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Expert: Extreme cold weather caused by global warming
January-7-2010

Recently Beijing has encountered heavy snow and strong wind and the north, northeast and northwest parts of China have witnessed severe coldness. The U.S. and Europe are experiencing similar weather. How can this be explained in light of global warming theories?

A senior engineer from National Climate Center, Ren Fumin told Beijing Times:

"The severe coldness this winter can be called an extreme weather event. The direct reason for this is the atmospheric circulation anomaly. The main reason is the emergence of new EI Nino Phenomenon caused by global warming."

Vapor in the air increases because large amounts of sea water is vaporized due to global warming, this can easily cause extreme weather events. In terms of temperature, global warming not only means the rising of the worldwide average temperature, but also the increased variation of temperatures. Therefore the risk of extreme cold weather and extreme hot weather also increases.

"This snowstorm has close relationship with the developing EI Nino Phenomenon," Ren said. "The cold air often causes a westerly circulation of wind centered on the Arctic Circle. The circulation developed two distributaries – a southwest wind and a northwest wind which were disturbed by the abnormal change of the temperature of the sea water."

Part of the northwest wind blows from the north Canada to the east of U.S. Part blows from the west Europe and affects the whole of Europe, the other part blows from north China's Xinjiang to Guangxi, Guangdong and Fujian in the south.