ข่าวพายุหิมะ:What’s with all these big snowstorms?

What’s with all these big snowstorms?

5:06 PM Mon., March 7, 2011 

By Matt Sutkoski

It seems like record-breaking snowfalls are becoming old hat in Vermont these days. What gives?

An extremely snowy Main Street in Burlington on Monday, March 7, 2011. The city was socked with two feet of snow the biggest March storm on record.

As of mid-afternoon Monday, the National Weather Service office in South Burlington measured 24.3 inches of new snow, making the storm that began Sunday the largest March snowstorm on record.
Click here for a huge selection of Free Press photos of the giant snowstorm.
In recent years, there have been a lot more records around here:
—Burlington’s biggest snowstorm, 33.1 inches, was recorded in January, 2010.
— The city’s biggest 24 hour snowfall, 24 inches, came during the Valentine’s Day blizzard of 2007.
—Eight of the city’s biggest 20 snowstorms have happened since 2000.
—Three of Burlington’s snowiest five winters, including this one, have happened since 2000.
—Fifteen of the past 20 winters in Burlington had above average snowfall.
Believe it or not, there’s the chance that all this snow here and elsewhere in the nation is related to global warming, according to the New York Times and other media sources.

Cars are buried in a Burlington parking lot after two feet of snow socked the city Sunday and Monday.

That sounds ludicrous, I know. How could frigid, heavy snowstorms have anything to do with global warming?
As the world warms up, the atmosphere can hold more water. Warmer air can hold on to more moisture than cold air.
All that moisture stuck up in the air has to come down to earth eventually, and it does so during storms.
If there’s more moisture in the air than there used to be, it’s possible that in some parts of the world, the storms would tend to be bigger and produce more precipitation than they used to. Many climatologists say the northeastern United States would get wetter in a warming world.
It can still get plenty cold in Vermont, with or without global warming, so some of that heavier precipitation can come down as snow. This also might be true for recent snowy winters in the eastern United States.
Though almost all climate scientists say the world is warming, there is definitely less agreement on whether there is a connection between snowstorms and climate change.
After all, a few snowstorms in Burlington, Vermont tell you almost nothing about what’s going on with the whole world’s climate. The scientists who say there might be a snowstorm/warming connection say the situation just loads the dice. It makes big snowstorms more likely here, but  not guaranteed.
Other scientists say they think the snowstorms have nothing to do with global warming. It might be related to shifts in weather patterns brought on by natural cycles, or just flukes.
The bottom line is, the fact that global warming in general causes bigger storms might, just might, be setting Vermont up for bigger snowstorms.  The evidence is tantalyzing, but it’s clear nobody has proven the connection yet.
This clearly needs more smart people to study this situation more.

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