New Jet Stream Path May Lead To Weather Extremes

Residents from North America to Britain, weary of ice, blizzards and catastrophics flooding this winter, may have to get used to weeks or even months of such miserable conditions on a regular basis.  That’s the conclusion of a Rutgers-NOAA study that found the jet stream is now taking a longer more erratic path due to global warming.  The jet stream is a powerful, high altitude river of air that transports weather systems around the planet.  It’s fueled by differences in temperature by the Arctic and the middle latitudes.  And because temperatures across the Arctic have been rising two to three times more rapidly than in the rest of the world, those differences are now less and causing the jet stream to slow.  This is resulting in weather that remains the same for prolonged periods, like the barrage of blizzards that buried parts of Canada and the United States and the onslaught of oceanic storms that has swamped and battered Britain.

The polar vortex can drop the jet stream way south of where it used to be. The warming of the Alaskan Gulf may help this dip.

D.B. Clay