writeaboutwarming

July 3, 2019 Last Friday, the temperature reached 115 degrees Fahrenheit in Gallargues-le-Montueux, France, a record for the entire country. France was not the only country in Europe suffering from record-setting heat: Germany, Poland, Spain, the Czech Republic, Italy, and others were sweltering. Why? Scientists have their eyes on the polar jet stream, the fast-moving flow of high-altitude air currents at the top of the world. When the jet stream wanders, cold Arctic air can spill southward, or hotter air from the middle latitudes can move north. These scientists theorize that the melting of Arctic ice, along with the decreased temperature difference between the Arctic and lower latitudes, is causing the jet stream to weaken, leading to its wobbly flow. Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State, says a "meandering, slowed jet stream . . . favors stalled extreme weather regimes like the ones we are seeing right now." The hotter the Arctic, the weaker the jet stream. ...

June 20, 2019 Scientists from the University of Edinburgh found a new way of studying permafrost in the Arctic: they flew drone-mounted cameras over the Canadian Arctic. What they found reveals one aspect of the damage global warming is doing in that part of the world. During a 40-day period in the summer of 2017, the Canadian permafrost coastline retreated 47 feet, with daily rates of erosion sometimes exceeding 3 feet. This rate of erosion is six times higher than the historical average of the past half century. Why is this important? First of all, permafrost is soil that remains frozen for at least 2 years. When permafrost thaws, it releases twice as much carbon into the atmosphere as when its temperature stays below freezing . More CO2, more global warming. More global warming, more permafrost that thaws, more CO2. Melting permafrost releases both carbon dioxide and methane into the air and water. Perhaps most disturbing, a 2017 study found that a major portion of the Arctic ha...