Aha, no-one about.

Have a look at that picture of a polar bear and study the sea surface around it. Can you see the pollution? Those pale streaks in the background, that’s probably oil. But what about the lesser trails from the back right of the floe which wander off into the far distance?

Do ice floes concentrate pollution? If they do then there’s a good feedback mechanism. Oil reduces the albedo of water surfaces, so a melting floe releasing pollution should further warm the water, melting more ice. Feedback! Tipping point! Panic!

92 million gallons of oil goes up in smoke each year, so there’s a neat mechanism for getting it there.

http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/peril_oil_pollution.html

Some of its effects are mentioned here:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jk1fIo51uwMC&pg=PA245&lpg=PA245&dq=sea+surface+emissivity&source=bl&ots=VxiWiqdypk&sig=2GIfGSqo6wklYfO-5B8cBRpx_fs&hl=en&ei=ttm5SojoBtbKjAf_4Pz8BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#v=onepage&q=sea%20surface%20emissivity&f=false

JF

JAN, Takk for notater. The patterns you describe for the Scandinavian peninsula have many parallels with those for western North America. How many days per winter month, on average, would you estimate have winds under 15 knots in & around Ålesund?

–
Arnd, if you are still around, I provide 2 references you might find useful:

1) Vondrák, J. (1999). Earth rotation parameters 1899.7-1992.0 after reanalysis within the hipparcos frame. Surveys in Geophysics 20, 169-195.
[particularly section 3.2, p.181-187]

2) Vondrák, J.; & Ron, C. (2005). The great Chandler wobble change in 1923-1940 re-visited. In: H.-P. Plag, B. Chao, R. Gross, & T. Van Dam (eds.), Forcing of polar motion in the Chandler frequency band: A contribution to understanding interannual climate variations, Cahiers du Centre Europeen de Geodynamique et de Seismologie 24, 39-47.

Info:
http://www.asu.cas.cz/person/vondrak.html

Dr. Vondrák’s work strongly influenced the following:
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/DRAFT_VaughanPL2009CO_TPM_SSD_LNC.htm

“Thanks for this article. Lots of food for thought here. And for once it is “just outside my doorstep”.

I have long considered that the sudden and large temperature swings we get in Scandinavia during the winter is due to shifting air currents (what else can it be). I think the longer term swings is a similar effect.”

Hi Carsten. It is even closer to my doorstep (Ålesund). The weather here on the west coast is dominated by mild and humid air from north western atlantic/eastern US. This gives us mild and wet winters and chilly and wet summers. When the air currents shift to north easterly in winter, we get cold Siberian air and frost. When air currents are from northwest, we get cold air from Greenland/Arctic mixing with humid atlantic air to produce snow. So yes, air currents are responsible for shifting weather.

However, the main driver of weather here is the Gulf Stream, providing a much milder climate than our latitude otherwise suggests. You guys in the eastern part of the Scandinavian peninsula do not get the same effect from the gulf stream because of the central mountain range in Norway, running from far south to far north, prevents the mild and humid atlantic air from reaching your areas. That is why you experience much drier and colder weater in winter, as well as drier and warmer summers. Cheers.

Paul Vaughan (21:35:11) :

“Harald Yndestad has found 1920s phase reversals in NAW (North Atlantic Water), NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation), and other climate indices – for example some readers here might find his analysis of Stockholm sea level interesting. Dr. Yndestad is developing plans to test his theories.”
http://ansatte.hials.no/hy/climate/defaultEng.htm

That is very interesting. Maybe I will look up Harald Yndestad at my old alma mater to hear what new plans he is developing.

Sidorenkov, N.S. (2005). Physics of the Earth’s rotation instabilities. Astronomical and Astrophysical Transactions 24(5), 425-439.
http://images.astronet.ru/pubd/2008/09/28/0001230882/425-439.pdf

To echo Lucy’s comment and gratitude for so fascinating a post on LNC and planetary system influences. While barely digesting the magnitude of this work, it seems appropriate for big iron modeling to be applied here. How current climate models are expected to do anything more than fail without acknowledging such complex influences is beyond comprehension.

Together, Arnd Bernaerts and Mackey’s posts provide enough food for thought to immediately dismiss the conclusions of AGW proponents as woefully undereducated. On the positive side is an opportunity to redirect efforts to understand Earth’s climate and (potentially) its preservation, toward oceanic and planetary influences.

Also found this statement from Mackey to be rather telling:

” The Chaldean equivalent of Rajendra Pachauri knew that fame, fortune and great power would be his if he could persuade the powers-that-be that he could predict things and make the powers-that-be seem godlike to the masses.

A lively and thought-provoking start to the day here in the PST zone.

I am willing to pay carbon taxes to ensure that polar bears don’t meet New Yorkers. – Tim S.

It is almost worth it to pay more taxes to see polar bears floating south to DC so they can feed in Congress! Maybe Al Gore needs to meet a polar bear face to face.

Ocean currents seem to be influenced by many factors and I think Richard Mackey’s post above is a good description of the link to LNC.

Ocean fluid dynamics are still an area where much work needs to be done before it’s impact on climate can be fully quantified. Scientisits will again have to battle the dynamics of a non-linear system to achieve this. Not easy when the combination of factors like gravity, magnetic field, temperature, salinity, current strength e.t.c. need only vary by a very small amount to have a massive effect.

Great article!

I think a case can be made that weather/climate affects:
a) war.
b) other things that are a part of tensions that lead to / affect war.

It would be quite a complicated study to disentangle the details.

If you email me at epitrochoid@hotmail.com, I’ll send you my J of E&E paper’ the title of which is ‘The Sun’s role in regulating the Earth’s climate dynamics’.

I can do the same for anyone else that wants it, too.
Richard