RELATIVELY HUMAN — S1E7: "When Weather Gets Stuck"

Episode Description Why does weather get "stuck" in relentless heat domes or catastrophic floods? We discard the outdated idea of the jet stream as a stable "river" of air, exploring it instead as an unstable, wave-channeling gradient boundary skidding over planetary topography. We trace the convergence of four scientific frontiers explaining our changing weather:

1. Climate Dynamics: Arctic amplification weakens the equator-to-pole temperature gradient, altering the atmosphere's waveguide. Quasi-Resonant Amplification (QRA) traps planetary waves, sparking events like the 2021 Pacific Northwest Heat Dome via soil moisture feedbacks. We also explore how Recurrent Rossby Wave Packets (RRWPs) drive extreme Australian heatwaves.