Research Reveals People Immediately Affect Wind and Climate Over the North Atlantic – Watts Up With That?
The results suggest that winters in Europe and the eastern United States can get warmer and wetter
UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ROSENSTIEL SCHOOL OF NAVY & ATMOSPHERE SCIENCE
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PICTURE: THE POSITIVE NAO INDEX PHASE SHOWS A STRONGER THAN THE UNUSUAL SUBTROPICAL HIGH PRESSURE CENTER AND A DEEPER THAN NORMAL ICELAND-LOW. THE INCREASED PRINTING DIFFERENCE MORE AND STRONGER RESULTS… Show more CREDIT: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LAMONT-DOHERTY EARTH OBSERVATORY.
MIAMI – A new study conducted by scientists from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami (UM) provides evidence that humans influence wind and weather patterns in the eastern United States and western Europe by using CO2 and release other pollutants into the earth’s atmosphere.
In the new article published in the journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, the research team found that changes in a major weather phenomenon in the North Atlantic – known as the North Atlantic Oscillation – over the past 50 years were due to human activity, which is affecting the Climate system.
“Scientists have long understood that human actions warm the planet,” said lead study author Jeremy Klavans, a graduate of UM Rosenstiel School. “However, this man-made signal on weather patterns is much more difficult to identify.”
“In this study, we show that humans influence weather and climate patterns over the Atlantic and that we can potentially use this information to predict changes in weather and climate up to a decade in advance,” said Klavans.
The North Atlantic Oscillation, the result of air pressure fluctuations over the Atlantic, affects the weather by affecting the intensity and location of the jet stream. This fluctuation has a major impact on winter weather in Europe, Greenland, the northeastern United States and North Africa, as well as the quality of crop yields and the productivity of fisheries in the North Atlantic.
The researchers used several large ensembles of climate models assembled by researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research to predict the North Atlantic Oscillation. The analysis consisted of 269 model runs, which corresponds to over 14,000 simulated model years.
The study, entitled “NAO Predictability by External Forces in the Late 20th Century,” was published March 25 in the journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. Study authors include: Klavans, Amy Clement, and Lisa Murphy from UM Rosenstiel School, and Mark Cane from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
The study was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Program on Climate and Dynamics Large Scale (grant # AGS 1735245 and AGS 1650209), the NSF Paleo Perspectives on Climate Change program (grant # AGS 1703076), and the program for Climate variability and predictability supported by NOAA.
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