CIRES' Julienne Stroeve and John Cassano, featured here, and several colleagues plan will spend the next few years investigating how Arctic sea ice loss affects the jet stream—a high-altitude stream of fast-flowing air that helps steer weather patterns across the Northern Hemisphere. With NASA funding, the science team will use sophisticated models and decades of observations to search for physical links between Arctic sea ice patterns, the jet stream and atmospheric blocking, which can stall weather patterns in place and prolong rain, drought, heat or cold spells. Scientists on the research team do not all agree about the nature of possible links between Arctic sea ice and mid-latitude weather, they say, which makes the collaboration more compelling.

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