantic and Pacific Decadal Oscillations, and possibly to solar activity.
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