'Global Warming' Critics Are Making Jokes About the Winter Blast — Here's What They Don't Understand

When a massive winter storm slammed into two-thirds of the United States earlier this month, President Donald Trump thought he’d spotted a contradiction. “Record Cold Wave expected to hit 40 States. Rarely seen anything like it before,” he posted on Truth Social. “Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain — WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???”

It’s the kind of gotcha that lands if you don’t know the difference between weather and climate. Unfortunately for Trump, extreme winter storms aren’t evidence against global warming—they’re a symptom of it.

Climate scientists say Trump’s post reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how climate change actually works. He’s conflating weather with climate—and ironically, the extreme winter conditions he’s pointing to are exactly what global warming predicts.

Steven Decker, director of Rutgers University’s Meteorology Undergraduate Program, breaks it down: The unusually cold air spilling into the United States is an example of weather, while climate is an average of temperatures across the world over time that shows warm areas outweighing cold ones.

Global warming, which refers to the overall rise in global temperatures due to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, is one aspect of climate change, according to the United States Geological Survey. And that warming doesn’t just mean hotter summers—it also means more volatile, unpredictable winter weather.

Here’s where it gets counterintuitive: Extreme cold snaps don’t contradict global warming. In some cases, they’re a direct result of it.

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, told CBS News that heavy ice accumulations are more likely to happen when there is a considerable amount of warm air next to cold Arctic air. The accumulations require a substantial amount of the atmosphere to have warmer-than-freezing temperatures to ensure that precipitation melts instead of falling as snow. In other words, you need warmth to get the kind of destructive ice we’re seeing.

There’s also evidence that warm air can weaken the polar vortex, a mass of strong winds that normally keeps frigid Arctic air locked in around the North Pole, and send outbreaks of cold air southward. Incoming cold air from the polar vortex is expected to play a part in the winter storm continuing through the weekend. Some states have already been experiencing extreme cold temperatures and wind chills, and the plummeting temperatures will stretch as far south as Texas.

Trump has a history of repeating false claims about global warming, including during a 2019 snowstorm. But the science is clear.

“Global warming continues and has in fact been progressing at an increased rate in recent years,” Swain said.

The data backs that up. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently ranked 2024 as the third-warmest year on record since 1850.

“Notably, the 10 warmest years in the 176-year record have all occurred since 2015,” NOAA said in its annual global climate report.

Historical data from NOAA shows that the eastern U.S. has seen a winter warming trend over the past century. Meanwhile, most of the western U.S. has been experiencing record-warm winter temperatures, according to a database created by the University of California, Merced.

Swain also pointed out that Trump’s description of this weekend’s winter storm forecast was not exactly correct.

“‘Record cold wave’ is an objectively inaccurate way to describe what is currently unfolding,” Swain said. “It is possible, however, that some locations could see record-breaking ice accumulations from this storm.”

So no—a brutal winter storm doesn’t disprove global warming. If anything, it’s a sign that the climate systems regulating our weather are breaking down. A warming planet doesn’t just mean hotter summers. It means weather that swings harder, changes faster and becomes increasingly unpredictable. Winter isn’t going anywhere. It’s just getting weirder.