Over the past couple weeks, Europe has been plunged into a
cold streak, and temperatures have been reaching dangerous lows. The
temperature has been well below average; as low as negative 35 degrees
Fahrenheit. The snow accumulation has reached levels not seen in over five
decades. The cold temperatures and excessive snow has resulted in almost 300
deaths, most of which are of homeless people who freeze to death in the cold. Scientists
at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam,
Germany, are saying that this extreme cold may be the result of shrinking polar
ice caps are possibly to blame. With
more ice caps melting, there is less solar heat reflected into the atmosphere.
This heat is absorbed into the water, and later released into the air. The warm,
moist air rises and creates instabilities in the air pressure, causing extreme
weather patterns. Arctic Oscillation, the pattern that normally pushes warm
Atlantic air over Europe and keeps the Arctic air over the poles changed this
January, causing the cold streak.
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