In the last month, the Arctic Oscillation Index (AO) has gone strongly negative. You can see that it headed to its negative peak right about the time the Copenhagen Climate Conference started, so it is no wonder that they ironically experienced cold and snow there. It is also a setup for the record snow and cold Canada and the USA has seen recently.
Source: NOAA Climate Predication Center Daily AO Index
With this change happening, the setup for an increased Arctic Sea Ice Maximum is enhanced this year, likely to happen sometime around March 1st, 2010.
NSIDC has an interesting writeup and graphic on the AO:
From NSIDC:
The Arctic Oscillation refers to opposing atmospheric pressure patterns in northern middle and high latitudes.
The oscillation exhibits a “negative phase” with relatively high pressure over the polar region and low pressure at midlatitudes (about 45 degrees North), and a “positive phase” in which the pattern is reversed. In the positive phase, higher pressure at midlatitudes drives ocean storms farther north, and changes in the circulation pattern bring wetter weather to Alaska, Scotland and Scandinavia, as well as drier conditions to the western United States and the Mediterranean. In the positive phase, frigid winter air does not extend as far into the middle of North America as it would during the negative phase of the oscillation. This keeps much of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains warmer than normal, but leaves Greenland and Newfoundland colder than usual. Weather patterns in the negative phase are in general “opposite” to those of the positive phase, as illustrated below.
Over most of the past century, the Arctic Oscillation alternated between its positive and negative phases. Starting in the 1970s, however, the oscillation has tended to stay in the positive phase, causing lower than normal arctic air pressure and higher than normal temperatures in much of the United States and northern Eurasia.
As we see in this graph below, we’ve seen more red (positive) than blue (negative) phases of the AO in the last 30–40 years. Whether this is short period negative excursion or the start of a longer trend is unknown.
Source: NOAA Climate Prediction Center
There are other indicators recently of a flip in patterns, notable is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which changed last year, but we also see the North Atlantic Oscillation in a negative phase as well. Whether it will remain negative or not we’ll soon know, but note that it has been negative the majority of time since August 31st.
Source: NOAA Climate Prediction Center
Since 2000, it has seen a fair amount of negative time also:
Source: NOAA Climate Prediction Center
The climate change seems to be changing now.
h/t to Werner Weber
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REPLY: The diagnosis was wrong, it just had a bad case of a cold. -Anthony
————————–
Like the doctor who orders emergency heart surgery for a case of indigestion?
“The NSIDC graphic suggests that during negative phase AO, Britain should experience sunny, cool, dry weather. ”
It would depend. I believe that graph shows the extreme states. So if the jet is South of you, the storm track would be into Spain and Northern France. But it doesn’t switch from maximum positive to maximum negative, it varies between the two. So right now it would seem that the storm track is across England. If it were to go more negative, you would see the jet drop South of you and you would be sunnier and drier.
Can someone please explain in simple language what the implications are with respect to the AGW hypothesis.
Innocentious (21:14:18) :
You make a good point about AGW research funding crowding out other climate research.
I just sometimes feel a need to raise the flag of science against accepting “natural variation” as a sufficient explanation –I just get a little hackle-raising going against the “Posoiden Is Angry” feeling it evokes.
OT .. I know this is OT, but I ran into this through a post from over at the AirVent. This is a Finnish TV broadcast concerning ClimateGate. I highly recommend watching (sub-titles). I wish someone would broadcast this kind of thing in the media here in the US.
(3 Parts)
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Gunnon1#p/u/0/unKZhr3JMhA
Charlie Martin (19:25:46) :
So this would suggest the possibility of an extended cooling period?
One thing we can see is that those who forecast a cold winter in the US look right. They are Joe Bastardi, Piers Corbyn, and The Farmers Almanac.
Can someone point me to the site that is the most generally accepted source(s) (by AWGers) for daily listings of arctic ice extent? TIA.
So, what does the varying density of the upper and lower atmosphere during solar max and solar min have to do with it. The density of the atmosphere does change due to the intensities of the magnetospheres of the earth and sun during these periods, does it not?
The Arctic Dipole pattern will have to be taken into consideration too I suppose for estimates on maxima. Currently it is not very active it seems.
Andy
Is it sort of like a plunger effect, pushing the cold down to lower latitudes when we get into these periods of solar minimum?
This strongly negative AO has been a surprise. There has been a very strong bout of stratospheric warming over much of northern Eurasia as well as North America and the north Atlantic with strong cooling over the high Arctic and at lower latitudes.
The El Niño has also had an effect… the weaker trade winds has no doubt also weakened the polar jet stream, allowing it to buckle more.. which kind of reinforces the negative AO. Also, the amplified southern jet means more uplift in the southern U.S., so cold air is drawn southward from the relatively high pressure up north in Canada.
