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Friday, February 27, 2015
Everyone loves to talk about the weather, and this winter Mother Nature has served up a feast to chew on. Few parts of the US have been spared her wrath.
Severe drought and abnormally warm conditions continue in the west, with the first-ever rain-free January in San Francisco; bitter cold hangs tough over the upper Midwest and Northeast; and New England is being buried by a seemingly endless string of snowy nor’easters.
Yes, droughts, cold and snowstorms have happened before, but the persistence of this pattern over North America is starting to raise eyebrows. Is climate change at work here?
Wavier jet stream
One thing we do know is that the polar jet stream – a fast river of wind up where jets fly that circumnavigates the northern hemisphere – has been doing some odd things in recent years.
Rather than circling in a relatively straight path, the jet stream has meandered more in north-south waves. In the west, it’s been bulging northward, arguably since December 2013 – a pattern dubbed the “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” by meteorologists. In the east, we’ve seen its southern-dipping counterpart, which I call the “Terribly Tenacious Trough.” (See picture, below.)
These long-lived shifts from the polar jet stream’s typical pattern have been responsible for some wicked weather this winter, with cold Arctic winds blasting everywhere from the Windy City to the Big Apple for weeks at a time.
We know that climate change is increasing the odds of extreme weather such as heatwaves, droughts and unusually heavy precipitation events, but is it making these sticky jet-stream patterns more likely, too? Maybe.
Slowing, drunken path
The jet stream is a dastardly complex creature, and figuring out what makes it tick has challenged atmospheric scientists since it was discovered about 75 years ago. Even more elusive is figuring out how climate change will affect it.
Jet streams exist because of differences in air temperature. In the case of the polar jet stream, which is responsible for most of the weather we experience around the middle-latitudes of the northern hemisphere, it’s the cold Arctic butting against warmer areas to the south that drives it. (A more in-depth explanation can be found here.) Anything that affects that temperature difference will affect the jet stream.
This is where climate change comes in: the Arctic is warming much faster than elsewhere. That Arctic/mid-latitude temperature difference, consequently, is getting smaller. And the smaller differential in temperatures is causing the west-to-east winds in the jet to weaken.
Strong jets tend to blow straight west to east; weaker jets tend to wander more in a drunken north/south path, increasing the likelihood of wavy patterns like the one we’ve seen almost non-stop since last winter.
When the jet stream’s waves grow larger, they tend to move eastward more slowly, which means the weather they generate also moves more slowly, creating more persistent weather patterns.
At least, that’s the theory. Proving it is not easy because other changes are happening in the climate system simultaneously. Some are natural fluctuations, such as El Niño, and others are related to increasing greenhouse gases.
We do know, however, that the Arctic is changing in a wholesale way and at a pace that makes even Arctic scientists queasy. Take sea ice, for example. In only 30 years, its volume has declined by about 60%, which is causing ripple effects throughout the ocean, atmosphere, and ecosystem, both within the Arctic and beyond. I’ve been studying the Arctic atmosphere and sea ice my entire career and I never imagined I’d see the region change so much and so fast.
‘Stuck’ weather patterns
To study the effects of Arctic change on weather patterns, we have good measurements of atmospheric temperatures and winds going back to the late 1970s, when satellites started providing data, and pretty good measurements back to the late 1940s.
My colleagues and I have been using this information to measure the waviness of the jet stream and whether it is behaving differently since the Arctic started its rapid warm-up about 20 years ago. Because the upper atmosphere is such a cacophony of swirling winds, however, measuring changes in the jet stream’s waviness is tricky, as it’s not a metric that scientists have traditionally used.
Our challenge, then, is to find new methods to measure waviness and determine whether any changes we find are related to rapid Arctic warming, to some other change in the climate system, or to just random chance. While the story is still in early days, the plot is thickening.
Several groups around the globe, including my colleagues and me, are trying to understand the linkages between rapid Arctic warming and changes in weather patterns.
A number of recent studies have found what appears to be a solid connection between sea-ice loss in an area north of western Russia during the fall and a rash of abnormally cold winters in central Asia. The loss of sea ice favors a northward bulge in the jet stream, which strengthens surface high pressure to the east. That shift pumps cold Arctic air southward into central Asia.
Other studies suggest that Arctic warming in summer leads to a split jet stream – or two separated rivers of wind – which tends to trap the waves. Those stationary waves cause weather conditions to remain “stuck” for long periods, increasing the likelihood of extreme heat waves, droughts and flooding events in Eurasia and North America.
Our own new work, published last month in Environmental Research Letters, uses a variety of new metrics to show that the jet stream is becoming wavier and that rapid Arctic warming is playing a role. If these results are confirmed, then we’ll see our weather patterns become more persistent.
In other words, Ridiculously Resilient Ridges and Terribly Tenacious Troughs may become the norm, along with the weather woes they cause.
ASH WEDNESDAYScherschligt: Ash Wednesday shows a new way of living together
Sarah Scherschligt
Posted: Tuesday, February 17, 2015 10:00 pm
Every year in the final weeks of winter, I fast.
For me, fasting during Lent — the 40 days on the Christian calendar between Ash Wednesday and Easter — has meant different things over the years. In some years, I have fasted from solid food for several days. In others, looking to reflect on my impact on the environment, I “fasted” from using my car to get around, or “fasted” from using the dryer to dry my laundry.
