By now, we all know that a polar vortex is a cyclone of frigid air centered on the Arctic. A rogue sweep of that air moved south and pushed the temperature in Central Park in New York City to a 118-year low of 5 degrees on Tuesday morning; records were similarly broken in scores of other American and Canadian cities; and flights were canceled across North America. Yet winter has barely begun, and, even before the icy cold of this week, it had already treated the eastern United States to snowstorms, southwest Britain to monster waves and northern Europe to unusually nasty weather.
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Weather is changing in ways we cannot easily predict or understand. The polar vortex has had kinks before — most dramatically in March 1921, when temperatures in Central Park plummeted from 82 degrees to 26 degrees in 14 hours — just as there have been catastrophic floods, droughts, heat waves and blizzards all through recorded history. Experts say this week's kink in the polar vortex could be the result of warm air over Greenland and Alaska; some point out that changes to the polar vortex have become more common in recent years. British meteorologists said the brutal storms in Britain since October could be the result of hot Sahara air that got stranded over the North Atlantic.
The point stressed by meteorologists the world over is that severe conditions that used to occur infrequently, say once a century, now happen more frequently, with greater and greater consequences. The threat of climate change is real, and our governments should prepare for the damage and dislocations caused by more extreme weather. Common sense would dictate that we attack all the risk factors that might make things worse next time.
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