jet stream
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new 619</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">// to conveyor in ocean currents?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see chaos disruption and global weirding
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://ecowatch.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=214ab5fbb3f6015d74ffab4ec&id=28484cd158&e=c2e8fdabfa">https://ecowatch.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=214ab5fbb3f6015d74ffab4ec&id=28484cd158&e=c2e8fdabfa</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">12 22 ecowatch <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/bomb-cyclone-winter-storm-us.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/bomb-cyclone-winter-storm-us.html</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><h2 class="yiv5252243794null" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 32.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">arctic Air Brings Dangerous Cold to U.S., Could Test Texas Grid</font></h2><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A bomb cyclone of Arctic air is descending on the lower 48 states, bringing with it life-threatening extreme cold, heavy snow and rain, and blizzard conditions.</font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The National Weather Service office in Buffalo, NY — no stranger to extreme winter weather — described it as a “<a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="blank" href="https://ecowatch.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=214ab5fbb3f6015d74ffab4ec&id=3465bb23c9&e=c2e8fdabfa" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">once in a generation winter storm</a>.” The coldest temperatures in decades will send wind chills as low as -70°F in eastern Wyoming and the Eastern Seaboard will likely see its coldest Christmas <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="blank" href="https://ecowatch.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=214ab5fbb3f6015d74ffab4ec&id=95e644bf46&e=c2e8fdabfa" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">since Taylor Swift was born</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The extreme cold will also likely, and tragically, illustrate the <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/top_story/unhoused-people-especially-vulnerable-to-heat/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&hsmi=238866288&hsenc=p2ANqtz--qsUxH1Oflk6IQPrJGwZWzYmi48jL0ZWWlYxi0QXFYLFKz12E9qulAGKq8iC3B72rE1sZK2rdZhUo2Em4K7owwu03NtA&utm_content=238866288&utm_source=hs_email" style="box-sizing: inherit;">heavy toll</a> of <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/top_story/basements-turned-to-death-traps-by-ida/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&hsmi=238866288&hsenc=p2ANqtz-8jxWoYakEqXsCs7o6UcmtupGYdGEkY2RwbZ7g7pERBZ5m5j7ihKx_pkwS1MJv8836cGObqAjv6wklgYKcACCOUBqBEQg&utm_content=238866288&utm_source=hs_email" style="box-sizing: inherit;">extreme weather</a> on <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/top_story/endanger-unhoused-people-endangered-by-heat/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&hsmi=238866288&hsenc=p2ANqtz--g_ZCJ-ywsY_pAFwoeRPwOFRrbh_bfD2AimYC9Q7gy9u3NDJARSKL_kbGU7vCD_DcsEGJ3sAOpsf62mSV1BFh8I6Rwg&utm_content=238866288&utm_source=hs_email" style="box-sizing: inherit;">people experiencing homelessness</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/top_story/southwest-louisiana-wary-of-lng-exports/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&hsmi=238866288&hsenc=p2ANqtz--MMkShbTjqhIYFVZUTTTMCdoYP7JV3nUcZZUNvlwEwUFSEL1bVs9U6Q5To89q99_PudIEkF-jpzfbCT_IReaJY_HC46g&utm_content=238866288&utm_source=hs_email" style="box-sizing: inherit;">driving methane gas prices even higher</a> for families across the central U.S., the cold will also likely test the Texas electrical grid, which crashed catastrophically in 2021, mostly due to failure of the methane gas system. More than <a href="https://www.constructiondive.com/news/texas-megaprojects-invest-in-clean-energy-bechtel-construction/638642/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&hsmi=238866288&hsenc=p2ANqtz-xygyR-6dprC25ufTSbBu2lrbpFmIsz-9iB9Mkdgg8DQGF2Eioi4QGVQvnbOS3l-ToYgM5SvUXoc75c17Goj-HzrhzQ&utm_content=238866288&utm_source=hs_email" style="box-sizing: inherit;">7,300 megawatts</a> of new wind, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/solar/what-is-solar-energy" style="box-sizing: inherit;">solar</a>, and energy storage capacity has been added to the Texas grid in the past year, and <a href="https://twitter.com/cohan_ds/status/1605257128385515520?s=46&t=Wk_bJYUo9Nf0wXZl3KWTKw&utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&hsmi=238866288&hsenc=p2ANqtz-RlzEBiSkKoTxZnYYjVTddu2FJ0CdRWtnWJ2Gqy0qCCf2gf0ef1oeEuglk2DprOkdSBLFTTakvdaKJW85jacnkKEVKBQ&utm_content=238866288&utm_source=hs_email" style="box-sizing: inherit;">could help</a> keep the grid stable.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Research <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0662-y?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&hsmi=238866288&hsenc=p2ANqtz-dpCxrHBuLsEDGH7UN6LA08FjXXBaPnNN2GCqvNBPp3J7XaJ-Bg-O9ix4yQ4rS1WYrzR49Ubr4z9HCgFj3f0hdRACiYg&utm_content=238866288&utm_source=hs_email" style="box-sizing: inherit;">suggests</a> the <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/top_story/report-card-warns-of-arctic-destabilization/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&hsmi=238866288&hsenc=p2ANqtz-UQuLUCb2w7iU--_LSOOoUjJ0Fo9aJ7s7TNtodhpY8HjCLzGdpjIye_FtrqGxQOtOU9EiUzko0WhYBlocnN-6Gzgd49Q&utm_content=238866288&utm_source=hs_email" style="box-sizing: inherit;">rapidly warming Arctic</a> appears to be playing a role in creating more opportunities for cold air to dive south.</font></span></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">arctic heating #X fast?! disrupts strato --> eu heat wave?