Posted: Oct 28, 2010 5:40 am
Variable Summer Rainfall in U.S. Southeast Linked to Climate Change
ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2010) — A doubling of abnormally wet or dry summer weather in the southeastern United States in recent decades has come from an intensification of the summertime North Atlantic Subtropical High (NASH), or "Bermuda High."
And that intensification appears to be coming from global warming, according to a new analysis by a Duke University-led team of climate scientists.
The NASH is an area of high pressure that forms each summer near Bermuda, where its powerful surface center helps steer Atlantic hurricanes and plays a major role in shaping weather in the eastern United States, Western Europe and northwestern Africa.
By analyzing six decades of U.S. and European weather and climate data, the team found that the center of the NASH intensified by 0.9 geopotential meters a decade on average from 1948 to 2007. (Geopotential meters are used to measure how high above sea level a pressure system extends; the greater the height, the greater the intensity.)
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