Scientists at Rice University have discovered a natural cycle that repeats every 150 days in the north-south oscillation of atmospheric pressure patterns that drive the movement of the Southern Hemisphere’s prevailing westerly winds and the Antarctic jet stream. This cycle is known as “internally generated periodicity” and arises from the internal dynamics of the atmosphere. The discovery was made by playing with new equations derived for the atmosphere’s turbulent circulation, which predicted the possibility of natural periodicity in the Southern Annular Mode (SAM). The SAM, also known as the Antarctic oscillation, is an important climate driver for Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica and has been well-studied for decades. The oscillations happen randomly with timescales of 10-20 days, but this new discovery goes against the conventional wisdom that the atmosphere is all chaos and disorganization.
2023-06-06 22:30:03
Source from phys.org rnrn