Can anyone explain how global warming causes some parts of the world to actually get colder?

Question

How does this occur? It has been said that New England could get some very nasty snowstorms and cold temperatures in the future.

Answer 1

One problem is, "Global warming" is not a very good name for what is happening. It makes more sense to call it "Global Climate Change".

The climates that we have now are very interdependent. New England, or Britain or Bangladesh have their current climates because of the movement of mositure, clouds, and ocean currents that have become established over thousands of years.

Because of the radical changes humans have made in some parts of the climate system - especially carbon dioxide levels, but also radical alterations in the ground vegetation and water levels -- all these systems are changing. Some areas will get wetter, and others will get colder. The overall average temperature of the whole world will probably increase (why they call it "Warming") but the local temperature in some places may get colder.

And the weather will be unpredictable - different from what it has been over the last 100 years.

Answer 2

Remember that this is an average temperature increase - with an average, some temps will be lower, some higher. I'm not fit to give you the details, but higher temps in some areas will be enough to change global weather patterns, such that some places will become colder and some hotter.

For example, if increased temperatures are enough to melt Arctic ice, all that fresh water flowing into the North Atlantic could make the water less dense and warmer. Thus, warm water flowing up from the Gulf Stream that normally cools and sinks in northern latitudes could slow or stop sinking and this would impede the thermohaline circulation of the ocean currents. So, less warm water would flow from south to north, chilling the northern latitudes. That's one theory anyway.

Anyway, that's an example to illustrate how it's possible that an overall warming could result in local cooling.

In general, any increase or decrease of global average temperatures will result in deviations from the norm in weather patterns, thus impacting human activities, usually (because we're not used to them) having a negative impact.

Of course, all this also applies to the rest of the biosphere, and from a selfish perspective as a human, how that might impact us. An example of that would be if it got too hot, cold, wet, or dry to grow corn in Iowa, we'd be in a very bad position until we'd worked out where else we could grow corn.

Answer 3

Global warming is just a generic term, it doesn't actually mean that the temperatures are going to get warmer it just means that the temperatures are pushed to the extremes.

Answer 4

It's because global warming is a myth. It doesn't cause anything.