It could be a sign of a weaker sun… the stratosphere overall is very cold but the lack of energy input from the sun easily could be causing the winds in the stratosphere to snag which would create larger areas of anomalies.
Who knows… but this does appear to have an extraterrestrial signature to it… whether it’s the sun, or alignment of planets.. who knows.
Either way, the AO has clearly been more negative since the mid 1990s than it was during the 80s and early 90s… so to suggest that it is somehow going more positive thanks to GHG warming is ridiculous.
There is still snow in the shade in North Texas with more due tomorrow.
Looking at the models, I see some extremely cold air forming in the Arctic. Ten years of looking at these models, I don’t recall seeing such a large pool of -50 c air before. And given that these models have underdone actual temps by 3-5 degrees C, I wonder if its underdone and if the models themselves cannot go any colder anyways.
Does anyone know what the NAO, AO and PDO were doing in the hard winter of 1780?
Mapou (21:36:00) : You wrote: “Can someone please explain in simple language what the implications are with respect to the AGW hypothesis.”
If AGW were a legitimate scientific hypothesis it would have died years ago. This too would be enough to kill it.
However, AGW is more religion-like than it is science. So the answer to your question –it seems to me- is “Not a thing!”
Peter of Sydney (19:53:38) :
How come all this cooling around much of the world over the recent few months is not reflected in the official surface temperature readings as reported by NASA? I smell a rat.
He has poor taste in clothes too.
JK 😉
Evan Jones “The NOA/AO is the atmospheric component. If the oceanic component (the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation) follows along, that will be another indication.”
Well the AO and the NAO definitely are tandem with one another. However, the AMO is its own beast (possibly linked, however with ENSO and PDO ).
WE are on the crest of the multi-decadal AMO….so, of statistics are to be believed, it will be a few years before it turns negative….
http://digitaldiatribes.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/amoraw200908.png
Great post here. Truly….the AO and the NAO are like fraternal twins: they are still twins. And you know how twins behave.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Austin (22:17:36) :
There is still snow in the shade in North Texas with more due tomorrow.
Looking at the models, I see some extremely cold air forming in the Arctic. Ten years of looking at these models, I don’t recall seeing such a large pool of -50 c air before. And given that these models have underdone actual temps by 3-5 degrees C, I wonder if its underdone and if the models themselves cannot go any colder anyways.
It is interesting how Mother Nature really does snap back. Years and years of positive height anomalies and hot HOT temps over TX and OK….are finally getting their payback….in the opposite direction.
The rubber band theory at work. Interesting times for the big D and the OKC.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Anyone know? In a negative AO do the weaker tradewinds off of the Sahara tend to keep most huricanes in the Atlantic and east of the gulf. Weaker also?
Oil and corn rise as winter bites
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dcccd322-f3be-11de-ac55-00144feab49a.html
Even the liberal media must acknowledge the cold when oil prices respond to it.
Crude Oil Rises in New York as Cold Weather Boosts U.S. Demand
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2009-12-28/crude-oil-rises-in-new-york-as-cold-weather-boosts-u-s-demand.html
And how about the homeless in Florida and homeless shelters being prepared?
Homeless Shelters Prepped For Cold Weather Tonight
http://cbs4.com/local/broward.county.cold.2.1393675.html
photon without a Higgs (21:07:59) :
This is very bad news for those who say Arctic ice is in a ‘death spiral’.
REPLY: The diagnosis was wrong, it just had a bad case of a cold. -Anthony
The Arctic had a fever!
Forget the Artic, its cold as hell in Florida
Roger Knights:
If you want the daily data for Northern Hemisphere ice extent, you can go to the IJIS website:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Also, want to see how the NA ice is doing compared to the 1979-2000 mean?
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Click on the daily image update.
Cheers!
Max Hugoson (19:46:33) :
Thank God, eh? Because if it were, you’d be [snip]
Mark
Just posted comments in the thread, “The Unbearable Complexity of Climate” down about #140 or so detailing my ideas on the driving mechanisms, and periods of “The natural variability cycles”, and how to define them to be usable in weather and climate forecasts.
A long term BETA forecast method using these cyclic patterns to generate daily maps from 2008 through the end of 2013, (data tabled in August of 2007, started producing the maps in September of 2008).
Natural analog forecast @ur momisugly http://www.aerology.com/national.aspx
I have not the computing power, or data base needed to add these decade long cycles, into the process I am already using, to define how these patterns are also coupled into the rest of the process. But would love to give it a go, when time and money becomes available.
Richard Holle
Roger Knights here is the site…(21:49:57)…goes back to 2002 only but…
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
The best way to appreciate the data is to download it and plot it yourself…I have been doing this for some time now…..what I do is plot it as a surface….I assume a “six month gap” between years and plot it like a “membrane”….this way you can actually see the variations better…