</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/greenland-lost-ice-three-days/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/greenland-lost-ice-three-days/</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31102018/jet-stream-climate-change-study-extreme-weather-arctic-amplification-temperature"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31102018/jet-stream-climate-change-study-extreme-weather-arctic-amplification-temperature</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><h5 class="article-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-weight="font-weight" normal="normal" line-height="line-height" rem="rem" font-size="font-size" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31102018/jet-stream-climate-change-study-extreme-weather-arctic-amplification-temperature" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Global Warming Is Messing with the Jet Stream. That Means More Extreme Weather.</font></a></h5><div class="meta" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 1rem;"><p class="byline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BY BOB BERWYN</font></p><p class="byline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-transform: none;"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Greenhouse gases are increasingly disrupting the jet stream, a powerful river of winds that steers weather systems in the Northern Hemisphere. That's causing more frequent summer droughts, floods and wildfires, a new study says.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The findings suggest that summers like 2018, when the jet stream drove extreme weather on an unprecedented scale across the Northern Hemisphere, will be 50 percent more frequent by the end of the century if emissions of carbon dioxide and other climate pollutants from industry, agriculture and the burning of fossil fuels continue at a high rate.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In a worst-case scenario, there could be a near-tripling of such extreme jet stream events, but other factors, like aerosol emissions, are a wild card, according to the <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/10/eaat3272" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">research</a>, published today in the journal <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Science Advances.</em></b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The study identifies how the <b>faster warming of the Arctic twists the jet stream into an extreme pattern that leads to persistent heat and drought extremes in some regions, with flooding in other areas.</b></font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The researchers said they were</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> surprised</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> by how big a role other pollutants play in the jet stream's behavior, especially aerosols—microscopic solid or liquid particles from industry, agriculture, volcanoes and plants. Aerosols have a cooling effect that partially counteracts the jet stream changes caused by greenhouse gases,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> said co-author Dim Comou, a climate and extreme weather researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">"The aerosols forcing was a bit of a surprise to us," Comou said. "Those emissions are expected to decrease rapidly in the mid-latitude regions in the next 10 to 30 years" because of phasing out of pollution to protect people from breathing unhealthy air.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In recent decades, aerosol pollution has actually been slowing down the global warming process across the Northern Hemisphere's mid-latitude industrial regions. If aerosol emissions drop rapidly, as projected, these regions would warm faster.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>That would change the temperature contrast between the Arctic and mid-latitudes, which would dampen the warming effect of greenhouse gases on the jet stream.</b> By how much depends on the rate, location and timing of the reductions, and the offset would end by mid-century, when man-made aerosols are expected to be mostly gone and no longer reflecting incoming solar radiation, said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist and study lead author Michael Mann.</font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.333;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Repeats of the Summer of 2018?</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The jet stream is a powerful high-altitude wind that shapes and moves weather systems from west to east. Different branches of the jet stream undulate from the subtropics to the edge of the Arctic. In the past 15 years at least, the jet stream has been coiling up more, slithering farther north and south. When it gets stuck in the extreme pattern identified by the scientists, it leads to more deadly and costly weather extremes.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That extremely wavy pattern, called "quasi-resonant amplification," was evident during the extreme summer of 2018, Mann said.</font></p><div class="media media-element-container media-image_centered_medium" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 648px; margin: 0.25em auto;"><figure id="file-271572" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" class="file file-image file-image-png" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 100%; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><img alt="Extreme Weather and the Jet Stream" title="Extreme Weather and the Jet Stream" height="445" width="529" class="media-element file-image-centered-medium" typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/styles/icn_centered_medium/public/ArcticJetStreamWeird529px.png?itok=G1_IEjio" style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; float: none; margin: 0px auto;" /></figure></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>It played out in real time on TV and in newspaper headlines about droughts, floods, heat extremes and wildfires—an "unprecedented hemisphere-wide pattern,"</b> Mann said. "It played a key role in the large-scale jet pattern we saw in late July, associated with deep stagnant high pressure centers over California and Europe."