Climate Change May Have Caused a 'Wandering' Polar Vortex and a Colder Winter (space.com) 48
Space.com reports:
High above the North Pole, the polar vortex, a fast-spinning whirl of frigid air, is doing a weird shimmy that may soon bring cold and snowy weather to the Eastern U.S., Northern Europe and East Asia for weeks on end, meteorologists say.
While it's not unusual for the polar vortex to act up, this particular reconfiguration — wandering around and possibly splitting in two — may be tied to climate change in the rapidly warming Arctic, said Judah Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research in Massachusetts, part of Verisk Analytics, a risk-assessment company. "Expect a more wintery back-half of winter here in the Eastern U.S. than what we had in the first half," Cohen told Live Science.
The Arctic is heating up faster than any other region in the world. As a result, sea-ice cover there is shrinking — in September 2020 and December 2020, the Arctic sea-ice cover shrunk to its second-lowest and third-lowest minimum on record for those months, respectively, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The warmer-than-usual temperatures in the Arctic are likely throwing the polar vortex out of whack, Cohen said... During the winter, a jet stream of air that keeps the polar vortex in place sometimes weakens, allowing the vortex's chilly air to extend southward...
Disruptions to the polar vortex are key for forecasts, as about two weeks after they happen, the troposphere gets a wallop of weird weather, which can last for weeks. Because of this week's polar vortex disruption, "there's indications we'll see some colder weather within two weeks... in the Eastern U.S., Northern Europe and East Asia," Cohen said.
While it's not unusual for the polar vortex to act up, this particular reconfiguration — wandering around and possibly splitting in two — may be tied to climate change in the rapidly warming Arctic, said Judah Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research in Massachusetts, part of Verisk Analytics, a risk-assessment company. "Expect a more wintery back-half of winter here in the Eastern U.S. than what we had in the first half," Cohen told Live Science.
The Arctic is heating up faster than any other region in the world. As a result, sea-ice cover there is shrinking — in September 2020 and December 2020, the Arctic sea-ice cover shrunk to its second-lowest and third-lowest minimum on record for those months, respectively, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The warmer-than-usual temperatures in the Arctic are likely throwing the polar vortex out of whack, Cohen said... During the winter, a jet stream of air that keeps the polar vortex in place sometimes weakens, allowing the vortex's chilly air to extend southward...
Disruptions to the polar vortex are key for forecasts, as about two weeks after they happen, the troposphere gets a wallop of weird weather, which can last for weeks. Because of this week's polar vortex disruption, "there's indications we'll see some colder weather within two weeks... in the Eastern U.S., Northern Europe and East Asia," Cohen said.
Winter? (Score:2)
Cold and snowy for weeks means "winter" here.
I just looked up our degree-days for the season:
SINCE JUL 1: 2799
average: 3186
deviation: -387
last year: 3099
so a bit warmer than normal so far. This week is often -30F here, it's going down to 7F later this week. By next week we'll be warming up until August; it never gets bitterly cold outside of January.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
They were literally wrong. A winter is associated with climate and not weather, in a literal sense. A cold winter is the entire season and a few extreme weather events.
So in reality in literal terms you will generally have warmer winters from here on in but and it is a nasty old butt, you will have more extreme weather events and the existence relative weather and climate balance established over thousands of years, starts to tile to a more warming climate, throwing up extreme weather events in both direct
Re: (Score:1)
You say Colder I say closer to normal. (Score:2, Flamebait)
I hope this holds true, I can't wait!
2 be or not 2 be (Score:1)
Chaos begets chaos (Score:3, Interesting)
Hell... Earth's climate is an incredibly chaotic system that we are (as a barely sentient species) just on the verge of potentially being able to understand.
The places where severe snowfall is expected align with past ice sheet locations, but given the amount of CO2 that weâ(TM)ve pumped into the atmosphere over the last 200 years (and probably the next 50 years at a minimum) I donâ(TM)t think an Ice Age is coming.
The climate always has changed, and it will continue to do so. Continents move. Nothing is permanent and nothing ever remains the same. It would not be healthy for the planet if we could permanently lock in the current state of climate, however convenient that might be for human legal affairs and property rights.
We (as a species) have increased the rate of climate change more than usual, but any number of other factors could (and have) do/done that. A large meteorite, a supervolcano erupting... these events *could* happen, and they *do* happen. Every few hundred thousand years or so... and it's completely out of our control, given our current technology. We (as a species) just need to be on alert and prepare for such events. I don't really look at our self-inflicted climate change problem in any different light than that.
We can't turn back the last 200 years, even if we stopped emitting CO2 tomorrow. It will take centuries for the current "stimulus" to work its way through the system, and who knows what the end state will be. Iâ(TM)m going to guess a mostly ice-free Arctic Ocean and substantial parts of Antarctica becoming open land that will support some sort of plant life. Significant rise in sea levels, maybe 50-60m. But thatâ(TM)s just my gut feel.
