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Polar Vortices
A polar vortex, more formally a circumpolar vortex, is a large region of cold, rotating air; polar vortices encircle both of Earth's polar regions. Polar vortices also exist on other rotating, low-obliquity planetary bodies. The term polar vortex can be used to describe two distinct phenomena; the stratospheric polar vortex, and the tropospheric polar vortex. The stratospheric and tropospheric polar vortices both rotate in the direction of the Earth's spin, but they are distinct phenomena that have different sizes, structures, seasonal cycles, and impacts on weather. The stratospheric polar vortex is an area of high-speed, cyclonically rotating winds around 15 km to 50 km high, poleward of 50°, and is strongest in winter. It forms during autumn when Arctic or Antarctic temperatures cool rapidly as the polar night begins. The increased temperature difference between the pole and the tropics causes strong winds, and the Coriolis effect causes the vortex to spin up. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shani Mootoo
Shani Mootoo is a Trinidadian-Canadian writer, visual artist and video maker. She was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1957 to Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidadian parents. She grew up in Trinidad and relocated at the age of 19 to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Biography Early life and education At an early age Mootoo showed a talent for drawing, painting, and writing, and expressed interest in becoming an artist at the age of 10. Her early efforts were encouraged by her mother Indra (''née'' Samaroo). Her father, Ramesh Mootoo, was a medical family doctor and Trinidadian politician. Much of Shani Mootoo's personal and literary life has been focused on political activism. According to Mootoo, her parents were upset by some of her earliest poems because they described love between two men or between two women. She has said that her parents worried for what those themes might mean for her future, which is why she put her words away an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
February 2021 North American Cold Wave
The February 2021 North American cold wave was an extreme weather event that brought record low temperatures to a significant portion of Canada, the United States and parts of northern Mexico during the first two-thirds of February 2021. The cold was caused by a southern migration of the polar vortex, likely caused by a sudden stratospheric warming event that occurred the prior month. Temperatures fell as much as 25–50 fahrenheit, °F (14–28 celsius, °C) below average as far south as the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast. Severe winter storms also were associated with the bitter cold, which allowed for heavy snowfall and ice accumulations to places as far south as Houston, Texas, and contributing to one of the snowiest winters ever in some areas in the Deep South. With the record cold advancing so far south, effects were crippling and widespread. Many regions within the Southern Plains such as Oklahoma and Texas, in addition to Arkansas, broke or nearly reached r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Independent
Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist group Music Groups, labels, and genres * Independent music, a number of genres associated with independent labels * Independent record label, a record label not associated with a major label * Independent Albums, American albums chart Albums * ''Independent'' (Ai album), 2012 * ''Independent'' (Faze album), 2006 * ''Independent'' (Sacred Reich album), 1993 Songs * "Independent" (song), a 2007 song by Webbie * "Independent", a 2002 song by Ayumi Hamasaki from '' H'' News media organizations * Independent Media Center (also known as Indymedia or IMC), an open publishing network of journalist collectives that report on political and social issues, e.g., in ''The Indypendent'' newspaper of NYC * ITV (TV network) (Independent Television ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winter Of 2010–11 In Great Britain And Ireland
Winter is the coldest and darkest season of the year in temperate and polar climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures define different dates as the start of winter, and some use a definition based on weather. When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa. Winter typically brings precipitation that, depending on a region's climate, is mainly rain or snow. The moment of winter solstice is when the Sun's elevation with respect to the North or South Pole is at its most negative value; that is, the Sun is at its farthest below the horizon as measured from the pole. The day on which this occurs has the shortest day and the longest night, with day length increasing and night length decreasing as the season progresses after the solstice. The earliest sunset and latest sunrise dates outside t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winter Of 2009–10 In Great Britain And Ireland
The winter of 2009–10 in the United Kingdom (also called ''The Big Freeze of 2010'' by British media) was a meteorological event that started on 16 December 2009, as part of the severe winter weather in Europe. January 2010 was provisionally the coldest January since 1987 in the UK. A persistent pattern of cold northerly and easterly winds brought cold, moist air to the United Kingdom with many snow showers, fronts and polar lows bringing snowy weather with it. The first snow fell on 17 December 2009, before a respite over the Christmas period. The most severe snowy weather began on 5 January in North West England and west Scotland with temperatures hitting a low of in Greater Manchester, England. The snow spread to Southern England on 6 January and by 7 January the United Kingdom was blanketed in snow, which was captured by NASA's Terra satellite. The thaw came a week later, as temperatures started to increase. The winter weather brought widespread transport disruption, s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
