A suspected Chinese surveillance drone took longer than usual to cross the continental US due to sudden stratospheric warming over the arctic, Central Weather Bureau Director-General Cheng Ming-dean (鄭明典) said yesterday.
The balloon was first detected over Billings, Montana, on Wednesday after likely traversing western Canada. It was shot down by the US on Saturday over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina. The FBI has gathered parts of the balloon for analysis. China has denied it was a surveillance balloon and protested its destruction.
The object likely took seven days to cross Canada and the continental US, a journey that should normally have taken about two days, Cheng said in a social media post.
Photo: Screen grab from Cheng Ming-dean’s Facebook page
Sudden stratospheric warming occurs when stratospheric temperatures increase in the winter, and the winds that normally blow from west to east around the pole weaken dramatically and even reverse direction, Cheng said.
Such an event took place over the past week, significantly shifting the position of high-altitude westerlies, he said, adding that a weak westerly wind blew across the continental US during the period, slowing down the Chinese balloon.
If the balloon had not been shot down, it would have encountered strong winds after reaching the Atlantic and been quickly blown toward Europe, he said.
Cheng on Saturday said that an object similar to the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon appeared over Taipei twice in the past 18 months — in September 2021 and March last year — hovering in the sky for two to three hours each time.
The government at the time did not comment on the sightings.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
RSS