The jet is a high altitude, fast-moving, ribbon of air. In it’s wake it drags along weather systems but it also acts as a barrier that prevents the north-south and south-north movement of air masses. Depending whether the jet lies to the north or south of the UK, or if it lies above the UK, has a very significant bearing on the weather. In essence the weather north of the jet is cold and dry whilst to the south it’s warm and moist.
The Polar Jet has always been erratic and tends to meander about somewhat. In general during the winter it lies to the south of the UK and this lets cold air flood in from the north, during spring it migrates northwards and come summer it lies to the north of the UK between Scotland and Iceland, this allows warmer air to move up from southern Europe.
Increasingly the jet is becoming more erratic and less predictable and there are more and more occasions when it doesn’t follow the seasonal migrations; this is causing major disruption to the weather in the UK. For example, last year the UK started in one of the longest droughts on record, by spring there was a heatwave, this gave way to rainfall that lasted for months and brought record breaking floods and the year ended with near record breaking snowfalls. The jet stream was a major player in all these events.
The reversal of Arctic weather patterns, unusual opposing winds, increased heat energy in the atmosphere and complex atmospheric dynamics are all impacting on the behaviour of the jet and certainly for the foreseeable future it looks like the jet will continue to be disrupted.
Could aeroplanes also be adding to this disruption?
No, not really.
The jet streams are fluid, you can think of them as behaving like water. So imagine you have a stream that’s flowing without hindrance, but then you poke a stick into the stream, the water flows around the stick and is momentarily disrupted, once beyond the obstruction the flow of water resumes it’s normal course. Of course, the stream is constrained by it’s banks but the principle is the same.
Another thing to bear in mind is just how tiny an aeroplane is compared to the Polar Jet. The jet has a cross-sectional area of about 7 million square metres and is about 4 million metres long, it’s roughly 10 billion times the size of a Boeing 747.
Just as a point of interest, did you know that the UK holds the record for the fastest wind-speeds ever recorded on Earth. In December 1967 a speed of 656 km/h (408mph) was recorded for the jet-stream as it passed over South Uist in the Hebrides.
Hi
I asked Trevor about the jet stream here. http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/ind... I hope Trevor answers your question He asked for figures on the heating at the bottom of his answer and here it is http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/IONO/Dynaso...
The part that you might be interested in is the bit were Trevor talks about how for this to work you would need to to add some sort of conductive material to the air , well jet fuel contains copper and would be oxidized when combusted so your plane theory could help in ION production. Cheers
Edit Trevor The plane might be small but their emissions are not . Haarp was put in Alaska for a reason And lets not forget about what Russia is up to, they want the riches that lye under the artic ice they even planted a flag to claim it as their own .
absolutely not, but I like your enquiring mind, some would say wacko, but not me, the jet stream covers a vast area, any plane in it would have zero effect, imagine your at the seaside, you step in the waves, you have zero effect on the waves the tide keeps coming, hope this helps.
It is very doubt full but climate is a chaos system, so we dont know, as someone said a butterfly flaps it's wings in the Amazon and a hurricane forms in the Atlantic.
Air traffic is trivial to the Jet Stream. It's like dangling your toes in a river.
No. The jet stream is not effected at all by jets. Jets can be effected by the jet stream, however.
Could be.
I'm not a scientist nor an airline pilot - So please forgive me if this seems ridiculous, however, we've been hearing lately how the jet stream is changing direction and bringing us (United Kingdom) much colder and somewhat changeable weather.
Now what I've been wondering is, knowing the airliners use the jet streams to assist them in flight, saving fuel, gaining speed and increased lift, etc.
....Then when the aircraft nears its landing descent it departs away from the jet steam.
I wonder whether it's possible for the airflow around the aircraft to influence the jet stream by creating a detour from the jet streams original heading?
So does my theory sound plausible or is it just totally wacko?
