What is the Jet Stream

Jet Stream

JET STREAM ANALYSIS

The 200 and 300-millibar charts are important to forecasting for several reasons. The upper level winds are the "steering current" for mid-latitude cyclones and thunderstorms. If the upper level winds are weak, storm systems and thunderstorms will tend to move slower than when the upper level winds were strong. It is the jet stream that powers the upper level winds.

So Long, El Nino; Hello, La Nina

The El Nino weather pattern that helped stymie hurricane development last year is fading and could be replaced by conditions that favor hurricane formation.

Cold (La Nina) Episodes in the Tropical Pacific

Warm --El Nino (EN) +Southern Oscillation (SO) ENSO Episodes in the Tropical Pacific

Warming Atmosphere Expands Tropics

The earth's four jet streams mark the boundaries of regional climates. In the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, these rivers of high-speed wind persist at the border of warm, tropical air and its cooler counterpart toward the poles. The jet streams push weather across the globe, blessing some areas with abundant rain and desertifying less fortunate regions. Now, new satellite data reveals that the atmosphere is warming most strongly in such boundary regions and potentially shifting regions of wet and dry.

The Tropics May be Expanding

Researchers say the apparent north-south widening of the tropics amounts to 2 degrees of latitude or 140 miles. But they do not know yet if the tropical expansion was triggered by natural climate variation or by human-caused phenomena such as depletion of the atmosphere’s ozone layer or global warming due to the greenhouse effect.

The tropics may be expanding due to climate change

“It’s a big deal. The tropics may be expanding and getting larger,” says study co-author Thomas Reichler, an assistant professor of meteorology at the University of Utah. “If this is true, it also would mean that subtropical deserts are expanding into heavily populated midlatitude regions.”

Jet streams off track, may affect weather patterns

Over the past 27 years, the high-speed air currents that steer storms to temperate zones in both hemispheres have shifted about one degree toward the poles, or about 70 miles, scientists estimate in a paper published today in the journal Science.

"This gives direct, observational evidence of massive atmospheric circulation changes," said University of Washington climate scientist Qiang Fu, the paper's lead author.

Jet Stream Shift Is Expanding the Earth's Tropics and Deserts

    "The Mediterranean is one region that models consistently show drying in the future. That could be very much related to this pattern that we are seeing in the atmosphere,

How nighttime, low-level jet streams form

A fast-moving river of air known as a "jet" sometimes forms at about 1,000 feet above the ground after sunset.

On a clear evening the atmosphere cools down. And if conditions are calm, a stable temperature "inversion" sets up where cool air aloft, which is heavier than warm air, sinks to the ground and any leftover warm air sits on top of it. The stable air in an inversion acts like a nearly solid object and allows the air above it to flow rapidly past the inversion like wind blowing over water.

Forces behind Devastating 'Dust Bowl' Drought Explained

"The 1930s drought was the major climatic event in the nation’s history," explains lead study author Siegfried Schubert of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. "Just beginning to understand what occurred is really critical to understanding future droughts and the links to global climate change issues we’re experiencing today."

Faster Atmospheric Warming in Subtropics Pushes Jet Streams Toward Poles

"The jet streams mark the edge of the tropics, so if they are moving poleward that means the tropics are getting wider," Wallace said. "If they move another 2 to 3 degrees poleward in this century, very dry areas such as the Sahara Desert could nudge farther toward the pole, perhaps by a few hundred miles."

A Regression Model for Annual Streamflow in the Upper Mississippi River Basin Based on Solar Irradiance--An excerpt

The relation is associated with the amount of solar energy available for absorption by the tropical Pacific Ocean and the subsequent effects this stored energy has on mid-latitude atmospheric circulation and precipitation occurrence. The suggested physical mechanism for this relation includes varying solar-energy input that creates ocean-temperature anomalies in the tropical ocean. The temperature anomalies are transported northward by ocean currents to locations where ocean and atmospheric processes can modify jet-stream patterns. These patterns affect jet-stream location and characteristics downwind over North America, which affect the occurrence of precipitation and, ultimately, the amount of streamflow in the upper Mississippi River Basin.

