Posted on 02/16/2014 10:15:55 AM PST by Redcloak
Chicago (AFP) - A warmer Arctic could permanently affect the pattern of the high-altitude polar jet stream, resulting in longer and colder winters over North America and northern Europe, US scientists say.
The jet stream, a ribbon of high altitude, high-speed wind in northern latitudes that blows from west to east, is formed when the cold Arctic air clashes with warmer air from further south.
The greater the difference in temperature, the faster the jet stream moves.
According to Jennifer Francis, a climate expert at Rutgers University, the Arctic air has warmed in recent years as a result of melting polar ice caps, meaning there is now less of a difference in temperatures when it hits air from lower latitudes.
"The jet stream is a very fast moving river of air over our head," she said Saturday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"But over the past two decades the jet stream has weakened. This is something we can measure," she said.
As a result, instead of circling the earth in the far north, the jet stream has begun to meander, like a river heading off course.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Their research suggests that "global warming" is leading to cooling in the Northern hemisphere. Most of the dire, Algoresque predictions of the Earth turning into a fireball have come from people using Northern hemisphere (NH) data. They've also been squirming looking for ways to explain away climate events like the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). (How could temperatures have been warmer when there were no eeeeevil SUVs driving around?!)
Another climate phenomenon that the Algorecrazies try to ignore is the Little Ice Age (LIA). The LIA poses a problem for them since it gives late 19th and 20th century warming a colder, and thus less noteworthy, starting point. A little warming doesn't count for much if it's merely correcting an earlier cold snap. These researchers have found a mechanism to connect the MWP and the LIA in the Northern hemisphere: The Jet Stream. This would also fit the change from the Roman Warm Period and the colder Dark Ages.
Though the article doesn't say so, I wonder if the researchers haven't noticed the same thing. Later in the article, Dr. Francis is quoted as saying that it's too early to blame the warming at the pole, and thus cooling over the NH. on humans. Has she and her team noticed this cyclical behavior?
To quote Battlestar Galactica: "This has all happened before and will happen again."
Two words “interglacial period”.
You know, Earth is mostly a molten planet, with a very, very thin crust upon which we float. How come no one ever discusses the heat radiation from within? It’s got to be variable.
“...could...”
Then, too, could not.
It doesn’t matter that the core of the planet is molten, what matters is that cow farts are killing us!
/greenie rant
The jet stream has been wandering for as long as I can remember.
We haven’t gotten a freeze in Florida this year, but in past years the jet stream got far enough south to kill off the orange crops, or even kill some of the trees.
I’m afraid this sounds to me like more of this “warmer makes it colder” stuff that they’ve been coming out with for some time.
And as an academic climatologist, she has to stick with the story if she wants a government research grant.
or, colder winters are why the jet stream shifted.
The jet stream is the toe of the trough and dipped because the trough was more intense
Either you mock it, or I mock you.
Yeah! Yeah!
We used to say ‘If my aunt had gonads she would be my uncle’, although with todays ‘crazies’ once they go under the knife not sure what kind of freak show is started.
Then again ‘Your Mother wore Combat Boots’ used to be an insult but today she could be quite heroic (in a sense) especially if daddy didn’t bother to join.
Curious — Does the Southern Hemisphere have some sort of similar jet stream?
If they can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist.
With lake Michigan at about 87% frozen over and a total freeze over expected very soon, along with the record snow falls in the state, we’re going to be in for a very cold spring......
I wonder if the question that brought about her it’s-too-early-to-blame-SUVs response wasn’t something along the lines of “What laws should Obama pass to stop this?”. I would be shocked if this journalist didn’t go into the interview with the expectation that she’d hear the “confirmed wisdom” of St. Algore of Warmth. How many times do you suppose she re-asked the question not believing what she heard?
On the other hand, perhaps Dr. Francis is looking to retire.
More snow cover means more heat from the sun being radiated back to space.
More heat radiating back to space means more cooling.
Maybe the scientists have discovered one more balancing mechanism that keeps the earth's climate in a relatively stable, and liveable state.
Melting polar ice caps??? Isn’t this year’s ice extent greater than last year’s? Look at the satellite photos, professor - the North Pole is not ice-free in spite of Al Gore’s prediction five years ago that it would be by now. Who ya gonna believe, Al Gore’s prediction or your lyin’ eyes?
If true, this will become the new ‘climate change’ mantra of the left that will somehow be the fault of capitalists, Christians, conservatives or Republicans. Intelligent discourse about purely scientific issues are a thing of the past-everything is now politicized.
Good gawd o mighty....I knew it was only a matter of time until they blamed current jet stream patterns on their global warming...Or it is now called climate change? Climate culture? Climate sensitivity? Climate coming out of the closet?
The warming at the pole that they’re talking about is water driven and has little to do with the Earth’s albedo. The Gulf Stream and its Pacific cousin, the Kuroshio current, take warm water into the Arctic. Their theory is that melting ice in the Arctic Sea exposes this warm water to the air. (Normally, the ice acts as an insulator.) This then causes more rising air that, in turn, meets upper level air that is descending. (That air was warmed at the equator.) This all works to disrupt the flow of the jet stream. The bottom line is that it’s not being caused by some soccermom’s SUV.
IN The words of Jean Clod sKerry..
Breeng EET onnnnn!!!
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