The Arctic Outbreak, an unseasonable bout of frigid air that’s sweeping across the U.S. this week, is not the same as last winter’s so-called “Polar Vortex” event…A growing body of research led by Jennifer Francis, a research professor at Rutgers University’s Institute of Marine and Coastal Science, suggests Arctic warming causes less drastic changes in temperatures between northern and southern climates, leading to weakened west-to-east winds, and ultimately, a wavier jet stream like the one that caused last year’s Polar Vortex event.

California is suffering through its worst drought on record, while the East Coast sees off-the-charts flooding. Both types of extremes are worsened by global warming as scientists have explained for decades…A number of studies in recent years have li…

It will be unseasonably chilly in the eastern part of the United States this week, due to a peculiar weather pattern that’s causing deep waves in the jet stream. One of those big waves is bringing cool air down from the northeast Pacific and the Arctic…”We’ve got this cool air coming down over the eastern half of the country, and that’s gonna just be kind of nice,” said Jennifer Francis, an atmospheric scientist and research professor at Rutgers University’s Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences. “But along the east coast, we’re looking at storms and floods. On the west coast, we’re looking at heat and fires. And it’s all part of this jet stream pattern.”