Earlier I wrote about the Arctic Oscillation Index going strongly negative in December and what new cold to expect in January. From NASA’s Earth observatory, we have a high resolution temperature anomaly map that provides visualization of the effects. This image was taken while the Copenhagen Climate Conference was in progress.
A wave of frigid air spilled down over Europe and Russia from the Arctic in mid-December, creating a deadly cold snap. According to BBC.com, at least 90 people had died in Europe, including 79 people, mostly homeless, in Poland. In places, the bitter cold was accompanied by heavy snow, which halted rail and air traffic for several days during the week of Christmas.
This image shows the impact of the cold snap on land surface temperatures across the region from December 11–18, 2009, compared to the 2000–2008 average. The measurements were made by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Places where temperatures were up to 20 degrees Celsius below average are blue, locations where temperatures were average are cream-colored, and places where temperatures were above average are red. Light gray patches show where clouds were so persistent during the week that MODIS could not make measurements of the land surface temperature. The biggest anomalies were in northern Russia, but a swath of below-average temperatures stretched across the countries around the Baltic Sea as well.
See also:
- Daily, 8-day, and monthly land surface temperature anomaly maps
- Animation of monthly global land surface temperature anomalies
h/t to WUWT reader “JT”
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“commonsense (18:04:01) :
Now in Europe the heat is on again.
Temps in the Mediterranean are back to +15ºC … so…
In Italy and Greece, with 21ºC, people WENT TO THE BEACH.. ON CHRISTMAS!
Even in Continental Europe, Temps are ABOVE FREEZING, so all the snow that fell should have melted away.”
Unsinn. Tell that to the snow. I’m in Braunschweig, Germany. 10cm fresh snow on the cars and that’s here in the city. If you don’t believe me:
http://www.wetteronline.de/cgi-bin/aktframe?LANG=de&TYP=temperatur&ART=bild&JJ=news&KEY=DL
There’s a north-south divide here; the south is above zero and gets air from the west, we in northern germany are still slightly below zero.
Not an arctic blast ATM, though, or cold eastern wind from russia.
commonsense (18:04:01) :
When the arctic vortex is strong, the cold air stays locked up there, and just goes around and around and around the pole all winter. During such winters it is very cold up there, and more pleasant down here.
However this winter the cold is not locked up there. The hounds of winters have been unleashed, and arctic blasts are roaming far south. So, if the cold air is not trapped up there, of course it will be warmer up there.
Get it?
Now here is the mystery: In which case is there more cold air? When it is all locked up at the poles, or when it is warmer at the poles and the cold spreads down here?
Let me take a wild guess: It takes energy to lock the cold up there. When there is less energy available that cold air escapes. Therefore, contrary to what we might think, it might take more energy (heat) to make it colder at the poles.
Now here’s another wild guess. It might take more energy to create a cold La Nina than a warm El Nino, because it takes a lot of energy to shove all the warm water over to Austrailia and drag the cold, heavy, dense La Nina waters up from the depths. When there is less available energy the warm water comes sloshing back from Austrailia and cold water sinks back down, and you have an El Nina. IE: We have another result contrary to what we might think, as less energy (heat) creates a El Nino’s heating.
Conclusion: My wild guess is that less total energy might create a warm El Nino sending warmth north, at the exact same time less total energy sends the hounds of winter south from the poles. When these two forses meet they brew up super storms. Once again less makes more, as less energy creates more energetic storms.
I will prove my ideas are true, if you will figure out how I can get ten million or so of stimulous money, and a couple of genius geeks who are good at creating computer models.
Moloo, kuhnkat: my definition of “very warm” is a Temperature ANOMALY greater than 3-4ºC.
rbateman,kuhnkat: the link to Danish Centre for Ocean and Ice actually CONFIRMS the NOAA anomalies. The anomalies were greater than 4ºC, this is evident from both the NOAA maps and the Danish graph.
If you don’t see it, you should get a new pair of eyeglasses.
And if wasn’t clear in my post, these maps show WEEKLY anomalies. Just because last day the temperatures returned to normal levels, the WEEKLY anomaly is still astoundingly high.
