Scientist: Cold Winter in US Caused by Global Warming

In a seemingly contradictory statement, a Utah State University study has linked global warming to the unusually cold winter that the United States has just gone through.

Simon Wang, Assistant Director at the Utah Climate Center, was the main author of the study. He made several connections between climate change and, some have stated, "volatile" weather that has gone on over the last year.

One is the increase in drought over large portions of the United States. “We are always going after extreme events — meaning the cause of it and the impact of it, and more importantly, how we can predict them,” Wang said on the topic, describing why he pursued this line of research.

“With this California drought, nobody saw it coming, so we only knew there was drought in California after it has happened. How can we overcome this? How can we find a clue to foresee its occurrence — that’s really the motivation." Wang would go on to blame cold water on the Californian drought; the cold water, seemingly paradoxically, was caused by global warming.

Further, the study states that the recent cold weather that overtook much of the United States was caused by global warming. Wang connected the oft cited "polar vortex" as the reason the United States had such chilly season; the polar vortex, the study stated, was a result of a warming earth.

The freezing vortex came about because of warm weather, Wang stated. High pressure from climate change caused this vortex to move further south than it normally does, forcing it over the United States, and thus resulting in a harsh winter.

[caption id="attachment_26005" align="alignnone" width="640"] Dr. Wang[/caption]

"This extreme event is not really random and is potentially traceable/predictable, and the pathway from which human-induced warming affects individual climate extreme events (is) complex but identifiable," Wang added.

Dr. Wang is also looking at ways that humans can preserve resources like water by predicting the weather in the future.