×îÐÂÂ鶹ÊÓƵ

Environment

Is a broken jet stream causing extreme weather that lasts longer?

Scientists are scrambling to understand how climate change may be interfering with the winds that carry our weather, with potentially catastrophic consequences

By Madeleine Cuff

15 January 2025

×îÐÂÂ鶹ÊÓƵ. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Gary Neill

At the end of October 2024, a grey gloom descended over the British Isles. Nothing unusual there. But this murky shroud was particularly persistent, even for the UK. Some regions barely saw the sun for a fortnight. Residents of the village of Odiham in Hampshire, for example, enjoyed just 12 minutes of sunshine in the first 11 days of November. And according to the Met Office, the UK’s weather service, the country as a whole saw just 8.3 hours of sunshine across that period, well below average for that time of year. Meanwhile, in Spain, a slow-moving storm over the Valencia region unleashed torrential downpours, causing flash floods that killed 231 people.

For both events, you can blame the jet stream – the fast-moving air currents that flow west to east around the globe. In October 2024, the polar jet had buckled, trapping a high-pressure anticyclone system over the UK and a low-pressure system over Spain. That isn’t unprecedented: the jet stream buckles from time to time. But even the casual observer might have noticed that weather events seem to be lingering longer across the northern hemisphere, from Europe to North America. Now, climate scientists are scrambling to figure out whether global warming is making the jet stream more erratic, as some have predicted.

We urgently need answers. If we don’t get a clear picture of how the jet stream is changing, and what that means for our weather, we could be dramatically underestimating the extreme events coming our way. “We really need to keep pushing for an understanding of these extremes,”…

Sign up to our weekly newsletter

Receive a weekly dose of discovery in your inbox! We'll also keep you up to date with ×îÐÂÂ鶹ÊÓƵ events and special offers.

Sign up

To continue reading, today with our introductory offers

or

Existing subscribers

Sign in to your account
Piano Exit Overlay Banner Mobile Piano Exit Overlay Banner Desktop