Arctic sea ice at a record low again; a warmer February for the U.S. coming
Arctic sea ice extent for January 2011 was the lowest on record for the month, and marked the second consecutive month a record low has been set, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Most of the missing ice was concentrated along the shores of Northeast Canada and Western Greenland. Relative to the 1979 - 2000 average, the missing ice area was about twice the size of Texas, or about 60% of the size of the Mediterranean Sea. Hudson Bay in Canada did not freeze over until mid-January, the latest freeze-up date on record, and at least a month later than average. The late freeze-up contributed to record warm winter temperatures across much of the Canadian Arctic in December and January. Bob Henson of the National Center for Atmospheric Research has a very interesting post on this, noting that Coral Harbor on the shores of Hudson Bay had a low temperature on January 6 that was 30°C (54°F) above average--a pretty ridiculous temperature anomaly. He quotes David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada, who discussed the lack of ice near Canada's Baffin Island: "The Meteorological Service of Canada was still writing marine forecasts as of 7 January, well beyond anything we have ever done." Henson also writes:
"The extremes have been just as impressive when you look high in the atmosphere above these areas. Typically the midpoint of the atmosphere's mass--the 500-millibar (500 hPa) level--rests around 5 kilometers (3 miles) above sea level during the Arctic midwinter. In mid-December, a vast bubble of high pressure formed in the vicinity of Greenland. At the center of this high, the 500-mb surface rose to more than 5.8 kilometers, a sign of remarkably mild air below. Stu Ostro (The Weather Channel) found that this was the most extreme 500-mb anomaly anywhere on the planet in weather analyses dating back to 1948.
Farther west, a separate monster high developed over Alaska in January. According to Richard Thoman (National Weather Service, Fairbanks), the 500-mb height over both Nome and Kotzebue rose to 582 decameters (5.82 km). That's not only a January record: those are the highest values ever observed at those points outside of June, July, and August."
Figure 1. Monthly January sea ice extent for 1979 to 2011 shows a decline of 3.3% per decade. Image credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center.
The warm temperatures in Canada and record sea ice loss in the Arctic were also due, in part, to a strong negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation (AO). The Arctic Oscillation and its close cousin, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) are naturally occurring pressure patterns in the Arctic and mid-latitudes. A negative AO and NAO results when we have weaker than normal low pressure over the Arctic, and weaker than normal high pressure over the Azores Islands. This fosters an easterly flow of air off the warm Atlantic Ocean into the Canadian Arctic, and also weakens the winds of the polar vortex, the ring of counter-clockwise spinning winds that encircles the Arctic. A weaker polar vortex allows cold air to spill southwards out of the Arctic into eastern North America and Western Europe. Thus, the strongly negative AO and NAO the past two winters have been largely responsible for the cold and snowy winters in these regions, and exceptionally warm conditions in the Arctic. I described this pattern in more detail in my December post titled, Florida shivers; Hot Arctic-Cold Continents pattern is back. It is possible that Arctic sea ice loss is largely responsible for the unusual Arctic Oscillation pattern we've observed during the past two winters, as well as for the record-strength ridges of high pressure observed over Greenland and Alaska this winter. It should not surprise us that Arctic sea ice loss would be capable of causing major perturbations to Earth's weather, since it is well known that changes from average in sea surface temperatures over large regions of the ocean modify the jet stream, storm tracks, and precipitation patterns. The El Niño and La Niña patterns are prime examples of this (though the area of oceans affected by these phenomena are much larger than what we're talking about in the Arctic.) Another example: Feudale and Shukla (2010) found that during the summer of 2003, exceptionally high sea surface temperatures of 4°C (7°F) above average over the Mediterranean Sea, combined with unusually warm SSTs in the northern portion of the North Atlantic Ocean near the Arctic, combined to shift the jet stream to the north over Western Europe and create the heat wave of 2003, the deadliest heat wave in history with 30,000 - 50,000 deaths in Europe.
References
Feudale, L., and J. Shukla (2010), "Influence of sea surface temperature on the European heat wave of 2003 summer. Part I: an observational study", Climate Dynamics DOI: 10.1007/s00382-010-0788-0
Figure 2. The 6-10 temperature forecast issued by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center calls for an above-average chance of warm temperatures across most of the U.S. by mid-February.