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That brought blazing temperatures and wildfire conditions to California, flooding over the Eastern U.S. and unprecedented heat to the Scandinavian Arctic region, as well as a six-month heat wave and drought across parts of Central Europe, all events showing a clear <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27072018/summer-2018-heat-wave-wildfires-climate-change-evidence-crops-flooding-deaths-records-broken" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">global warming fingerprint</a>, according to scientists</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The new study focuses on summer extremes, while <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02022018/cold-weather-polar-vortex-jet-stream-explained-global-warming-arctic-ice-climate-change" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">other research</a> has looked at how global warming affects the jet stream in winter.</font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">What Happens in the Arctic Doesn't Stay There</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research who was not involved with the new research, said the study has some </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"compelling new evidence on the link between amplified Arctic warming and extreme mid-latitude weather during the summer months."</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay there. Increased melting of reflective sea ice in summer exposes more dark-colored ocean to absorb heat, and that heats the surrounding land. As Arctic warming races ahead of the rest of the global average, the temperature contrasts that drive the jet stream are reduced, and the river of wind more frequently twists into sharp and slow-moving or stationary waves.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"When the jet stream enters this wavy state, extreme weather tends to occur on either side of the amplified ridges and troughs as the storm track becomes locked in place," Swain said. Then, specific regions experience long periods of cool and stormy or, contrarily, hot and dry weather, he added.</font></p></div></div></div></div><div class="tagged-with" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"><label style="box-sizing: inherit; display: block; line-height: 1.2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PUBLISHED UNDER:</font></label><div class="field field-name-field-topics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/extreme-weather" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">EXTREME WEATHER</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div> <div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/climate-science" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">CLIMATE SCIENCE</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/climate-change" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CLIMATE CHANGE</font></a></div></div></div></div><p class="byline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p class="byline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CONTEXT/ RELATED?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One intriguing question has been how the loss of Arctic sea ice will affect weather patterns in North America, Europe and Asia.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Melting that much of Earth's icebox could alter wind patterns that shunt weather systems around the Northern Hemisphere, scientists reasoned early in the decade. A <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2012GL051000" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">study</a> in 2012 suggested a mechanism: Sea ice melt alters the jet stream by reducing the temperature contrast between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes. As the jet stream weakens, it enables areas of rainy weather or hot, dry conditions to linger longer over a given area, leading to extreme rainfall or heat waves and drought.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As the decade ended, studies seemed to support that early conclusion. <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/10/eaat3272" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">Research</a> published by <a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">Michael Mann</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/rahmstorf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">Stefan Rahmstorf</a> and others showed how <b>heat waves, floods and wildfires are linked with a jet stream pattern that, in turn, is related to an over-heated Arctic.</b> In a climate warmed by greenhouse gases, the jet stream is more likely to <b>set up in a pattern that causes extremes to linger longer over Europe and North America.</b></font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Arctic Melting Also Effects Ocean Currents</font></h3><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another major advance in climate research this decade relates to how the melting Arctic will affect a key <a href="https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/td0802.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">Atlantic Ocean current</a> that balances Earth's climate by carrying warm, salty water north in the upper layers of the ocean and colder water southward in the ocean depths.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Early in the decade, scientists were still speculating about whether such a slowdown was happening, but now, "for the first time the IPCC has confirmed that the AMOC has slowed down, as predicted by models," Rahmstorf said.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Slowing of the AMOC, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, has been identified as one of the main tipping points in the planet's climate system. Changes in the circulation "have been responsible for some of the strongest and most rapid climate shifts during the Quaternary Period (the past 2.6 million years)," one <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0006-5.epdf?author_access_token=d9GwXXnkYQw6itiGny0ZW9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0OdzeJ18XkImxSDnyYEEsE8cCDHkcmVSlMgRd2VzekBpzVfe728uOBU7B1e8unrLGpKyeWhlTvQKe6JHGdYV8iLm4nND7KgW4aTVEUH8xo0AA%3D%3D" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">study</a> said.