From the “weather is not climate department”
Lots of odd weather events going on worldwide.
- Snow in Brazil
- Freeze in Boliva kills wildlfe
- Heatwave and fires in Russia – but it is not global warming
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Record Cold Grips South America
Merco Press – August 5, 2010
Snow in Brazil
Light snow storms in Brazil were concentrated in areas of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina. O Globo network aired snow flakes falling in early morning, cars covered with a thin white coating and some roads dangerously slippery because of ice.
In Argentina the phenomenon extended to Northern provinces, geographically sub-tropical while in the Patagonia and along the Andes snow reached over a metre deep, isolating villages and causing yet undisclosed losses to crops and livestock.
…
After a harsh weekend, Argentina’s National Weather Forecast Service announced the cold weather is expected to stay until Thursday although it could again reach a freezing peak over the coming week-end.
On Wednesday a northbound cold front hit the Patagonia and central Argentine regions. In Patagonia, minimum temperatures went as low as minus 10 Celsius with even lower numbers in snowy regions, while maximum temps were in the range of zero to 7 Celsius.
…
In Uruguay the power record consumption was reached on Wednesday at 20:45. The lowest temperatures were registered in the north and west of the country: minus 7 Celsius.
…
“The last time something of this magnitude happened was 47 years ago”, said governor Costas.
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Bolivia has been hit by an unprecedented cold wave, which has wiped out fish, turtles, and even dolphins in rivers, ponds and lakes around the country. The rivers are now surrounded with the stench of dead carcasses. And this comes only days after snowfall in Buenos Aires.
See: http://www.boliviabella.com/1-million-fish-dead-in-bolivian-ecological-disaster.html
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Russia – It’s not global warming
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Numerous large forest fires were burning in Russia’s Far East on July 19, 2010, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead and captured this photo-like image. Actively burning areas that MODIS detected are outlined in red, while thick smoke shrouds the forested landscape below. The body of water at lower left is a bay at the northeastern end of the Sea of Okhotsk.
Clusters of red outlines indicate areas with unusually high surface temperatures, each associated with actively burning fires. Most of the fires send their plumes to the southwest, but others blow to the northeast and northwest, indicating the variable wind direction in the region. A thick plume of intensely gray smoke, measuring hundreds of kilometers wide, can be seen stretching across the Bering Sea, completely obscuring the water in some areas.
In the lower center of the image lies the Kamchatka peninsula. A triangle of three hotspots, which do not appear to be associated with smoke, are located at the base of the Klyuchevsky volcano. This snow-covered volcano was reported to have experienced two eruptions in June, spewing jets of incandescent lava and ash clouds several hundred meters into the sky.
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h/t to WUWT readers Max Hugoson, Scarlet Pumpernickel, Ag Foster, John from CA
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Stephen Wilde says:
August 8, 2010 at 9:30 am
It should be done and done now. There is too much at stake for proper scientific enquiry to continue to be suppressed.”
quote from Kristian Birkeland’s monograph Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition 1902-1903:
(Chapter VI. On Possible Electric Phenomena in Solar Systems and Nebulae)
http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.ph … nd_Nebulae
Kristian Birkeland wrote:We will now pass on to experiments that in my opinion have brought about the most important discoveries in the long chain of experimental analogies to terrestrial and cosmic phenomena that I have produced. In the experiments represented in figs. 248 a-e, there are some small white patches on the globe, which are due to a kind of discharge that, under ordinary circumstances, is disruptive, and which radiates from points on the cathode. If the globe has a smooth surface and is not magnetised, the disruptive discharges come rapidly one after another, and are distributed more or less uniformly all over the globe (see a). On the other hand, if the globe is magnetised, even very slightly, the patches from which the disruptive discharges issue, arrange themselves then in two zones parallel with the magnetic equator of the globe; and the more powerfully the globe is magnetised, the nearer do they come to the equator (see b, c, d). With a constant magnetisation, the zones of patches will be found near the equator if the discharge-tension is low, but far from the equator if the tension is high.
