{"id":1598,"date":"2019-03-11T21:53:38","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T04:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/?p=1598"},"modified":"2019-03-11T21:53:38","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T04:53:38","slug":"polar-what-is-vortex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/2019\/03\/11\/polar-what-is-vortex\/","title":{"rendered":"Polar what is&#8230;.. Vortex?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>What is a Polar Vortex? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first thing that strikes to my mind when I say \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2019\/jan\/30\/polar-vortex-2019-usa-what-is-it-temperatures-cold-weather-climate-change-explained\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Polar vortex<\/a>\u201d is <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">some phenomenon related to earth\u2019s poles. <\/span>We are hearing a lot about the polar vortex lately, but it has been around a few decades. These are strong and cold winds originating around the Arctic region. <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">These winds originate specially around the North Pole which which are capable to enter parts of United States and Canada.\u00a0<\/span>These winds can be strong enough to create very low temperatures around these areas.<\/p>\n<p>An image depicting the region of flow of the winds.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1602\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1602\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1602\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/Polar-Vortex-picture-1-300x168.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/Polar-Vortex-picture-1-300x168.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/Polar-Vortex-picture-1-768x429.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/Polar-Vortex-picture-1-1024x573.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/Polar-Vortex-picture-1-800x447.png 800w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/Polar-Vortex-picture-1.png 1268w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1602\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image showing the flow of the polar vortex winds. Source:\u00a0https:\/\/www.accuweather.com\/en\/weather-news\/what-is-a-polar-vortex\/21793077<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Credit-<a href=\"https:\/\/www.accuweather.com\/en\/weather-news\/what-is-a-polar-vortex\/21793077\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> https:\/\/www.accuweather.com\/en\/weather-news\/what-is-a-polar-vortex\/21793077<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The following video is posted by USA Today and talks about the Polar vortex and its effects.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The polar vortex, explained\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dvHTFNuwa8U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>(Credit: USA Today<\/p>\n<p>Source:\u00a0https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dvHTFNuwa8U)<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Recent Effects of the Polar Vortex:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>United States:<\/strong> The devastating weather conditions brought by the Polar Vortex around January 31<sup>st<\/sup> killed at least 8 people in several places around the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-us-canada-47055952\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">US<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Following video shows a river turning into snow in Chicago<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Polar vortex: -46C temperatures as Chicago River turns to ice\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aZAvsU1_ezI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Credit: Guardian News<\/p>\n<p>Source:\u00a0https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aZAvsU1_ezI)<\/p>\n<p>The following image shows all the regions that faced the consequences of the Polar Vortex:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1606\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1606\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1606\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/US-300x208.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"208\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/US-300x208.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/US-768x534.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/US-1024x711.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/US-800x556.png 800w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/US.png 1094w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1606\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Areas affected in the USA by the polar vortex, https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-us-canada-47055952<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"background: white;vertical-align: baseline;margin: 11.25pt 0cm 18.75pt 0cm\"><span style=\"color: #1f1f1f\"><strong>Canada<\/strong>: Canada has been affected in regions of <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/4907009\/polar-vortex-canada\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ontario and Quebec<\/a>. The temperature fell to -30 degree Celsius in these areas. Canada has witnessed polar vortex earlier in 2015 as well. But this year, it had much worse effects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The following video demonstrates the areas affected in Canada.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Deep freeze in Canada: Extreme cold sweeps across the country\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/p8JJYutyFlQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>(Credit: CTV News, Source:\u00a0https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=p8JJYutyFlQ)<\/p>\n<p>These changes have also been observed in Vancouver, with extreme cold snow days even in the month of February. We observed entire days of shutdown due to this extreme weather.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The heat wave at Australia when North America faced harsh cold winters due to polar vortex:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As shocking at may seem, when North America was facing polar vortex, Australia was suffering from extreme heat waves. How can this happen? It was the hottest in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news.com.au\/technology\/environment\/tale-of-two-hemispheres-world-watching-australias-record-heat\/news-story\/81a063180acda034caf278bbdd04d1da\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">80 years<\/a>! This climate change is not what anyone expected and has been a major concern for environmentalists.<\/p>\n<p>Below is an image showing a picture depicting the shocking heat wave<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1610\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1610\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1610\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/Australia-heat-wave-300x238.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"238\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/Australia-heat-wave-300x238.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/Australia-heat-wave-768x608.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/Australia-heat-wave-1024x811.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/Australia-heat-wave-800x633.png 800w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/files\/2019\/03\/Australia-heat-wave.png 1306w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1610\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Heat Wave in Australia, https:\/\/www.news.com.au\/technology\/environment\/tale-of-two-hemispheres-world-watching-australias-record-heat\/news-story\/81a063180acda034caf278bbdd04d1da<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong><em>The reason behind these extreme climatic variations:\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is caused by global warming, which can be said as a man-made climatic change. This caused by the burning of various fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal which release CO2 to the atmosphere. This extra release of CO2 in the atmosphere leads to an increase in the temperature of oceans as well as lands. Also, there is a<a href=\"https:\/\/earthsky.org\/earth\/how-polar-vortex-connected-to-global-warming\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> strong link<\/a> between the extremities of the weather condition and global warming.<\/p>\n<p>By: Simrat Chahal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is a Polar Vortex? The first thing that strikes to my mind when I say \u201cPolar vortex\u201d is some phenomenon related to earth\u2019s poles. We are hearing a lot about the polar vortex lately, but it has been around &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/2019\/03\/11\/polar-what-is-vortex\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63715,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222578,132758,431983,123324],"tags":[615,68,935,16130,4159542,4159543,4220],"class_list":["post-1598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issues-in-science","category-science-communication","category-science-communicators","category-science-in-the-news","tag-australia","tag-canada","tag-climate-change","tag-global-warming","tag-polar-vortex","tag-temperature-change","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63715"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1613,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598\/revisions\/1613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2019w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}