High Temperatures Shock the Arctic

In the Arctic, the sea ice melt-off peaks in September, and as the region slips into greater and greater seasonal darkness and temperatures fall, sea ice begins to re-form. In 2016, however, temperature conditions have been slow to follow this pattern. Instead, near-surface air temperatures in the Arctic have remained warmer than normal throughout October and early November, leading to record-low sea ice coverage that lags behind the 1981–2010 average extent by almost 2 million square km (roughly 772,000 square miles) for the period.

Cold air at both the top and the bottom of the world is separated from warmer Equatorward air by each region’s polar front jet stream (an eastward-moving belt of strong stratospheric winds that separates warm tropical air from cold polar air in the midlatitudes). The strength of each cold area, or polar vortex, varies with the season, but it is strongest during the winter season in each hemisphere, when the temperature contrast between the pole and the Equator is greatest. In the Northern Hemisphere this week, the presence of a very strong low-pressure system in the North Pacific Ocean has pushed the polar vortex off the Arctic Ocean and into Siberia. Above 80° North latitude, temperatures rose to just above freezing, some 20 °C (36 °F) above normal on November 15, while temperatures on November 15 over parts of Siberia sank to −40° (which are, coincidentally, equivalent measures on the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales).

The polar vortex is typically strong enough to hold its own against most incursions by weather systems farther south, but its strength relies on a steep temperature gradient across the polar front jet stream—the wall of air separating the polar vortex’s interior from the outside. As global and regional temperatures rise owing to global warming, waves develop in the polar front jet stream, which undermines the ability of the polar vortex to remain inviolate over the pole, and lobes of cold air spin away from the poles more frequently than they otherwise would.

WRITTEN BY: John P. Rafferty
PUBLISHED: 11/18/2016

www.britanica.com