Wind and climate change | DW Documentary

Shifting wind patterns are making extreme weather events more likely. This is because the wind, which distributes areas of high and low pressure along the latitude lines of the Earth, is also being influenced by climate change. The wind is the motor for our weather. It brings us both sunshine and rain. And during the winter months, it regularly blows itself up into heavy storms. But throughout the globe, climate change is causing shifts in existing wind systems - with devastating consequences. Atlantic hurricanes, which build up over the tropics and often lay waste to swathes of land on the eastern coast of the US, are becoming more intense and bringing heavier rainfall. Scientists are looking for clues as to the precise causes for the warming in the Arctic, where temperatures are climbing more rapidly than anywhere else in the world. In the northern hemisphere, rising temperatures result in wind systems ‘twisting’ at 10-kilometer altitudes. The Arctic jet stream drives high- and low-pressure ar