The midlatitude plume is characterized by mixing
along sloping isentropes, which transports low - level air aloft over the western Pacific and brings mid-tropospheric air to the
surface over the eastern Pacific.
Somewhere
along the gradient (the
surface if all outgoing energy directly radiated to space, or the AVERAGE altitude of outgoing to incoming energy balance for a real atmosphere), an absolute temperature has to be determined to give the rest of the
slope actual temperatures.
Russian (Sergei Kirpotin) quoted by Pearce (2005a),
along with a report that «the permafrost of western Siberia is turning into a mass of shallow lakes as the ground melts,» lakes were expanding on the North
Slope of Alaska, Katey Walter had found methane hotspots in eastern Siberia where the bubbling gas kept the
surface from freezing in winter, etc..