Prophet of the polar vortex

Jennifer Francis was one of the first climate scientists to connect a warmer Arctic with severe winter weather further south

Jennifer Francis’ long relationship with the extremes and vagaries of Arctic weather began in a sailboat. In 1985, during an extended break from college, she and her husband-to-be completed a five-year sailing adventure that took them to places like Cape Horn, around the bottom of New Zealand and, eventually, above the Arctic Circle.

“At the time, we were told that we’ve gone farther north than any other American sailboat,” Francis says. The couple’s biggest challenge — more than lacking modern amenities like GPS or cellphones — was that the further north they went, the less reliable weather forecasts became.

“Weather really controls your life when you’re living on a sailboat,” Francis explains. And accurate information about weather in the Arctic was sorely lacking.

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