What Is The Link Between Global Warming And Locally Unstable Weather? Here Is The Answer
Climate change can result in more unstable weather, local droughts, and extreme temperature records. Earth is probably at its warmest in over 100,000 years as a result of temperature increase.
New Delhi: Delhi has witnessed sudden fluctuations in weather in recent days. For example, on Monday, several regions in Delhi NCR received heavy rainfall.
A new study has found a link between global warming and locally unstable weather. While it is not connected to the weather events prevailing in Delhi at the moment, the link between local and global climate is a subject that continues to interest scientists, and the study throws new light on this.
Climate change can result in more unstable weather, local droughts, and extreme temperature records. Recently, a Danish astrophysics student at the Niels Bohr Institute used a mathematical approach to unveil how global temperature increase results in locally unstable weather on Earth.
The study describing the findings was recently published in The European Physical Journal Plus.
Earth is warming globally, and the warming is predominantly human-made.
Earth Probably At Its Warmest In Over 100,000 Years
Earth is probably at its warmest in over 100,000 years as a result of temperature increase which has become faster than ever before. The Industrial Revolution began about 250 years ago, and since then, the world has become 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer.
In recent years, climate change has resulted in extreme heat records for Earth. For instance, last year, Canadians measured their highest temperature at almost 50 degrees Celsius, which was five degrees warmer than the previous record.
The problem, however, is not limited to heat records. Cold waves, droughts, storms, and precipitation are reaching new heights.
The manner in which global warming gives rise to local weather extremes is an active field of research, but is not yet fully understood. Astrophysics student Albert Sneppen, with a new mathematical approach, has come one step closer to the connection between global temperature rise and the instability of local weather.
The Student Was Inspired From Early Universe
Sneppen studies astrophysics at the Cosmic Dawn Center, a basic research centre under the Niels Bohr Institute and DTU Space in Copenhagen. He also ponders on black holes and exploding stars. One day, Sneppen got the idea that a method normally used to analyse the distribution of light in the night sky could also be used to study the distribution of temperature fluctuations on Earth's surface.
According to the study, the method is used to interpret the so-called cosmic microwave radiation, also known as the "Big Bang afterglow". Sneppen observed a kind of "aesthetic coincidence" between heat distribution on the universal scale and the Earth scale.
In a statement released by University of Copenhagen, Sneppen explained that for decades, the heat radiation of the early universe has been studied in the night sky, and that researchers use the so-called 'angular power spectrum' which tells people how much all parts of the night sky are connected, both locally and globally.
Sneppen further said that this is exactly what one wants in climate research: a method of examining all scales of climate change at the same time.
What Is The Structure Of Climate?
The new mathematical perspective supports structures in the climate which were hitherto unknown. The perspective shows how local weather fluctuations are created on small scales, reproduces Earth's temperatures, and has confirmed the observed climate trends on the largest scales.
Sneppen explained that when humans perturb Earth's temperature on the largest scales, it causes larger temperature differences on all scales from regions of about 2,000 kilometres, and all the way down to 50 kilometres.
According to the study, climate change makes the differences in temperature grow locally, and large temperature differences result in extreme weather patterns.
Sneppen said the instability and volatility of the weather has generally grown since the industrial revolution, but has especially gained momentum over the last 40 years. He added that together with several other theoretical and observational studies, this model indicates that the weather will become even more unstable in the coming decades.
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