There’s a colorfully sharp temperature contrast in Greenland, one might think it was “red hot” there. Hmmm where have we seen something like this before? The warm red pocket over southern Greenland and Eastern Canada is caused by a blocking high pressure cell, while all the cold Arctic air flows around it. Readers may recall that a blocking high was responsible for the Russian heat wave this summer also, despite many early erroneous claims that “global warming caused it”(look at the list at the end). NOAA’s analysis concluded it had everything to do with weather, and not greenhouse gases saying:
Despite this strong evidence for a warming planet, greenhouse gas forcing fails to explain the 2010 heat wave over western Russia. The natural process of atmospheric blocking, and the climate impacts induced by such blocking, are the principal cause for this heat wave.
We have the same blocking situation here. The difference? In Nuuk Greenland today, the temperature was not “red hot”, but a cool 6°C/42°F for the high. Hint: If you want to see current surface temps on the image below, download the Google Earth KMZ file link at the end of this story, then enable “weather” as an overlay in GE.
From NASA Earth Observatory: The first week of December was a chilly one for much of Europe and parts of the United States. This image shows the temperature of the land surface for December 3-10, 2010, compared to the average temperature for the same period between 2002 and 2009. The measurements are from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite.
Clearly, 2010 was cooler than average in northern Europe and the eastern United States. Greenland and parts of northern Canada, however, were exceptionally warm. This temperature pattern was caused by the Arctic Oscillation.
The Arctic Oscillation is a climate pattern that influences winter weather in the northern hemisphere. It describes the relationship between high pressure in the mid-latitudes and low pressure over the Arctic. When the pressure systems are weak, the difference between them is small, and air from the Arctic flows south, while warmer air seeps north. This is referred to as a negative Arctic Oscillation. Like December 2009, the Arctic Oscillation was negative in early December 2010. Cold air from the Arctic channeled south around a blocking system over Greenland, while Greenland and northern Canada heated up.
The unusual cold brought heavy snow to Northern Europe, stopping flights and trains early in December. Cold temperatures and snow also closed roads and schools in the eastern United States and Canada during the first week of December. The diagonal path of a powerful winter storm is visible as a streak of cold across the Upper Midwest of the United States.
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References
- Associated Press. (2010, December 14). Bone-chilling cold plods into Northeast US. Accessed December 15, 2010.
- BBC News. (2010, December 3). Europe’s deadly cold snap maintains grip. Accessed December 15, 2010.
- Climate Prediction Center. (2010, December 15). Arctic Oscillation. NOAA National Weather Service. Accessed December 15, 2010.
- CNN. (2010, December 2). Heavy snow creates European travel chaos. Accessed December 15, 2010.
- NOAA National Climatic Data Center. (2010, December). State of the climate: National overview for November 2010. Accessed December 15, 2010.
NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen, using data provided courtesy of the NASA/GSFC Distributed Active Archive Center. Caption by Holli Riebeek.
- Instrument:
- Aqua – MODIS
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download large image (5 MB, PNG) acquired December 3 – 10, 2010download GeoTIFF file (26 MB, TIFF) acquired December 3 – 10, 2010
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Let’s remember that Greenland is called that for a reason. Vikings who settleted there did so because Greenland at the time was inviting enough to live there. Is it possible that this blocking pattern could be long term? For example 10 -20 years of warmth in Greenland, and colder weather for the rest of Northern Hemisphere for the same amount of time?
Greenland temps and surrounding SST’s should be above normal. The current situation is building again as the high pressure cell over Greenland continues to build like late Nov. Both hemispheres are a buzz with extreme cold, rain and snow. Tomorrow in Oz we are expecting snow during summer as we recover from record floods.
The Sun is also in a weird place, and refuses to ramp up. We are at 4 spotless days in a row (Layman’s Count) with weak activity in the pipeline. F10.7 flux also is flat lining with December looking to be another dud month.
The warmist side has been well prepared for this with rebranding (
Global WarmingClimate ChangeClimate Disruption) – you’d think they were clued up on the coming change and the increase in blocking events it would bring. They need reminding that 10 years ago they were suggesting that the predominace of the AO (and NAO) positive phase was at least partly due to anthropogenic causes: http://www.pnas.org/content/98/23/12876.full.pdf and that models suggested it was likely to stay that way.http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/nao-is-the-winter-of-our-discontent/
It’s almost worth a dime to get on those AGW sites and talk the game up to see just how far they will go to support their cause. Kinda like going to an auction and bidding up the price with no intention whatsoever to actually buy the junk they are selling. It’s just a fun challenge to do it.
Sheep.
I have an Inuit friend in Nuuk who’s complaining that its 13C with no snow. Oh the irony.
Take pity on poor Iqualuit, Nunavut, Canada. They have set themselves up as the place to cold test new commercial aircraft. For them to be able to fulfil their oligatioins they need weather with temperatures of -40 (C or F). I know there is still time until the dead of winter. But nevertheless…..