A warmer forecast for February
Over the past two weeks, the Arctic Oscillation has undergone a major transition, changing from negative to positive. This means that low pressure over the Arctic has intensified, which will act to speed up the counter-clockwise spinning winds (the polar vortex.) This spin-up of the polar vortex will tend to keep cold air bottled up the Arctic, leading to more Arctic sea ice formation and warmer winter conditions over the U.S. This warm-up is reflected in the latest 6 - 10 day temperature outlook from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (Figure 2.) Could it be the groundhog was right, and we have only three more weeks of winter left? Time will tell--we have little skill predicting what may happen to the Arctic Oscillation more than about two weeks in advance.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Have to add it is only the second largest Volcano in Iceland. Watch and wait to see if it progresses to eruption and then at what level.
:)
SQUAWK!!!!!
:)
I'm sure in general sense, Andrew did not produce gusts of 212 mph, but here's the problem. What about when we look at damage surveys and we see some buildings crushed and others spared? It has been proven that hurricanes, particularly strong and intensifying ones, have small but extremely strong vortices within the eye wall. If one of those happened to move over that location, 212 mph isn't hard to believe at all.
Link
Read my post on hurricane mesovortices. Not to say their research was wrong about anemometer testing. However, they tested it in an attempt to prove winds weren't that strong in Hurricane Andrew. I beg to differ, although yes it could have been the anemometer malfunctioning, the other explanation is that mesovortices could easily be the culprit for such an incredibly high wind observation. However, we will never know for sure.
17 Degrees in Dallas
19 degrees in Corsicana
25 degrees and falling in San Antonio
Front passed NW counties and 26 degrees and falling in Brenham
"It is possible that Arctic sea ice loss is largely responsible for the unusual Arctic Oscillation pattern we've observed during the past two winters, as well as for the record-strength ridges of high pressure observed over Greenland and Alaska this winter"
and
"Over the past two weeks, the Arctic Oscillation has undergone a major transition, changing from negative to positive. This means that low pressure over the Arctic has intensified, which will act to speed up the counter-clockwise spinning winds (the polar vortex.) This spin-up of the polar vortex will tend to keep cold air bottled up the Arctic, leading to more Arctic sea ice formation and warmer winter conditions over the U.S"
This is called "Feedback"
None of the parameters in the atmosphere are independent, you change one, you change everything else at the same time. A nightmare for modeling
Thanks for the reply. So what I gather from this is that basically the initial formation of Arctic Sea Ice coincides somewhat with the formation of the Polar Vortex. Once these two "connected" things occur, it creates a situation where the Polar Vortex intensifies the cooling in the region and increases the extent of the Artic Sea pack. So it becomes an issue of timing. If it takes longer for the initial ice to form it takes longer for the Polar Votex to form and there is less time to thicken and extend the Sea Ice in the Arctic region.
These statements don't really contradict each other. When there is an area that lacks sea ice that should be covered in ice a high tends to build there, blocking the polar vortex. This weakens the polar vortex & tends to spill the cold air south toward the equator while northern latitudes generally have a warmer spell. This year the Hudson Bay failing to freeze on schedule caused the cold to spill over the SE United States (despite La Nina), while the polar vortex was weak & disrupted. Now the NAO has changed since enough of the Arctic has froze that the polar low can strengthen over the northern latitudes~ helping sea ice increase, keeping the arctic cooler & the lower latitudes warmer.
Its a positive feedback. Weaker vortex causes more ice melt. More ice melt means the vortex becomes even weaker, due in part to changed albedo (ocean vs. ice).
LOL
So you're saying what? There should be no regulations on what we can dump in the environment?
The rich (the ones that own and run the companies that complain about regulations) make sure they live far from any pollution. Anti-regulatory ideas are the guff they sell to the gulllible or to the politicians.
No. Assuming the air directly above is in or near thermal equilibrium with the ocean (which is true most of the time in the high and low latitudes), if there is less ice in the first place, then there was already a greater amount of energy in the air in the first place which was why there was less ice to begin with. There is no "extra" heat being transfered to the air after the event of less sea ice being present. You can't bring up albedo either because we are talking about the polar night during the winter where there is no direct solar radiation energy.
The delay in the maturation of the polar vortex during a low sea-ice winter would be directly due to the already higher level of energy in the atmosphere, which caused the loss of sea ice in the first place.
Note: This doesn't consider atmosphere-independent ocean heating due to ocean currents and meridional overturning circulation oscillations like the AMO which does modulate sea ice. However, as we are clearly talking about AGW here, the concern is with changes in the atmosphere for this particular point. Note that this also means that the most probable cause for the large blocking high in SE Canada this winter was the exceptionally high AMO and Atlantic Tripole values during November and December which transport warm water to the high latitudes of the Atlantic, and are independent of any long-term warming trend.
