It was a week of fire and ice.It began with millions of people across the U.S. shivering amid blizzard conditions and frigid air that lasted for days, thanks to a jet stream that slips out of its usual path more often these days. Then, catastrophe in California, with wind-whipped flames taking off in a landscape parched by months of drought to become Los Angeles’ worst-ever wildfires.To cap it off, major weather monitoring agencies confirmed 2024 as the hottest year in global history. Even more dire, four of the six agencies said it was the first full year Earth went beyond a warming threshold seen as critical to limiting the worst effects of climate change.Welcome to one wild week of the climate crisis, scientists say. There will be more. Cosimos Cendo, of Washington, D.C., skis down Main Street in Annapolis, Md., Jan. 6, 2025, during a snow storm. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
“For the average person, this means the changes you’re experiencing — more extreme weather, rising costs due to climate impacts, threats to food and water security — aren’t anomalies,” said Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at Northern Illinois University. “They’re the new normal unless we take action.”“The last week of weird weather has been alarming,” said Natalie Mahowald, chair of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University. “I hope it’s not a sign of things to come, because we’ve barely seen any climate change compared to what we are going to get unless we radically cut CO2 emissions.”Here’s how the week unfolded.MondayJesse Thompson rides his bicycle in the snow, Jan 10, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, FIle)
The cold came first. The Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the world, which means the difference between temperatures up north and down south are shrinking — along with sea ice that releases more heat into atmosphere. That means more energy bouncing off and warping or moving the polar vortex, scientists say. And climate change is also messing with the jet stream, the air currents that circle the globe.The result? More frequent blasts of intense cold in winter even as global temperatures heat up overall.The blizzard dumped more snow in some parts of Kansas than they usually get in a year, one Kansas State University meteorologist said. Ice-coated trees downed power lines in eastern Kentucky, and a U.S. Olympian skied on the National Mall in Washington.Read more
Farmers rushed to move cows to keep them from freezing to death and to feed and water them as rural roads became impassable. Travel stalled as multiple states warned motorists not to chance the treacherous snow and ice.About 200 people, many homeless, sheltered at a roller rink in Cincinnati. The alternative was frostbite or worse in exposure to temperatures that were expected to slip from freezing to sub-freezing overnight.Residents of a senior center are evacuat