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Earth Science

Summer Weather Is Getting 'Stuck' Due To Arctic Warming (theguardian.com) 387

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Summer weather patterns are increasingly likely to stall in Europe, North America and parts of Asia, according to a new climate study that explains why Arctic warming is making heatwaves elsewhere more persistent and dangerous. Rising temperatures in the Arctic have slowed the circulation of the jet stream and other giant planetary winds, says the paper, which means high and low pressure fronts are getting stuck and weather is less able to moderate itself. The authors of the research, published in Nature Communications on Monday, warn this could lead to "very extreme extremes," which occur when abnormally high temperatures linger for an unusually prolonged period, turning sunny days into heat waves, tinder-dry conditions into wildfires, and rains into floods.

One cause is a weakening of the temperature gradient between the Arctic and Equator as a result of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The far north of the Earth is warming two to four times faster than the global average, says the paper, which means there is a declining temperature gap with the central belt of the planet. As this ramp flattens, winds struggle to build up sufficient energy and speed to push around pressure systems in the area between them. As a result, there is less relief in the form of mild and wet air from the sea when temperatures accumulate on land, and less relief from the land when storms build up in the ocean.

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Summer Weather Is Getting 'Stuck' Due To Arctic Warming

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  • Summer? What Summer? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I live in South Carolina. We did not have a Summer this year.

  • "...As this ramp flattens, winds struggle to build up sufficient energy and speed to push around pressure systems in the area between them. As a result, there is less relief in the form of mild and wet air from the sea when temperatures accumulate on land, and less relief from the land when storms build up in the ocean...."

    Which just means that the differences between continental and maritime wind patterns will be that much stronger which meaning the gradient will be less about N/S coriolis patterns and mor

  • considering (Score:2, Troll)

    by jmccue ( 834797 )

    Considering how many people in the US believes science is fake, how about setting up a lot of very large fans and tell people they will be used to circulate air and it will slowly help eliminate the heat waves.

    But remember keep the real use of the very large fans secret

  • Instead of bringing up the problem again and again I'd like to see more discussions on solutions.

    I like hydro, nuclear, and wind as solutions. Those seem to come out on top on every selection parameter I could come up with.

    I'm also a fan of the Pickens Plan.
    http://pickensplan.com/the-pla... [pickensplan.com]

    That plan is to use as much natural gas to replace imported oil as we can while we develop alternatives.

  • Too many people, and particularly the Media, tend to focus on the negatives of global warming and climate change. Just as there are losers there are also winners and the longer summers are very beneficial in the northern areas. We're getting longer growing seasons. Our winters are more temperate although still deep snows. The news is good.

    • "Just as there are losers there are also winners and the longer summers are very beneficial in the northern areas. We're getting longer growing seasons. Our winters are more temperate although still deep snows. The news is good."

      And here i was, with all the doors and windows sealed, trying to not to be asphyxiated by half the continent being on fire, when I should have been thinking, "Hey, my strawberries did do better than ever this year!"

    • Tell that German farmers, who made a billion loss this year due to droughts ...
      (Google the other European countries, I'm to lazy to do your work ...)

  • Everyone knows global warming is a hoax made up by the Chinese. The President said so.

  • I wonder if this means that we will be able to have longer pot growing seasons with bigger yields here at 45 degrees north...

  • You know what? I don't even have to read the funny pages anymore. Just launch a story about climate change on Slashdot, grab a bag of popcorn, lean back and enjoy. It's hilarious. Well, it would be, if it wasn't so terribly sad.

    And yes, I'm beyond caring. I tried to care. I really did. But I simply don't anymore. I have no kids. And the planet will stay habitable for the maybe 20 years I have left. Why should I care about this ball being habitable for you or your kids if even you can't be assed to?

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