Cloud-motion data identify changes in atmospheric circulation

Large-scale shifts in atmospheric circulations can reshape global weather patterns and extremes, and they imprint their signatures in cloud motion. Decades of satellite-observed cloud motion reveal that cloud speeds in the jet streams have increased, the polar fronts have shifted polewards and a tropical circulation pattern called the Hadley cell has widened northwards.

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02377-1

This is a summary of: Di Girolamo, L. et al. Decadal changes in atmospheric circulation detected in cloud motion vectors. Nature 643, 983–987 (2025)