</font></p><div class="media media-element-container media-image_centered_medium" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 648px; margin: 0.25em auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><figure id="file-270670" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" class="file file-image file-image-jpeg with-caption" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 100%; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><figcaption class="field field-name-field-image-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit; padding: 2em; line-height: 1.6; border-right: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); border-left: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); border-image: initial; border-top: none;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><p style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[graf/ map currents]</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There are already signs that the weakening of the Atlantic circulation is having an effect on U.S. fisheries and storms. Ice melting off Greenland as the Arctic warms is believed to play a key role. Credit: NASA]</font></p></div></figcaption></figure></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Total collapse of the current, still seen as unlikely, would raise sea level by 30 inches around the North Atlantic, but even a slowdown will have a similar effect, to a lesser degree.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The current is balanced, in part, by the slope of the sea surface as it climbs away from the East coast toward the center of the North Atlantic Ocean gyre," explained Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann. "If the current slows, that slope must decrease, which is accomplished by the sea surface rising along the coast. That can add as much as an extra foot to sea level rise over the next century over parts of the East Coast."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The slowdown will likely push tropical rainfall belts southward, disrupting agriculture and ocean ecosystems. A <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12072016/ocean-currents-intensifying-bringing-stronger-storms-research-shows" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">study</a> in 2016 showed how global warming is shifting other currents in ways that could bring more intense storms to land areas, like the rainstorms that brought record flooding to Japan.</font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Marine Heat Waves Drive Ecosystem Tipping Points</font></h3><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Scientists have long known that the oceans are absorbing about 93 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases, but it wasn't until the last few years that they showed how that's manifesting in <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17092019/marine-heat-wave-climate-change-pacific-coast-fish-wildlife-california-wildfires-hurricanes-hawaii" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">marine heat waves</a> that are driving some ocean ecosystems to tipping points.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The most visible might be the <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07062016/coral-bleaching-alarms-scientists-climate-change-global-warming-great-barrier-reef" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">mass die-offs of coral reefs</a> in 2015 and 2016 as the oceans seethed at near record warmth for months on end.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The impacts of another marine heat wave, known as the Pacific warm blob,</b> cascaded through Pacific Ocean ecosystems in 2014 and 2015, causing widespread disruption to the food chain and promoting toxic algae blooms. Another began forming in the Pacific <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17092019/marine-heat-wave-climate-change-pacific-coast-fish-wildlife-california-wildfires-hurricanes-hawaii" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit;">in 2019</a>.</font></p><div class="media media-element-container media-image_centered_medium" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 648px; margin: 0.25em auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><figure id="file-273868" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" class="file file-image file-image-png" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 100%; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></figure></div><div class="media media-element-container media-image_centered_medium" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 648px; margin: 0.25em auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><figure id="file-273243" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" class="file file-image file-image-png" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 100%; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><img alt="Map: Recent Marine Heat Waves" title="Map: Recent Marine Heat Waves" height="521" width="529" class="media-element file-image-centered-medium" data-delta="5" typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/styles/icn_centered_medium/public/OceanHeatWaveGlobe.png?itok=B7caply-" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; float: none; margin: 0px auto;" /></figure></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Marine heat waves don't just affect the water. The Pacific warm blob was also <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017JD026575" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">linked</a> with California's extreme drought that pushed some inland forest ecosystems past the brink. The large area of stagnant heat over the ocean blocked cooler marine air from reaching the coast, enabling the heat to build up.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since the 1920s, marine heat waves have become 34 percent more frequent, and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03163-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">research</a> shows about 87 percent of them can be attributed to human-caused global warming.</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Potential for West Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse</font></h3><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the start of the 2010s, scientists were just beginning to understand how vulnerable parts of Antarctica are to human-caused global warming. New studies this past decade showed that what was once considered a nearly invincible fortress of ice is crumbling at the edges.