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Tag archives: weather

Bad weather? Blame Santa

By Margaret Harris in Chicago

If you’re fed up with floods in England, sick of snow in the US or mystified by mild temperatures in Scandinavia, blame it on Santa Claus. That’s the message coming from atmospheric scientist Jennifer Francis, whose “Santa’s revenge” hypothesis suggests that the weather weirdness that we’re currently seeing at middle latitudes could be linked to recent warming in the Arctic.

Francis’ theory begins with the polar jet stream, the high-altitude “river of air” that flows over parts of the northern hemisphere. This jet stream owes its existence to the temperature differential between the Arctic region and middle latitudes: because warm air expands, that temperature differential produces a “hill” of air with (for example) England at the top and Greenland at the bottom.  The Earth’s rotation means that air doesn’t flow straight down this hill; instead, it curves around, producing the west–east flow seen in animations like the one in this video from the NASA Goddard Science Visualization Studio.

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Super Bowl, super-chilled leeches, a black hole cake and more

Picture of a black hole cake

(Courtesy: Quantum/Mathelete/Buzz)

By James Dacey

Fire and ice will mix together in a sporting cauldron this Sunday. The Seattle Seahawks are taking on the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, and all weather forecasters agree that it’s going to be rather chilly. In fact, some have criticized the National Football League (NFL) for electing to play the game in a stadium without a roof, rather than opting to stage the match under cover. Bear in mind, the Super Bowl is the sporting event of the year in the US and people take it very seriously indeed. To address some of the concerns, The Huffington Post published this article to analyse how the mechanics of the game can change under cold conditions. The entertaining article considers everything from the reduced bounciness of the ball, to the increased propensity of helmets to break due to changes in material pliability.

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