To the editor:
This month and 3 years ago, Maine suffered from frigid, polar winds caused by changes in the polar vortex. Cold Arctic air dipped down much further south than usual and froze pipes and doubled energy bills here. There is still some scientific debate about this, but climate scientists suspect that climate change is causing these extreme cold events.
A polar vortex is an incursion of frigid, surface air from the North Pole into the U.S. It is influenced by the jet stream, which is a fast, high altitude wind that used to circle tightly around the pole in the past, because of the extreme difference in temperature between the equator and the North Pole. However, arctic ice is fast disappearing and sunlight being absorbed by the newly exposed ocean has caused temperatures in the Arctic to rise dramatically. The resulting decrease in temperature differential is causing the Jet Stream to dip down south, bringing the cold, polar vortex air with it.
This means that we are likely to get many more polar, frigid spells in the future. The more our climate warms, the more surprises we run into, and some of them are not pleasant (more polar vortexes, more heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and flooding, stronger hurricanes and tornadoes). Maybe it is time that we insist that our politicians stop ignoring these risks, and do something about it.
Richard Thomas
Waterville
