What’s Up With This Big Freeze? Some Scientists See Climate Change Link

If the planet is getting warmer, why is it so cold this winter? The seeming contradiction comes up often when talking to Judah Cohen, a research scientist at M.I.T. who has been studying how global warming might also be causing colder winters in the eastern United States. The idea, explained Dr. Cohen, is that a warming Arctic can cause a high-altitude ribbon of air called the polar vortex to stretch and wobble. That wobble can affect the flow of the jet stream that controls much of the atmospheric conditions over the United States, causing waves of high and low pressure that affect our daily weather. For weeks, a mass of frigid air over the North Pole has dipped into eastern North America, bringing record cold temperatures for a prolonged period. In the West, a ridge of warm, dry air has stalled for weeks, panicking and prompting concerns for communities that rely on a healthy in the summer months. The polar vortex stretched and wobbled in February 2021, causing a prolonged deep freeze that killed 248 people in Texas and knocked out power for millions. The same wobble reappeared in the winter of 2024-2025 and again last month, causing blizzard conditions across the East and an icy blast. Dr. Cohen expects the grip of cold temperatures to continue throughout February. Its weird whats going on now in the stratosphere, Dr. Cohen said. These stretching events happen every winter, but just how the pattern is stuck is really remarkable. Climate warming in the Arctic is causing this disruption of the polar vortex, Dr. Cohen said. With more snowfall in Siberia and melting sea ice in the Barents and Kara seas, just north of Norway and Russia, the ocean is feeding more heat into the atmosphere, setting up a weather pattern that leads to a burst of extreme cold in North America. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and your Times account, or for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? . Want all of The Times? .