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Sailors and climate scientists alike have long considered this system
unpredictable, but lately a pattern has emerged, one that caught the eye
of this atmospheric scientist.
[Jim Hurrell, National Center for Atmospheric Research] During the 1980s
and the 1990s, that random aspect basically disappeared and we started
to see that the North Atlantic oscillation tended to be in the very
intense phase for one winter after the next, and it’s persisted that way
for much of the last 20 or 30 years.
Hurrell figured something must have jammed the system, BUT WHAT? He
RETREATED into the world of computer climate models to seek an answer.
He had a prime suspect: earth’s rising temperature caused by the buildup
of CO2 in the atmosphere. When he included that buildup, his model
faithfully produced the fixed configuration of the past few decades.
When he removed it, the model showed ups and downs, the old
fluctuations.
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