I shift gears from the Arctic to chat about the Southern Hemisphere and Antarctica. Since the last week of August, the stratospheric polar vortex first became elongated and then completely destabilized, with some regions warming up abruptly from about -70C to an incredible +13C, causing the high altitude vortex to morph into two and then even three vortices. My understanding is that rapid loss of Antarctic sea ice in some regions and gain in others caused an asymmetry of sea ice around the continent, thus causing asymmetry and breakdown of the vortex. Please donate at to support my efforts to translate complex climate science into easily understood, join-the-dots, educational videos.
0 Comments