Will global warming bring a change in the wind? Dust from the deep sea gives an idea

The westerly west – or westerly winds – play an important role in the weather and climate, locally and globally, by influencing precipitation patterns, influencing the circulation of the ocean and sending tropical cyclones. It is therefore very important to find a way to determine how it will change as the climate warms.

The western west usually blows from west to east across the middle latitudes of the planet. But scientists have noted that these winds have been changing and poleward migrating over the past few decades. Research suggests that this is due to climate change. But scientists have been talking about whether the western movement will continue beyond temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) further increases under future warming scenarios. It was difficult to solve this scientific question because our knowledge of the western western climate has been limited so far.

In an article published on January 6 in Earth, climate researchers from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory describe a new way to trace the ancient history of westerly winds – a mandate for what we can experience in a future warming world. The lead author, graduate student of Lamont, Jordan Abell, and his advisor, Gisela Winckler, developed a way to apply paleoclimatology – the study of climate in the past – to the behavior of westerly winds, and found evidence on it. indicates that atmospheric circulation patterns will change with climate warming.

The finding represents a breakthrough in our understanding of how winds have changed in the past, and how they may continue to change in the future.

Using dust in ancient deep-sea sediments as an indirect trace of wind, the researchers were able to reconstruct wind patterns that occurred three to five million years ago. The scientists that the winds – in this case the western parts – transport dust from desert areas to distant places, the authors investigated core of the North Pacific. This area is windswept from East Asia, one of the largest dust sources of today and a well-known dust-producing region for the past few years. By measuring the dust in nuclei from two different sites thousands of kilometers apart, the researchers were able to map the changes in dust and in turn the westerly winds.

“We could immediately see the patterns. The data are so clear. Our work is consistent with modern observations and suggests that wind patterns will change with climate warming,” Abell said.

They found that during the warm parts of the Pliocene (a period of three to five million years ago, when the earth was about two to four degrees Celsius warmer than today, but had about the same concentration of CO.₂ in the air as it is now), the west-west was located closer to the poles worldwide than during the colder intervals thereafter.

“Using the Pliocene as an analogue to modern global warming, it seems likely that the movement from the western direction to the poles observed in the modern era will continue with further warming caused by humans,” Winckler explains .

The movement of these winds has major consequences for storm systems and precipitation patterns. And while this research does not indicate exactly where it will rain more or less, it does confirm that wind and precipitation patterns will change with climate warming.

“In the history of the Earth, it was elusive to detect wind movements and how they changed because we did not have a trace for it,” Winckler said. “Now we do it.”