March has long been a chilly month in the American Midwest with intermittent episodes of snow and cold rain. But the current deep freeze is certainly unusual this late in the season; it was 17 degrees F in Columbia, Missouri, at dawn this morning.
While weather patterns have been fickle throughout recorded history, extreme events have become increasingly common as the climate warms. This deep freeze is the result of a gyrating jet stream that is injecting warm Pacific air into Alaska and displacing a dome of polar air into the American Heartland.
Though an unsettled jet stream has always been characteristic of spring, it seems to be energized by climate change (especially by the warming oceans and polar regions), leading to catastrophic weather events such as the flooding in California. Time will tell how climate change will affect various regions of the planet but recent evidence suggests that many challenges lie ahead.
