Berlin — climate change will, in a certain sense, bring greater persistence to the Northern Hemisphere — this is the seemingly paradoxical conclusion of a study by Humboldt University (HU) and the Climate Analytics Institute in Berlin, published in the journal "Nature Climate Change". In concrete terms, this means that heatwaves as well as periods of heavy rainfall will each last somewhat longer in future than they have up to now.

Weather patterns will linger longer

The reason: global warming is causing large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns such as the jet stream to slow down in summer. "The slowing of circulation makes weather regimes more persistent, and with them heatwaves and heavy rainfall," explains co-author Dim Coumou of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

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