By adding more energy by pushing the child farther, the child does not suddenly rise and stop in midair. But realize that global warming causes swings in the weather, not a uniform rise in world temperature. However, some people may object, there are vastly different weather patterns around the world. Last year was, in fact, tied with 2005 as the hottest year recorded since 1880, when precise measurements began.
This also seems to violate common sense, but realize that global warming can heat the oceans and generate more moisture, which in turn can drive larger storms. There are many random fluctuations in the weather due to many diverse factors (for example, last year's weather was affected by El Niño).īut the second is global warming. But we can focus our attention on two likely culprits. There is no single smoking gun that can point us to the origin of these monster snowstorms. If we crank down the temperature dial in our freezer, this simply makes the ice freeze faster but does not increase the amount of ice produced.) (For example, if we are making ice cubes, the amount of water in the ice tray, not the temperature, determines how much ice we can make. But physics says otherwise.īasically, snowstorms in this region arise from the collision of cold Arctic air from Canada moving south and bumping up against warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, causing water vapor to condense and freeze and then form snowstorms, which travel up the Northeast corridor.Īmong many factors, the amount of snow dumped is largely driven by the amount of moisture in humid air and not so much the temperature, and this seems to go against common sense. Records are being broken even as we speak.Ĭommon sense says that it's the freezing cold that is behind the freaky weather. New York (CNN) - The weather seems to be going berserk, with more snow dumped on our beleaguered Northeastern cities in a month than in a year, paralyzing business and our lives. Kaku: Controversy is over human causes, but few disagree warming is happeningĮditor's note: Michio Kaku is a professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York and author of the forthcoming book "Physics of the Future.".Heating oceans affects weather patterns: more snow, but extreme heat, storms, he says.But global warming puts more moisture in atmosphere, hence more snow, he says.Michio Kaku says Northeast's record-breaking snow seems to contradict global warming.