Collapse of the Arctic Cell - What it looks like

[jai mitchell]

Here is a model run with massive inputs of mid-latitude warmth pushing up into the Arctic from both the Pacific and Atlantic sides at once.  Notice what happens to the polar vortex.

Link to animation here:

http://weather.utah.edu/index.php?runcode=2015010712&t=gfs004&r=NH&d=DT

[Gray-Wolf]

The 'Misleaders' focus on the impacts of the polar air displaced south and never focus on what happens to the polar once that air is displaced? What happens when we have no 'true Polar' air to spill south?

[jai mitchell]

somebody should do a paper and see if there is significant convective heat transfer to the north that allows for easier radiative heat energy lost to space.  could be a significant negative feedback.

[Sleepy]

Jennifer Francis new paper. Open access.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/10/1/014005/article

Abstract.

New metrics and evidence are presented that support a linkage between rapid Arctic warming, relative to Northern hemisphere mid-latitudes, and more frequent high-amplitude (wavy) jet-stream configurations that favor persistent weather patterns. We find robust relationships among seasonal and regional patterns of weaker poleward thickness gradients, weaker zonal upper-level winds, and a more meridional flow direction. These results suggest that as the Arctic continues to warm faster than elsewhere in response to rising greenhouse-gas concentrations, the frequency of extreme weather events caused by persistent jet-stream patterns will increase.

It's above 5°C in southern Sweden today. Last winter I had two continous weeks with temps below 0°C = winter.

[wehappyfew]

somebody should do a paper and see if there is significant convective heat transfer to the north that allows for easier radiative heat energy lost to space.  could be a significant negative feedback.

No, I see two strong positive feedbacks if we re-distribute heat from tropics to poles:

1. 4th power of temperature dependence of IR radiation. Tropics radiate at ~300K, poles at ~250K.

   - so 1/2 x 300^4 for tropics + 1/2 x 250^4 poles = total current IR outgoing

   - if we switch to a completely "equable climate" where tropics and poles are evened out by super efficient heat transport, then the new average temperature for both is 275

   - 275^4 is about 5% less than 1/2 x 300^4 + 1/2 x 250^4

   - therefore about 240 W/m^2 x 95% = 228 W/m^2 = 12 W/m^2 forcing. That's huge.

2. replacing cold dry polar air with warm wet air would increase net GHG forcing, too. I don't know how to calculate that one, though.

[CraigsIsland]

Jennifer Francis new paper. Open access.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/10/1/014005/article

Abstract.

New metrics and evidence are presented that support a linkage between rapid Arctic warming, relative to Northern hemisphere mid-latitudes, and more frequent high-amplitude (wavy) jet-stream configurations that favor persistent weather patterns. We find robust relationships among seasonal and regional patterns of weaker poleward thickness gradients, weaker zonal upper-level winds, and a more meridional flow direction. These results suggest that as the Arctic continues to warm faster than elsewhere in response to rising greenhouse-gas concentrations, the frequency of extreme weather events caused by persistent jet-stream patterns will increase.

It's above 5°C in southern Sweden today. Last winter I had two continous weeks with temps below 0°C = winter.

Thanks for the linkage- Dr. Francis presents a compelling hypothesis. I hope our climates don't become more "wavy" and weirder. Especially where I live - California needs water to survive and a prolonged drought risks a lot.

[Jester Fish]

The resulting anomalies are scary - attachment 1 - and even scarier with virtually no temperature gradient from E. USA to N. Pole.

[jai mitchell]

Thank you for those Jester, I think they are really beautiful and amazing examples of profound divergence from what once was toward where we are going.

The models hold that this pattern will maintain into the forseable future, if you get a chance can you post a couple of updates over the next few weeks?

If it fits your schedule and such. . .  :-)

[Sleepy]

Thanks for the linkage- Dr. Francis presents a compelling hypothesis. I hope our climates don't become more "wavy" and weirder. Especially where I live - California needs water to survive and a prolonged drought risks a lot.

Saw that you'll have another RRR and less rain again. I've been following ENSO so I have noticed the hopes and wishes for rain from other Californians.

Here it's already weird, around the summer solstice last year it was cold, close to zero one morning. Later in summer we had more thunderstorms than I've even experienced here. A lot of damage due to lightning as well. Some areas had 50% more rain than normal.
In 2010 I had a meter of snow in late November (record for Sweden at that time) and then winter continued for months.

And now we're waiting for another storm to come in later today thanks to that new 'north pole' over/between Greenland and Baffin.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2015/01/10/0900Z/wind/isobaric/70hPa/orthographic=-358.40,64.19,363
It's autumn in January.