Commonnonsense
Positive AOs and NAOs are always asssociated with warm anomalies within the high latitude ridges. They are warm core highs where dynamically air is piled on top of low level arctic air. They are associated with the largest surface high pressures on the edges where cold dense air and piled up air combine for greatest weight. These huge air masses push south and displace the polar front equatorward, resulting in unusual cold in middle latitudes.
More cold air is spreading across Europe this weekend and next week and Siberian air keeps invading China. India will have frost and freezes this week.
Give it up. The Dalton (Eddy) Minimum will just keep frustrating you and your warminista buddies the next few decades.
The far-left joker-morons will not relent, even if the glaciers doze their houses down. “Climate science” is becoming the comedy of the first decade of the 21st century! Let the comedy continue!!!!
To be perfectly fair, the MODIS satellite can only image land surface temperature under clear skies. In Winter, clear skies preferentially select for colder days. Therefore, during the sampling time period of 12/11/09 – 12/18/09, it will tend to be the colder days that get imaged.
I’m not saying you should “hide the decline,” but it shouldn’t be exaggerated either. I think MODIS images exaggerate the cold. As the grown-ups in the climate debate, those of us who are skeptical of AGW bear an extra burden to be sure we are presenting data in an unbiased fashion.
Is the anomaly in this image relative to other MODIS-derived temperatures? In that case, the cold biases would cancel. If it is relative to land-based thermometers, it should say so.
Every day reader but never comment but think this comment needs a challenge. commonsense (18:04:01) :
Now in Europe the heat is on again.
Could you inform me what city in europe you show above average. i checked several for the next 10 days and all are below normal/average. for example Helsinki average for Janruary is 30f/23f daily the 10 day forecast is 16f/12f with several snow days. Thanks in advance for your reply.
DirkH: at what elevation does your city stay?
The NOAA maps that I linked have not enough resolution to notice cold spots caused by elevation. Even the cold Alps are missed.
So they only give the Big Picture (at a 500 km scale).
Anyway, thanks for the comment.
“rob m (19:02:38) :
Shouldn’t there be a big red spot where Copehagen is located?
No, it’s a big red flag. The satellite couldn’t pick up the vertical flagpole.
LOL
It won’t surprise me to see NASA report December as one of the hottest months in decades. In fact I will surprise me to see them report this month as anywhere near one of the coldest, which will prove beyond any reasonable doubt that they are either deliberately fudging the data or are using a invalid method to process the raw numbers. In either case they should be scolded and if possible punished for publishing bogus climate data, and it must be stopped.
An interesting exercise is to check Wiki on historical coolings, Little Ice Age etc. It’s a hoot. Among some facts and okay speculations you get, albeit covered by disclaimers, some possible causes:
– solar variations, which get a weak run
– “heightened” volcanic activity, which gets the longest treatment, even though there’s an admission that it only has a two year effect.
– population and agriculture decrease after Black Death, implying medieval AGW!
– ocean conveyor slowdown due to – yep – medieval warming
And you even get that grand old sporting implement, slightly re-bent…the hockeystick!
These AGW guys are burrowed in like [snip] snipers on the last Pacific islands. A personal appeal to Jimmy Wales in order?
OT
According to NOAA sea rise has been only 2-3 inches per century.
http://www.burtonsys.com/climategate/MSL_global_trendtablefc.html
“Conclusion #1:
According to NOAA’s data, global average mean sea levels have been creeping up at a rate of only about 2-3 inches per century (0.5-0.7 mm/year). That is about one-third of the 1.8 mm/year (7.1 inches/century) rate which AGW alarmists typically claim.”
“It will be interesting to see how the NASA imagery compares with the anomaly maps of GISS and HadCRUT for December when they are made available.”
It will be interesting to see if the mysterious Siberian hotspot will return to keep the global anomaly high.
Robert of Ottawa (19:07:21) :
But … but … Iceland is bright red! … we’re all going to fry … in Iceland!
It’s OK, they just had to import a lot of red ink to write up their National debt, some of it must have spilt.
Don’t expect the president to change his mind any time soon about man-made global warming.
