West Virginia Blue
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There's a lot of snow piling up in West Virginia. The immediate cause is "Canadian high pressure ... plunging southward behind the storm that laid down the first significant snows of the season from Chicago to Cincinnati and Raleigh."
Now, it's really hard to point to any single weather event and say that it is related to global climate change. But, I'm reminded that just a few days ago DailyKos diarist FishOutofWater pointed out this exact possibility. Labrador Sea 9F Above Normal, Changing Global Weather.
Loss of Arctic sea ice is changing northern hemisphere ocean currents and atmospheric circulation patterns. A massive influx of warm water as much as 9° F above normal has flowed up the west coasts of both Greenland and Norway towards the Arctic ocean causing a new northern hemisphere weather pattern called the warm Arctic cold continents pattern to develop.
Warm water has flowed into the Arctic and the northern seas as Arctic sea ice volumes have collapsed, allowing for a faster Arctic currents. Those enhanced currents have flushed Arctic sea ice and Greenland glacial melt water down the east coast of Greenland and enhanced the flow of warm Atlantic ocean water up the west coasts of Greenland and northern Europe.
In pictures... a temperature anomaly like this:
Creates a "blocking high" that redirects that cold Canadian further south than otherwise:
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