[Gray-Wolf]

I'm starting to think we had better get used to having the 'cold pole' relocated over n Greenland? This would mean a continuation of the 'cold plunges' into the Eastern U.S. ant then , once that cold flows out into the Atlantic, rapid cyclogenisis as warm ocean meets polar air. So A rough ride for western coastal Europe a deep depressions fire  across the Atlantic in rapid order!!

At least they have been staying north of the UK this year ( keeping the majority of the rain cargo north and over areas better able to deal with it??)

[silkman]

I live on the lower slopes of the Peak District just south of Manchester and the succession of large, powerful depressions generated by this jet stream pattern has been remarkable. I suspect the the term "cyclogenisis" will enter common parlance if things continue in this way, as seems to be indicated by the latest ECMWF.

You're right in saying that it's the far NW that's taken the brunt so far but that's probably little consolation to the 100,000 households in Scotland that suffered power failures yesterday.

It only needs a minor southward shift of the pattern to score a direct hit on a much less prepared England where the threat of 5cm of snow results in an amber weather warning from the Met Office.

Unfortunately, few in the media are making the obvious connection to Jennifer Francis' work and to climate change.

[Gray-Wolf]

I have great concerns about just how weather must be impacted by the forcing a rapidly warming Arctic must drive?Hoe do the changes to the Polar Jet play out? Do they elongate to the point that they impact the Sub tropical Jet? the 'weakening of the polar Jet allows for rapid transit of polar air south but what when the Sub tropical does the same with Tropical air masses? and what happens when the two, unmodified air masses, clash?

[Shared Humanity]

I have great concerns about just how weather must be impacted by the forcing a rapidly warming Arctic must drive?Hoe do the changes to the Polar Jet play out? Do they elongate to the point that they impact the Sub tropical Jet? the 'weakening of the polar Jet allows for rapid transit of polar air south but what when the Sub tropical does the same with Tropical air masses? and what happens when the two, unmodified air masses, clash?

I believe what we are seeing in the northern hemisphere is a rather rapid movement towards an equable climate. The impact will be dramatic and not in a good way.

http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/eli/research/equable/hadley.html

I can no longer find my post and link but I had attached on one  of these threads some research more than a year ago on that determined that the northern and southern hemispheres went in very different directions when the earth warmed before. The northern hemisphere moved to an equable climate thousands of years before the southern hemisphere switched.

[Sleepy]

SH, did you find that research you mentioned?

They measured +18°C 400m above the ESS last August so we are indeed moving towards a warming Arctic and something new, but how, and how fast? I'm having a hard time understanding these things and the coriolis effect is a confusing part. We have a lesser known guy here, Anders Persson. You might have seen his name on the "User guide to ECMWF products".
http://nwmstest.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/guide/user_guide.pdf

But he has also written several others that I've read. Like these about misunderstandings of the coriolis effect.
http://empslocal.ex.ac.uk/people/staff/gv219/classics.d/persson_on_coriolis05.pdf
http://empslocal.ex.ac.uk/people/staff/gv219/classics.d/Persson98.pdf
http://www.meteohistory.org/2006historyofmeteorology3/2persson_hadley.pdf
He's giving a lecture in Stockholm on Tuesday if there are other Swedes interested.
http://www.misu.su.se/about-us/events/seminars/seminar-anders-persson-fellow-of-royal-meteorological-society-uk-1.216739
There's a link to another paper in that link as well.

I asked him regarding Farrell's vision with the link you posted, I also included this,
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~sbf1/papers/EQUABLE.pdf , and his reply was (very shortened and my own translation...).
They are wrong. We would need to slow down the Earths rotation towards the same speed as Venus for that to happen.
I.e, the coriolis effect will hinder equatorial air to reach the Arctic directly.


Edit, sorry the url's were messed up...

[mati]

here is a presentation done some time ago.  I have not followed up on any other work they have done ...

http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/10-11/biomathstat/Langford_W.pdf

actual paper:
http://www.math.ualberta.ca/ami/CAMQ/pdf_files/vol_17/17_1/17_1e.pdf

[jai mitchell]

A similar movement of mid-latitude warmth is projected to break into the arctic (and pass over Greenland!) this next mid week:

http://weather.utah.edu/index.php?runcode=2015011520&t=gfs004&r=NH&d=DT

[Jester Fish]

 That mid-latitude warmth is definitely tracking north up the N. American west coast.....

[Shared Humanity]

SH, did you find that research you mentioned?

No, but mati did and posted links right below your comment. This was the  presentation and paper I was referring to.

[Shared Humanity]

I just noticed that my previous comment was #999 and I have decided to celebrate by immediately posting comment #1000 which will include nothing useful or interesting, very similar to the preponderance of comments I have made previously. I have this unique ability to elaborate in a seemingly intelligent manner while actually saying nothing of import. This skill has served me well throughout my adult life.

Practice makes perfect.   

[Sleepy]

SH, did you find that research you mentioned?

No, but mati did and posted links right below your comment. This was the  presentation and paper I was referring to.

Thank you SH, I read that paper, but couldn't see the connection. It was this line you wrote that I reacted to.

The northern hemisphere moved to an equable climate thousands of years before the southern hemisphere switched.

Whether the Hadley cells will reach the poles is highly questionable as we don't live on Venus. Heat will reach there in the lower layers of the troposphere, obviously and unfortunately.

[jai mitchell]

Poof!  (there it goes)

Animation here:

http://weather.utah.edu/index.php?runcode=2015012812&t=gfs004&r=NH&d=DT

-----

In related news:
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/421983/Britain-red-alert-displaced-Polar-vortex-unleash-weather-HELL-next-week

Temperatures are about to plummet to their lowest this winter while freezing gales will whip up blizzards.

Forecasters warn a "displaced Polar vortex" will drag a colossal swathe of Arctic air across the UK.

They say freezing conditions could last through the first half of February with heavy snow, ice and harsh frosts affecting the whole country.

The freak change back to bitter cold after a brief mild spell is once again being blamed on the erratic behaviour of the jet stream.

--------------
and:
https://baynature.org/2015/01/23/hot-theres-no-el-nino/

Why Is it So Hot If There’s No El Nino?

[Jester Fish]

That Atlantic => Arctic (Greenland anyway) heat pump is working overtime....
http://pamola.um.maine.edu/DailySummary/frames/GFS-025deg/DailySummary/GFS-025deg_NH-SAT1_WS250.png

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference provides an atmospheric mechanism that provides a physical meaning for the Northern Annular Mode (NAM) and cold ocean-warm land (COWL) patterns.

Marie Drouard, Gwendal Rivière and Philippe Arbogast, (2015), "The link between the North Pacific climate variability and the North Atlantic Oscillation via downstream propagation of synoptic waves", AMS Journals online


http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00552.1


Abstract: "The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) response to the northeast Pacific climate variability is examined using ERA-40 reanalyses. The main objective is to validate a mechanism involving downstream wave propagation processes proposed in a recent idealized companion study: a low-frequency planetary-scale ridge (trough) anomaly located in the eastern Pacific/North American sector induces more equatorward (poleward) propagation of synoptic-scale wave packets on its downstream side, which, favors the occurrence of anticyclonic (cyclonic) wave breakings in the Atlantic sector and the positive (negative) NAO phase.
The mechanism first provides an interpretation of the canonical impact of El Niño-Southern Oscillation on the NAO in late winter. The wintertime relationship between the Pacific-North American oscillation (PNA) and the NAO is also investigated. For out-of-phase fluctuations between the PNA and NAO indices (i.e. the most recurrent situation in late winter), the eastern Pacific PNA ridge (trough) anomaly modifies the direction of downstream wave propagation triggering more anticyclonic (cyclonic) wave breakings over the North Atlantic. For in-phase fluctuations, the effect of the eastern Pacific PNA anomalies is cancelled out by the North American PNA anomalies. The latter anomalies being deeper and more centred in the latitudinal band of downstream wave propagation, they are able to reverse the direction of wave propagation just before waves enter the Atlantic domain. The contrasting relationship between the PNA and NAO is similar to what occurs for the two leading hemispheric EOFs of geopotential height, i.e the Northern Annular Mode (NAM) and cold ocean-warm land (COWL) pattern. The proposed mechanism provides a physical meaning for the NAM and COWL patterns."

[Sigmetnow]

A new paper (not by Francis) offers an alternative view, suggesting "less storminess" is to blame for stalled summer heat.

Rather than causing the jet stream to meander, sluggish atmospheric circulation is associated with a reduced amount of energy available at smaller scales, meaning that fewer storms form.

Scientists can estimate changes in storminess using something called the eddy kinetic energy (EKE). Calculations in the new paper show a steady decline in summer EKE by 8 to 15 per cent since the start of the satellite period in 1979.

http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/03/arctic-warming-linked-to-intense-summer-heatwaves-in-the-northern-hemisphere/