Is Climate Change to Blame for the Snow-less Winter in Moscow?

Both ABC and CNN news reports on Moscow’s unfamiliar winter, there was hardly any snow.  

The city, which is usually covered in snow for four to five months a year, with February generally bringing in heavy snow in Moscow had “barely any snow cover in the whole of February,” making this season a once in a “century occurrence,” says their local meteorologist the CNN article reads (llyushina M. & Miller, B., 2020).

Winters typically ran from December to the end of February.

According to the CNN article:

• This winter is the hottest in 140 years of meteorological observations, beating the 2015-2016 winter record by 1.3 C (2.3 F).
• Moscow’s winter temperature is 7.5°C (13.5°F) above average.
• March 2020 started with temperatures 7 to 8 degrees C above average, making this a month ahead of the calendar.
• A meteorologist reported that abnormally high temperatures of +5 to 10°C and even +15 to 18°C above normal were recorded in northern Siberia and Yakutia, as well as in some parts of the country, according to Elena Volsyuk.
• Most of Moscow was snow-free by the end of February, and the maximum snow depth recorded was only 4 inches (10-11 cm), 2.7 inches (7cm) below any other year’s maximum snow depth.
• This unusually hot winter brings some good news – lower power bills due to the short winter.
• According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, Europe also experienced the warmest winter season since 1855, when records began. Northern and Eastern Europe experienced 3.4°C (6°F) warmer winter temperatures than usual.

Is this warm winter caused by climate change or something else?

ABC News reports that scientists have linked this warm winter to the Arctic Oscillation. This phenomenon influences the weather pattern in the Arctic and refers to a swing between high and low pressure over the Arctic (Reevell, 2020).

This year, an extremely low-pressure system has remained in place over the North Pole for an unusually long time, trapping cold air and bringing warm temperatures to the south, resulting in a warm winter over Russia and parts of Europe.  This prolonged low pressure over the Arctic will be the research subject for scientists, and whether this is linked to climate change (Reevell, 2020).

According to Carlo Buontempo, Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, this unusually warm winter is an extreme event caused by climate change and global warming trends (llyushina & Miller, 2020).

However, this warming trend poses a more serious threat. The thawing of permafrost.

Two-thirds of Russia sits on permafrost, and it is melting away rapidly. Russia’s Arctic forest fire during the summer has left sinkholes in places like Yakutia. The melting of permafrost worries scientists worldwide as these large amounts of methane and carbon trapped in it could escape, accelerating climate change (llyushina M. & Miller, B., 2020).

ABC News reports that Global temperatures have been rising for decades, and the last six years have been the warmest on record. Scientists have warned that rising temperatures will not only bring warmer winters but also more extreme weather (Reevell, 2020).

President Vladimir Putin, who has previously doubted climate change, now acknowledges its impact on the country’s infrastructure (Llyushina & Miller, 2020).

Russia, the 4th biggest GHG emitter, has joined the Paris Agreement. However, proposed legislation to impose quotas on emissions was “squashed by the largest companies after industry pushback”, the CNN article reads (llyushina & Miller, 2020).

Climate change is indeed already happening, as scientists have been telling us, and the signs are telling, much like the symptoms of a pandemic. We are already seeing it. Failure to act early through climate adaptation and mitigation will bring more catastrophes and damage in the future.