A transition from ENSO-neutral to La Niña conditions is possible within the next 1-3 months

ENSO-neutral conditions continued in the tropical Pacific during May 2007, with average to below-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) extending from the date line to the west coast of South America

El Niño, La Niña Rearrange South Pole Sea Ice

Scientists have been mystified by observations that when sea ice on one side of the South Pole recedes, it advances farther out on the other side...this is the result of El Niños and La Niñas driving changes in the subtropical jet stream, which then alter the path of storms that move sea ice around the South Pole.

The results have important implications for understanding global climate change better because sea ice contributes to the Earth's energy balance.

General Meteorological Background on Jet Streams

As air races through the sinuous jet-stream pattern, there are some parts of the pattern where air tends to converge, thereby increasing the total weight of air above the earth's surface in those areas, which implies higher pressure at the earth's surface below. Moreover, convergence of air within the jet stream tends to force air beneath the jet stream downward. As air descends in the atmosphere, the pressure on it increases and compresses it, thereby warming the sinking air, which evaporates any existing clouds or prevents clouds from forming in the first place. Such areas generally experience clear weather.

Jet Stream Behavior

The northernmost jet is called the polarfront jet (it is usually located over the northern states), the southernmost one is called the subtropical jet (the latter usually hangs around the southern
border of the United States).  Sometimes there is another jet inbetween.  The height of each jet (and the break in the tropopause height) depends on latitude.  The subtropical jet is
higher (often much higher, 10-16 km) than the polarfront jet (7-12 km).

Jet Streams

Perhaps the most familiar is the polar-front jet stream. As noted earlier, the polar front is the boundary between polar and mid-latitude air. In winter this boundary may extend equatorward to 30 , while in summer it retreats to 50 -60. Winter fronts also are distinguished by stronger temperature contrasts than summer fronts. Thus, jet streams are located more equatorward in winter and are more intense during that time. Such streams are generally strongest east of major continents, sometimes exceeding 75 metres per second.

JetStreams

The maps below are polar views of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. They show the general position of jet streams during January and July.

Stratospheric Circulation Study-- Role of the Subtropical Jet Stream in Troposphere-Stratosphere Teleconnections

During the late winter months when the subtropical jet stream reaches its maximum intensity, confluence patterns develop between the subtropical and polar-front jet streams.

Nature of Climate Variability

The movement of weather systems along the jet stream determines the distribution of precipitation about the globe. Climate variability results from a long-term shift in circulation patterns of the jet stream. As the circulation patterns shift, precipitation and temperature patterns also shift. Devils Lake has an enhanced sensitivity to long-term shifts in global circulation patterns as the level of the lake depends on many years of antecedent precipitation, runoff, and evaporation

Climate Change Science

The regional patterns of change are also shown on this page; high-latitude winters will warm faster due to feedback from the melting of sea-ice, and there will be some ocean areas where rises are quite limited. Rainfall changes will be most marked in tropical regions. These patterns, and the global mean rises, are not very different from those previously predicted with flux-adjusted models. Using the new model we see relatively large decreases in rainfall over Amazonia and parts of Africa

CO2 'highest for 650,000 years'

Carbon dioxide and the carbon cycle

Currently, about 6.5 billion tonnes of carbon (as carbon dioxide) are emitted each year during the combustion of fossil fuels and 1-2 billion tonnes per year from land clearing.

About 3 billion tonnes of the carbon (as carbon dioxide) stays in the atmosphere. The ocean takes up just over 2 billion tonnes. Terrestrial sinks such as growing forests, which remove carbon from the air and store it, take up the remaining 2-3 billion tonnes.

Carbon Dioxide

Carbon dioxide, CO2, is one of two oxides of carbon, and it is the principal product oxide of carbon formed from the compustion of hydrocarbon fuels. Carbon dioxide is the focus of public concern in recent years due to the increasing concentration of this gas in the atmosphere as a result of the combustion of fossel fuels. The gas is implicated in the Greenhouse Effect.

Carbon Dioxide1

A minor but very important component of the atmosphere, carbon dioxide traps infrared radiation.

CO2, Methane and Temperature-- More Insights from the Dome Concordia and Vostok Ice Cores

Climate alarmists have long contended that the historical and still-ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content - aided and abetted by the historical increase in atmospheric methane concentration - will lead to dangerous global warming that could rival temperature increases experienced during prior glacial-to-interglacial transitions.  Now, new light has been shed on the subject

Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th Century have produced no deleterious effects upon global weather, climate, or temperature. Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth rates. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in minor greenhouse gases like CO2 are in error and do not conform to current experimental knowledge.