With all that said, I own land at a high elevation and would not personally buy any property lower than 100m above sea level.
And I think we (as a planet) need to start coming up with plans to resettle all those that live at that elevation level or lower. And plans to pay for it (along with potential mini-terraforming projects to make large parts of Nevada, Arizona, the Sahara, inland Australia, and possibly parts of Antarctica?) inhabitable.
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With all that said, I own land at a high elevation and would not personally buy any property lower than 100m above sea level.
Wow! How much do you think the ocean is predicted to rise within your lifetime?
Re: Chaos begets chaos (Score:2)
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Feet vs. meter mistake?
Science vs. scientism mistake. When the next Ice Age kick in and his land at high elevation is covered under a thick sheet of ice, he will know how smart he is.
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Holy crap you fundamentally don't understand the issues at play at all do you. Resettling of a few people in flood zones are a tiny completely irrelevant component of climate change, not even worth mentioning in the footnote of mitigation strategies.
Do you want to understand what climate change means? Then ask yourself how you elected a leader that decided building a wall on an arbitrary nation border factors in to your realisation that some areas of the world become inhabitable.
Your assertion that an exter
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you idiots whine that a wall doesn't work, and yet guess what just went up around the Capital
I know, right? It's almost like they understand that half a mile of a heavily-guarded temporary wall to keep people out for a few days isn't the same thing as 1500 miles of lightly-patrolled wall in (mostly) the wilderness to try to keep people out forever!
you mean the border where the vast majority of illegal immigrants and drug traffic and human trafficking occurs
Well if by "occurs", you mean "flies over in planes", or "goes around in boats", then yes. Technically.
Arbitrary
Well sure I hope it's arbitrary, because if someone intended the border to be there, they picked an absolute shit location for it!
If it were just a coup
Re:Even if it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Again, I'm not saying it's not possible. It's just the exact opposite of intuition, so it LOOKS like a ridiculous claim.
Reality doesn't give a fuck about anybody's intuitions and you think it looks. That's why we have science.
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Well the scientist who brings up this idea, De Cohen, says "I will just interject my own prejudices and biases with little scientific evidence, I do believe that PV splits favor European cold and Eastern US snow.â
He says it's just an idea with little scientific basis.
But since he mentioned the possibility, you are absolutely convinced that it must be so. Interesting.
Re:Even if it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not just speculation, theres very solid evidence for it.
Who cares? Science isn't a popularity contest, and its not a democracy.
Climate science is a process of evidence gathering and fitting to theory and models. It *genuinely does not matter* if people find it intuitive or if it upsets their pet economic doctrine or whatever. What matters is the abundance of evidence.
It doesnt actually matter what the appearance is. What matters is fundamental physics.
When heat is trapped in the atmosphere due to CO2 induced changes to albedo , it increases the energy in the climate system, some of it thermal, much of it kinetic. And its kinetic energy thats key here, because it causes the kinds of changes that can lead to more extreme weather events, yes including colder winters.
And its fundamental physics. Because it it wasnt true, then we'd have to revise thermodynamics , a theory that has proven bulletproof since the time Newton first outlined it.
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Its not just speculation, theres very solid evidence for it.
I can tell you didn't look at the paper [nature.com], because a cursory look would have told you there's not solid evidence for it, and the situation is murky. Here's a quote from the paper, actual science:
"Divergent conclusions between model and observational studies, and even intramodel studies, continue to obfuscate a clear understanding of how [Arctic amplification] is influencing midlatitude weather"
Now that you've been faced with real science, will you change your opinion, or keep it the same?
Re:Even if it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't hold up a single paper, even in a prestigious journal, as "the science". Science entertains contradictory opinions, making it possible to cherry pick evidence to support practically any position. In fact the abstract in that paper makes it clear it's responding to *other* papers which it disagrees with. Why do you believe *this* one?
What you need to do is reference *systemic reviews* and other documents like technical reports which are supposed to present all sides of a question impartially. You also have to be clear about *which specific claims* you are supposedly debunking. There's been a lot of speculation recently on various way Arctic Amplification *might* contribute to extreme weather events in temperate latitudes, and those (as the paper notes) are unproven. But I don't think anyone actually believes that a slackening jet stream can make the polar vortex oscillate, creating simultaneous heat extremes in the north and cold extremes in lower latitudes. If you look at a global map of temperature anomalies it's pretty clear that the *world* isn't cold just because it's cold outside your door.
Re:Even if it's true (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact the abstract in that paper makes it clear it's responding to *other* papers which it disagrees with. Why do you believe *this* one?
I don't believe either, I am perfectly content to say "I don't know" while I wait for more science to be done, clarifying the question.
The mistake is declaring you know the answer before evidence supports it. That is jumping to conclusions.
