The air that usually lays over the North Pole every winter in a circular shape—as the Earth is indeed round unless you are a flat-earther—has elongated toward North America for the last several weeks giving us a taste of how Things Used to Be. Back in the day, 'lo these many blog years ago, like in 2000, or 1994, the year of one of the greatest US ice storms on record. But how's the
climate elsewhere?
In Alaska, extremely unseasonable warm weather has destabilized the snowpack that’s there every year, causing a series of a dozen avalanches that buried roads 40 feet deep and hundreds of feet long last month.
Alaska isn’t alone. Greenland has been about 5°C warmer than normal in January. This year’s snow season has shrunk in the northern hemisphere by about three weeks, leaving the people who plan Winter Olympics grappling with how to adapt. Sao Paolo, Brazil is running out of water as it suffered through its hottest month on record in January. And extreme heat rolling through Australia has not just caused tennis tournaments to suspend outdoor play, but also led to a spike in heat-related deaths in Victoria.