Not exact matches
The
researchers identified several key circulation patterns that affected the winter temperatures from 1979 to 2013, particularly the Arctic Oscillation (a climate pattern that circulates
around the Arctic Ocean and tends to confine colder air to the
polar latitudes) and a second pattern they call Warm Arctic and Cold Eurasia (WACE), which they found correlates to sea ice loss as well as to particularly strong winters.
Thirty years later — the equivalent of one Saturn year, in other words, the time the planet takes to go all the way
around the Sun — and over more than six consecutive years,
researchers in the UPV / EHU's Planetary Sciences Group, in collaboration with astronomers from various countries, were able to observe Saturn's northern
polar region in detail once again and confirmed that the hexagon continued in place.
The
researchers first captured
around a hundred south
polar skuas and brown skuas and took blood samples to measure their mercury levels.
More recent trips caught footage of a pod of orcas teaching its young how to hunt, which digitally raced
around the world of marine mammal scientists, participated in a penguin census, and logged
polar bear and whale identification photos for
researchers who track global populations of these animals.
Researchers told Climate Central that the weather pattern driving the extreme cold into the U.S. — with a weaker
polar vortex moving
around the Arctic like a slowing spinning top, eventually falling over and blowing open the door to the Arctic freezer — fits with other recently observed instances of unusual fall and wintertime jet stream configurations.