![]() In this case, researchers were able to reconstruct it position over the past 1,250 years. They contain all kinds of information about what the climate was like thousands of years ago.Īnd because the jet stream has such a strong effect on regional weather and climate patterns, scientists can use this information to map out the flow of the jet stream through history. Ice cores, as scientists call them, work a bit like a scientific time machine. They did so using a handy scientific trick, chemically analyzing samples of ancient ice drilled from deep within the Greenland ice sheet. Osman and his colleagues set out to trace the jet stream’s position through history, looking back thousands of years into the past. The new study, led by Matthew Osman of the University of Arizona, aimed to get to the bottom of it. It can be hard to parse out whether recent fluctuations are within its normal boundaries or not. The jet stream tends to move around a lot as it is, shifting north and south and wiggling up and down as it moves around the globe. Some experts believe these shifts may alter the jet stream.īut not everyone agrees on exactly how the jet stream might change - or whether climate change has had any noticeable effect on it yet. And as some regions heat up faster than others - the rapidly warming Arctic, in particular - scientists believe they may cause shifts in the atmosphere that affect the flow of air. But not all parts of the world are warming at the same rate. Today, these air temperatures are steadily climbing. This temperature gradient affects the thickness of the atmosphere, giving rise to wavy air currents that flow from west to east around the globe. The current exists because of the strong difference in temperatures between the icy North Pole and the warm equator. Many scientists believe rising air temperatures can affect the jet stream’s flow. The jet stream has a powerful influence on weather and climate patterns throughout the Northern Hemisphere, and changes in the strength or the position of the air current can have big ripple effects around the world. The effect of climate change on the jet stream is a hot topic among scientists. The findings were published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The consequences could be dramatic: shifts in rainfall patterns across the midlatitudes and an increase in droughts, heat waves, floods and other extreme weather events in Europe and the eastern U.S.Ī new study finds that the jet stream could shift outside the bounds of its historic range within just a few decades - by the year 2060 or so - under a strong warming scenario. The North Atlantic jet stream, a fast-moving air current circling the Northern Hemisphere, may migrate northward in the coming decades if strong global warming continues. ![]()
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