Faster carbon dioxide emissions will overwhelm capacity of land and ocean to absorb carbon

One in a new generation of computer climate models that include the effects of Earth's carbon cycle indicates there are limits to the planet's ability to absorb increased emissions of carbon dioxide.

If current production of carbon from fossil fuels continues unabated, by the end of the century the land and oceans will be less able to take up carbon than they are today, the model indicates.

Seas absorb half of carbon dioxide pollution

The world's oceans have soaked up half of the carbon dioxide pumped into the air by human activities since the beginning of the industrial age, according to new two studies. The gas is acidifying the seas and may harm marine life, the authors warn.

Tracing the Role of Carbon Dioxide in Global Warming

When atmospheric CO₂ content increases, the ocean's absorption of it increases. In the case of fossil-fuel-caused increases, because fossil fuel contains no radiocarbon, the ocean is absorbing CO₂ that consists primarily of ¹²C, a weak acid. A more acidic ocean tends to reject carbon in all its isotopic forms.

The Health Effects of Air Pollution: The Human Body Under Attack

The human body is an amazingly complex defense and self-healing system.

HUGE JUMP IN CO2 LEVELS

Graphic Display

Scientist finds huge jump in gas that causes global warming

Climate experts cautioned Monday that a reported consecutive annual jump in the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might be an anomaly, without ruling out it was a sign of rapid global warming.

CO2 buildup accelerating in atmosphere

Carbon dioxide, the gas largely blamed for global warming, has reached record-high levels in the atmosphere after growing at an accelerated pace in the past year, say scientists monitoring the sky from this 2-mile-high station atop a Hawaiian volcano.

Carbon 'reaching danger levels'

On present trends, Sir David said, the world was just 60 years from triggering an irreversible climate disaster.

Methane's Impacts on Climate Change May Be Twice Previous Estimates

We need to look at the GHGs when they are emitted at Earth's surface, instead of looking at the GHGs themselves after they have been mixed into the atmosphere.

Methane outgassing

At times, I thought I was the only person on the planet interested in the outcome. In case you've forgotten the results (!), the best guess as to methane's role in global warming is 15 - 18% of the effect.

KILLER IN OUR MIDST

Methane Catastrophes in Earth's Past and Near Future

Energy contribution to Greenhouse Gases 2005

Energy-related activities were the primary sources of U.S. anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 86 percent of total emissions on a carbon equivalent basis in 2003.

Recent Trends in US Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks

Overall, total U.S. emissions have risen by 13.3 percent from 1990 to 2003

An Arctic alert on global warming

Global warming is heating the Arctic at a rapid pace - with impacts that could range from the disappearance of polar bears' summer habitat by the century's end to a damaging rise in sea levels worldwide.

Earth Science in Space 5

The Earth is not just a body of rock, and geology is not just about rocks. When you study rocks enough, eventually the questions you ask and the answers you find lead upward into the atmosphere and beyond.

Earth Science in Space 6

The U.S. government's Earth Resources Observation Systems or EROS center is the clearinghouse for Landsat imagery. They've got stuff ranging from utilitarian—pictures of your region with no annotations, for instance—to downright sensuous

Bush Administration-- Carbon Dioxide Not a Pollutant

Had the Bush administration decided that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and harmful, it could have required expensive new pollution controls on new cars and perhaps on power plants, which together are the main sources of so-called greenhouse gases.

Great White Hope Wind Energy – Electricity Forever

If only one fifth of good wind energy locations were made use of, the worldwide electricity demand could be met seven times: Scientists have found out by extrapolation of data. They produced a world map which shows potential on- and offshore locations, concluding that especially locations on the shores of the North Sea (those are partially already developed), the North American West and East Coasts, the Great Lakes area and Tasmania in Australia are promising.

Wind Energy Economic Myths and Facts

Increasingly, opponents of wind power resort to repeating common myths about the technology and its impacts.

Vertical Thermal Structure of the Atmosphere

The atmosphere has a vertical thermal structure as well as a vertical pressure structure.
The atmosphere has been divided into layers according to the behavior of temperatures in their relationship to altitude.

