Why Does the Weather Get Worse as the Climate Warms Up?
We have all started to question what is going on with the weather lately. It seems like every time we turn on the TV there is some kind of crazy storm or massive flooding. Even the air feels different.
Did you know that the climate has a lot to do with the daily weather? From more intense heatwaves to unexpected cold snaps, our daily weather patterns are showing signs of climate change's impact.
Today, we are going to look into how the weather gets worse as the climate warms up.
Know the Difference Between Climate and Weather
Before we get into how climate change is affecting the weather we need to know the difference between climate and weather.
Weather is what is happening right now, outside, in your local area. It's highly variable and it's short-term. A good example of weather is “today it is raining out.”
Climate is the average weather in a large area over a longer period of time. Unlike weather, climate changes very slowly over decades or centuries. An example of climate is “the global temperature has risen over the last 80 years.”
Why the Climate is Warming
The climate is warming primarily due to the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is when greenhouse gases (water, methane, carbon dioxide) trap heat in Earth's atmosphere. The greenhouse effect itself isn't bad because it is needed for a healthy environment.
The real problem arises when the natural greenhouse effect is disrupted. A major way it can be disrupted is by adding more than the natural amount of a certain greenhouse gas. For example a lot of carbon dioxide has been added into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels.
Other reasons for greenhouse gases being unnecessarily added to the atmosphere are the deforestation of rainforests, thawing of permafrost, methane from excessive livestock farming, waste decomposition in landfills, and exhaust from vehicles and planes.
Remember that greenhouse gases are really good at holding in heat. That means the more greenhouse gases that are in the atmosphere the more heat the atmosphere is able to hold, therefore increasing the overall temperature of the atmosphere. This is global warming.
Unfortunately, there is a tipping point for our warming globe. As the global temperature rises, water vapor, which evaporates faster in higher temperatures, is being added to the atmosphere at an increased rate. Water itself is a greenhouse gas and does a good job at holding heat. The more water vapor that is in the atmosphere, the more heat the atmosphere will hold, the more water that will be evaporated into the atmosphere, and so forth. The entire time the global temperature will be rising.
What Weather Does Climate Change Affect?
Climate change can affect the weather in many different ways. Most of them are not good, for humans at least.
Intense Heatwaves
According to epa.gov’s Climate Change Indicators for Heat Waves, cities in the United States are experiencing more heat Waves per year, longer heat waves, hotter heat waves, and even extended heat wave seasons.
For example, the average number of heat waves in the 1960s was two, in the 2010s it was six. The average duration of a heatwave has increased from 3 days to a little over 4 days, and the average heat wave season has increased by 46 days since the 1960s.
Hot temperatures are becoming more and more common throughout the entire world due to global warming. Many of these places are not built to handle the extreme heat, as we saw with the heat waves in England and the rest of Europe earlier in 2024.
Being unprepared for a heatwave can lead to all sorts of health risks. Heat strokes and dehydration are common health risks during a heatwave. Since the nights are not cooling down either, there is also the sleep deprivation aspect due to it being naturally harder to sleep in hot weather.
Heat waves are bad for agriculture. Crops can stress and die during their growth periods during extreme heat waves. On top of that, we are experiencing longer droughts due to heat waves. Rivers and other water sources are drying up, and not being replenished fast enough because of drought. If farmers cannot manage their water resources properly, crops will die.
Cold Snaps
On the flip side, cold snaps are also getting more intense due to global warming. This might sound weird to you. If the globe is warming then how are there cold snaps?
Well technically there are less and less cold temperatures being recorded every year, and there are even less cold snaps than there have been in the past. The problem is that they are getting more intense.
Due to global warming the ice sheets in the Arctic are melting, and this is really messing with atmospheric circulation patterns. Cold air from the Arctic is getting pushed southward due to the changing jet streams. This means that even places like Texas and Florida can experience extremely low temperatures that they normally do not get.
This can be especially bad for agriculture. Southern states are big producers of citrus fruits, vegetables, and other crops that are extremely sensitive to cold temperatures. If a cold snap lasts too long then there can be a devastating amount of crop loss. This not only hurts the farmer's wallets, but our wallets as well. In order to get these vegetables and fruits you have to pay more because the supply is low.
As for Texas, we all saw what happened in winter of 2021 with the energy grid. Their energy infrastructure was not built to handle such extreme cold weather, and it went out and failed people when they needed it the most. Almost 10 million people were not able to heat their homes during one of the coldest times in the state's history.
Extreme Storms
Perhaps one of the absolute worst parts about how global warming impacts the weather is how extreme storms have gotten. Just this year, in the United States, we have had a category 4 and category 5 hurricane hit that caused widespread destruction and devastation to the areas affected.
