The Alarming Science Behind Climate Change’s Increasingly Wild Weather: Ostro And Francis On Video

Earlier this month, Chris Mooney moderated a terrific Climate Desk event featuring top climate researcher Jennifer Francis along with senior Weather Channel meteorologist (and former skeptic) Stu Ostro.

Climate Desk summarizes their findings:

Ostro’s observations suggest that global warming is increasing the atmosphere’s thickness, leading to stronger and more persistent ridges of high pressure, which in turn are a key to temperature, rainfall, and snowfall extremes and topsy-turvy weather patterns like we’ve had in recent years.

Francis’s scientific story is complementary. She sees the rapid warming of the Arctic weakening the northern hemisphere jet stream, and thus, once again, slowing down the weather, leaving a given pattern stuck in place for longer (making any event potentially more disruptive and extreme).