The extreme heat in Spain, the UK and France this summer was made worse by changes in the jet stream , the strong westerly winds that blow above the planet’s surface, highlighting another way in which global warming could be altering our climate. Western Europe is a heat wave hotspot, with extreme high-temperature events rising three to four times faster than other northern latitudes over the past 42 years, according to a paper published in Nature Communications by researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The weather was linked for the first time to the splitting of the jet stream in the Northern Hemisphere, which has become more common. “Double jets can be triggered by a variety of reasons including chaotic variability in the atmosphere,” said co-author Dim Coumou. “Increasing temperature difference between land and ocean favors the persistence of double jet states in summer.” The jet […]