Study finds planetary waves linked to wild summer weather have tripled since 1950
In the 1950s, Earth averaged about one extreme weather-inducing planetary wave event a summer, but now it is getting about three per summer, according to a study in Monday's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Planetary waves are connected to 2021's deadly and unprecedented Pacific Northwest heat wave, the 2010 Russian heatwave and Pakistan flooding and the 2003 killer European heatwave, the study said.
'If you're trying to visualize the planetary waves in the northern hemisphere, the easiest way to visualize them is on the weather map to look at the waviness in the jet stream as depicted on the weather map,' said study co-author Michael Mann, a University of Pennsylvania climate scientist.
Planetary waves flow across Earth all the time, but sometimes they get amplified, becoming stronger, and the jet stream gets wavier with bigger hills and valleys, Mann said. It's called quasi-resonant amplification or QRA.
This essentially means the wave gets stuck for weeks on end, locked in place. As a result, some places get seemingly endless rain while others endure oppressive heat with no relief.
'A classic pattern would be like a high pressure out west (in the United States) and a low pressure back East and in summer 2018, that's exactly what we had,' Mann said. 'We had that configuration locked in place for like a month. So they (in the West) got the heat, the drought and the wildfires. We (in the East) got the excessive rainfall.'
'It's deep and it's persistent,' Mann said. 'You accumulate the rain for days on end or the ground is getting baked for days on end.'
The study finds this is happening more often because of human-caused climate change, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels, specifically because the Arctic warms three to four times faster than the rest of the world. That means the temperature difference between the tropics and the Arctic is now much smaller than it used to be and that weakens the jet streams and the waves, making them more likely to get locked in place, Mann said.
'This study shines a light on yet another way human activities are disrupting the climate system that will come back to bite us all with more unprecedented and destructive summer weather events,' said Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center who wasn't involved in the research.
'Wave resonance does appear to be one reason for worsening summer extremes. On top of general warming and increased evaporation, it piles on an intermittent fluctuation in the jet stream that keeps weather systems from moving eastward as they normally would, making persistent heat, drought, and heavy rains more likely,' Francis said.
This is different than Francis' research on the jet stream and the polar vortex that induces winter extremes, said Mann.
There's also a natural connection. After an El Nino, a natural warming of the central Pacific that alters weather patterns worldwide, the next summer tends to be prone to more of these amplified QRA waves that become locked in place, Mann said. And since the summer of 2024 featured an El Nino, this summer will likely be more prone to this type of stuck jet stream, according to Mann.
While scientists have long predicted that as the world warms there will be more extremes, the increase has been much higher than what was expected, especially by computer model simulations, Mann and Francis said.
That's because the models 'are not capturing this one vital mechanism,' Mann said.
Unless society stops pumping more greenhouse gases in the air, 'we can expect multiple factors to worsen summer extremes,' Francis said. 'Heat waves will last longer, grow larger and get hotter. Worsening droughts will destroy more agriculture.'
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The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at ap.org.
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In the US there are more than 9,000 active legal cases related to the production or release of Pfas. But for Witt and other researchers on the ground, the scientific investigation was just beginning. He describes the state of current research as a 'hodgepodge of surveys here and there', all saying that we still don't know enough about how Pfas are moving through food webs globally, and how they could be affecting wildlife. Now, the body of evidence of the impact of Pfas on wildlife is growing. In Michigan, bluegill fish have been found to swim more slowly after Pfas exposure, suggesting they could be physically or neurologically impaired. Exposed black-legged kittiwakes are developing thyroid dysfunctions and hormonal imbalances. Sea turtles in contaminated sites in Australia are producing hatchlings with deformed scales and health problems. American alligators in North Carolina are more susceptible to infections, while dolphins in South Carolina are showing signs of chronic inflammation. More than 600 species on every continent are at risk of harm, according to a map by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) illustrating how harmful chemicals are filtering through ecosystems. When they began mapping the research, 'we thought: 'it'll be a quick one month project' – then you quickly realise there are hundreds and hundreds of studies,' says David Andrews, acting chief science officer at EWG. 'It turned out to be a significant amount of work.' It is likely that these chemicals are an additional stressor threatening species, along with climate breakdown and habitat loss. 'Nothing really escapes these chemicals – this is not something you can fly away from,' says Andrews. Health impacts in humans, such as cancers, hormonal disruption and immune system disruption, are increasingly well documented. Research shows there are parallels in wildlife. 'What we see is an overlapping pattern of health harm between both humans and the wildlife species that have been studied,' says Andrews. As sampling becomes cheaper and more accessible around the globe and more testing is done, the map of Pfas in wildlife will continue to expand, he says. The buildup of Pfas in wildlife also raises questions for those who hunt or consume wild meat. At Holloman Lake, even a single gram of duck meat would be too toxic to safely eat, based on average Pfas concentrations. Yet this is still a popular area for hunting. Researchers are testing 400 ducks across the state to work out whether contaminants are jumping from hotspots such as Holloman to other wetlands. The preliminary results are 'concerning', says Witt, showing widespread contamination. That could be because ducks from sites such as Holloman are spreading it, or because there are other contaminated sites across the US, or some combination of the two. 'When you are eating wild duck meat, probably anywhere in North America, you're kind of rolling the dice,' he says. Now, instead of watching birds, Witt is blending in with hunters in camo, capturing ducks and other birds and mammals to test their bodies for Pfas. 'I have really conflicted feelings about it; it's a beautiful place, it's so biodiverse, and yet really troubled,' says Witt. 'I feel a sense of urgency to figure out what is happening to the birds that are there.' Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage.
