Climate Change Driving Brutal Winter?

Frigid temperatures delight those who deny climate change, but the long-term outlook is unnerving. “Rutgers University climate scientist Jennifer Francis and colleagues link that wavy jet stream to a warming Arctic, where climate changes near the top of the world are happening faster than in Earth’s middle latitudes,” reports Kirk Moore for Rutgers Today. The melting Arctic is forcing upper atmosphere currents to dip wildly, prompting extreme weather while industries including agriculture and tourism count on gradual shifts and reliable forecasts. The wavy jet-stream pattern has occurred more often since the 1990s, the researchers report. They connect that pattern with severe storms, record cold and snowfalls, and lingering droughts. “The phenomenon called Arctic amplification – defined as the enhanced sensitivity of the Arctic region to warming compared to lower latitudes – is changing large-scale upper level flows in the atmosphere, the paper suggests,” Moore reports. “Even scientists who are skeptical of the findings say it’s a good effort to resolve the problem of differentiating real changes in the jet stream’s behavior from random noise.” A less dependable jet stream could devastate some economies. – YaleGlobal