Polar Vortex
- January 30, 2023
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Polar Vortex
Subject: Geography
Section: Climatology
Context: Chilly weather in Asia is due to the same phenomenon that brought extreme cold to the US last month.
More on the News:
- It has been a cold January in Asia—from China, Japan, and the Korean Peninsula where heavy snow and blizzards temporarily shut down highways, to unusually chilly weather across South Asia, including many parts of India.
- Scientists say Asia’s extreme cold is largely the result of the so-called ‘polar vortex’, the same weather phenomenon that brought exceptionally cold weather to the United States last month.
Polar vortex:
- The term refers to an expanse of cold air that generally circles the Arctic but occasionally Shifts south from the North Pole. The phenomenon itself has always been present, even if the expression polar vortex has become popular only in recent years.
- The polar vortex is held in place by the Earth’s rotation and temperature differences between the Arctic and mid latitudes.
- When those variations in temperatures grow, the polar vortex can shift south.
- This month, the polar vortex brought Arctic air to Central Asia before slowly Moving eastward.
- Its southward bulge is accompanied by a shift in the jet stream, a ring of strong wind that blows from west to east along the vortex’s edges
Polar Vortex and Climate change:
- Scientists think that as the planet warms, shifts in the polar vortex are likely to become more frequent and pronounced. But there is no consensus on whether the number of extreme freezes will increase as warming continues.
- It’s likely that recent droughts in Asia made the region even more susceptible to temperature extremes.
- There has been a general decrease in the frequency and intensity of cold extremes across much of the world since the 1950s, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted in a report last year.