And: First Global Connection Between Earth And Space Weather Found
09.12.06
Weather on Earth has a surprising connection to space weather occurring high in the electrically-charged upper atmosphere, known as the ionosphere, according to new results from NASA satellites.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/space_weather_link.html
What this means is, the earth acting as a cathode it is subjected to a variable current from the Sun, which when strong makes the jet stream get closer to the poles, while when low jet streams will migrate equator ward.
@Stephen Fisher Wilde says:
August 8, 2010 at 9:14 am
“But I qualified it by saying that the primary short term influence on the jet stream positioning (in fact the average latitudinal position of all the air circulation systems) is the global net rate of energy flux from the oceans (heavily biased towards ENSO)”
That`s ok then, as I have said that the jet streams postions in the short term, and ENSO in the short term, are both responding to short term changes in the solar signal, and responding very differently depending on the season.
rbateman asked:
” If solar incoming during low activity is reduced via more dense atmosphere, does the Earth continue to lose via Blackbody radiation at the same rate, or at a higher rate than incoming?”
Good question because it shows that you understand the basic issues. The point is however that in the stratosphere where ozone is present the chemical reactions there between ozone and solar shortwave radiation disrupt both the convective and conductive processes from below and the radiative effects from above. I think that that is an important unresolved issue. Which is the correct sign (positive or negative) of the ozone effect on energy transfers from the oceans below and energy transfers to space above.
The Blackbody concept does not apply because we are dealing with a Greybody with variable internal influences on the level of Greyness.
The oddity seems to be that for my NCM to be correct the rate of energy loss from stratosphere to space needs to be faster when the sun is active and slower when the sun is quiet.
It has to be that way in order to achieve the required temperature change at the tropopause and it is that which affects the polar pressure distribution in the troposphere.
Now I know that that is the opposite of the conventional wisdom. An active sun is supposed to warm the stratosphere via the reactions with ozone but in fact during the late 20th century the stratosphere cooled whilst the sun was more active. Now it is warming a bit with the sun newly less active.
That conundrum was supposed to have been solved by the idea that our ozone depleting CFCs were disrupting the natural order of things but look here:
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070924/full/449382a.html
I think the truth is that the increased solar activity actually instigates more ozone destroying reactions so ozone decreases naturally and the stratosphere actually cools naturally during a period of active sun. The opposite when the sun is quiet. For my NCM to work as it is the sign has to be changed from positive to negative as regards the stratospheric temperature reaction to a more active sun.
My requirement meets observations but only if the CFC speculation is taken back out of the equation.
That is a critical issue for my NCM so it needs to be resolved definitively but as yet that has not been done.
One can only get a more positive polar oscillation if the inversion at the tropopause weakens and that requires a cooler stratosphere. The opposite for a more negative polar oscillation.
In favour of my proposition is a whole raft of observed realities. The only discrepancy is that CFC aspect which in my opinion was ‘invented’ to account for an observation that was not understood at the time namely a cooling stratosphere at a time of a more active sun. I think it was a guess too far.
I didn’t set out to attack the CFC idea and the Montreal Protocol but as I see it that is all logically inconsistent with the wider set of real world observations.
Interesting times.
Ulric Lyons says:
August 8, 2010 at 10:47 am
Hi Ulric.
We aren’t looking at quite the same things. I’m trying to work out the climate variations throughout the interglacial whereas you are trying to use solar events to anticipate weather and possibly shorter term climate events.
Sometimes we overlap but not often.
Regards, Stephen.
Thank goodness at last someone talks some sense on TV, you could almost feel the new readers disappointment that the CATO guy didn’t blame global warming, bet you wouldn’t of seen this on the BBC?
regards
rob
Surprise. Summer can be hot and dry. Forest fires are not new. I remember this one and I was in Pennsylvania at the time. 1950.
http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/078/mwr-078-09-0180.pdf
Here is the Introduction:
“During the latter part of September 1950, an extensive
layer of smoke originated from forest fires in the Canadian
Provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. Subsequently
it spread over large areas of Canada and the
eastern United States. The resulting unusual appearance
of the sky and sun and the diminution of normal daylight
caused widespread interest among meteorologists and the
public alike. This report …”
@Stephen Fisher Wilde says:
August 8, 2010 at 10:51 am
“I think the truth is that the increased solar activity actually instigates more ozone destroying reactions so ozone decreases naturally and the stratosphere actually cools naturally during a period of active sun. The opposite when the sun is quiet.”
