The temperature outside is below zero and the snow is falling, showing no sign of stopping anytime soon. The heat is running at maximum capacity, and everyone is covered in blankets in order to keep warm. On the television, meteorologists are talking about how climate change is melting the ice caps. How is this even possible whenever the temperature is so cold outside?

To begin with, the seasons are caused by the tilt of the Earth, not by the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, which is a common belief. During the winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the Earth is actually at perihelion, meaning that the Earth is actually closest to the Sun at this time.

The main cause of climate change is from greenhouse gases, which are gases that block heat from escaping the atmosphere. In turn, this causes what is commonly known as the “greenhouse effect.” Some of the most common gases found in the atmosphere that causes this is water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane, all of which are common gases released from human activity and animals. The main cause from the side of the human race is the burning of fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Overall, global warming is said to have warmed the temperature of the Earth, but that doesn’t make sense, because the winters keep getting getting colder than the one before it. This year alone, records have been broken in several different areas including Buffalo, N.Y., Green Bay, Minn. and Flint, Mich. This is all due to the polar vortex that has been blowing down from the North Pole. This pattern is normal, but temperatures have been lower due to the vortex moving more south than usual, resulting in colder temperatures throughout the United States.

When looked at a larger scale, the number of records broken from the cold was far less than those that were broken from the warmth, as 61 heat temperatures were broken this year, with only seven cold temperatures being broken. The last time that Pittsburgh had a cold record broken was in 1994, when the record low was -3 F.

One reason for all of these records being broken may be due to the climate change. Because of the rise in temperatures, lakes don’t freeze over as often, which results in more moisture being able to go into the air. This creates more lake-effect snow whenever the conditions are right for a snow storm, which has resulted in a large amount of records being broken, such as five feet of snowfall in Erie, Pa. This can also be applied to cities that are close to oceans.

“The warmer the ocean surface, the more energy that is available to intensify these storms. And the warmer the ocean surface, the more moisture there is in the atmosphere—moisture that is able to form precipitation,” Penn State University Dr. Michael Mann explained on climaterealityproject.org.

Snow is a common occasion in Western Pennsylvania, but is a not so common occasion in the rest of the world. This year, parts of Florida received snow for the first time since 1989, measuring 0.1 inches. Beyond the reaches of the United States, snow also fell for the third time in the past 40 years in the Sahara desert, covering the sands dunes and creating a bizarre site. Not only does climate change affect how warm the Earth is, but it also affects how long people are buried inside their houses from the snow.