COURIER LIFE, FEBRUARY 5-11, 2021 3
BY ROSE ADAMS
This week’s Nor’easter is
slated to rank among the top
10 biggest snowfalls in New
York City history, with between
18 and 24 inches predicted
to blanket the streets of
the Five Boroughs by Tuesday
afternoon.
But, while Kings County
youngsters and winter-loving
locals alike have rejoiced at
the infl ux of made-for-sledding
snow, historical-minded
Brooklynites have been left
scratching their heads — curious
about the causes of an unassailable
uptick in extreme
weather patterns throughout
Gotham City.
Of the 10 biggest snowstorms
on record since 1869,
six have occurred in the last
20 years — and the number
will soon rise to seven if this
week’s storm lays down 18.2
inches of snow or more, as
many weather services predict
it will.
Snowstorms aren’t becoming
more common, one expert
explained — but they are becoming
bigger and bigger over
time.
“It’s not so much the number
of storms as the intensity
of storms that is increasing,”
said New York State’s climatologist
and Cornell professor
Mark Wysocki. “Maybe we’d
get maybe three a year of these
coastal storms and maybe every
two or three years we’ll get
a bad one. Now, it seems like it’s
almost every year we get one,
and sometimes we get two.”
The phenomenon comes as
arctic ice caps melt because of
global warming, causing sea
levels to rise. The warmer sea
temperatures mean more severe
rainstorms, hurricanes,
and snowstorms, Wysocki explained.
“Especially along the East
Coast here, the oceans are very
warm,” he said. “They’ve gone
up by, I think it’s about fi ve degrees
in the last 10 years. And
that plays an important role
in the energy to these storms.
Warmer temperatures mean
more moisture, more moisture
means more snow.”
This increase in moisture
is part of New York City’s
transformation into a warmer,
rainier climate. Last winter
was the city’s second warmest
winter on record with an average
42.5 degrees, marking the
region’s transition into a subtropical
climate.
New York City isn’t the
only region experiencing more
hurricanes and snowstorms.
Worldwide, climate change is
expanding the atmosphere’s
capacity for water, since hot
air can hold more water molecules.
That atmospheric moisture
can condense, spurring extreme
weather events and even
causing droughts, according to
a 2015 paper by Queen College
professor Dr. Chuixiang Yi.
Because of that added moisture
from the melting ice caps,
some parts of the world will see
random bouts of intense rainfall
or snow at random while
others will experience the opposite,
another meteorologist
explained.
“Think of the polar vortex
like a glass bowl, and you take
a hammer and shatter the bowl,
and the pieces fl y all over the
place,” said Steven DiMartino.
“Where that glass ends up can
mean a warm winter for us.”
Or, a cold and snowy winter,
like this year’s has been.
It’s not just fossil fuels and
global warming that are to
blame for the more intense
snowstorms. The city’s landscape
of concrete, asphalt, and
metal absorbs more heat than
natural surfaces, raising the
city’s temperature compared to
its more rural surroundings —
a phenomenon called the Urban
Heating Island (UHI) effect.
“Part of it has to do with the
fact that 60, 70 years ago, we
didn’t have as much of a buildup
in terms of the suburbs,” Di-
Martino explained. “Now...you
have highways … All that adds
heat to the atmosphere.”
All these changes mean
that rainstorms, hurricanes,
and snowstorms will most
likely get more severe in the
coming years. That process
can only really be slowed by a
stark reduction in greenhouse
gas emissions and an increase
in greener infrastructure, but
there’s no way to stop the trend
now, DiMartino said.
“The way that we build
would obviously be one factor,
but in terms of something immediate,
there’s nothing you
can really do,” he said. “We’re
kind of stuck with this.”
BROOKLYN
powdery snow
Why 6 of NY’s 10 biggest
snowstorms have
occurred since 2003