Does the frosty winter of 2026 contradict climate change?

For several years, scientists have been warning about global warming and the dangerous consequences of rising average global temperatures. The winter of 2026 seems to contradict these reports. Can we really stop worrying about climate change?

The frosty winter of 2026 in the Northern Hemisphere

Since the beginning of the year, Europe has been experiencing low temperatures and snowfall. Winter disasters have already affected, among others, France and the Netherlands, and in our southern neighbors thermometers in mid-January showed below -20°C. In Poland, on 26 January this year, the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management reported that the monthly temperature anomaly in the eastern part of the country reached -6.2°C, while in Latvia temperatures are even 10°C lower than the long-term average.

In the United States, since Saturday 24 January this year, the Fern snowstorm has been raging, bringing snowdrifts exceeding half a meter and forty-degree frosts. On 28 January, NBC reported more than 70 fatalities. And this is not the end of winter extremes in America. A deep low-pressure system that has formed over Canada heralds another exceptionally cold weekend. Forecast temperatures are expected to be 8 to 14°C below the long-term average, and in Miami thermometers may drop below 5°C for the first time in over a decade.

Trump questions global warming

A record cold wave is set to hit 40 states. Something like this has rarely been seen before. Could the environmental “insurrectionists” please explain, WHAT HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING??? – Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social profile.

The statement by the US president was commented on by Gabriel Vecchi, a climatologist at Princeton University, who reminded that the last three years have been the warmest in history, and this applies not only to summer heat. Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that globally, temperatures in December, January and February have risen by 0.72°C since 1995, and the previous two winters were the warmest on record.

Even as the Earth warms, cold days and cold winters are not expected to disappear, there will simply be fewer of them, adds Michael Oppenheimer, a climatologist at Princeton University. Global climate change can only be assessed through the lens of long-term trends affecting the entire planet, not seasonal extremes in selected geographical regions.

Why is this winter so cold?

Paradoxically, climatologists argue that climate change itself is the cause of the exceptionally cold winter of 2026 in Europe and North America. Warmer waters around the Arctic and the loss of sea ice mean that the polar vortex, which usually limits its reach to Alaska and Siberia, now extends over the continents of the Northern Hemisphere. In the United States, icy air from the pole collides with moisture from California and the Gulf of Mexico, which in turn generates intense snowfall.

A scientific study published on 11 July 2025 in the journal Science Advances suggests that extreme winter episodes in North America are a direct result of a dramatic decline in sea ice in the Barents Sea and the Kara Sea. Data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center indicate that in the current winter season, the level of ice cover in the Arctic Ocean is the lowest in history.

The winter of 2026 is therefore not an argument for climate change denialists, but rather confirms earlier warnings from scientists, as human-driven climate change progresses, we will observe more extreme weather events of various kinds.

---

main photo: iTopLoveliness/Pixabay