Winter of 2020 became the warmest in the history of observations: what will happen to the planet - ForumDaily
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Winter 2020 became the warmest in the history of observations: what will happen to the planet

At the end of February, scientists summed up the results of the calendar winter. It broke several temperature records at once, becoming the warmest not only in certain regions of the world, but also in the entire Northern Hemisphere and on the planet as a whole - in the entire history of observations, since 1880. Writes about this with the BBC.

Photo: Shutterstock

Moreover, a particularly warm winter stood out in Russia.

If the whole of Europe was warmer from December to February approx. 3 ° C compared with the average for 1910-2000, then in MoscowIn Petersburg and even in Novosibirsk The weather has outpaced average monthly temperatures by more than seven degrees - even compared to the relatively recent years 1981-2010.

For comparison: in London this winter the excess of average temperatures was just under 2°C, in New York and Vladivostok - about 3°C, in Montreal - almost 4°C.

A month ago, the Russian Hydrometeorological Center warned: “Temperature norms in January deviate by 4-12 degrees Celsius or more. In the Central Federal District, the average temperature in January 2020 reached its absolute maximum.”

In February, the weather anomaly not only did not improve, but also deviated from the norm even more. A new absolute winter heat record was even set in the Russian capital: on February 19, the thermometer rose to + 4,7 ° C.

The reason?

Contrary to the obvious explanation, the issue is not global warming - at least not directly.

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Average temperatures on the planet are indeed rising, but not nearly as fast. Over the past 20 years, the planet has warmed by about 1,14°C - compared to the average of the last century.

The main reason for the current weather anomaly is not only in Russia, but also in Europe and the USA - something else.

Typically, frosty weather in the Northern Hemisphere brings cold air from the Arctic, breaking into low latitudes along with cyclones and anticyclones. However, back in December 2019, a vast area of ​​low pressure developed around the pole, which locked the cold in the north, preventing the Arctic air masses from breaking to the south.

In January 2020, this state of affairs only consolidated, and as a result, almost the entire winter, the winds walked in a circle in the very north of the planet, almost not reaching the inhabited areas of the mainland.

“This map clearly shows the circumpolar movement, that is, the general movement around the pole that prevents cold outbreaks,” explains Svetlana Morozova, associate professor of the Department of Meteorology and Climatology at SSU.

“Very often, cold winters in the European part of Russia are explained by the influence of the western periphery of the winter Asian anticyclone. But it also forms very frosty weather only if it is replenished with Arctic air, that is, with the same breakthroughs,” adds her colleague Serafima Lapina.

In the absence of additional supplies of cold air from the Arctic, winters are usually quite warm, meteorologists explain. Just this year, the zonal circulation was incredibly stable and lasted almost the entire season.

Why did this happen and has it happened before?

There are so many possible reasons that not a single meteorologist can say anything for sure—at least for now. According to the head of the department of meteorology and climatology at TSU Valentina Gorbatenko, you will have to wait at least a year until the cycle ends and it can be analyzed.

But in general, deviations from the long-term norm - even such strong ones - are normal, the professor believes. There is no need to view them as something completely unprecedented and panic over an excessively warm winter.

In 2019, for example, the situation was exactly the opposite. January turned out to be abnormally cold precisely because of rupture of the polar vortex, one end of which was carried away to the eastern part of Siberia, and the other towards the United States. The frosts were such that several states at once declared a state of emergency.

And there could be a lot of reasons for this, since the earth’s atmosphere “is such a big pot where the weather is cooked, and there are so many factors in it that it is simply impossible to take them all into account.”

“Say, ice melts in the Arctic - the salinity of the water, its density, and circulation change. And as a result, some microcirculatory disturbances occur - not only in the atmosphere, but also in the ocean, and not all of them are visible. That is, there is a redistribution of long-term, centuries-old centers of atmospheric action,” explains Professor Gorbatenko.

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It is also impossible to predict such changes, she says, as well as to draw conclusions based on them about what the rest of the year will be like: as warm or, conversely, colder than usual.

Any forecasts are generally always built on a retrospective: in the past, analogues, similar situations are sought, and conclusions are drawn based on them. Scientists have never fixed such a sequence of processes as this year. So, even if we put all the data known and unknown to us in the most powerful computer, it will not find any analogues.

But this, according to the professor, does not mean anything.

“Yes, in the entire history of instrumental observations and in our memory this has never happened. But this only means that this has not happened over the last approximately 140 years. We no longer know what happened, say, 160 years ago. But climate cycles last for tens of thousands of years,” she reminds.

“Human life is too short, and each of us has some special years in our memories that we remember: “Oh, I’ve never seen such weather!” But that doesn't mean anything. Maybe this will happen again in 60 or 100 years - or maybe next year. But it won’t mean anything in the same way,” the professor concludes.

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