For six decades , scientist have watched a steady circulating tip rule in the tropic stratosphere repeating like clockwork every two years . Now for the first clock time it ’s changed focal point .
Thepattern is called the quasi - biennial oscillationand it ’s a wind circulation that occurs every 28 month , miles above Earth ’s surface in the stratosphere . West - moving winds from the top of the tropic stratosphere lento move downwardly and are replaced in that top position by the easterly winds that were below them . Then the whole substitution occurs retell itself again and again . At least that ’s what happened for the last 60 long time .
But at the close of last year , mighty when the west - make a motion air current were suppose to be moving down to start the switch normal , instead , they ascend justly back upwards . The new pattern held for a full six calendar month before the east winds finally exchange them again at the top this July .
researcher from NASA Goddard revealed the alteration in a newspaper publisher inGeophysical Research Letters . The switching has n’t yet had any visible impact on existing weather rule — besides the shift in lead circulation — but the sudden change still has scientists surprised and searching for an explanation . “ The quasi - biennial cycle is the stratosphere ’s Old Faithful , ” Paul Newman , lead scientist on the paper from NASA Goddardsaid in a statement . “ If Old Faithful stopped for a solar day , you ’d begin to question about what was happening under the earth . ”
Newman indicate two possible theory that could explicate the switch . One is that it was yet another strange side - effect from the gigantic El Niño we just assure . But he also suspects that it could be an effect of our newfangled , hot climate . The researchers are now trying to figure out just what the impact of the switch might be — and whether , as the world continue to warm , we ’re going to see it pass again .
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