Looking at the map of Europe this week is terrifying. In the United Kingdom, the Met Office has activated its second red notice for extreme heat in history and expect up to 40°C between Wednesday and Thursday. In France, thermometers They recorded 43 ° C on MondayParis is on red alert and Météo-France compares the severity of the episode with that of August 2003a heat wave that left tens of thousands dead on the continent.
The situation is so delirious that it is indistinguishable from what more than 10 years ago, in 2014, the French TF1 He gave as an example for August 2050. In Spain, we take extreme heat almost for granted. Further north it turns Europe into a mousetrap.
The disturbing thing about this ‘heat wave’ is, above all, the strength and persistence it has in areas where we would not expect it to have it. And, faced with this stupor, scientists have done what they do best: search scientific journals.
And there is one that explained everything in quite detail. In June 2022, ‘Nature Communications’ published a paper that argued that European heat waves have grown three to four times faster than in the rest of the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere. Europe is one of the hot spots in the temperate part of the world.
The jet stream has a lot to do with this.
What is the ‘jet stream’… “Jet streams” are large flows of air that distribute heat and cold throughout the entire planet. There are several, but the main one for us is the polar one, which circulates at very northern latitudes. These currents arise in the border zone between two air masses with different properties and, for this reason, they have a crucial role in balancing the climate and meteorological phenomena of the Earth.
…and what does it have to do with all this? As the temperature differences between these two air masses decrease, the current loses strength, becomes more erratic, undulates in an exaggerated manner and generates structures like the current one that encapsulates the air of Western Europe without allowing it to cool.
It’s good news, right? We know what’s happening. Yes and no. We are clear about the mechanism responsible for, for now, up to 35% variability of temperature in Western Europe; The problem is that we don’t know why the current is changing.
The most popular hypothesis, that of Warmer arctic rippling jethas been for years discussed: There are works that see this trend reversed and models that do not reproduce the effect. The rest of the options are varied, but inconclusive: from an effect of aerosols to a collateral impact of the dynamics of the tropical Pacific.
Be that as it may, everyone seems to sense that climate change is behind it, but no one is clear how it is. Above all, because all our climate models fall short.
And then? What the undulation of the jet guarantees is greater climate variability: enormous heat waves, torrential rains, untimely cold… Europe must prepare.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings