plants and the roughly 4 million people who live in the Arctic — it has global consequences. Sea ice acts like a giant mirror, reflecting the sunlight away from the Earth and back into space.

A sudden stratospheric warming event reversed the winds that make up the northern polar vortex on March 9. A new animation shows the vortex also moved away from the Arctic towards Europe.

a large spinning mass of cold air in the stratosphere around 15 miles above the Arctic that is prominent during winter months, the findings published in the journal Communications Earth and ...