Why Do European Cities Have Milder Winters Than Those In North America, Despite Being At The Same Latitude?
Why Do European Cities Have Milder Winters Than Those In North America, Despite Being At The Same Latitude?
Broadly speaking, the farther you get from the equator, thecolder the average temperaturesare. It’s a major reason why the North and South poles are some of thecoldest placeson Earth, while many of the hottest deserts are concentrated near the center of the planet.
But that logic doesn’t apply to parts of Western Europe. For example, the average January high in London is47 degrees Fahrenheit(8.3 degrees Celsius), but Calgary, Alberta, 4,400 miles (7,100 kilometers) west of London, has an average January high in thelow 30s(less than 1 C). Both cities are at nearly the same latitude: London sits at51.5 degreesand Calgary is at a latitude of51 degreesmeaning they are about an equal distance from the equator.
Overall, the average January temperature for the contiguous United States in 2024 was about32 F(0 C), but the average temperatures in a number of countries throughout Western Europe felt warmer: Germany averaged35 F(1.5 C), the United Kingdom averaged almost39 F(3.8 C) and Spain averaged47 F(8.4 C) in January 2024.
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So why do some Western European cities have milder winters than those in parts of North America if they share the same latitude?
A key reason is a system of ocean currents in the Atlantic brings heat from the tropics up toward Europe, saidBen Moathead of open ocean physics at the National Oceanography Centre in the U.K.
“If you imagine a wood stove in your house, it draws cold air towards the heat. It rises and circulates,” he told Live Science. “That’s also what happens in most of the world’s oceans.”
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That system is called theAtlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation(AMOC), a web of ocean currents that loop through the Atlantic Ocean. The AMOC works likea massive conveyor beltthat moves 600 million cubic feet (17 million cubic meters) of water per second and 1.2 petawatts of heat, roughly the amount of heat put out by a million power plants running simultaneously, Moat estimates.
The massive amount of warm water rushing to the Northern Hemisphere also heats up the atmosphere. Prevailing winds known as the westerlies then blow from west to east and carry the warm ocean air in the atmosphere inland like a “fan-assisted heater,”David Thornalleya professor of ocean and climate science at University College London, told Live Science in an email. The westerlies are especially strong in the winter, which helps create the “nice warm winter climate of southwest England,” he said, at least compared to the winter climate of places at similar latitudes in North America, like Calgary or Winnipeg.
The oceans, Gulf Stream and jet stream
The European continent is also warmer because it is relatively narrow and surrounded by water. Simply being next to an ocean makes a big difference, Thornalley said, “because water can store so much heat. It builds up and stores heat in the summer, which it then releases to the atmosphere in winter. … It is why places next to the ocean tend to have milder winters than in the middle of a continent.”
That also helps explain why parts of Europe tend to have cooler summers — while the ocean is warmer than the air in thewinterin the summer the ocean is cooler, he said. Over thesummerthe cooler water reduces the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere which the westerlies then blow inland.
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Unfortunately for cities like New York and Boston in the Northeast U.S., being next to an ocean doesn’t necessarily mean warmer winters. A major reason is because of the Gulf Stream, apart of the AMOCthat brings warm water up the East Coast of the U.S. It formsatmospheric waves that draw cold air from the northern polar regionand delivers frigid air to the Northeast — potentially accounting for 30% to 50% of the temperature difference across oceans — according to a 2011 study in the journalNature.
Another band of wind has a big impact on North America’s climate: the jet stream. Similar to the westerlies, the jet stream flows west to east, but the jet stream operates in theupper levels of the atmosphereand when it flows downstream of the Rocky Mountains, it “has a tendency” to dip south and allow “cold air from polar latitudes” to spill over North America,Sybren Driftwooda professor of physical oceanography and climate physics at the University of Southampton in the U.K., told Live Science in an email.
The jet stream is generally stronger in the winter because the temperature difference across the stream is larger during winter months: “bringing Canadian air to the U.S.” can therefore lead to larger drops in temperature andextreme weatheras a result.
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But the temperate climate in much of Europe may not last forever, especially as extreme weather is only becoming common withclimate change.Peter Ditlevsenphysicist and professor at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, co-authoreda 2023 paperwarning that the AMOC — which is critical to regulating the global climate, not just Europe’s —could collapse due to human-caused climate changebetween now and 2095, which is much earlier than previous predictions.
The climate in certain parts of Europe would look like Alaska or northern Canada, Ditlevsen told Live Science. “There have been some studies saying that agriculture in Ireland and England would fall by, you know, 50%,” he said. “Obviously, we hope that this is not going to happen.”
Disclaimer: This news article has been republished exactly as it appeared on its original source, without any modification. We do not take any responsibility for its content, which remains solely the responsibility of the original publisher.
Disclaimer: This news article has been republished exactly as it appeared on its original source, without any modification.
We do not take any responsibility for its content, which remains solely the responsibility of the original publisher.
Author: uaetodaynews
Published on: 2025-11-11 08:49:00
Source: uaetodaynews.com