No matter how I fast, the practice puts me in touch with a spiritual lesson the natural world and the Christian tradition offer this time of year: Something has to die so that something else can be born.
And nothing dies harder than the desire we have to live without limits.
Starting with Adam and Eve, humans have challenged the parameters of our relationship with the natural world with disastrous consequences.
I believe that our ecological problems present each of us with a spiritual challenge: Given the reality of climate change, how will we respond?
The crisis of global warming testifies to the limits on how many tons of heat-trapping climate pollution our atmosphere can hold. Right now, for example, the Unitarian Church of Norfolk already has to cancel services when the rising sea floods its building at high tide.
As we have flouted limits on how much we use and how much we waste, the consequences harm our neighbors and the natural world. At this time of year, I fast with my church community as a way to take responsibility for the impact of our choices, to repent for the pollution our choices have caused, and to accept new limits on our consumption of resources. Only through this practice can we make way in our hearts for the birth of something new.
This year, I’ve been thinking that some of our state legislators could benefit from a bit of Lenten discipline, too. I invite our leaders to join me and other people of faith in taking responsibility and accepting some limits when considering climate and energy policy.
Earlier this month, when asked to vote on an amendment affirming the dangers of climate change, delegates — including Del. Richard L. Morris (R-64) and Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-13) — dodged responsibility by denying climate science entirely, suggesting that the “so-called global warming” already flooding Norfolk couldn’t possibly be caused “by anything humans have done.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Frank Wagner has championed legislation that would excuse Dominion Virginia Power from the regular every-other-year review of the rates it charges us. Dominion executives have claimed that they need to be excused from accountability in rate-setting because they’re being asked to implement the most reasonable of pollution limits: the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, the first national safeguard concerning carbon pollution from power plants.
On this Ash Wednesday, my prayer is that all of us in Virginia, including our General Assembly, embrace the coming days as an opportunity to reflect on the consequences of our choices, including the way that our energy use is damaging our climate.
If we wish to live together as neighbors, we will need to accept that our desire to live without limits must meet its end. That way, come Easter, a new way of living together — a new way of living well together — can be born.
The Rev. Sarah Scherschligt is the senior pastor at Peace Lutheran Church in Alexandria, and works with area congregations on climate initiatives through Interfaith Power & Light. Contact her at pastorsarah@gmail.com.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Happy Birthday Michelle! We celebrate your 30th birthday with this beautiful picture of your dogwood at the Intervale.
Remembering Michelle Gardner-Quinn
Each year, we reprint Michelle Gardner-Quinn’s beautiful “This I Believe” essay on her birthday, January 28, in honor of her life, work and love of our planet. Michelle interned at the Intervale Center, working on the initial feasibility study for what would become our highly-successful Intervale Food Hub.
To learn more about Michelle’s ongoing legacy, inspiring young people to care for nature and each other, please visit Michelle’s Earth Foundation. You can also watch a beautiful video featuring Goldie Hawn, Tipper Gore, Sheryl Crow, Meg Ryan, and other celebrities inspired by Michelle’s passion for our planet.
This I Believe
I believe in upholding reverence for all life. I believe that humanity has a responsibility to the earth and to the life that we share our experience with.
As a child, I found joy digging in the dirt, examining the miracle of life. Everything creepy-crawly was fascinating to me, and I spent countless hours in my backyard exploring what wonders lay beneath. Although some people might be repulsed by this notion, these creatures did not represent slimy pests to me. Rather, such experiences in the natural world taught me about the diversity of life that could be found in any microcosm. I felt attuned with the cycles of life, my favorite being the spring.
During these budding months, I could watch the egg sacs of praying mantises as they opened or collect robin-blue egg shells that had fallen from the nests. This was where I felt a strong connection to the natural cycles of creation. This connection has inspired awe in me that I feel strongly to this day. It is a feeling deep within me that has inspired my passions and pursuits as an environmentalist.
As I grew older, I discovered that this reverence for life was not shared by all of humanity. Rather than respecting the natural world as a community of life, the environment has been valued in terms of the resources that could be exploited. Industrialization has turned life into an industry, and systematically destroys the essential diversity that provides richness to the human experience. Our self-inflicted ecological crisis has reached such a point that we no longer endanger isolated bioregions. So many toxins have been spewed into the atmosphere as a result of our industrial greed that the climate of our planet is changing at an alarming rate. Climate change threatens all life forms by altering fundamental natural cycles, giving little time for evolutionary responses.
These detrimental impacts are visible today as polar bears lose their habitat of sea ice, the sex of sea turtle eggs is skewed, whales have less krill to feed on, and coral reefs are bleached, to cite just a few examples. Climate change also has a detrimental impact on cultures and humanity’s well-being as more people are becoming environmental refugees. Little is being done to curb this crisis and, within our lifetime the ecological functioning of planet earth will be forever altered.
I believe that my connection to all life forms prevents me from sitting back and watching this catastrophe. I believe that we should understand our place in our regional ecosystems and communities, as well as pledge our allegiance to the earth as a whole. I believe that all creatures, whether they are found in my backyard or halfway around the globe, should not suffer as a result of human greed. The reality of climate change is here and now; it is the environmental battle of our generation and generations to come. In honor of all life, I am dedicating myself to preventing this worldwide ecological crisis.
Michelle Gardner-Quinn, October 2006
This essay was reprinted with permission from Michelle’s Earth Foundation.
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