Why is chicago so cold

Here is my "official" 3D animation of this year's stratospheric PolarVortex split. Another beautiful event! A study published by Geophysical Research Letters found there were as many record lows as record highs in the US in the 50s. But today there are twice as many record high temperature events than cold temperature records.

There may still be record cold periods but they are occurring less frequently, reports the New York Times. The alleged president may pooh pooh all this talk of climate change but Bob Litterman, a founding partner and chairman of the risk committee of Kepos Capital does not.

Litterman was previously the head of risk management at Goldman Sachs and is on the board of the Climate Leadership Council, the sponsor of the Baker-Shultz carbon dividend plan. For transportation companies, for example, it may require hardening infrastructure like port facilities or rail lines to protect them from floods or fires. Economists generally agree that rather than regulate behavior, it is more effective to allow individuals to choose their actions, as long as the prices appropriately reflect the costs, including the risks posed by climate change.

This is a stupid mistake and has resulted in too much climate risk. Not pricing climate risk is a bug in the tax code. It can be easily and quickly fixed. Even if we take immediate action now to appropriately price emissions, it will take decades to reach a net carbon neutral world, and in the meantime the planet will continue warming. We will also need to confront the very unequal impacts on people in this country and around the planet. One would presume that a former risk manager for Goldman Sachs and founder of an investment company is a Republican.

If only more of his Republican peers were as perceptive and concerned about their fellow human beings. The recent record low temperatures in the Midwest are not proof that climate change is a hoax.

They are proof it is real and coming soon to your home town. Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his homes in Florida and Connecticut or anywhere else the Singularity may lead him. You can follow him on Twitter but not on any social media platforms run by evil overlords like Facebook.

Support our work today! Advertise with CleanTechnica to get your company in front of millions of monthly readers. Temperatures in Illinois have been downright frigid in recent days, and a phenomenon occurring at the North Pole is to blame for the recent cold snap. During the winter, a mass of cold air forms over the North Pole and the Arctic Circle because of the fact that no sunlight shines on that area during the winter months. Our normal polar jet stream, the iconic image of sweeping air that you see in every weather report on your daily newscast, has a large ridge in the western portion of North America, which is caused by the jet stream hitting a large land mass.

The warmer air in the stratosphere presses down on the colder air underneath it, sending it spreading out like toothpaste being squeezed from a tube. The city is close to certain well-defined storm tracks, and the passage of these disturbances insures ample precipitation and interrupts the otherwise monotonous cycles of temperature and weather change.

Chicago has been called the "Windy City" and the ensuing pages will show that there is some reason for the sobriquet, although the wind movement here is not much greater than it is at other places in the Great Lakes region. Its changes in weather are often sudden and pronounced, but usually are of such character as to have a stimulating effect upon the average person of health; and it is not at all improbable that the great energy of its people, which has resulted in the rapid upbuilding of Chicago, is due largely to the peculiar nature of its climate.

Cox and J. Armington, University of Chicago Press, Climate of Chicago - Description and Normals Dr. Climatic controls Four factors control the continental climate of Chicago: 1 the sun, 2 weather systems, 3 urban areas, and 4 Lake Michigan. Monthly and annual normal temperatures. Monthly and annual normal precipitation and snowfall and winds period of record. Snow in.

Monthly and annual normal degree days and days with weather period of record. An urban heat island Influence of Lake Michigan lake breeze and lake-effect snow An extremely wide variety of types and amounts of precipitation with moderate variations between monthly and seasonal average values. Extreme variability of weather conditions in different parts of the Chicago metropolitan area and, certainly, between years. A large number of storms during all seasons.