Topsy-Turvy Weather

[happ]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/science/earth/25cold.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all

Interesting article that points out how for the past 2 winters, Arctic air has descended well into the middle latitudes while the North Pole is experiencing record warmth. The AO [Arctic Oscillation] created unusual cold last winter and again this winter in the Southern U.S. and a summer that broke all-time records for coolness along the U.S. West Coast. Maybe this is something we will be dealing with year after year.

[Tyrone]

Interesting article Happ.

You can't dispute the polar ice melts in the last few years. We've probably gone past the point of no return with that, and these polar regions may develop a more oceanic style climate with reduced permanent ice packs. Places like Siberia which are in the polar regions will not have the warm ocean to keep them warmer (they are polar continental), so if the polar vortex which normally centred over the cold Arctic moved or was warped further south due to a colder Siberia for instance who knows what will happen. Maybe this weaker polar vortex that is now allowing cool air further south is going to be a permanent fixture, or is a temporary symptom of the earth warming up even more and will eventually disappear but not after the earth warms even more. After all, the natural law of the universe is to go from an unstable state to a stable state. The poles are always trying to cool the equator and the equator is always trying to warm up the poles. The result of all this is "weather".

The analogy in the article was that of leaving the refrigerator door open which lets warm air into the refrigerator and the refrigerator then lets cool air into the kitchen. This tends to indicate that winters in the northern hemisphere are going to be wildly oscillating times of cold to warmth as the "ins" and "outs" from the poles move across the globe in waves. (This could explain the sudden warmth in California at the moment)

The Antarctic is melting too. The southern hemisphere may develop a similar story except for the fact that there is no large piece of land in the polar regions except for the Antarctic itself. Luckily polar blasts are moderated by the ocean in the south and the SST's are set to warm up like everything else.

A complex little issue this.

Best regards

tyrone

[amazondk]

Happ,

Thanks for the article. I missed that one. What I see is that it shows that it why climatic events happen are far from known. And, the only thing weather does is change.

dk