One hemisphere stormier than the other

(KXAN) — Continuing research done on Mother Nature's storms has yielded some interesting results thanks to research done by scientists. A recent study by the University of Chicago gave us another one. The Southern Hemisphere is stormier than its northern counterpart.

The Southern Hemisphere encompasses most of South America, around a third of Africa, as well as Antarctica and some Asian islands.

Research done in this area determined that the circulation of the oceans combined with the Northern Hemisphere's large mountain regions help to make the Southern Hemisphere stormier. And, yes, this increase could also be attributed to climate change forecasts.

Oceans carry energy from the bottom depths to the surface. Because water sinks in the Arctic and rises near Antarctica, there is an energy difference between north and south. The Southern Hemisphere has more ocean mass than its northern counterpart. There have been slight increases in the average height of the waves. Observations from satellites and more than 80 ocean boys show a clear increase in wind speeds by 8% in the southern oceans. This number is noticeably less in the equatorial Atlantic and Pacific along with the northern Atlantic. The data was collected over a more than 30-year period.

The other element that comes into play is the mountain, or better, the topography. The study determined the larger the mountain range, the more disruption in the airflow that lessens the impact of storms. Thus, with more mountain ranges in the Northern Hemisphere the greater the lessening of the storms.

What was interesting in this study was that scientists were able to flatten every mountain on Earth. This resulted in a 50% drop in the difference between the two hemispheres. This is one of the more interesting aspects of this research.

Finally, the research concluded models forecasting climate change showed Southern Hemisphere storms were increasing while there were only subtle changes in the Northern Hemisphere.