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Just a little more warming could push parts of the Antarctic ice sheets past a tipping point </span>that would raise sea level faster and higher than anticipated by the climate assessments commonly used for coastal planning around the world.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I'd say one of the big things this decade includes the <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/344/6185/735" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit;">potential collapse</a> of West Antarctica, based on new research," said University of Colorado climate scientist Mike MacFerrin. "<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Just this year, we have evidence that Antarctica's recent speedup of ice loss is, in fact, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12112019/antarctica-ice-shelf-melt-atmospheric-river-thwaites-glacier-ocean-sea-level-rise" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">human-caused</a>."</span></font></p><div class="media media-element-container media-image_centered_medium" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 648px; margin: 0.25em auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><figure id="file-273569" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" class="file file-image file-image-png" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 100%; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></figure></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Concerns about an abrupt collapse of parts of Antarctica's ice shelves intensified in 2016 with a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature17145" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">study</a> suggesting that water from surface melting could seep deep into the ice, refreeze and split off huge slabs of the shelves in a relatively short time.</b> <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/116/38/18867" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">Radar surveys</a> showing the thinning of the Thwaites Glacier helped trigger a massive international research effort to track the melting in that area, and scientists are also <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/pine-island" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">watching</a> the Pine Island Glacier for signs of disintegration.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The worst-case tipping point scenarios shouldn't be off the table, said <a href="https://twitter.com/climate_ice" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">Jason Box</a>, a climate scientist with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Box said the research showing destabilization of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is a key climate science advance of this past decade "that should have been like a real wake-up call moment," he said.</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Connecting Climate Change to Weather Extremes</font></h3><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Only a few years ago, scientists were reluctant to connect any specific <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18122019/decade-climate-heat-drought-extreme-storms-arctic-sea-ice-antarctica-greenland" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">extreme weather</a> event to global warming.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/108/44/17905.short" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">2011</a> and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1452" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">2012</a>, Rahmstorf and other scientists triggered debates when they wrote that there was strong evidence linking specific events or an increase in their numbers to the human influence on climate. Since then, scientists who specialize in attribution research have found global warming fingerprints on <a href="https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/analysis/heatwave/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">nearly every heat wave</a> they've studied.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">"Looking back over the past decade, it's astonishing how firmly we've moved out to the tails of the probability distribution. Extremes are common and are commonly attributed to human activities,</b>" said Oregon State University climate researcher Philip Mote. "We're living the worst-case scenario."</font></p><div class="media media-element-container media-image_centered_medium" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 648px; margin: 0.25em auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><figure id="file-270819" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" class="file file-image file-image-png" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 100%; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></figure></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>One area of research during the 2010s with ominous findings was how global warming affects the intensity tropical storms, including <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01122016/global-warming-hurricanes-northeast-us-coast" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">North Atlantic hurricanes</a> that affect the densely populated East Coast </b>of the U.S. A 2016 <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep37522" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">study</a> tracked a persistent shift of storm tracks toward that area.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 138.594px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"We've seen extreme events, with every major ocean basin having at least one big, catastrophic hurricane in the last few years," said NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt. "We had Dorian and Michael, with rapid intensification so early in its development and close to the equator," he said. "Every basin has come up with monstrous storms."</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seeing the Risks, More Scientists Are Speaking Out</font></h3></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div>