Name: The Arctic Jet Stream Affects Global Climate. Here's Why.
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A team of scientists explore the skies to learn how the Arctic atmosphere can have global implications.

The jet stream is a band of wind that influences weather in the northern hemisphere.

The Arctic Jet Stream Affects Global Climate. Here's Why.

Arctic Jet Stream Affects Global Climate. Here's Why.

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A team of scientists explore the skies to learn how the Arctic atmosphere can have global implications.

The jet stream is a band of wind that influences weather in the northern hemisphere.

Planet Earth

The Arctic Jet Stream Affects Global Climate. Here's Why.Published: October 13, 2021Narrator: With just over two weeks between first sunrise and 24-hour daylight, every day there’s more opportunity for one team to take to the skies.John Cassano: Let’s do this.Gina Jozef: Let’s do it.Three, two, one, go. Hell, yeah.Wooo!John Cassano: Way to go, team drone.Gina Jozef: We did it. Wooo! First flight: success.John Cassano: The plane will spiral up, from near the surface, to a thousand meters, and we’re measuring the state of the atmosphere. So, that’s the temperature, pressure, humidity and wind.It’s flying really well. I am so happy.Narrator: And right away, there are exciting findings.John Cassano: The first flight we did had this real sharp temperature inversion, where the temperature increases with height. It’s the opposite of what we normally see, where we live.Narrator: This phenomenon, characteristic of the poles, is caused by the icy surface cooling the air just above it.Along with these crucial surface winds, there are other polar winds, much higher, that have a powerful effect on the climate, far beyond the Arctic.The jet stream is a band of high-altitude wind that whistles around our planet at over a hundred miles an hour, influencing much of the weather in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s driven by the temperature difference between the warm equator and cold Arctic.Many scientists think the faster warming Arctic may be weakening the jet stream, causing it to become unstable. It’s a controversial theory, but if true, it could have catastrophic results.John Cassano: Cold air is able to escape out of the Arctic and cover parts of Europe or North America and give us really cold winter weather. Or if the jet stream pushes very far north and then you get these intrusions of warm air up into the Arctic.Narrator: The weaker jet stream might also be causing weather patterns to get stuck over the same area for longer, prolonging droughts and floods.John Cassano: It impacts everything we do. It impacts farmers and where they can grow crops, where rain falls, how often droughts occur, how often heatwaves occur, how often blizzards occur, I mean, all of the weather that we experience.Narrator: In addition to altering weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere, the warming Arctic is also speeding up global warming, which will affect weather everywhere. And as ice on land also melts faster, it accelerates global sea level rise. What happens in the Arctic affects us all.

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The Arctic Jet Stream Affects Global Climate. Here's Why.

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