More UV creates more ozone, more sunspots, more UV, more ozone;
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ozone/additional/science-focus/about-ozone/ozone_cycle.shtml (just when you need it most)
Anyway, this is a weather-roundup, and discussion of recent jet stream positions, not an inter-glacial perspective !
A comment re the jet stream, and anomalous locations thereof: That was my talking point at a soaring competition recently – that the anomalous location of the jet stream, dragging a succession of low pressures along to the south of us, was the cause of our weather woes.
The contest weather briefer put considerable effort into educating me, with charts and graphs and stuff, to understand the jet stream was a symptom not the core cause – a symptom, or a consequence, if you like, of the boundary between air masses. He stated our problem – lousy soaring weather for day after day due to low pressure areas passing south of us instead of the seasonal norm of north of us – was due to anomalous locations of the boundaries between the Polar and Arctic Continental and Pacific airmasses.
A distinction without a difference, perhaps, but perhaps a more useful way to consider things.
Rob Wilson says:
August 8, 2010 at 9:14 am
All this talk of temperature extremes, i had a quick look at when record temperatures were reached. It may surprise some people in which years the hottest temperatures in each continent were recorded:
Europe: 1977
North America: 1913
Asia: 1942
Oceania: 1960
South America 1920
Africa: 1922
Antarctica: 1974
The African record set in 1922 was the hottest temperature ever recorded:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Highest_temperature_ever_recorded
Obviously, hot or cold records are broken somewhere in the world all the time but that is not evidence of “climate change”. No continental record has been broken for over 30 years.
Also, if the planet is warming then i am surprised that the hottest temperature on record was nearly 90 years ago.
Any thoughts?
———–
My thought is they’ve been too busy spinning everything else and just haven’t gotten around to adjusting these number, yet. Give them time.
I checked the temperature on weather.com while at a softball tournament yesterday in Tallassee, AL. Wx.com had it at 99F. It was hot but nowhere near that hot. So, I went to my car and generated a few lbs of CO2 driving up the highway to the local store (to get the kind of beverage they just won’t sell at a youth softball tournament) just so the temperature sensor could adjust to the ambient. It was 91F. So, then I checked Montgomery, AL on wx.com (using my phone) and it was 99F (40 miles alway). So, wx.com was reporting Montgomery temperature (very high UHI in the Montgomery sprawl with massive amounts of air national guard tarmac at the airport temperature sensor location. Checking a closer town on Wx.com, I found the temperature at Auburn, AL to be being reported as 91F, in agreement with my Honda’s temperature sensor (as affected by direct sunlight on the roadway, off course).
Ulric Lyons said:
“More UV creates more ozone, more sunspots, more UV, more ozone;
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ozone/additional/science-focus/about-ozone/ozone_cycle.shtml (just when you need it most)
Anyway, this is a weather-roundup, and discussion of recent jet stream positions,”
The jet stream position is affected by the strength of the inversion at the tropopause which is affected by stratospheric temperature which is affected by ozone reactions.
UV is involved in ozone destruction too and the balance of the creation and destruction effects is far from clear even from the link you supplied.
The cooling of the stratosphere when the sun was active and the slight warming now that the sun is less active suggests that the balance of ozone creation and destruction may be different from that usually proposed.
Especially in light of the more recent findings that the chlorine reaction from CFCs may not be large enough to account for the observed ozone reduction when the sun was more active.
The jet stream positioning is therefore directly linked to the ozone issue and the response of ozone to a more or less active sun.
Ulric Lyons says:
August 8, 2010 at 1:43 pm
[@Stephen Fisher Wilde says:
August 8, 2010 at 10:51 am
“I think the truth is that the increased solar activity actually instigates more ozone destroying reactions so ozone decreases naturally and the stratosphere actually cools naturally during a period of active sun. The opposite when the sun is quiet.”]