Obama’s Involvement in Chicago Climate Exchange–The Rest of the Story
http://www.carbonoffsetsdaily.com/news-channels/usa/obama%E2%80%99s-involvement-in-chicago-climate-exchange-the-rest-of-the-story-5581.htm
Peter of Sydney (20:45:12)
Sorry to hear of your cool December. Here in northern Nevada, on the weather news this evening our local Meteorologist reported that this December will go down as the 4th or 5th coldest December along the Eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada mountain range since records have been kept. This of course is all prior to the necessary “adjustments” that you allude to are applied!
Steve Oregon (18:32:18) :
“Ckeck that, 100s of millions.”
I think the real figure will be closer to your first number.
Then again maybe many of the recent immigrants from the south may want to return after a few more winters like the last two.
Keith Minto (21:04:36) :
Robert of Ottawa (19:07:21) :
But … but … Iceland is bright red! … we’re all going to fry … in Iceland!
It’s OK, they just had to import a lot of red ink to write up their National debt, some of it must have spilt
There were these guys working with models who thought they had it sorted. When the GFC hit the fan I think they tried to repatriate money from the UK back to Iceland, but the UK Government actually dealt with them under the terrorism laws. So watch out Phil and fellow modellers at CRU, if there is consistency in the way the UK Government deals with these things there could be a rendition or two to who knows where.
We had 4 inches of global warming today. Now turned to rain… Methinks there will be more along shortly.
BTW. This is totally off topic, but I love this line;
“Time. Time. What is time? Swiss manufacture it. French hoard it. Italians squander it. Americans say it is money. Hindus say it does not exist. Do you know what I say? I say time is a crook. ”
Lets see who can name the film it is from. No googling!!!
Cheers!
rbateman: “Move over, rover, and let Bastardi and Corbyn take over.
In fact, I would go so far as to propose that Bastardi be given the head job at NOAA and Corbyn can clean house at the MET.”
I concur completely.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Bob Tisdale (18:03:34) :
“Sorry to go off topic, Anthony, but I thought you’d appreciate this. Through my numerous quest posts here at WUWT, I am now in the pocket of Big Oil:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/12/memo-to-big-oil.html
Unfortunately, no one bothered to tell Big Oil, or they’ve been sending the checks to the wrong Bob Tisdale. Just my luck.”
If it were not so tragic, it would be funny, Bob. Carry on.
The reasonable and sane of the world do not buy that bull**** for a hot minute.
It is plainly obvious that “Big Oil” has jumped on the AGW Train (anybody see the latest Shell commercials??) , so you could not POSSIBLY be a part of it.
The Difference: You actually have a brain. And a damn good one at that.
Carry on!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Peter of Sydney
as I sit here in 37C heat, a random review of BOM temperature data from about 30 towns across Australia indicates that December average maximums are up to 2 degrees above the long term average. I did find a couple of exceptions however.
Anyway Pete, there are two hemispheres; just because it’s cold in the NH doesn’t mean it’s cold here as well; as much as you appear to want it to be. It is summer here you know. And you would be aware that things generally don’t start really cookin’ here until mid Jan through February. It will be interesting to see what happens. I’m not sure what has happened in the rest of the SH and I’m not fussed either way.
So it’s not as cold as you imagine or maybe you’re just stuck in your fridge all day pulling out cold beers.
Caleb (20:20:58) :
Spot on!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Michael (21:15:36) :
So BO up to his armpits CarbonGate. Chicago carbon exchange, your money or your ….who would have guessed and Al was there too.
Steve Oregon (20:55:51) :
OT
According to NOAA sea rise has been only 2-3 inches per century.
Okay, big-head questions. We are burning hydrocarbon fossil fuels. How much new water are we making? I know it’s probably just a drop in the ocean, but not literally one. The planet gains mass continually from assorted “space dust.” How much of that is water, as is found with comets? Also, we are bombarded with cosmic rays, of which almost 90% are protons, naked hydrogen nuclei. Don’t they lead to the creation of new water as well?
Could a statistically significant part of that ocean rise per century, be because new water is being added to the oceans?