As captioned in the Boston Globe: Reuters photo. Frozen breath formed ice around the face of a Minneapolis resident on Wednesday.
2013 will probably rank as one of the top 10 hottest years in human history, and 2014 is on track to join 2013.
You wouldn’t know that from the denialists and those in thrall to them, who claim freak snow storms and historic cold show warming has stopped — though the snow and cold are caused by a breakdown in the jetstream and a slipping of the polar vortex, probably caused by global warming.
A two-minute explanation, from White House Science Advisor John Holdren:
White House description:
Published on Jan 8, 2014
President Obama’s Science and Technology Advisor, Dr. John Holdren, explains the polar vortex in 2 minutes—and why climate change makes extreme weather more likely going forward. Learn more at http://wh.gov/climate-change. January 8, 2014.
More:
- Boston Globe editorial, “Polar vortex: America in Deep Freeze”
- Bloomberg News, The Grid: “Why is it so cold? The polar vortex explained”
- Eli Rabbett points out a point the denialists keep missing on record cold temperatures — were there no warming, the record lows should be closer in number to the record highs. But not so.
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 