Wisconsin: A moody climate getting moodier
I've lived in Madison, Wisconsin my entire life. So, I'm pretty familiar with the moody climate and dramatic temperature swings. One week the humidity could choke you, the next you're trudging through half a foot of snow to get to your car. But it feels like the past five years or so, the weather has become even more bizarre and unpredictable. Summer stretches farther into the fall and winter drags on long into the spring. I remember growing up it wasn't uncommon to wake up to a few feet of snow over thanksgiving break, but now the snow may not appear until new years. And once winter or summer climates do settle in, they hit us twice as hard.
The extreme stretch of unprecedented weather I remember the most vividly is the polar vortex. If you weren't here in 2019, it involved record breaking low temps that lasted for record breaking days. These temps were accompanied by severe weather advisories telling us not to be outside longer than 15 minutes without cold weather gear or it would likely result in frost bite. Lucky me, I had a horse to feed and had to go out every night in the polar vortex trussed up like a marshmallow. I'd have to breath on the pasture gates lock to unfreeze it and then if I was silly enough to close the gate behind me, I'd have to breath on it again to get out. I remember bringing my horses feed in a plastic container. I dropped the container and it shattered like glass, because of how cold it had gotten during the short walk from the car.
While its not yet confirmed that this extreme weather event was a result of climate change, it is a popular hypothesis. The polar vortex is a collection of winds in the stratosphere above the north pole. Its always there and when its stable it keeps the stream of polar air north. But when its disrupted, the path of the polar air becomes wavy and may dip into more mid-latitude regions. There's been some evidence to show that the polar vortex becoming disrupted and wavy may be linked to a loss of sea ice.
I've really enjoyed this class and learning about these Midwest specific issues. While its not necessarily Midwest specific, I think the most helpful idea I've learned is to be more aware of where my water comes from. Everything we learned about in week 3, made me think about why its important to know where my water comes from and the problems that could be associated with it.
Sources:
- https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/understanding-arctic-polar-vortex
- https://www.weather.gov/arx/jan3019
- https://news.wisc.edu/the-winter-blues/
I really enjoyed learning more about the Madison weather from your article especially since you are a native. I remember the polar vortex as it was horrific. However, it is a result of climate change. I think people often assume climate change to simply just be global warming when it is much more than that as your article showed. How do you think we can educate people on this idea? Also, I loved week 3 as well and talked about that as a takeaway from this course as well. How do you think you will make changes going forward containing this new knowledge now?
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
ReplyDeleteIt is nice to see a side of climate change that isn't focused on increasing temperatures. I know that a lot of people whom I held conversations with in regards to climate change think that the term is synonymous with global warming, it is not. I also remember the polar vortex, although I was still living in Oshkosh at the time. It was so cold in Oshkosh that my car engine froze (in all fairness, I had a very terrible first car). One of my favorite lessons in this class was the lecture about climatic changes that may seem insignificant, but are a root cause of major events. This was also mentioned in your post-- that the polar vortex was likely due to a shift in the jet stream. I am wondering, how did your horse handle the cold?