Experts quiet climate-change skeptics: Warming leads to longer cold snaps

Climate-change skeptics -- and everyone else in Canada -- had better bundle up. Research shows extended cold snaps like we’ve seen this winter could be a direct result of climate change. In a Rutgers University paper published last year, researchers Jennifer Francis and Stephen Vavrus wrote that the melting of Arctic ice was weakening the jet stream, the band of fast-moving wind that separates colder northern air from warmer air further south. As it weakens, it dips southward for longer periods than in the past, bringing icy-cold air with it for increasingly long stays.