Not living in the Northeast I didn't have to deal with the blizzard after after blizzard the pummeled the region over the last winter. I usually don't pay much attention to weather news stories in other areas of the country unless its something unusual, and the winter in the northeast was so unusual I had to take notice. Now climate researchers at Cal. Tech. have made a breakthrough that explains what's going on to cause the unusual string of big blizzards.
Warm Water Causes Extra-Cold Winters in Northeastern North America and Northeastern Asia
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have now found a mechanism that helps explain these chillier winters -- and the culprit is warm water off the eastern coasts of these continents.
"These warm ocean waters off the eastern coast actually make it cold in winter -- it's counterintuitive," says Tapio Schneider, the Frank J. Gilloon Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering.
Using computer simulations of the atmosphere, the researchers found that the warm water off an eastern coast will heat the air above it and lead to the formation of atmospheric waves, drawing cold air from the northern polar region. The cold air forms a plume just to the west of the warm water. In the case of the Atlantic Ocean, this means the frigid air ends up right over the northeastern United States and eastern Canada
This process also explains why the cold region is just as big for both North America and Asia, despite the continents being so different in topography and size. The Rossby-wave induced cooling depends on heating air over warm ocean water. Since the warm currents along western ocean boundaries in both the Pacific and Atlantic are similar, the resulting cold region to their west would be similar as well.
To the east of the warm region, the air swirls in the counterclockwise direction. These motions draw in cold air from the north, balancing the heating over the warm ocean waters..
I suspected these blizzards were related to global warming. Of course the anti-science Right seized on the blizzards as proof that climate change is a hoax.
Insurance Expert: Blizzards Could Cost Billions in Economic Losses
As the article pointed out these findings seem counter intuitive, so expect the delusional Right to dismiss these new finding out of hand and continue to cling to their simple-minded notions.