Studies the last decade or so have shown that
the jet stream — the currents of air that move weather systems across the world — is wavier and getting stuck more often, attributing it to human-caused climate change’s extra warming of the Arctic, said Rippey. What’s happening now, especially with an extremely warm Arctic and “feverish ocean temperatures across the North Pacific,” fits the theory well, said Woodwell Climate Research Center senior scientist Jennifer Francis, one of the pioneers of the concept.