Washington: A new study has demonstrated that the swift rise in the Arctic temperatures is because of weather extremes in the northern hemisphere such as heatwaves in the US and flooding in Europe.
The researchers from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany found out that Rossby waves to become stuck in a static pattern as they resonated around the planet for weeks at a time, bringing extreme weather to whatever region of the northern hemisphere they affect.
Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate researcher at the Potsdam institute, said that evidence for actual changes in planetary wave activity was so far not clear but by knowing what patterns to look for, they had now found strong evidence for an increase in these resonance events.
Rahmstorf continued that there was a slight resonance mechanism that trapped waves in the mid latitudes and amplifies them strongly.
Dim Coumou of the Potsdam institute, the lead author of the study, said that the large number of recent high-impact extreme weather events had struck and puzzled us and they were warming out atmosphere by emitting CO2 from fossil fuels, but the increase in devastating heat waves in regions like Europe or the US seems disproportionate.
The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
