Why's it so cold out?

By Edmond Fitzgerald

Over the past week, the Midwest has seen temperatures plummet to the -20’s. The dreaded Polar Vortex has once again made its very unwelcome presence known. This year’s Polar Vortex is the third time this has happened in the past 10 years; the last two occurred in 2013 and 2014. The Polar Vortex now joins the over 8,000 wildfires (including the most deadly wildfire in California history) and 2 major hurricanes that have plagued the US in the last year.

Now, I cannot speak for everyone but I am not a big fan of -20 degree weather, hurricanes, or wildfires. A lot of times when I hear about these events I think it is very easy to pass it off as just some fluke or crazy coincidence. But if we look into what actually happens during a Polar Vortex, we can unfortunately see that this is one of the early impacts of climate change.

The Polar Vortex is a massive zone of low barometric pressure that usually stays in the Arctic and plays a large part in what keeps the Arctic cold. From year to year, the strength of the vortices change, which is completely normal. When the Polar Vortex is strong, it forms a single zone of low pressure that is contained by the jet stream. The jet stream, which is a ring fast-moving air preventing the Vortex from moving south, can also very in temperature and speed. In these years, the cold air stays in its lane, the icebergs stay cold, and everyone is happy.

The problem occurs in years where the Polar Vortex and the jet stream are weak. When this happens, the Polar Vortex is prone to forming multiple weaker vortices and these can become disorganized and get pushed towards the equator by warm air currents. This is what we Midwesterners are all too familiar with: sudden sharp drops in temperature that cancel school and make it nearly impossible to do everyday tasks.

So, if the Polar Vortex always exists and the jet stream always varies in strength, how is this a result of climate change? Well, usually we shouldn’t have to deal with the Polar Vortex escaping the Arctic and making things miserable. Sure it will happen sometimes and that is inevitable, but the frequency it is occurring at now is unnatural. As the world warms, the jet stream which separates us from the cold Arctic air weakens. So with the barrier weakening, and the Polar Vortex weakening too, it becomes far easier for frigid Arctic air to slip down and make life difficult.

Now that we know what the Polar Vortex is and that it is scary and makes things tougher on us, let’s talk about what we can do to stop it. Surprisingly, there are easy things we can do every day that can contribute to saving the Arctic. For starters, anything you can do to save energy will help. That means things like remembering to turn off the lights and appliances, choosing recycling over landfills, and limiting car and air travel. However, there's a lot more to the environment than personal sustainability, and we need to be organizing for clean energy, corporate responsibility, and decreased carbon emissions as well as trying to limit our personal impacts. Educate & organize, folks!

P.S. If you're interested in learning about more ways to be green, Urban Agriculture will be starting a campaign focused on this subject soon!