The extreme cold spell in Chicago is neither an extraordinary event nor a phenomenon associated with climate change: UNAM experts

The low temperatures recorded in the central United States, badociated with the mbad of polar air, are extreme. However, Polar swirls are weather events that occur at the poles each winter in winter. They are therefore not extraordinary events and are not badociated with climate change, according to UNAM scholars.

Graciela B. Raga and Christian Domínguez Sarmiento of the Center for Atmospheric Sciences (CCA) explained thatin the case of vortices, they are not strictly on the poles, but between 50 and 60 degrees, but this time they moved a bit more and that's why Canada and areas like Chicago, at 42 degrees latitude, have experienced extreme temperatures that they are not used to .

The polar vortex is a region of low pressure that surrounds both poles. It produces strong winds about ten kilometers from the altitude of the atmosphere, which causes very low temperatures inside, constituting a mbad of polar air.

It is more common than in the Northern Hemisphere, distortions and disturbances or elongations (elongations) occur. So, what happened last January is that when it distorted, it broke in more than a whirlwind and moved a little further south of the American continent.explained Graciela B. Raga.

When the vortex is deformed, its center can move from its typical location on the North Pole and Siberia and minimum temperatures are observed at the center of the vortex. In this case, it was a little further south and that is why these temperatures are so low in Canada and Chicago, but he insisted:This is part of the normal variability in the atmosphere and occurs with some frequency in the winter.

The fact that the polar vortex has moved to parts of North America does not mean that it is bigger than normaland it is not uncommon for a phenomenon of this type to have been deformed and broken. "It happened from other winters, it is not a catastrophic event," stress.

In this regard, Christian Dominguez Sarmiento said: "Climate change, as its name indicates, is a variation of climate that gets through a record of 30. These outages of vortices occurred at several times to badociate them with global climate change should be studied for more than three decades. "

The low temperatures recorded in the United States, badociated with the mbad of polar air, are extreme. Extreme events have been recorded on the planet, but not only are the temperatures low, they are also very hot, as in the case of Australia, which now has very high temperatures.

These are contrasts on the planet, there are no attribution studies that tell us that these events have increased in frequency and that they can be attributed to climate changehe repeated.

These elongations or lengthening of the vortices, like all weather phenomena, They occur on a time scale of a few days, during which it develops and evolves, so that these anomalies occur, last for a short time and return to their normal values.