Juan Lora—a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA—and Aradhna Tripati—a professor with UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability—have found that ice distribution has a direct effect on the climates of larger regions. Their study, which explored how the collapse of an ice sheet 14,000 years ago triggered the major reorganization of a jet stream above the U.S. and Canada, suggests that similar changes could occur again as a result of ice melt in polar regions. The findings are particularly interesting in the context of California’s ongoing drought.

Source: Chilling climate revelations from the last ice age UCLA Newsroom, 28 Nov 2016

Additional coverage about ice melt’s impact on jet streams:

Study shows major changes in ice and temperatures could cause abrupt effects farther away Phys.org, 29 Nov 2016