Arctic weather enfolded swathes of Russia on Tuesday, with temperatures in the wilds of Siberia falling to minus 58 degrees Celsius (minus 72 degrees Fahrenheit).
Honest question, not being catty or anything. Why is this news, exactly? This is a nearly every winter occurrence to get below -50C in Yakutsk, the average winter day is -42C. (It also gets up into the 90s during the summer, Yakutsk is a wild place.)
This would be roughly equivalent to a news article saying Detroit is down to 10F today, i.e. colder than normal, sure, but not really beyond the pale for a December day.
Honestly asking because I’m just wondering if this is the start of the “there can’t be global warming because it’s cold somewhere” coverage for this winter season, or if this is intended to be a fun TIL article for the lucky 10000.
Neither. This is one of the “global warming is messing up the Global Ocean Current Belt, which messes up heat transfer on a global scale, weakening and destabilizing the Polar Vortex, which starts failing to keep arctic air restricted to Canada and instead lets it do its thing down to Texas”.
Higher than normal variability of temperatures, is a side effect of global warming. It may look like “meh, it’s just +2C, who cares”, but when you switch from “-10C to +30C” to some “-18C to +42C”, in the form of heat waves followed by torrential rain followed by heat followed by frostbite, suddenly crops start dying.
Then you can extrapolate to “meh, it’s not likely to go past +5C”.
It’s only 5th December, seems unusually early for -58º. From Wikipedia - Yakutsk, maybe daily min should be about -37º now. I recall crossing Siberia by train in early December, rain in west, fresh snow in east, lakes still water, yet coming back in April you could still walk on Baikal.
Seems odd, but they get extra problem of fires in winter, as fire hoses freeze, can’t extinguish them.
Anyway polar vortex went wobbly recently, so we get alternating cold and warm waves - always look for both sides of regional anomalies.
Honest question, not being catty or anything. Why is this news, exactly? This is a nearly every winter occurrence to get below -50C in Yakutsk, the average winter day is -42C. (It also gets up into the 90s during the summer, Yakutsk is a wild place.)
This would be roughly equivalent to a news article saying Detroit is down to 10F today, i.e. colder than normal, sure, but not really beyond the pale for a December day.
Honestly asking because I’m just wondering if this is the start of the “there can’t be global warming because it’s cold somewhere” coverage for this winter season, or if this is intended to be a fun TIL article for the lucky 10000.
Please stick to one metric system within one post :S
Alas, I have “Americanwhoisfamiliarwithmetricitis.” I’m afraid it’s terminal.
Glad you haven’t come down with “ionlycommunicateinkelvinuenza”, I’ve heard the baseline for recovery is absolute zero
Neither. This is one of the “global warming is messing up the Global Ocean Current Belt, which messes up heat transfer on a global scale, weakening and destabilizing the Polar Vortex, which starts failing to keep arctic air restricted to Canada and instead lets it do its thing down to Texas”.
Higher than normal variability of temperatures, is a side effect of global warming. It may look like “meh, it’s just +2C, who cares”, but when you switch from “-10C to +30C” to some “-18C to +42C”, in the form of heat waves followed by torrential rain followed by heat followed by frostbite, suddenly crops start dying.
Then you can extrapolate to “meh, it’s not likely to go past +5C”.
It’s only 5th December, seems unusually early for -58º. From Wikipedia - Yakutsk, maybe daily min should be about -37º now. I recall crossing Siberia by train in early December, rain in west, fresh snow in east, lakes still water, yet coming back in April you could still walk on Baikal. Seems odd, but they get extra problem of fires in winter, as fire hoses freeze, can’t extinguish them. Anyway polar vortex went wobbly recently, so we get alternating cold and warm waves - always look for both sides of regional anomalies.