Another new study confirms that it’s not just you—it is gettin’ hot in here, or, specifically, in the widening arid regions around the jet streams. As the title of a new study in Science succintly put it there has been an “Enhanced Midlatitude Troposheric Warming in Satellite Measurements” from 1979 to 2005.
From the study’s abstract:
We found that relative to the global-mean trends of the respective layers, both hemispheres have experienced enhanced tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling in the 15 to 45° latitude belt, which is a pattern indicative of a widening of the tropical circulation and a poleward shift of the tropospheric jet streams and their associated subtropical dry zones. This distinctive spatial pattern in the trends appears to be a robust feature of this 27-year record.
Translation: The tropics are expanding—widening—and, along with ‘em, desert regions. Maps from the study show western and mid-state North Carolina heating up over the 27-year period with a temperature increase of roughly 0.6 to 0.8 degrees (F) per decade. Eastern NC also shows an increse in the 0.4 to 0.6 range.
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