Weather systems responsible for transporting moisture from the tropics to temperate regions in the Southern Hemisphere have been gradually shifting toward the South Pole for the past 40 years, a trend which could lead to increased rates of ice melt in Antarctica, according to new research.
Weather systems responsible for transporting moisture from the tropics to temperate regions in the Southern Hemisphere have been gradually shifting toward the South Pole for the past 40 years, a trend which could lead to increased rates of ice melt in Antarctica, according to new research.
Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow jets of air that carry huge amounts of water vapor from the tropics to Earth’s continents and polar regions. The new study finds atmospheric rivers in the Southern Hemisphere are shifting due in part to ozone depletion, greenhouse gas emissions and natural variations in sea surface temperature.
This shift of atmospheric rivers may affect moisture and heat transported into Antarctica, said Weiming Ma, an atmospheric scientist at UCLA and lead author of the new study published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, which publishes high-impact, short-format reports with immediate implications spanning all Earth and space sciences.
“The most important implication of our finding is that due to this shift, more atmospheric rivers are expected to make landfall over Antarctica, which will have effects on the surrounding sea ice and glaciers on the continent,” Ma said.
Read more at American Geophysical Union
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