The “warm” air from a Pacific storm is bringing more heat to the eastern Pacific than ever before, according to a new study.
The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, found that the warm air in recent years is bringing on more heat than the warmest air from the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean combined.
“This is the most warm air that we have ever seen in the Pacific,” said study co-author David Tett, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory in Honolulu.
“We have had an increase in temperatures and the intensity of this type of heat.
That heat is impacting the climate.”
The research was led by Tett and a team of scientists from the University of Hawaii, who found that warm air from two of the Pacific’s major storm systems is now driving more heat into the Pacific than in any other time in recent history.
“If the warm jet stream is what we think it is, then this event is going to have a huge impact on climate,” said co-lead author and oceanographer Michael Sperling, a researcher at the University at Buffalo, New York.
The researchers measured temperature records from two sites that recorded heat waves, one near Hawaii and the other at the mouth of the Oahu River.
They found that over the past three decades, warmer air has reached the Pacific from the east than from the west.
Tett said this is a “very good example” of the “pacific feedback loop”, which can have a “significant” impact on the climate.
“The Pacific can be very cold and hot, and in the past, when it has been warm, there has been an increase of heat,” Tett said.
“Now, it is the opposite.
So we’re seeing an increase.”
The researchers said this may have been a result of a warming climate, but the Pacific may also be exacerbating the problem.
“There’s a warming trend going on, but that’s not a perfect analogy for this.
We can’t really tell whether it is a global trend or a Pacific one,” Titt said.
The research team analysed data from three different sites, and found that warmer air from both the Atlantic and Pacific has increased the intensity and intensity of heat waves.
The warm air is also bringing more moisture to the ocean than in previous years.
“As we get warmer, we’re also bringing on an increase and an increase,” said Sperlings.
The scientists say the research suggests that there is a strong connection between a warming Pacific and a warming world.
“Our results show that the Pacific is not the only factor driving a warming of the atmosphere,” said lead author and glaciologist Chris Stringer, of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.
“It’s also the Pacific that is the biggest contributor to this warming.”
The team said the heat wave that brought on the 2015 heat wave may have also been a product of warmer ocean waters, which could affect future climate.
The authors of the study also found that sea surface temperatures in the western Pacific were rising by more than 5 degrees Celsius, more than the 1.5 degrees Celsius rise that is expected from greenhouse gas emissions.
“Sea surface temperatures are rising.
It’s not the warming in the atmosphere that is changing the temperature of the water, it’s the surface,” said Tett.
The paper was published in Nature Climate Climate Change.
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