More from the “weather is not climate” department in the “hottest year so far ever”.
Our previous article on this here, illustrated the scope of the event in human terms, but we didn’t have a map to show extent of the cold air mass. One was needed given the revelation that the cold had crossed the equator from the South, a rather rare event.
Now we have a map that illustrates the magnitude, see below. Thanks to Joe D’Aleo of ICECAP.
Image of surface temperatures departure from normal for July 17, 2010 for South America, from NOAA NCEP:
NOAA being an American government operation, the scale is in °F
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This ICECAP thing confuses me. I see multiple articles by Anthony, but tho a lot of very interesting names are on the “About Us” page, none of them are Anthony’s. WUWT?
A bit “adjusted” or a bit “distorted”, perhaps due to projection.
Well, that’s a welcome missing piece to fill in.
I don’t have time to look today – is there a synoptic map for that day somewhere? I’d like to see the weather systems at play (including those that brought warmer than average conditions to the southern end of the continent).
Huge masses of air travelling N/S instead of E/W.
Continental is Huge.
This event should be front page news.
My condolences, to all those who are suffering or have perished, even if the MSM is heartless.
It goes more southward ( if not so it wouldn’t include Aysen, contradicting the WUWT recent post and image : http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/20/cold-snap-freezes-south-america-beaches-whitened-some-areas-experience-snow-for-the-first-time-in-living-memory/#comments )
and wider (westward and eastward).
Perhaps they have “massaged” it a little.
Cold mid-winter day in parts of S. America.
Got it.
geo says:
July 21, 2010 at 8:44 am
ICECAP is based in New Hampshire and predates WUWT. I don’t understand where the legal structure ends and all the associations pick up, but my main contact is Joe D’Aleo and our paths cross fairly frequently at places like the Southern New England Weather Conference or at public testimony sessions around New Hampshire. In fact, it was Joe who made me realize when it was time to start getting involved in this field.
Joe does the most work on icecap.us, and it’s basically links to lots of stuff. As WUWT has grown, very few things are escaping our notice, so it’s not at all surprising that each site has lots of links to the other.
Joe’s original work centers around effects of PDO, AMO, and all the other oscillations.
I sometimes point out things of interest in both directions, but I’m sure there are lots of people whose climate day centers around icecap.us and WUWT.
The short answer – WUWT is not part of ICECAP, hence isn’t in the “about us”.
Likewise, ICECAP isn’t listed in http://wattsupwiththat.com/about2/
I ran across this research as I was attempting to understand the implications of the Bering Strait shutdown during the last glacial.
The salinity of Bering Strait input also appears to have played a significant role in the 2007 Arctic melt – caused approximately 30-40% of the ice loss.
Is the onset of the La Nina also changing the temperature and salinity of the Indian Ocean?
Stability of the Atlantic Overturning Circulation: Competition between Bering Strait Freshwater Flux and Agulhas Heat and Salt Sources
Wilbert Weijer, Wilhelmus P. M. De Ruijter, and Henk A. Dijkstra
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0485%282001%29031%3C2385%3ASOTAOC%3E2.0.CO%3B2
Weather events such as these certainly are paradoxical to the notion we are experiencing the hottest year ever.
Out of curiosity, I looked up the historical extreme hot/cold weather records for my city and found that the hottest day still stands at 34.5 degrees C. This is a 30 year-old record, from 1981.
Guys, keep in mind that that is an Anomaly map. The Synoptic map might help illustrate it better.
How is that hot dried up amazon event coming? Ooops. Brazil will have to drink some of the alcohol to warm up instead of burning it in motor cars.
I wonder how an agency backed by the American government could link an anomaly diagram with a scale expressing temperature differences in °F, when temperature differences are to be expressed in °K.
b_nichol says:
July 21, 2010 at 9:05 am
“Cold mid-winter day in parts of S. America.
Got it.”
Do you really? It’s the Antarctic cold air spreading north of the equator that is the unusual thing. I was in Jakarta the other day – it’s like Siberian air getting as far south as that. Maybe it will happen this northern hemisphere winter?
These things never used to happen before we started killing the planet with our SUV’s…
Slightly OT – but POPS13 at the North Pole (or thereabouts) is currently (4.30pm GMT) reporting temperatures of -13C :
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/POPS13_atmos_recent.html
I assume this is an error.
