A heat wave is approaching. or not? Watch the emergence of hot summer days from space

On Tuesday (July 19) the weather will be hot in the Netherlands. In fact, every summer in Europe we have to deal with more heat waves, according to a global study. This is how they grow up.

The next heat wave. Annual drought in summer. We can no longer escape from it. Are we still looking forward to a sunny and warm summer day, while Deaths in Portugal and Turkey Dozens of soccer fields are burning in the woods because of the heat wave?

Predicting the weather is like watching coffee. But you can look back in time. It turns out that the number of summer heat waves is increasing here in Europe faster than in other regions of the Northern Hemisphere, such as the United States and China. that has been researched and proven An international team of scientists early this month.

Sweaty Carrots: It’s getting hotter

The researchers studied daily climate data for the two warmest months in Europe – July and August – over the past 42 years. Due to the availability of satellite data during that period, they were able to analyze how the air moves over our continent and what this does to the temperature. Their conclusion is that the increasing trend of the heat wave is due to a phenomenon they call “double jet stream”.

“In Western Europe, weather systems usually come from the Atlantic Ocean, and so they have a cooling effect,” Lead author Effie Rossi says: . “But during a twin jet stream, the path of weather systems shifts northward, causing long heat waves over Western Europe.”

Wait a minute: What is a jet stream?

Heat wave trends, twin jet streams, weather systems trajectory. This is a lot of scientific terms. That’s why below is an explanation (with several photos) based on the hot Tuesday that awaits us.

The jet stream is a very strong wind at a height of about 10 km. We have two main jet streams in the Northern Hemisphere: the polar and subtropical. These rush like meandering rivers from west to east. And the wind is so strong that it sucks the air around it. This is what they look like today Friday 15 July ) From:

The north wind is blowing over our country. What we noticed today: elongated clouds, a few showers and a strong wind. A little closer to the ground (at an altitude of 3 km), you can also clearly see how the winds of the jet stream divide the warm and cold air.

Below you can see the effect of all those high air currents on the temperature on Earth.

Birth of a heat wave

You might notice something else in the animation above: a wind swirl off the coasts of Portugal and Spain. It splits the polar jet stream off the coast of Western Europe. Part of the wind goes up and part down.

This has two effects: it protects Spain and Portugal from the cold air from the Atlantic Ocean and the warm air from North Africa is pumped into Europe. The result: heat. If this “double jet stream” stays in the same place for a long time, as the researchers saw, then you’ll get heat waves .

Next week: slowly but surely warmer

Let’s see what the wind can do. And what does that mean for the temperature in Holland and Europe? Note in the animation below (the dates for Sunday 17 July ) on turning jet stream and eddy.

and on Tuesday 19 July According to predictions that it is the hottest summer day for us, the jet stream has shifted in such a way that warm air passes directly over France and Holland. You also see it’s getting cold in southwestern Europe at that time, where they’re getting cooler air from the ocean again.

Global Warming

For example, structural changes in how the winds blow at higher altitudes mean summers are getting warmer. But what causes the jet stream to change? What creates such a vortex heat pump?

“One possible explanation is the acceleration of warming in the Far North, particularly over land areas such as Siberia, northern Canada, and Alaska,” says researcher Dim Cuomo of KNMI. These regions are warming faster than the Arctic Ocean. The land and sea contribute significantly to the splitting of the jet stream, or, in Cuomo’s words, “this is beneficial for the continuation of the twin jet streams.”

The live satellite images and models in this article have been developed by nullschool developer platform and are freely available to all. Want to test the data for yourself? earth.nullschool.net

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