Climate scientists have sounded the alarm. The air currents that entwine our planet have changed beyond recognition, and this could have catastrophic consequences in the near future.

According to Science Alert, some people compare the pattern of these streams with the chaotic strokes in Vincent van Gogh's paintings. So the southern part of the air current blowing over North America has completely disintegrated and is now trapped in an intense swirl, resulting in unprecedented heat waves.

Although it is normal for air currents above the Earth's surface to stop, split, recombine, and sometimes move in the opposite direction, they have a fairly pronounced direction in general trend. At great distances, the air over our planet has a west-to-east direction.

But what scientists are recording now is unlike anything previously recorded. "When I look at this jet stream, the word 'crazy' comes to mind," Jeff Berardelli, chief meteorologist for a local Florida news station, tweeted. He said the current configuration, along with global warming, is creating a heat dome over America and provoking a heat wave that is astounding even to experts.

Berardelli responded to climate scientist and author Professor Michael E. Mann. He has been studying the behavior of air currents for years and stated that he has rarely seen such an unbalanced configuration.

Jet streams are known to sometimes be blocked, delaying weather systems in certain regions for days at a time. But recent evidence suggests that climate change can make these events last longer by slowing air currents. Because of this, they break up and cause chaotic weather events.

It is not just climate change that is contributing to what is now being observed in North America. The El Niño phenomenon also appears to be a contributing factor.

If you look at maps of jet streams before changes and today, even non-specialists can see the differences. So Professor Mann described the current currents over North America as "slow and wobbly," probably a result of climate change.

Last year, a study showed that rising temperatures in the Arctic are particularly weakening the jet streams in the Northern Hemisphere. And because of El Niño's influence, the latitude over which the paths of these currents run has also changed. As a result, the southern regions of the USA found themselves under a heat dome centered in Mexico.

This phenomenon has already caused mass death of birds. Also in the southern USA there were widespread power outages. Temperature records now being recorded in this geographic region are beating previous records by a wide margin. And there are no signs that the heat wave will end anytime soon. Some experts believe that the dome may last until July.

In the past, anomalous air currents in Earth's atmosphere have coincided with extreme weather events in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, although not usually in both at the same time. And now researchers are seeing a heat dome over North America and, at the same time, abnormally wet weather that the currents have brought to parts of Australia. Meanwhile, hurricane season in the Atlantic begins several months earlier than usual.

All this is accompanied by an unprecedented rise in global ocean temperatures. Scientists are confident that it will not normalize in the near future. It has already caused mass death of fish and poisoning of marine mammals.

"It's now clear that the Earth's climate system is out of whack, and we should be very concerned," explained Queensland Central University environmental geographer Steve Turton. Scientists warn that the climate crisis is no longer a future problem - we are already feeling its effects.

OBOZREVATEL wrote earlier that scientists have already warned that the Arctic may lose all its ice much earlier than preliminary calculations showed.

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