Not only can I find no mention of the cold weather on the BBC, it shows current wether as pleasantly mild.
Has the cold snap finished?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/111/?area=Buenos%20Aires
On the news last night here in Philly, where temperatures have been pushing the 90’s (F) lately, there was a big excited proclamation that scientists have shown this is the hottest global temperature on record. I think they quoted the average as 58F. I may be wrong about the exact numner, but hey, it’s not really exact anyhow. Luckily weather isn’t climate so I’m not too afraid they are going to link it to AGW (sarc). Interestingly, they never mention the cold anomolies in the southern hemisphere on the news. I only hear about that on WUWT.
This map seems strange to me…..perhaps Ed Caryl is right and a synoptic map might help more. But even still……..it seems off.
Spoke too soon – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10679088 (no link from the main pages, tho)
Still don’t understand the weather maps. At the bottom of this page, there’s a temperature map of the whole of South America, and it shows nothing odd.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/111/?area=Buenos%20Aires
Very interesting on two parts.
1 – On just a very quick search, I couldn’t find any references on the web of cold fronts crossing the equator. Please correct me if I am wrong but it doesn’t appear to happen on a regular basis.
2 – I remember similar reports in 2009 of a severe cold weather in South America and Austrailia. The 2009 – 2010 was brutal by Floridian standards, and much colder than I have ever experienced while living in Florida, just south of Tampa for the past 30 years. Just curious if this is a precursor of things to come for the 2010 – 2011 winter in the Northern Hemisphere.
Jimmy Haigh says:
July 21, 2010 at 9:30 am
It’s the Antarctic cold air spreading north of the equator that is the unusual thing. I was in Jakarta the other day – it’s like Siberian air getting as far south as that. Maybe it will happen this northern hemisphere winter?
These things never used to happen before we started killing the planet with our SUV’s…
Yes, it is unusual in the sense that it has not happened for a very long time. How long is the question.
AGW/Climate Change would love for you to believe that the world began with the invention of the SUV.
Ah, there it is. Right there in these heiroglyphics. See? They called it Atlantis. It sank due to global iron chariot thundering.
Hugo M says:
July 21, 2010 at 9:28 am
1) Pretty much the same way we lengthen runways by, say, 250 feet.
2) Temperature differences in °F or °C are perfectly reasonable as long as they’re consistent.
3) There’s no such thing as °K, only k for kelvin, just like there’s no such thing as degrees meter. “1 k” can represent something really cold or a small temperature change (at least if we’re talking about weather). Context remains important.
As for “surface temperatures departure from normal,” you could argue it’s really a departure from average, and that we don’t have exact knowledge of normal. That likely came from NOAA, but what do they know?
James Sexton says:
July 21, 2010 at 9:44 am
That’s what happens when massaging breaks through the XXX barrier (you know, the kind of massages the Prophet likes) 🙂
David L. says:
July 21, 2010 at 9:43 am
Not only did this continental cold snap happen, it was predicted a week before it struck.
MSM has ADD.
steveta_uk says:
July 21, 2010 at 9:46 am
A BBC map….give me a break!
Steveta_UK,
The BBC and the met office use estimated max temperatures, it looks like the AGW believers at the met office pump up daily max estimates while ignoring lows.
What the BBC shows is in fact near future estimates rather than actual raw temps which gives them the chance to overestimate as much as they dare and also the use only central metropolitan stations which will always give a higher max than the wider countryside.
Its all about manipulating subtle surface perceptions with the BBC/met office now, you see most people look at the shiny maps and gizmos and look at the temperatures as though they are real when in fact the advertised temperature is a max estimate and it may only reach that for a few minutes if at all and the early morning and late night could be hugely lower but never ever mentioned or advertised.
The BBC/met office rely on certain admen and magician tricks to create a superficial version of reality during the weather forecasts, no lows and no averages just max estimates while ignoring as much as they can cold areas and concentrating on warm areas. The phrase ‘much warmer than average for the time of year’ is used far more often than ‘much cooler than average for the time of year’.
The BBC/met office used to advertise lows and daily averages untill the AGW fanatics found that childish tricks could alter the perceptions of their viewers and it has worked to a large extent and will untill the actual cooling becomes more severe than can be hidden in plain sight. From the average viewers perspective they will see what they expect to see and as any trickster/hustler will tell you, show the mark what they expect to see and there is no end to the things you can get away with unnoticed and unseen.