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Science entertains contradictory opinions
You're misusing the word. It's [just] a method; nothing more and nothing less.
Dr. Cohen isn't contradicting himself (Score:2)
> You can't hold up a single paper, even in a prestigious journal, ... to cherry pick evidence
Dr. Cohen's paper isn't contradicting Dr. Cohen's article, which is the topic of this discussion. It's also not cherry-picked - it's the plain words of the author of the conjecture and of the article being discussed.
Dr. Cohen's paper doesn't contradict his article - in the linked article he's careful to point out there is little to no scientific evidence for his conjecture.
The *only* contradiction is between the
You should tell Dr Cohen that (Score:3)
If you have solid proof, you should bring that to the attention of the guy who is making the conjecture. He says:
"I will just interject my own prejudices and biases with little scientific evidence, I do believe that PV splits favor European cold and Eastern US snow."
Because h conjectured the possibility, while clearly stating there is no scientific evidence for it, you are absolutely correct that his guess is right. Which is funny, since he's not nearly so sure as you are - and it's HIS idea.
Re: This' still not the end of the Climate Shift (Score:3)
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I still like the oldest term scientists used for the phenomena back when they started warning about it in the 1800s, "The Greenhouse Effect".
If we had a really accurate phase it would be something like "The net increase in Thermal and Kinetic energy in the atmospheric system due to CO2 forced albedo changes to Infra red absorbsion."
Problem is that doesn't exactly roll off the tounge
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happened in the 70s?! A polar vortex exists each and every year at both poles
Nah, it's all that hot air (Score:1)
You know, the smoke being blown up everyone's asses from Washington.
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You missed Trump. Everything is caused by either climate change or Trump.
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Trump is a wandering vortex, but he's never really been a conservative or a liberal. I guess the 'wandering' bit is accurate. But he's not polar.
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But he's not polar.
Maybe the polar opposite?
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All in favor of a dynastic rule
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>What did i miss?
The sun goes down...Climate Change
It's windy...Climate Change
It's too dry...Climate Change
A recently discovered species deep in an unexplored cave goes extinct...Climate Change
A hoard of locusts...Climate Change
Re: (Score:1)
oh well (Score:2)
Boy, oh, boy, where should we start (Score:5, Interesting)
2. The ice picture quoted is simply incorrect. This year was nowhere near as low as as the lowest years so far: 2012-2013 (summer coverage) and 2016-2017 (winter coverage). Exhibit A: Official ICE data by the USA federal agency in charge of that operating at uni of Boulder - http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicen... [nsidc.org]
It was however, anomalous - extremely long and warm autumn - you can see that from the graph (that is the actual anomaly).
3. The "live science" article conveniently omits the fact that while the ice coverage in December was lower than long term average by ~ 9% it was the month with the fastest growth on record since the records have begun. That is not surprising when you see the result of the polar vortex perturbation. When the polar vortex has a wobbly, this results is a monster anticyclone forming on top of most of Siberia and parts of Mongolia and China as well as more stable than usual seasonal anti-cyclone over Greenland. These monsters result in an environment which can be best described as ice hell. Exhibit A - official temperature data for December, Northern Hemisphere: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicen... [nsidc.org]
As you can see the temperatures across Siberia are at least 5 degrees lower than normal long term average. That spills back into the Arctic and hell freezes. While normal air temperatures over the Arctic oceans are usually in the -10 to -20 even in mid-winter, it is chasing -40 in places this year. The reason for this is that there is no polar vortex to perturb it and spread it around.
Last, but no least, the whole picture is much more complex and trying to shoehorn absolutely EVERY event into a global warming chant is not science. It is shamanism. While at it, global warming is evident - see the ice pictures. You can see that the two warm currents going INTO the arctic (Gulfstream and Bering) are both significantly stronger than normal resulting in a different ice pattern. They are still managing to keep the sea open despite air at -50 spilling on top from the continent.
That is much more interesting than shamanic chants about the Vortex being perturbed by warming and is the actual evidence.
Let's do something about it (Score:4, Interesting)
I grow tired of articles talking about global warming and offering no solutions. Here's a solution to consider, nuclear fission power. I'll see plenty on Slashdot about wind and solar energy developments but nothing on nuclear power. At least nothing for a long time. Things are happening in nuclear power. There's new stuff all the time. Why not discuss them?
I had someone bring up how nuclear power is unsafe by pointing to the Fukushima disaster. Someone really smart, a PhD I recall. I replied by pointing out that Fukushima was built before Chernobyl, therefore far from an example of what we can accomplish today. I do wish I could have had more time for this smart person to reply because I would have liked to hear what this intelligent but quite ignorant person would have come up with.
Nuclear power is safe. Nuclear power is the lowest CO2 energy source we know of. If anyone opposes nuclear fission power then they are not taking global warming seriously.
The Day after Tomorrow (Score:1)