Phys.org September 13, 2021
A team of researchers in the US (MIT, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, University of Arizona, University of Hawaii, Desert Research Institute) collected glacial ice core samples from nearly 50 sites spanning the Greenland ice sheet to reconstruct changes in windiness across the North Atlantic dating back to the eighth century. Model projections forecast a northward migration of the North Atlantic jet stream which could render the jet stream significantly different within a matter of decades. The ice core layers tell us about how much precipitation fell each year and about the temperatures that airmasses were exposed to. The team was able to match certain changes in wind speed and geographical shifts to historical weather-related calamities – during a famine that gripped the Iberian Peninsula in 1374, the jet stream was situated unusually far north; two famine events in the British Isles and Ireland in 1728 and 1740 coincided with years that winds blew at nearly half their usual intensity and 1740 event is estimated to have cost the lives of nearly half a million people…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
In this visualization, polar jet stream is seen as a meandering, fast-moving belt of westerly winds that traverses the lower layers of the atmosphere. Credit: NASA