Fair enough. I assumed sarcasm. My bad. Apologies.
I think so.
remember Global Warming activists worship the Earth, mother nature is sacred because we evolved from it, the goddess gaia wills for us not to tax her oceans. She said to tax and to take away American freedoms :)
No there shouldn't be a removal of any regulation, early America, the Industrial Age, gives a great example why no regulation is bad.
However, some of us, still have our sanity, some of us, don't worship mother earth, and some of us try to find balance rather than wacked out panic over GW propaganda. Some of us believe in learning how to improve the environment, but aren't wacked out nut-cases that want utter removal of all things leading to the supposed end of the world do to Global Warming. Some of us actually have enough sanity and balance left to care about the environment. Yet realize regulating will destroy American freedoms as well as collapse society as we know it.
I dunno, you seem to be pretty certifiable. Btw, what are these American freedoms that are not normal elsewhere that you are so busy defending?
Compare our freedoms to Canada and Britian. Go ahead have fun. Oops my computer says I misspelled Britian but idc.
Link
enjoy, (back to lurking)
Yeah, Upton is another perfect example of just why politics needs to stay out of science. On the one hand, thousands of certified life-long climatologists saying the planet is warming up due to decades of unimpeded CO2. On the other hand, a non-climatologist heavily beholden to fossil fuel interests declaring that AGW is a fraud.
Guys like Upton are interested in taking away our rights as not just Americans, but as humans. To him and his ilk, profit is the only thing that matters. Profit over people. Profit over common sense. Profit over all. The future will judge him harshly--but by then it will be too late.
Who are these thousands of certified life-long climatologists you bring up?
Tropical Cyclone Advisory #3
TEMPETE TROPICALE MODEREE BINGIZA (05-20102011)
22:00 PM Reunion February 9 2011
=====================================
At 18:00 PM UTC, Moderate Tropical Storm Bingiza (996 hPa) located at 13.7 54.6 has 10 minute sustained winds of 35 knots with gusts of 50 knots. The cyclone is reported as moving west at 5 knots.
Gale Force Winds
===============
30 NM from the center
Near Gale Force Winds
======================
50 NM from the center, extending up to 100 NM in the northwestern quadrant and up to 120 NM in the southern semi-circle
Dvorak Intensity: T2.5/2.5/D1.5/24HRS
Forecast and Intensity
============================
12 HRS: 13.9S 54.3E - 35 knots (Tempête Tropicale Modéree)
24 HRS: 14.2S 54.1E - 40 knots (Tempête Tropicale Modéree)
48 HRS: 15.1S 54.1E - 50 knots (Forte Tempête Tropicale)
72 HRS: 16.3S 53.8E - 70 knots (Cyclone Tropical)
Additional Information
======================
The system has intensified and has been named BINGIZA by the weather service of Madagascar. Convection has significantly strengthened and is wrapping around the center for the latest hours. Moderate easterly shear is expected to maintain within the next 36 hours. Consequently as slower intensification is expected. After that (Friday night), upper level conditions is expected to improve significantly with lower shear under the upper level ridge and good outflow specially polewards. Therefore, a stronger intensification rate is expected by that time. System is moving west southwest along the western side of the subtropical ridge. Tomorrow a deep mid latitude trough is expected to be south of the system around 50E and generate a strong weakness in the subtropical ridge. This pattern should allow a gradual polewards turn and a slow down of the track. Latest models from 0:00Z agree with this southward turn for Friday and Saturday. At longer range, some models like UKMO show a more southwestward track under the steering influence of a ridge located to the southwest of the system and other models like the very last ECMWF show a now southward track. Present forecast is based on a consensus of all available models.
INHABITANTS OF MASCARENES ISLANDS AND THE EASTERN COAST OF MADAGASCAR SHOULD CLOSELY FOLLOW THE EVOLUTION OF THIS SYSTEM.
The next tropical cyclone advisory from Seychelles Meteorological Service will be issued at 0:30 AM UTC..
Yea that's what I thought. You have no idea how many states we have and you won't comment on what I asked.
You guys know your civil rights, right?
If the republican governor of Puerto Rico signs a law that makes illegal protests and any type of marches or manifestations by civilians that interrupt any public services related to health or education, is that legal?
Doesn't that go against the right to freedom of speech and association?
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