Melting arctic links to chill winter

The melting process of Arctic ice could lower the global temperature in the winter, according to a new study just released in the United States. The finding was published on Monday in Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. By modeling of the meteorological processes involved the researchers from Georgia Tech of the U.S. and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of China. The researchers found the area of Arctic Ocean covered by ice in summer and autumn has been decreasing with global warming and is having an effect on the atmospheric jet stream. That phenomenon is producing cold, snowy weather. "For the past four winters, for much of the northern United States, east Asia and Europe, we had this persistent above-normal snow cover," the study's lead author Liu Jiping said in an interview. "We don't see a predictive relationship with any of the other factors that have been proposed, such as El Nino, but for sea ice, we do see a predictive relationship," he added. Their next project is to detail the mechanisms of Arctic ice into various computer models of climate, and see whether they do forecast a growing winter chill, he said.