Thursday, November 15, 2018

North American West Coast healthy rainy seasons need normal sea ice extent

~ Long ignored sea ice climate permutations manifest big time
~ We look at mainly the North Pacific
~ Current El-Nino can only exacerbate bent Northwards general circulation 

   Although its pleasant climate has apparently nothing to do with ice and snow, there is a rainy season in sunny L.A.  California,  having everything to do with a colder climate to the North.   Through long time late autumn  cycles,  the North got significantly cold mainly because Siberia and Alaska was imbued in longer dark days creating a net lost heat to space.    But sea ice cover within Arctic Ocean  and very North Pacific is an equivalent to land,  also greatly cooled the North,  absent sea ice ,  replaced by warmed sea water,  winter's cold punch  has dulled,  especially since 2007,  but very much seriously lately:

NOAA November 12 2018 sst anomalies  Further North, they call it the blob,  the great North Pacific surface warming has a lot to do with the lack of cooling during winter,  because there is a feedback loop between less sea ice extent and more low clouds.  Even less radiation leaving to space favors the presence of huge Cyclones :  
The implied late autumn black line should be the location of the polar jet stream given the latest sea ice extent losses.  Fortunately often present massive North Pacific cyclones bend the jet to its South (red line),  but this means the North Pacific is covered with clouds for vaster periods,  not cooling the sea surface to space.  This also implies a shift in rainy season of the West North American coast,  well Northwards,  this current climate scene was not always so  :

  Given a normal sea ice scenario,  pre 1998,  a shift in the Polar jet stream well to the South of its latest decadal tendencies  gave the recorded fall and winter  coastal rainy seasons climate which was importantly wetter than latest recent years.   WD November 15 2018

Friday, November 9, 2018

Major Polar Vortex rearrangement

~Siberia gets back it's freezing mojo
~Canadian Arctic Upper Air is remarkably warm
~A confluence of wider Arctic Ocean open water and thinner North of Greenland sea ice killed the great Canadian  Arctic Archipelago super cold vortex of 2018 about 10 days ago
~Asymmetric in size Arctic Polar vortex consequences for winter 18-19

09 0000 UTC CMC 700 mb chart with colour ( by me),  blue zone -20 to -25 C,  pink -25 to -30,  red below -30 C.    Demonstrates a great disparity in coldest  temperatures between North America and Eurasia,  Siberia regained its famed coldest weather in the Northern world.   While the North American side will undoubtedly be varnished with a much warmer winter with strange Polar Vortex rogue vortices causing sudden extreme weather events.    Such example is happening now,  a midwest North American vortice  formed colder than anything currently  in the Arctic,  it is not a cold from the Arctic blast,  it is a very exotic,  I would say interesting,  rogue vortice which will cause havoc over a much larger Anerica basking in above average weather.    On the other continent,  if this is the coming winter Polar Vortex arrangement,   UK, Scandinavia and Moscow will be wet like London of old.  While Japan and Alaska will benefit with much warmer and yes wet weather. 

   As far as sea ice is concerned,  it was to blame for this climate rearrangement.  In near total darkness CAA never really got a chance to go deep cold,  because there was no Arctic Basin deep long night enhanced cooling, stopped by unprecedented open water North of Greenland,  which became thinner,  but still  releasing more heat ,  contributing in tandem with a once near 1 million km2 square wider open water  heat release bonanza ultimately decimating the great North American Vortex of 2018 ,  it nearly lasted a year.    The current  pumping of Pacific blob sea surface heat is reaching to near Greenland,  greatly impeding a strong Canadian vortex to form.    This new climate scene will cause a different ice accretion geographic distribution,  already drastically warming Bering sea area, no accretion ,  and cooling further  the North Pole (needed accretion),    the latter has sea ice already in place,  the former has open water not to freeze so fast....WD November 9 2018