What’s up with Earth? Mysterious anomaly interrupts stratospheric wind pattern

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What would cause a wind pattern that held for at least 60 years to suddenly change?

Scientists are baffled and try to solve and understand this new atmospheric enigma.

For the first time, scientists have observed a deviation from the typical alternating pattern of easterly and westerly winds in the equatorial stratosphere.

The weather we experience on Earth typically occurs in the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere. But the stratosphere, which envelops the planet just above the troposphere, is home to winds of its own. In a new study, Newman et al. report an anomalous interruption in an otherwise reliable stratospheric wind pattern known as the quasi-biennial oscillation.

Each cycle of the quasi-biennial oscillation begins with strong westerly winds that flow through the stratosphere in a belt around the equator. Over the course of about 1 year, these windsgradually weaken and descend in altitude to the lower stratosphere as easterly winds replace them. These easterly winds slowly sink and weaken, too, as westerly winds return. The cycle repeats roughly once every 28 months.

Since 1953, scientists have observed equatorial winds by instruments known as radiosondes, which are carried skyward by weather balloons. The quasi-biennial oscillation was discovered in the early 1960s. Although the timing of each cycle has sometimes varied by a few months, the pattern as a whole has remained uninterrupted—until now.

Using radiosonde data from several equatorial locations around the world, the scientists discovered that the quasi-biennial oscillation began to deviate from its usual pattern in late 2015. At that time, westerly winds were descending in altitude and should have continued to sink and weaken as easterlies replaced them.

Instead, the westerly winds shifted upward and seemed to cut off the descent of high-altitude easterlies before they could begin their usual dominance. Additional easterly winds developed at lower altitudes in the stratosphere, beneath the rising westerlies. However, by June, the westerlies appeared to have resumed their normal descent.

The researchers plan to continue analyzing wind and temperature data to determine what caused this anomaly and what its implications may be.

The anomalous change in the QBO in 2015–2016

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4 Comments

  1. Hmm according to all my knowledge and this from many comments and opinions in the web I can say easily that 1953 was an important stage in coming out of this hellish spacetime/3rd density. Today I realized that many interesting things happened in this year – first War of The Worlds movie was created (with special effects like in first Godzilla movies), 12 august 1953 there was first Russian thermonuclear test (Joe-4, 400 kilotons yield) and today I read that scientists made first International Cloud Atlas. And here I see that happened this thing with flipping winds. Really interesting. It seems that all this process of “ascension” is noticeable from very long time leaving many signs and strange events. I read recently also that in WW2 many people noticed significant acceleration of time. This acceleration is I think very noticeable in last times, I feel like the last 5 years passed like a year or 2 and previous years (2010 and earlier) are not only very far but… they are like totally other reality, not only other time.

  2. Comment: You want an answer? If you didn’t realize it, there is a whole solar system attached to our sun, (a binary star) coming our way. This will cause some things to happen that will make all life on this planet uncomfortable, and may even destroy much of the earth. I call this the weapons of God’s indignation.

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