The Effect of Arctic Warming on Mid-Latitude Weather

Joe Lanzillo, Upasna Sharma, and Florence Chen

What is “Waviness”?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InqbHTX7Thk

Important Concepts

HBlocking

L L

Zonal

Win

ds

Wave Amplitude

Rossby Wave

Does AA cause mid-latitude extreme weather?

AYE NAY

Francis and Vavrus (2012) – extreme weather increases from weakened zonal winds and increased wave amplitude

Screen et al. (2013) – which changes in atmospheric variables are “real”

Barnes et al. (2013) – no change in wave extent, wave speed, and blocking frequency

Wallace et al. (2014) – not enough evidence to link AA to mid-latitude weather

AYE?

Questions to ConsiderTheoretically, why

should AA cause extreme weather? Do the trends show this?

How do the methodologies lead to different results?

How can we distinguish between real trends and atmospheric variability?

http://article.wn.com/view/2014/02/04/Heatlink_deaths_up_257_by_2050/