Extreme Weather & Global Atmospheric Circulation

Climate Forcing

Global temperature anomaly +1.1°C

Seasonal ITCZ shift 0°

Simulation speed 1.0×

Live Readouts

Active events

Equatorial SST

27.9°C

Precip. intensity

×1.00

Dry-belt edge

30.0°

Legend

Tropical cyclone (SST-fuelled) Drought / heat dome Mid-latitude flood / heavy rain Polar cold-snap / blizzard

How it works

The globe is driven by an idealised three-cell general circulation model. Surface wind bands (the small arrow streaks) follow the textbook pattern, each one a Coriolis-deflected branch of a convection cell:

0°–30°: Hadley cell → trade winds (easterly)
30°–60°: Ferrel cell → westerlies
60°–90°: Polar cell → polar easterlies

Sea-surface temperature is modelled as a cosine profile in latitude φ, shifted by the season slider (the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone follows the sun) and raised by the warming anomaly ΔT:

SST(φ) = 28°C · cos(φ − φ_ITCZ) − 30°C · sin²(φ/2) + ΔT

Each event type spawns from a real physical threshold, not a coin flip on the whole map:

Tropical cyclones need SST ≥ 26.5°C (the Palmén genesis threshold) and |φ| > 5° so the Coriolis force can organise rotation — exactly why cyclones never form on the equator itself. Spawn rate and size scale with SST − 26.5°C.
Droughts / heat domes form under the subtropical high beneath the Hadley cell's descending branch (≈30°). Warming widens the Hadley cell, so this belt visibly creeps poleward as ΔT rises — the "dry-belt edge" readout tracks it.
Mid-latitude floods sit on the 40°–60° storm track. Their frequency follows the Clausius–Clapeyron relation: warmer air holds ≈7% more moisture per °C, so precip. intensity = 1.07^ΔT, read out directly and reflected in event size.
Polar cold-snaps spawn from stochastic polar-vortex wobbles poleward of 65° and shrink slowly as the pole warms.

Drag to orbit, scroll to zoom. Every marker's colour, size and lifetime is a function of the underlying field at the moment it spawned — nothing here is decorative.

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