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Hi All,
I thought you might enjoy this follow up on the polar stratospheric vortex.  On the west coast, we've been relatively high and dry this year, but the poles warmed significantly from a variation in the stratospheric vortex which literally punched through into the troposphere to produce the wobble in the polar front that has caused the unusual weather.  There's not pay wall on the link and there's a pretty cool (assuming you're pretty geeky) movie to be had.  Descending cold air compresses to become toasty warm, which is what the poles experienced, but more importantly while the poles baked some of us froze as cold polar air was pushed towards the equator, all part of our planetary chaos called weather.

C


http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/03/scienceshot-winter-weather-linke.html 

Charles Carlson
Senior Scientist | Teacher Institute

http://blogs.exploratorium.edu/whyintercept/
Twitter: @charliec53
email: [log in to unmask] 
Tel:   415-528-4319
Fax:  415-885-6011
exploratorium.edu
facebook.com/exploratorium twitter.com/exploratorium
The Embarcadero, Piers15 & 17
S.F., CA 94111





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