Jai: weigh in on 2016 events?
A) exclusively sea ice loss and arctic ocean heat advection
B) exclusively tropical region water vapor transport into the region independent of arctic conditions
C) primarily sea ice loss and arctic ocean heat advection with some tropical regime impacts
D) primarily tropical region water vapor transport with some arctic regime impacts
Climate change science desperately needs to get out from under the long shadow of K Trenberth, 72.
The scenarios above have been thoroughly developed in an easy-read, open-source 2014 review that elicited an astonishing 232 cites in 28 months. If we could get 10 people out of our 1119 registrants to actually read it, it would be great to update with a follow-on discussion.
http://web.mit.edu/jlcohen/www/papers/Cohenetal_NGeo14.pdfYes the tropics take in more solar heat, evaporate more water, have more convection and inevitably dissipate their heat gradient; no, the
utter failure of El Nino tele prediction (that I noted here ten months ago), the continuing inability to actually explain observed arctic amplification. and the completely unanticipated -- and drastic -- 2016 fall freezing season establish that a tropical emphasis is not explaining observation nor forecasting reliably even a few years out. Something big is missing.
The Arctic Ocean is the weakest link in the chain. It will be the first to go and take the rest down with it. Into swift uncharted waters that the scientific process cannot keep up with. AGU2016: the Arctic has warmed enough that people are finally ready to
take off the gloves:
GC21I-07:
Arctic vs Tropical Influence Over the Period of Arctic Amplification including Winter 2015/16
JL Cohen, JA Francis, KPfeffer
The tropics in general and El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in particular are almost exclusively relied upon for seasonal forecasting. Much less considered and certainly more controversial is the idea that Arctic variability is influencing mid-latitude weather.
However, since the late 1980s and early 1990s the Arctic has undergone the most rapid warming observed globally, referred to as Arctic amplification, which has coincided with an observed increase in extreme weather.
Analysis of observed trends in hemispheric circulation over the period of Arctic amplification more closely resembles variability associated with Arctic boundary forcings than with tropical forcing.
Furthermore, analysis of intra-seasonal temperature variability shows that the cooling in mid-latitude winter temperatures has been accompanied by an increase in temperature variability and not a decrease, popularly referred to as “weather whiplash.”
When a record El Niño occurred this past winter, it should have been an opportunity to
showcase decades of research and resources dedicated to the study of the ENSO phenomenon and its global impacts. However the dynamical forecasts
performed poorly this past winter.
Instead we will show that many of the significant circulation anomalies of this past winter are related to high latitude processes.
We believe that the
failed forecasts of this past winter will serve as a
watershed moment and an
inflection point in climate science. Climate science requires a
paradigm shift in order to improve long-range forecasts.
Less reliance on the tropics and exploration of new regions of predictability, including the Arctic, are required.
See also:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Judah_Cohen2/publications all free full text
it's not too late for ice to thicken properly in 2017
Magical thinking is not going to help with that.
Open water in the Chukchi is finally freezing over. However with SMOS, this silly binary concept can be refined by tracking the area of Arctic Ocean in which the ice remains less that 0.5 m thick. That will prove an eyeopener.
As Chris explained here many times, provided the air above is cold and the fluffy insulating snow is thin, new ice from bottom freeze will happen rapidly at first but then plateau asymptotically at about 2m thickness as dictated by the heat equation.
Poleward of the Barents, the situation today is not to be believed: the area north of Severnaya Zemlya has re-opened and the ice front overall has retreated to almost 85ºN. If the heat, winds and moisture advection keep up, I'd say head down to Costco. More likely, the ice will superficially advance later in the winter so here again we'll be tracking the SMOS edge.