What is more fascinating to me is the fact that during positive values, the tight vortex within the circle sucks in warm Atlantic waters into the Arctic edge, leading to thinning ice conditions and melt from below the surface, especially during the melt season, as those warmed waters slide underneath the ice to the pole.
During negative values, and right now it is at -5, strong surface winds, in a wider circle than during positive values, form a barrier to warm Atlantic water invasion, allowing Arctic-wide ice to grow very thick. Were this situation to occur during the summer, ice would melt very slowly and not thin so much from underneath.
Might we be seeing a pushing away of those warm Atlantic waters (and water-warmed air) from the Arctic circle, pushing and piling that warmer stuff to the lower half of Greenland?
It makes sense to me. I would expect, under these conditions, a return to normal ice extent and a return to thicker ice throughout the circle.
http://jisao.washington.edu/ao/
Yes,
What the Greenland High is doing is key to what is going on in Europe and USA – and there is plenty going on, see –
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6879
The Warmers cult will of course always claim anything that happens supports their intellectually, morally and scientifically bankrupt view. Crucially whatever they claim they can predict NOTHING.
Glaciers in Wales? Some people will do anything for a piece of cheap publicity.
Pamela, one should not poke fun at the terminally mislead. It’s cruel and just upsets them.
OK, let’s do it. They deserve every squirm!
Anthony,
Try this link for a better explanation of the Arctic Oscillation than your NOAA CPC reference.
At the inner part of Greenland the temperature is -39C at the moment, expected to drop down to -58C during the week.
“Red hot”?
http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/04416.html
Unemployment would be far worse if it weren’t for the stimulus program.
The financial system would have collapsed if it weren’t for the bank bailouts.
The housing market would have collapsed if it weren’t for the first time buyer rebate program.
There would be no wars right now if George W. Bush hadn’t been president.
And so on and so forth including:
Europe would be far colder right now if it weren’t for global warming.
It’s great fun making up alternative histories that can’t be disproven. Maybe even more fun than academics must have making predictions of the future so distant that they’ll be retired or dead before the prediction fails. What great sport! I think there needs to be a seriously funded study to measure exactly how much fun this is.
Does this explain things?
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.12.16.2010.gif
Looks like what is left of Gulfstream heat has been shoved by the currents up to Greenland.
“This image shows the temperature of the land surface for December 3-10, 2010, compared to the average temperature for the same period between 2002 and 2009. ”
Maybe this is a dumb question, but why are these guys talking about the average from 2002 – 2009?
Could it be that warming compared with 1980 – 200x average has stopped and now they want to talk up climate disruption ?
I went to the sea ice reference pages and noticed a strange little down tick. So I went to Cryosphere to see what I could see. Looks like the invasion of the necklace again.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png
For Europe, the strongly negative arctic oscillation which is visualized here, brings a more ‘continental ‘ climate, instead of the usual ‘atlantic’ climate (when such weather pattern dominate, they are called climate). A more continental climate leads to colder winters and warmer summers. Such was the case during Maunder minimum. So, let us look at the most recent sunspot number: “the earth facing side of the sun is blank”(quote spaceweather). It is all accidental, of course. But the minimum between cycles 23 and 24 is not over, yet. It is now almost 7 years since the first blank day occurred.
High pressure over central Greenland result in downslope, adiabatic winds, which warm the coastal weather stations. If the pressure differential is high, you get more warming. All normal.
I’m from Europe, but I’ve been living in Nuuk, Greenland for more than two decades.
We always used to say, that if the winter temperature is low in Nuuk, it’s quite warm i Scandinavia, or the other way around. -No, I have not consulted mr Gore.
But, but, but…..won’t the warmists just claim that the Arctic Oscillation is caused by global warming / climate change (which, as we all know, is caused by increased CO2 concentration – sarc/off)?
IanM
Pamela Gray says:
December 19, 2010 at 6:25 am
It’s almost worth a dime to get on those AGW sites and talk the game up to see just how far they will go to support their cause. Kinda like going to an auction and bidding up the price with no intention whatsoever to actually buy the junk they are selling. It’s just a fun challenge to do it.
=======================================================
Was once one of my favorite past times, but after a while it gets a bit depressing. Something akin to staring into the abyss.
MODERATOR
Can you delete my message that got sent prematurely with caps reversed? Thanks.
IanM
[Well, yes, glad to help. But it did look kind of funny. 8,) Robt]
Looks like similar conditions to last winter when I got a 100-yr single snowfall event here in the central Appalachian mountains.
If the cold stays in the east US long enough, eventually something will get cooked-up along the Gulf coast/SE coast & produce a coastal snowstorm.
Poor Iceland is missing the balmy temperatures. That must irritate them to no end.
Pamela Gray says:
December 19, 2010 at 6:25 am
It’s almost worth a dime to get on those AGW sites and talk the game up to see just how far they will go to support their cause.
=====================================================
They will go far enough to cause suffering and death.
It was their predictions of mild winters and less snow, rushing to get green/windmills, their hysteria, that is now causing suffering and death.
If this were anything else, the liberals would be screaming their heads off….