from the don't-know-why-there-is-no-sun-up-in-the-sky dept.
For centuries, sailors who had been all over the world knew where the most fearsome storms of all lay in wait: the Southern Hemisphere. "The waves ran mountain-high and threatened to overwhelm [the ship] at every roll," wrote one passenger on an 1849 voyage rounding the tip of South America.
Many years later, scientists poring over satellite data could finally put numbers behind sailors' intuition: The Southern Hemisphere is indeed stormier than the Northern, by about 24%, in fact. But no one knew why.
A new study led by University of Chicago climate scientist Tiffany Shaw lays out the first concrete explanation for this phenomenon. Shaw and her colleagues found two major culprits: ocean circulation and the large mountain ranges in the Northern Hemisphere.
The study also found that this storminess asymmetry has increased since the beginning of the satellite era in the 1980s. The increase was shown to be qualitatively consistent with climate change forecasts from physics-based models.
[...] Looking over past decades of observations, they found that the storminess asymmetry has increased over the satellite era beginning in the 1980s. That is, the Southern Hemisphere is getting even stormier, whereas the change on average in the Northern Hemisphere has been negligible.
[...] It may be surprising that such a deceptively simple question—why one hemisphere is stormier than another—went unanswered for so long, but Shaw explained that the field of weather and climate physics is relatively young compared to many other fields.
But having a deep understanding of the physical mechanisms behind the climate and its response to human-caused changes, such as those laid out in this study, are crucial for predicting and understanding what will happen as climate change accelerates.
Journal Reference:
Tiffany A. Shaw, Osamu Miyawaki, and Aaron Donohoe, Stormier Southern Hemisphere induced by topography and ocean circulation, PNAS, 119, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2123512119
(Score: 1, Troll) by Barenflimski on Tuesday January 31, @11:44PM (9 children)
I was just 'waiting' to read, "Climate Change Affects Southern Hemisphere More."
I'm really impressed that nowhere in the article, and nowhere in the science, someone decided to say, "Well it's clear, it's climate change."
What makes this story more compelling is they used references from seafarers in 1849, who claimed this was a thing.
I now believe that the Southern Hemisphere is 24% more stormy due to the topography and geography.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01, @01:49AM (1 child)
At about that same time, Tyndall made the measurements to confirm the greenhouse effect, and not much later men like Arrhenius and Högbom were speculating and making models and doing calculations on the effect of CO2 emissions on the atmosphere. Why do 19th century seafarer accounts get much more weight in your opinion than 19th century scientific measurements?
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Wednesday February 01, @08:48PM
I didn't say I believed one over the other. I was just commenting on the article and the points it made about the seafarer.
Is this where I apologize for not researching the time period before making a comment?
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday February 01, @06:23PM (6 children)
I don't know why you were modded down, except for your being an obvious climate change skeptic. This is not the site to expect to be rewarded for anti-science views, especially when those views are demonstrably false. Climate change is real, and we are the cause. If the world's governments don't get serious about it, civilization might not last another two centuries.
You might want to read up on it, unless you're also aliterate. If you don't like reading or learning I suggest Farcebook.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Wednesday February 01, @08:46PM (2 children)
I'm a climate change skeptic? Says who? All I said is I was impressed to see an article that mentioned weather and didn't say it was climate change. The things people make assumptions about always fascinates me.
Would a dossier of all my beliefs help folks not make wild sweeping assumptions, you think? Should I preface everything I say with my stated beliefs before I then write a comment to help guide their assumption machines?
(Score: 3, Informative) by mcgrew on Thursday February 02, @04:34PM (1 child)
I'm a climate change skeptic?
It was suggested by your wording. I'm not the one who modded you down, so I must not have been the only one to come to that conclusion. Possibly it's a corollary to Poe's Law.
Should I preface everything I say with my stated beliefs before I then write a comment to help guide their assumption machines?
No, you should know the language well enough to not need to do that. You know there are a lot of climate change skeptics, so giving any indication that you are one with no indication you aren't begs one to assume what appears to be obvious.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Thursday February 02, @05:03PM
Ahh. I guess my assumptions that people had noticed that over the years I had talked about the changing climate were wrong.
I reread what I wrote. I still don't see why people would come to that assumption without prior biases, and then project, but you know, I don't care what folks do or how they think. I just always find it curious as it is seems to me that is how every conversation becomes polarized.
Let me be clear in what I am saying for those that need full context. When every single article produced anymore about weather, states that "no one has ever seen this event, and its all due to climate change, this will be the (coldest/hottest/wettest/dryest)", I find that it is damaging to the population as a whole. While it is something that as a population we need to work out, telling every young person that the world is ending every single day and that they should hate their elders because of it, isn't useful or helpful.
My comment was simply that it was nice to see an article about weather and climate that didn't also add the authors opinion on climate change.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday February 02, @06:18PM (2 children)
*illiterate [wikipedia.org]
Although I guess one could make the argument that "aliterate" could be a word in the "not caring about" [wikipedia.org] usage of a- as a prefix.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday February 03, @07:55PM (1 child)
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/aliterate [dictionary.com]
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday February 03, @10:54PM
Huh. This is the first time I've ever heard of this word.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"