Shifts In Jet Streams Powering Desertification Worldwide - Satellite Study

[hatrack]

WASHINGTON - Deserts in the American Southwest and around the globe are creeping toward heavily populated areas as the jet streams shift, researchers reported Thursday. The result: Areas already stressed by drought may get even drier.

Satellite measurements made from 1979 to 2005 show that the atmosphere in the subtropical regions both north and south of the equator is heating up. As the atmosphere warms, it bulges out at the altitudes where the northern and southern jet streams slip past like swift and massive rivers of air. That bulging has pushed both jet streams about 70 miles closer to the Earth's poles.

Since the jet streams mark the edge of the tropics, in essence framing the hot zone that hugs the equator, their outward movement has allowed the tropics to grow wider by about 140 miles. That means the relatively drier subtropics move as well, pushing closer to places like Salt Lake City, where Thomas Reichler, co-author of the new study, teaches meteorology. "One of the immediate consequences one can think of is those deserts and dry areas are moving poleward," said Reichler, of the University of Utah. Details appear in Thursday's Science Express, the online edition of the journal Science.

The movement has allowed the subtropics to edge toward populated areas, including the American Southwest, southern Australia and the Mediterranean basin. In those places, the lack of precipitation already is a worry. Additional creep could move Africa's Sahara Desert farther north, worsening drought conditions that are already a serious problem on that continent and bringing drier weather to the countries that ring the Mediterranean Sea. "The Mediterranean is one region that models consistently show drying in the future. That could be very much related to this pattern that we are seeing in the atmosphere," said Isaac Held, a senior research scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He was not connected with the research.

EDIT

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/health/14666521.htm

[The Straight Story]

1. Kick for an interesting article! (nt)

[dusmcj]

2. wait till the duhniers get ahold of this - satellite data!!!!!!!

since one of their mainstay arguments against global warming seems to be that satellite data, "which is the most reliable kind" shows that global warming does not exist, I'll be waiting feverishly to hear whether they decide that in this case satellite data isn't quite so reliable because this phenomenon doesn't exist either. I propose that the earth is flat, the universe revolves around it, witches float in water while Christians sink, and the conservitards will be the first into heaven when they succeed in blowing up the here and now. Dumb fucks.

[brokensymmetry]

3. Nah.

The "duhniers" will still whine that not all the
evidence is in.

They won't be satisfied until the last cockroach
is dying in a global desert.

If there were any justice in the universe, they'd
get to live for a few years after the death of the
rest of the world, just so they could see what they've
created. Unfortunately, the rest of us will get to
share the same experience.

[brokensymmetry]

4. Notice this sentence in the article:

"Reichler suspects global warming is the root cause of the shift, but said he can't be certain. "

That's all the duhniers need.