I have been following current news of the extreme cold snap in the northern United States and Canada. The temperature in Chicago is -27 C with “wind chill” of -40. Wind chills in parts of Manitoba are -55 C! This weather system has already broken many 50+ year records.
Climate change deniers will of course say that this is an “obvious” sign that the climate is not warming. Our counter-argument is that average & median temperatures are still increasing in the long-term. However, to those people, this is not necessarily a convincing argument related to the current situation.
Other than showing trends in global averages and some global climate models (which, to some, may not be that convincing either), how can we present a convincing argument that this current cold spell is only an isolated event and is not overall representative of the large-scale climate system?