Wellness Update; Antarctica: Ozone Hole A Surprise Rainmaker : Discovery News

Ozone Hole A Surprise Rainmaker : Discovery News: "The idea that losing ozone in the cold stratosphere over the South Pole could affect weather in the lower atmosphere all the way to the warm equator means Earth's changing climate system is even more complicated than most everyone thought.

The modeling study, published in the recent online issue of the journal Science, revealed that thinning of the ozone layer prompts severe cooling in the lower stratosphere over Antarctica. This cooling causes the lower level troposphere to rise and leads to a poleward shift in a strand of strong winds known as the westerly jet. Moving this jet stream pulls the storm track and other atmospheric circulation features farther south.

In the latter half of the 20th Century, observations tracked the southerly migration of the band of sinking air over the dry Subtropics and the rising air over the Tropics. The changing atmospheric patterns brought more rainfall, especially in summer, to subtropical regions that were previously dry, including eastern Australia."