"The unprecedented 2016 California drought, the 2011 U.S. heatwave, and 2010 Pakistan flood as well as the 2003 European hot spell all belong to a most worrying series of extremes," says Michael Mann from the Pennsylvania State University in the U.S., lead-author of the study now published in Scientific Reports. "The increased incidence of these events exceeds what we would expect from the direct effects of global warming alone, so there must be an additional climate change effect. In data from computer simulations as well as observations, we identify changes that favor unusually persistent, extreme meanders of the jet stream that support such extreme weather events. Human activity has been suspected of contributing to this pattern before, but now we uncover a clear fingerprint of human activity."
How sunny days can turn into a serious heat wave
"If the same weather persists for weeks on end in one region, then sunny days can turn into a serious heat wave and drought, or lasting rains can lead to flooding", explains co-author Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany. "This occurs under specific conditions that favor what we call a quasi-resonant amplification that makes the north-south undulations of the jet stream grow very large. It also makes theses waves grind to a halt rather than moving from west to east. Identifying the human fingerprint on this process is advanced forensics."
Read more at Weather Extremes: Humans Likely Influence Giant Airstreams
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