Global warming continues despite severe cold, scientists say

Scientists emphasize that short-term cold events in one region do not contradict decades of global warming. Even as winter becomes warmer overall, individual cold episodes still occur—they are simply becoming less frequent.

As a severe winter storm brought record cold to much of the United States, President Donald Trump questioned whether global warming is real. In a post on his Truth Social account Friday, Trump asked “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???” and called the expected temperatures “rarely seen.” More than a dozen scientists told The Associated Press the president misunderstands the difference between local weather and long-term climate change. Global warming has continued and is accelerating, they said, even as winter and cold still occur in a warming world.

“This social media post crams a remarkable amount of inflammatory language and factually inaccurate assertions into a very short statement,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the California Institute for Water Resources. “First of all, global warming continues — and has in fact been progressing at an increased rate in recent years.”

The data on global warming

“Global warming hasn’t gone anywhere, it’s here,” said Gabriel Vecchi, a climate scientist at Princeton University. The last three years have been the warmest on record globally, with temperatures increasing at a significantly faster rate than in prior decades.

Winter temperatures globally—December, January and February averaged together—have risen 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit since 1995, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The previous two winters were the warmest winters on record. In the United States, winter temperatures have risen about 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1995. Last month was the fifth-hottest December on record globally and in the United States.

Weather versus climate

The winter storm affecting the eastern United States represents weather in a specific region, not a global trend. The United States comprises only 2 percent of Earth’s surface. While two-thirds of the country experiences below-normal temperatures, Australia, Africa, the Arctic, Antarctica, Asia, Canada, much of Europe and Greenland are warmer than normal.

“Even as the Earth warms, cold days and cold winters are not projected to disappear, just become fewer in number,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University. “In addition, what happens in the U.S. during a brief period of days is not an indication of what’s happening to the U.S. as a whole or the Earth as a whole over the long term.”

Arctic warming and extreme cold

Some scientists theorize that warming in the Arctic may increase the frequency of extreme winter cold in the eastern United States, though this remains an area of active research without full scientific consensus.

“This is an active research area with uncertainty,” said Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at Northern Illinois University. “One hypothesis is that Arctic warming reduces the temperature contrast between the pole and mid-latitudes, which can sometimes weaken or distort the jet stream and allow cold Arctic air to spill south. That said, not every cold outbreak can or should be attributed to climate change. Weather still has large natural variability.”

Winter records and the warming trend

Trump claimed the expected cold wave would be “rarely seen,” but historical weather records show colder temperatures in the past. The National Weather Service forecasts Minneapolis to reach minus-11 degrees Fahrenheit Saturday, but the city reached minus-33 in 1904. Chicago is forecast to drop to 2 degrees, but set records of minus-15 and minus-20 in 1897 and January 2019. Fargo, North Dakota and Washington, D.C. are forecast to remain above their all-time cold records.

“Truly historic cold waves, like those in 1978–79 or 1983–85, were often colder and more persistent over large regions,” Gensini said. “We are also less accustomed to severe cold now because winters overall are warmer than they were several decades ago.”

A review of U.S. weather stations with at least 50 years of data found 45 record low temperatures set in January, compared to 1,092 record high temperatures. The imbalance illustrates the broader warming trend, according to climate scientists. While some daily records may fall, especially in the Plains, Texas and Louisiana, the overall pattern shows that cold records are becoming rare. “It will be very hard to break long-period (100 years+) records with this cold blast,” said Ryan Maue, who served as NOAA’s chief scientist at the end of Trump’s first term. In January 1985, the Lower 48 states averaged a low of 4.1 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to the forecast average of about 10 degrees for the current event.