(Bloomberg) -- Here’s a climate twist: If your winter has been brutally cold in Tokyo or Toledo in recent years, you can thank global warming in the Arctic, a new study suggests.
Rising temperatures in the waters north of Russia and Alaska are changing atmospheric circulation patterns and may play a “central role” in record-breaking winters that have hit East Asia and North America, researchers from South Korea and the U.K. wrote in a study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The study follows earlier research showing how changes in the far north weaken wind patterns and let cold air sit over the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. The new report further explores this effect, finding warmer weather in the Kara and Barents seas, north of Russia and Norway, is often followed about 15 days later by severe weather in East Asia. Balmier temperatures in the East Siberian and Chuckchi seas, above Russia and Alaska, often occur about five days before cold spells in the U.S. and Canada, the scientists said.
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