AccuWeather Forecasting Senior Director Dan DePodwin and AccuWeather Climate Expert Brett Anderson discuss the top headlines related to climate change in the Aptil 25 edition of Climate In The News.
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00:00Today we'll cover two climate stories ranging from temperatures to tornadoes.
00:05Starting first with tornadoes, Brett, an article from National Geographic about tornadoes,
00:10and are they getting worse than sort of what we know from a research perspective
00:13on the impacts of climate change on the frequency and intensity of tornadoes?
00:17Yeah, there's been a lot of studies on this, the relationship between climate change and tornadoes,
00:22and a lot of it's inconclusive.
00:25We've seen more observed tornadoes in the past 50 years or so,
00:29but a lot of that's due to the Doppler radar, storm chasers,
00:34Greenwood's getting out everywhere, better video technology and whatnot.
00:39One thing they did notice, though, there's no observed change in the number of major tornadoes
00:45in terms of frequency, what they're seeing.
00:47So, interesting study there.
00:49Now, one other thing I want to mention also is climate change adds heat to the atmosphere.
00:54Heat provides energy.
00:55So that's one thing you'd think, oh, we're going to see stronger tornadoes.
00:59However, with added heat, we're seeing weaker jet streams because the Arctic's warming very rapidly,
01:05so the temperature difference between the north and the south is less.
01:08Jet streams weaker, so you have less wind shear, which is critical for the formation of tornadoes.
01:13Yeah, so certainly a complex picture here in terms of the climate change impacts on tornadoes.
01:17One thing that has been seen, though, in the research is a shift in the sort of traditional tornado alley
01:22from the Great Plains in the last couple decades more to the southeast United States.
01:25Yes, and a lot of that, I think, is due to the Gulf of Mexico really warming up,
01:29adding a lot of heat energy to the atmosphere,
01:31and seeing some of those real strong tornadoes occurring out of normal season, late winter, early spring.
01:37Yeah, and that's a concern with the manufactured homes in the southeast.
01:40That means a more vulnerable population with those homes not being as secure to the ground.
01:44The fatality rate has decreased, though, in tornadoes, which is good news over the last couple decades with better technology.
01:50Our second story today from the New York Times focused on temperature swings in the extremes from cold to warm and then warm to cold.
01:57This study looking at the years from 1961 to 2023 and seeing an increase in frequency of these temperature swings.
02:04Yeah, by 60 percent. That's a dramatic increase there for sure.
02:09And what we're talking about is rapid warming, maybe one day is 70 degrees, the next day is 30 degrees,
02:16and that's never a good thing. You want normalcy for sure, especially when dealing with crops.
02:21Crops do not like that type of thing, especially, let's say, wine growing when it gets really warm in the spring
02:27and then a sudden frost or freeze. That can be very damaging to something like that.
02:32Also, power infrastructure, also very susceptible to big temperature swings as well as ecosystems.
02:38Yeah, the snow melting, obviously, and can refreeze under the ground as well during winter,
02:43and that can actually kill off some of the crops that are underground.
02:46That prevents animals from accessing food.
02:49Also, it seems like some mitigation here could be increased access to weather information, right?
02:52Yeah, exactly. That's one. Increased access to cooling centers.
02:56Also, the power grid needs to be more resilient to something like that.
03:00So certainly some more research in this area and some mitigation strategies in terms of temperature swings
03:05as well as the complex interaction of climate change on tornadoes.
03:09Well, thanks, Brett.
03:10And for more information about these stories and other climate information,
03:13you can find that at accuweather.com slash climate.