Aiguo Dai Professor at National Center for Atmospheric Research at Boulder, Colorado gave an exclusive interview to Eurasia Diary on the recent weather changes around the world.
Eurasia Diary: Recently, snow fell in Sahara desert for the first time in 40 years. How do you see this?
Aiguo Dai: This is most likely due to natural variability in our weather and climate.
Eurasia Diary: The recent weather in Hanta-Mansiysk city was so cold that it was impossible to measure because the temperature was lower than the minimum temperature which can thermometer shows. What you can say about it?
Aiguo Dai: Again. There are some scientific studies that analyze extreme cold events over many years and the result seem to seem some increased cold spells over Eurasia during the recent decades. Such a decadal trend could be related to decadal changes in Arctic sea-ice, GHG forcing, or other internal climate variations.
Eurasia Diary: From your viewpoint, are these two occasions a sign of Global Warming or Global Cooling?
Aiguo Dai: No. A few extreme events do not tell much about long-term climate change. You need to look at the statistics over many years to gain such a knowledge.
Eurasia Diary: At the end, Please give me a comment on smog in China that forced almost half billion people to live under terrible conditions.
Aiguo Dai: The smog in China results from the combination of human emissions of pollutants and the occurrence of calm, stable weather during the winter season. The latter is mostly a natural phenomenon, while the former is a man-made cause.
By Fakhri Vakilov