Waves in the Atmosphere Fueling Extreme Weather  					
-  							Published: June 22nd, 2014
 
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								By 
Brian Kahn 							
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 					 					  					 					 						 							 										  						  						  						  						  						 							The pattern of a 
wavy jet stream was a recurring theme in U.S. weather forecasts this winter as a particularly jagged one essentially 
split the country in two.  While there is a debate over whether climate change causes that  pattern, new research shows that the waviness does exacerbate extreme  weather.
  The research, published in Nature Climate Change on Sunday, looked at  planetary waves on a monthly timescale. Waves are essentially the  ridges and troughs left as the jet stream, a fast-moving river of air,  cuts it way across the middle of the northern hemisphere. The jet stream  essentially helps drive weather patterns around the northern half of  the globe by pushing around storm systems and sometimes impeding their  progress.
  
	
	
	
		
		
		
		
	
	
Animation of the jet stream as it moves over North America, illustrating its troughs and ridges.
Credit: NASA
  James Screen, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter who  co-authored the study, said he wanted to examine how planetary waves  influenced persistent weather patterns, such as drought or extreme heat  or cold.
  
  He examined the timeframe from 1979-2010, looking for 40 months that  exhibited the most extreme precipitation, and for 40 months that  showed the most extreme temperature departures from the norm. And the  data showed that more wavy waves overwhelmingly accompanied months with  temperature or precipitation extremes. Only a small percentage of months  with extreme weather corresponded with a more relaxed series of waves.
  In the U.S., Screen found that increased waviness made the western  part of the country more susceptible to heat waves and the eastern part  more likely to experience extreme cold. Droughts in the central part of  the country as well in as Europe and central Asia, and wet spells in  western Asia were also much more likely when waviness increased.
  The regional differences largely stem from geographical features on the ground that influence planetary waves.
  “The locations are tied to things like mountain ranges and the  temperature contrast between the land and ocean. These are factors that  don’t change,” Screen said.
  They ensure that while there might be some month-to-month  differences, the waves generally follow a similar pattern. And because  they’re separated by the jet stream, that helps determine what impacts  each region will see.
  Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Corporation for  Atmospheric Research, said the study quantified a fairly well known  pattern, though one he said climate scientists often take for granted.  Climate researchers have started to look at these waves more closely,  from how to use them to 
predict heat waves to how climate change could alter them.
  A 
commentary in Science  last month argued that climate change was at least in part to blame for  the pattern that set up over the U.S. this past winter by making waves  more common. That commentary is based on 
research published in 2012 that made the case for why rapid Arctic warming is increasing the odds of wilder planetary waves.
  The 
Arctic is warming  twice as fast as areas around the equator because of unique feedbacks  involving ice cover in the region. The research argues that as the  temperature gradient between the poles and the equator decreases,  planetary waves are getting out of whack and becoming even more extreme,  though other research has 
challenged those findings.
  Screen’s study, however, only looked at the relationship between  waves and extreme events rather than any long-term shift in trends.
  “It’s still hotly debated whether we see any change in these waves,”  Screen said. “I’m currently sitting in the middle, thinking it’s a  plausible hypothesis, but currently the evidence is inconclusive at this  point.”
  Jennifer Francis, a researcher at Rutgers University who proposed the  hypothesis, said there’s a ways to go toward understanding how climate  change could affect planetary waves, and the meanderings of the jet  stream.
  “This is a complicated problem, and finding answers is further  challenged by the short time period over which those regional  temperature changes have emerged as clear signals from the highly  variable atmosphere,” she said in an email. “New approaches to this  question are underway, however, and I'm confident that a clearer picture  will come to light in the next few years.”
  Francis also  stressed that understanding waves is just one component of  understanding the larger category of extreme weather. Natural  fluctuations in ocean temperatures, such as El Niño, and human-caused  deforestation and air pollution, can all have an impact. Smaller  fluctuations in the atmosphere can also lead to sudden, 
shorter-scale extreme events.