The polar vortex is about to split in two. But what does that actually mean?
The polar vortex might mean cold weather—but it’s not clear how much snow or ice that might mean. (Jaymantri/Pexels/) A blob of warm air high in the atmosphere has pushed the polar vortex off its axis over the past week. In the coming days, it’s likely to split into pieces, with possible ripple effects on […]
Wandering polar vortex may cause a wild, snowy winter
High above the North Pole, the polar vortex, a fast-spinning whirl of frigid air, is doing a weird shimmy that may soon bring cold and snowy weather to the Eastern U.S., Northern Europe and East Asia for weeks on end, meteorologists say. While it’s not unusual for the polar vortex to act up, this particular […]
Polar cyclones on Jupiter create a spellbinding vortex cluster
Jupiter’s north pole is a swirling mass of cyclones, and their mesmerizing dance was recently captured in astonishing detail in images from JunoCam, the visible light camera/telescope on NASA’s Juno orbiter. The Juno mission, launched on Aug. 5, 2011, has been collecting data on Jupiter since 2016. Juno recently completed its 29th orbit of the […]
Mysterious black spot in polar explorer’s diary offers gruesome clue to his fate
As a polar explorer lay frostbitten and starving in a frozen Greenland cave, he smeared a black spot onto the bottom of his last journal entry. More than a century later, that dark smudge has revealed grim new details of the dying man’s final hours. His name was Jørgen Brønlund; he was a Greenland-born Inuit […]
Polar climate affects trade wind strength in tropics
The blue ice covering Lake Fryxell in the Transantarctic Mountains comes from melted glacier water. Credit: Joe Mastroianni, National Science Foundation The impact of sea surface temperature variations in the tropical Pacific on global climate has long been recognized. For instance, the episodic warming of the tropical Pacific during El Niño events causes melt of […]
A long distance connection: polar climate affects trade wind strength in tropics
IMAGE: The blue ice covering Lake Fryxell in the Transantarctic Mountains comes from melted glacier water. view more Credit: Joe Mastroianni, National Science Foundation The impact of sea surface temperature variations in the tropical Pacific on global climate has long been recognized. For instance, the episodic warming of the tropical Pacific during El Niño events causes […]
Polar climate affects trade wind strength in tropics — ScienceDaily
The impact of sea surface temperature variations in the tropical Pacific on global climate has long been recognized. For instance, the episodic warming of the tropical Pacific during El Niño events causes melt of sea ice in far-reaching parts of the Southern Ocean via its effect on the global atmospheric circulation. A new study, published […]
An Extraordinary Winter in the Polar North
The winter of 2019–2020 in the Northern Hemisphere was one of extremes. The massive region of cold polar air encircled by stratospheric winds, known as the stratospheric polar vortex, was particularly strong, keeping the frigid air whirling above the polar region and leading to a very mild winter in many regions farther south. […]
Catalysts for isotactic polar polypropylenes
Credit: Angewandte Chemie International Edition Polypropylene (PP) is one of the most widely used plastics in the world. By controlling the spatial orientation of the propylene building blocks and additional polar components, it should be possible to create a new generation of attractive, engineered, specialty plastics, with improved wettability or enhanced degradability, based on PP. […]
Polar Bears to Vanish from Most of the Arctic This Century
With Arctic sea ice in a spiraling decline—2020 was recently declared the second-lowest ice year in the satellite record—it’s an axiom of climate change that polar bears are in peril. But until now, scientists have been unable to pinpoint when and where populations of this charismatic marine mammal will begin to collapse. A […]