Atmospheric Composition

The eleven most abundant gases found in the Earth's lower atmosphere by volume. Of the gases listed, nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone are extremely important to the health of the Earth's biosphere.

Introduction to the Ionosphere

The ionosphere is that part of the upper atmosphere where free electrons occur in sufficient density to have an appreciable influence on the propagation of radio frequency electromagnetic waves.

Basic Facts About the Ionosphere

Invisible layers of ions and electrons are suspended in the Earth's atmosphere above about 60 kilometers in altitude.

The Atmosphere and the Earth-Space Interface

Ionospheric Storms

Solar activity such as flares and coronal mass ejections often produce large variations in the particle and electromagnetic radiation incident upon the earth. Ionospheric storms have important terrestrial consequences such as disrupting satellite communications and interrupting the flow of electrical energy over power grids.

Real Time GAIM Results

Real time Graphic Maps and Electron Density Slices

Validation of GIM and Calibration

The accuracy of the GIM solutions can be assessed by direct comparisons with independent vertical TEC measurements

Vertical Incidence Soundings

Ionograms are recorded tracings of reflected high frequency radio pulses

Global maps of ionospheric total electron content (TEC) are produced in real-time

These maps are also used to monitor ionospheric weather, and to nowcast ionospheric storms that often occur responding to activities in solar wind and Earth's magnetosphere as well as thermosphere.

Global Ionospheric Maps

Data from over 100+ continuously operating GPS receivers in a global network are being used to produce global maps of the ionosphere's total electron content (TEC).

Global Features of Earth's Ionosphere Captured in GIM

A representative global map of vertical total electron content (TEC) is shown here plotted as a function of local time and geographic latitude.

The World Magnetic Model

the combined disturbance field from electrical currents flowing in the upper atmosphere and magnetosphere, which induce electrical currents in the sea and ground

Tesla Tower

SCHUMANN RESONANCE

The Schumann Resonances are quasi-standing electromagnetic waves that exist in the Earth's 'electromagnetic' cavity (the space between the surface of the Earth and the Ionosphere)

What is a Schumann Resonance?

Believe it or not, the Earth behaves like an enormous electric circuit. The atmosphere is actually a weak conductor and if there were no sources of charge, its existing electric charge would diffuse away in about 10 minutes.

SchumannAZ

 I had spent many hours hiking the Sedona outback with simple electronic equipment and a compass.

Excerpted from Ben Lonetree

Schumann Resonances,Geomagnetic Reversals, Brain states

Just as a tuning fork has natural frequencies for sound,  the planet Earth has natural frequencies,  called Schumann resonances, for electromagnetic radiation. 

Schumann_resonance zero point

Between the nearly perfectly conducting terrestrial surface and ionosphere, a resonating cavity is formed. Broadband electromagnetic impulses, like those from lightning flashes, fill this cavity, and create globally the so-called Schumann resonances

Schumann Resonance, Human Chakra, Music and Healing

Imagine the natural peoples-original culture peoples-- being exposed at Power Spots to Schumann Resonance where it has been amplified. The healing arts as well as music can be linked to these natural vibrations.

Solar wind squeezes some of earth's atmosphere into space

Researchers using NASA's Polar spacecraft have found the first direct evidence that bursts of energy from the Sun can cause oxygen and other gases to gush from Earth's upper atmosphere into space.

How Earth Changes Affect YOU

It seems that as our planet goes through changes in magnetics, and frequency, many people are feeling (and not understanding) the effects of the changes as our physical bodies attempt to tune to the changing frequency of the planet.

Electromagnetic Mind control

Our brains are extremely vulnerable to any technology which sends out ELF waves, because they immediately start resonating to the outside signal by a kind of tuning-fork effect. Puharich experimented discovering that

A) 7.83 Hz (earth's pulse rate) made a person feel good, producing an altered-state.
B) 10.80 Hz causes riotious behaviour and
C)  6.6 Hz causes depression.

Earth passing through the Photon Belt

Gregg Braden is currently traveling around the United States and in the media, telling of the scientific proof of the Earth passing through the Photon Belt and the slowing of the Earths rotation.

North American Indian Prophecies

A Prophecy for the People