January–February 2019 North American Cold Wave
In late January 2019, a severe cold wave caused by a weakened jet stream around the Arctic polar vortex hit the Midwestern United States and Eastern Canada, killing at least 22 people. It came after a winter storm brought up to of snow in some regions from January 27–29, and brought the coldest temperatures in over 20 years to most locations in the affected region, including some all-time record lows. In early February, a concentration of Arctic air colloquially referred to as the "polar vortex" moved west, and became locked over Western Canada and the Western United States. As a result, February 2019 was among the coldest and snowiest on record in these regions. In early March, the cold once again shifted east, breaking records in many areas. In mid-March, the cold wave finally retreated, but combined with above-average temperatures, precipitation, and a deep snowpack, widespread flooding ensued in the Central US. Meteorology Normally, the Northern Hemisphere jet stream trave ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Meteorological Society
The American Meteorological Society (AMS) is a scientific and professional organization in the United States promoting and disseminating information about the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic sciences. Its mission is to advance the atmospheric and related sciences, technologies, specifications, applications and services for the benefit of society. Background Founded on December 29, 1919, by Charles F. Brooks, at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in St. Louis, and incorporated on January 21, 1920, the American Meteorological Society has a membership of more than 13,000 weather, water, and climate scientists, professionals, researchers, educators, students, and enthusiasts. AMS publishes 12 atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic journals (in print and online), sponsors as many as twelve conferences annually, and administers professional certification programs and awards. The AMS Policy and Education programs promote scientific kn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siberia
Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states since the lengthy conquest of Siberia, which began with the fall of the Khanate of Sibir in 1582 and concluded with the annexation of Chukotka in 1778. Siberia is vast and sparsely populated, covering an area of over , but home to roughly a quarter of Russia's population. Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Omsk are the largest cities in the area. Because Siberia is a geographic and historic concept and not a political entity, there is no single precise definition of its territorial borders. Traditionally, Siberia spans the entire expanse of land from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, with the Ural River usually forming the southernmost portion of its western boundary, and includes most of the drainage basin of the Arctic Ocean. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nunavut
Nunavut is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, ''Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act'', which provided this territory to the Inuit for self-government. The boundaries had been drawn in 1993. The creation of Nunavut resulted in the territorial evolution of Canada, first major change to Canada's political map in half a century since the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Newfoundland (now Newfoundland and Labrador) was admitted in 1949. Nunavut comprises a major portion of Northern Canada and most of the Arctic Archipelago. Its vast territory makes it the list of the largest country subdivisions by area, fifth-largest country subdivision in the world, as well as North America's second-largest (after Greenland). The capital Iqaluit (formerly "Frobisher Bay"), on Baffin Island in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baffin Island
Baffin Island (formerly Baffin Land), in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada, the second-largest island in the Americas (behind Greenland), and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is (slightly smaller than Thailand) with a population density of 0.03/km2; the population was 13,039 according to the 2021 Canadian census; and it is located at . It also contains the city of Iqaluit (with a population of around 7,000), which is the capital of Nunavut. Name The Inuktitut name for the island is , which means "very big island" ( "island" + "very big") and in Inuktitut syllabics is written as . This name is used for the administrative region the island is part of ( Qikiqtaaluk Region), as well as in multiple places in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, such as some smaller islands: Qikiqtaaluk in Baffin Bay and Qikiqtaaluk in Foxe Basin. Norse explorers are believed to have referred to it as ("stone land"). In 1576, English seaman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polar Front
In meteorology, the polar front is the weather front boundary between the polar cell and the Ferrel cell around the 60° latitude, near the polar regions, in both hemispheres. At this boundary a sharp gradient in temperature occurs between these two air masses, each at very different temperatures. The polar front arises as a result of cold polar air meeting warm tropical air. It is a stationary front as the air masses are not moving against each other and stays stable. Off the coast of eastern North America, especially in winter, there is a sharp temperature gradient between the snow-covered land and the warm offshore currents. The polar front theory says that mid-latitude extratropical cyclones form on boundaries between warm and cold air. In winter, the polar front shifts towards the Equator, whereas high pressure systems dominate more in the summer. See also * Polar vortex * Horse latitudes * Intertropical Convergence Zone The Intertropical Convergence Zone (I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