A big reason that major storms are getting more common is because as the globe warms the oceans temperature rises. Tropical storms get their energy from these warm waters, and as they get warmer these storms are gaining energy faster and are able to reach hurricane or cyclone status in a matter of days.
These intense storms are also moving slower when they make landfall due to changes in atmospheric circulation. As they slowly move across land they are dropping large amounts of rain and reaching extremely high wind speeds that cause massive destruction.
As stated above, more water is being evaporated into the atmosphere and that is causing extensive changes in precipitation. When it does rain, it is a lot more than normal due to the excessive amount of water absorbed by the atmosphere.
With the amount of rain that some areas are getting, flooding is becoming a very common thing, especially in areas that are not prepared for the amount of precipitation they are getting. Coastal areas are especially threatened by flooding and storm surges.
Shift in Seasons
Finally, I want to talk about this shift in seasons called season creep. We already went over how the temperature is rising and causing longer and more intense heat waves. Now the summer season is longer than ever before, spring is coming early, and autumn is ending later in the year.
While the people who hate winter may be rejoicing, it's really not good at all. Snowfall is vital to preventing water scarcity. If there is less snow, there will be less snow to melt in the spring, which can affect farmers and their crops. At the same time, the snow that is there is melting earlier in the year.
Plants are also affected by the change in seasons. Plants are the bedrock of most ecosystems and they are sensitive to both temperature and light. If plants bloom too early in the year it may affect ecological events like flowering, breeding, and migration. If pollinators have not adapted to the changes in the seasons, it can affect the entire food chain.
What Does the Future of Weather Look Like?
Of course, no one can tell the future for sure, but we can look at what the climate models are predicting.
As of right now, scientists are predicting that our global temperature is going to rise between 1.5°C and 4.5°C by 2100. This seems far away for us, but it really is only 80 years away. Our children and grandchildren will still be alive during this time and they will be suffering the consequences of the global warming that is happening today.
We are already experiencing intense heat waves, and we can expect those heat waves to last longer and get even hotter than they are right now. Eventually humanity will have to start worrying about wet bulb temperatures. After a wet bulb temperature of 35°C human’s sweat cannot evaporate into the atmosphere, meaning we will no longer have a way to naturally cool ourselves off. A human can die after just 5 hours in this type of environment.
Water scarcity is another thing that we may have to worry about. As rivers and lakes dry up humans will start to run out of fresh water for their everyday needs. We all know water is vital to life. Hopefully we can figure out a cheap and easy way to take the salt out of the ocean water, but until then we are all relying on a water source that is slowly disappearing from our Earth.
If global warming doesn't slow down, we can also expect the ocean temperatures to continue to rise and breed even more category 4 and 5 hurricanes. We can expect coastal areas to experience more storm surges, and we will most likely see more flooding in areas that we may not expect.
Even though these are just predictions, if we don't do anything to reduce the greenhouse gases we are emitting into the atmosphere, we can honestly expect that most of these predictions will come true. And it won't be pretty.
In Summary
Climate refers to long-term average weather patterns in an area, changing slowly over decades or centuries, while weather describes short-term, local atmospheric conditions that are highly variable.
The earth's climate is warming due to an enhanced greenhouse effect, where increased levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, and methane trap more heat, exacerbated by human activities such as fossil fuel burning, deforestation, and agriculture, leading to a feedback loop with water vapor further amplifying the warming.
Climate change significantly alters weather patterns, leading to more frequent and intense heatwaves, with U.S. cities now experiencing heat waves that are longer, hotter, and occur more often, impacting human health and agriculture through increased risks like heatstroke and crop failure.
Conversely, while cold snaps are less frequent, they are becoming more severe due to Arctic ice melting affecting jet stream patterns, causing unexpected severe cold in usually warmer regions, which can devastate agriculture not adapted to such conditions.
Extreme weather events, including hurricanes, are intensified as warmer ocean waters provide more energy for storm development, leading to slower, more destructive storms with increased flooding due to higher atmospheric moisture.
The shift in seasons, or season creep, results in an extended summer, with spring arriving earlier and autumn ending later, affecting ecological timings and potentially causing mismatches in natural cycles like pollination, which could disrupt ecosystems and agriculture.
Climate models predict a global temperature increase of 1.5°C to 4.5°C by 2100, potentially leading to more intense heatwaves, water scarcity, stronger hurricanes, and increased coastal flooding, with severe implications for future generations if greenhouse gas emissions are not significantly reduced.
We humans must seriously think about the future of our species.
This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.
