Heat Dome "EMPOWER IAS"

In news:

• A US city has recorded the highest temperatures as high as 46-degree Celsius part due to the historic heatwave that lasted as a result of a phenomenon referred to as a “heat dome”.

 

 

 

WHAT IS A HEAT DOME?

• A heat dome occurs when the atmosphere traps hot ocean air like a lid or cap.
• Summertime means hot weather — and extreme heat waves have become more frequent in recent decades.
• Sometimes, the scorching heat is ensnared in what is called a heat dome.
• This creates vast areas of sweltering heat that gets trapped under the high-pressure “dome“.

• The main cause is a strong change (or gradient) in ocean temperatures from west to east in the tropical Pacific Ocean .
• Alternatively, these pressure differences that drive wind, across the entire ocean in winter.

 

PRINCIPLE

• In a process known as convection, the gradient causes more warm air, heated by the ocean surface.
• This rises over the western Pacific, and decreases convection over the central and eastern Pacific.

 

Is this heat wave a result of climate change?

• It cannot be said for sure if the heatwave is a direct result of global warming.
• Scientists are usually wary of linking climate change to any contemporary event mainly because of the difficulty in completely ruling out the possibility of the event having been caused by some other reason.

 

Are heat domes result of climate change?

• Weather scientists all over the world have been highlighting the effects of rising temperatures (climate change) on the more extreme heatwaves.
• According to the NOAA Survey in 2017, the average US temperatures have increased since the last 19th century.
• Scientists who have been studying the climate tend to agree that the heat waves occurring today are more likely the result of climate change for which humans are responsible.
• The climate scientists, in the decades to come, expect more days of a severe heatwave. Apart from the United States, the cities as far north as the Arctic circle broke heat records this week.

 

Ocean Mean Temperature (Omt)

• These are important climatic parameters required for atmospheric and oceanic studies like cyclone and monsoon predictions .
• The aim here is to calculate ocean heat transport estimations.
• The data used to estimate these parameters are :
• sea surface height anomaly (SSHA) from the available altimeters
• sea surface temperature (SST)