"Stratospheric polar vortex influence on Northern Hemisphere winter climate variability"

Just a short post to mention, again and again…, that Arctic melting is one of the major threats humanity is now facing. Much (!) more than only a threat for polar bears. Climatologists are becoming more accurate on long term predictability and are performing interesting simulations on Climate global systems. One of them has been reported by H. Douville (CNRM, GAME, Météo-France, CNRS, Toulouse, France) and strictly highlighted the fact that the Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillation has a strong impact on the interannual variability of winter surface air temperature and precipitation, especially over Europe. Learn more here.

Scientists regard the Arctic and its sea ice as among the most sensitive barometers of global warming because even small temperature changes make a huge difference.
"If you go from a degree below freezing to 2 degrees above freezing, that's a completely different environment in the polar region", scientist Walt Meier said (US National Snow and Ice Data Center) and reported by Reuters. "You're going from ice skating to swimming. Whereas if you're on a tropical beach and it's 3 degrees warmer, you probably wouldn't even notice it".

And finally, for those who are still doubting, just read this Reuters news “Arctic ice melts to third-smallest area on record” (September 09)…

Or watch this extraordinary NASA Earth Observatory animation of stratospheric vorticity and temperature Jan - Feb 2009, demonstrating remarkable stratospheric warming and polar vortex split leading to snowy outbreak in UK...





You wonder what you could do to show your concern about this topic ?

The WWF International (http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/arctic/) works around the circumpolar north to preserve the Arctic's rich biodiversity and combat threats from climate change, toxics and industrial development. You all know it, of course…

And they have initiated, among several other web campaigns, a portable content network that you, readers of this blog, can embed on your own pages, to show it to your own readers and participate to it by recommending other interesting links, by discovering (and being discovered) by hundreds of other people also concerned by this topic.


So click on the below button, discover more, contribute to the information exchange and support this initiative by coping this sticker on your own web page.