Warming Arctic Could Lead to Fewer Extremely Cold Winters: Study

Arctic warming is associated with fewer extreme winters in the U.S. and Europe, a new study suggests.

January 2014 saw temperatures in the U.S fall several notches, with Minnesota recording -37°C and even Sunshine State Florida freezing on some days. Climate scientists had attributed this drop in winter temperatures to the Arctic amplification phenomenon.

Arctic has gotten warmer than any other place on Earth. Researchers had believed that jet stream over the Northern Hemisphere has weakened due to warm climate at Arctic. A jet stream is a narrow ribbon of air that meanders throughout the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere. This river of air is driven by difference in temperature between the Arctic and the tropics and it affects temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere. Changes in air current had led to speculation that several regions in the North would experience severe winters in the future.

Now, Dr James Screen at the University of Exeter said that the warming Arctic is associated with fewer cold weather extremes in the Northern Hemisphere. He also said that climate change will make winters in Europe and U.S mild, according to a news release.

For the research, Screen analyzed data from the last few decades. He found that the variation in winter temperatures had reduced in mid-to-high latitude Northern Hemisphere in recent decades.

"Autumn and winter days are becoming warmer on an average, and less variable from day to day," Screen said, according to Planet Earth Online. 'Both factors reduce the chance of extremely cold days.'

"Cold days tend to occur when the wind is blowing from the north, bringing Arctic air south into the mid-latitudes. Because the Arctic air is warming so rapidly these cold days are now less cold than they were in the past," Screen added.

According to Screen's mathematical climate modelling, we might not see much variability in temperatures during winter in the future.

The study is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The study doesn't explain how the change in climate will affect other parts of the world.