With our climate currently changing as rapidly as most of us feared it would, researchers have been left scrambling to discover the imminent consequences of our past irresponsible actions. Based on recent research, scientists can predict those aforementioned consequences with a greater level of confidence. In the Northern Hemisphere, researchers expect it is likely that permafrost will thaw, sea ice will shrink, and heat waves will become both more intense and more prevalent. In addition to that, researchers also believe that hurricanes will become more frequent, and also become more intense in both wind speed and amounts of precipitation.
Those consequences are only a sample of consequences of our changing global climate, which are focused on primarily because they have potential to affect a larger area than some of the more local consequences. One of these local consequences can be seen last winter in New York State. In mid February, portions of New York State had to deal with increasing amounts of snow accumulation, when at its peak, accumulated in mass quantities. In Oswego, New York for example, the snow accumulation was recorded to be around one hundred and forty one inches in a very short time span.
This amount of snow accumulating so quickly is a fairly strange and interesting meteorological phenomenon. Most of the snow accumulation in Oswego this winter was due to the meteorological process of lake-effect, or lake-enhanced snow. The formation of lake effect snow is fundamentally due to the temperature difference between the air above land, and the air above water.
Note that during the winter, the air above water will be warmer than the air above land. This is due to the difference in specific heat. When there is a body of open water, take for instance Lake Erie, which borders New York to the west, the air above that body of water will be warmer during the winter than the air above nearby land. As cold air off the land moves over the warmer air over Lake Erie, via a westerly wind, the result is an unstable air mass where cold air is above warm air.
Clouds and potential precipitation begin to form to the areas on the leeward side of Lake Erie, which in a case of a westerly wind turns out to be western and central New York State and northwestern Pennsylvania. This seems like a normal process that would produce a moderate amount of snow; however, winds from the west can last for days at a time resulting in increased amounts of snow accumulation.
Since lake-effect snow seems to be a natural, normal, and easy to explain process that has been happening all along. It begs the question: what was so special this past winter that increased the amount of lake effect snow? If you factor in hindsight, the answer is simple.
It is because in a normal year, Lake Erie becomes frozen over in the winter, and thus when there is no open body of water, there is no situation where there is cold air moving above warm air to make the atmosphere unstable. When Lake Erie or any other open body of water is frozen over, the formation of lake effect snow is halted.
For most of this winter, temperatures were relatively mild. Because the temperatures were so mild, Lake Erie never completely froze over, and this allowed for more lake effect snow. This is one example of a local consequence of our changing climate system. While it may only affect certain areas such as New York State, it is important to focus also on the local factors of climate change, and not necessarily just the global perspective on climate change.