“More UV creates more ozone, more sunspots, more UV, more ozone;
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ozone/additional/science-focus/about-ozone/ozone_cycle.shtml (just when you need it most)…”
The paradox is that stratospheric ozone is both created and destroyed by ultraviolet radiation, and this is a complex process which depends on the UV wavelength. Only when ozone has migrated to the poles does concentration start to increase – this from August until spring, when the long polar night protects ozone from decomposition.
I would guess that in years when the jet streams are more towards the equator, the rate of migration to the poles will be slower. There are further complication in this process, as other substances in the atmosphere, such as Cl, also act to catalyse ozone destruction, as do ice crystals in the stratosphere.
Not sure what this leads to regarding weather/climate, but perhaps a change to ozone balance over a number of years could lead to a change in climate/weather regime?
The English language service of Russian TV ( RT.com ) has done us a great service by providing us with a parody of a news interview. That chick behind the desk looks like (and I’ll be polite and not give my first impression of her) she’s all set to take off for a night of clubbing as soon as her stint at the desk ends.
Here’s a fact being reported right now at Drudge:
Global tropical cyclone activity remains at 30-year lows…
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/
I know … the poor girl probably will think that the story just isn’t sexy. With her attitude, she’ll probably go far in the lamestream media.
@Tenuc says:
August 8, 2010 at 3:27 pm
“The paradox is that stratospheric ozone is both created and destroyed by ultraviolet radiation, and this is a complex process which depends on the UV wavelength.”
By what ratio? is there allways less at solar minimum?
[2] What is the frequency of Russian/Siberian forest fires?
——-
Check out http://www.kommersant.ru/ISSUES.PHOTO/DAILY/2010/138/03D138.gif
Russia has pretty regular wildfire seasons (as you would expect from such a massive forested (and peat-bogg-ed) landmass. This year still isn’t a record-breaker for number of fires or area burned; just that most years, the fires happen on the other side of the Urals, where only Chukchi see them. This year *seems* bigger mainly because it’s happening in the densest-populated part of the country.
But as fire seasons there go, it’s really not terribly remarkable.
I recall hearing a California fire official interviewed by ABC news in 2007. The official blamed the large number of California wildfires on “global warming”, and stated that southern California temperatures had been 4 degrees F warmer than normal that summer. (This is another blatant example of taking a temporary aberration in a regional weather pattern and incorrectly labeling it global warming) Even if there is an ambient temperature of +100 degrees F, it still requires a spark or other ignition source to raise the temperature of tinder by 351 degrees F to +451 degrees F to obtain ignition. While a few degrees temperature ramp-up can slightly increase the probability of a fire, the real cause of a rash of wildfires is lack of precipitation and a lack of moisture, or in some cases the match of an arsonist or careless camper. Wet timber does not burn, no matter how many times a spark is thrown at it.
The Asian continental record was in fact broken this summer, according to Jeff Masters.
Jet Stream Position – US
http://www.weatherimages.org/data/imag192.html
300 millibar Height Analysis
Northern Hemishere
http://www.weatherimages.org/data/imag499.html
A couple more Jet Stream links:
Jet Stream Analyses and Animations
Northern Hemisphere
http://squall.sfsu.edu/scripts/nhemjetstream_model.html
Southern Hemisphere
http://squall.sfsu.edu/scripts/shemjetstream_model.html
.5 – 5 day Jet Stream Forecasts
http://squall.sfsu.edu/crws/jetstream_fcsts.html
Numerical Model Forecasts: A Caveat
http://squall.sfsu.edu/crws/ensemble_fcsts.html
“Beware: the accuracy of numerical weather forecast models typically declines the farther into the future they go.”
Any link to the record being broken by Jeff Masters or is this the Gospel according to AGW?
This is what the Russian President Medvedev: say out the heatwave.
“None of us can say what the next summer will be like. The forecasts vary greatly. Everyone is talking about climate change now. Unfortunately, what is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past. This means that we need to change the way we work, change the methods that we used in the past.”
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/53704
What a Ditz! But the RT babe is at least an honest parody of what network news has become.