OK we have competing stories here. Read on, then place your bets.
Russian winter. Image from englishrussia.com – click
From the RT News service: Coldest winter in 1,000 years on its way
04 October, 2010, 22:20
After the record heat wave this summer, Russia’s weather seems to have acquired a taste for the extreme.
Forecasters say this winter could be the coldest Europe has seen in the last 1,000 years.
The change is reportedly connected with the speed of the Gulf Stream, which has shrunk in half in just the last couple of years. Polish scientists say that it means the stream will not be able to compensate for the cold from the Arctic winds. According to them, when the stream is completely stopped, a new Ice Age will begin in Europe.
So far, the results have been lower temperatures: for example, in Central Russia, they are a couple of degrees below the norm.
“Although the forecast for the next month is only 70 percent accurate, I find the cold winter scenario quite likely,” Vadim Zavodchenkov, a leading specialist at the Fobos weather center, told RT. “We will be able to judge with more certainty come November. As for last summer’s heat, the statistical models that meteorologists use to draw up long-term forecasts aren’t able to predict an anomaly like that.”
In order to meet the harsh winter head on, Moscow authorities are drawing up measures to help Muscovites survive the extreme cold.
Most of all, the government is concerned with homeless people who risk freezing to death if the forecast of the meteorologists come true. Social services and police are being ordered to take the situation under control even if they have to force the homeless to take help.
Moscow authorities have also started checking air conditioning systems in all socially important buildings. All the conditioners are being carefully cleaned from the remains of summer smog.
=======================================
From the Voice of Russia
This year’s winter may be the harshest – Polish climatologists
According to Polish climatologists, the Gulfstream- the Atlantic warm current, which protects Europe against the Arctic cold, is cooling fast. It might even disappear completely, they warn.
Russian meteorologists disagree with the pessimism of their Polish counterparts, agreeing though that the speed of the Gulfstream has indeed been reduced two-fold for several years. The Scandinavian countries are already feeling the breathing of the Arctic.
The Polish climatologist, Mikhail Kovalevski [sic] believes that if the trend continues, the climatic zones will move North and Europe will become a permafrost area for ever. But after looking at satellite pictures, NASA officials say that the global warming of the past 18 years has made the Gulfstream stronger and warmer. Russian meteorologists however hold the middle ground, Alexander Frolov, head of the Russian Meteorological Agency says.
The Gulfstream is powerful and is not declining; it warms up Europe, and consequently, it has a high significance for both Poland and the Scandinavian nations. But access to the heat might be restricted by the thawing of the ice and the turning of the water fresh – that is cold fresh water may appear on the surface, preventing the heat from going into the atmosphere to have an impact on the climate. We do not overestimate such a phenomenon, Frolov says.
He agrees that the Arctic ice is thawing fast, and according to the specialists, the area of the ice is now 4.8 million kilometers-600 thousand kilometers less than in 2007. said Frolov. That is the third minimum area of ice ever recorded since the beginning of meteorological observation. The Arctic is indeed very warn at the moment, particularly the western part, Frolov says.
But despite the warning in the North Pole, winter will set in, and according to the preliminary forecast by Russian weathermen, the country will have a normal Russian winter, perhaps not as harsh as last year, Frolov says.
January will be the coldest and February will produce a mixture of weather, he said. He promised Russians a two-week frost in many regions of the country-most likely in the northern parts.
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MattE says: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7536760/Gulf-Stream-is-not-slowing-down-scientists-claim.html
Gulfstream not slowing.
I checked the link and it doesn’t say that at all. It says that global warming is not slowing the Gulf Stream.
“They believe that small differences observed in its pace since research began in 1993 are part of a natural cycle. The findings call into question theories proposed by some environmentalists that global warming could shut down the stream, causing temperatures to fall dramatically in Europe.”
WUWT regular M.Vukcevic has the explanation:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AT-GMF.gif
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC21.htm
And a very detailed explanation here:
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/41/83/04/PDF/NATA.pdf
CAGW-Skeptic99 says:
October 5, 2010 at 7:45 am
Let’s start another panic, then. Quick! Don’t let the alrmists beat you to it. 😉
Kate says:
October 5, 2010 at 1:38 am Britain’s top-selling paper The Sun has gone all apocalyptic today
However:
Apocalypse (Greek: Ἀποκάλυψις Apokálypsis; “lifting of the veil” or “revelation”) is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted.
And that veil was lifted on the 19th November 2009. Remember “Climate Gate”?
Excuse me if I offend someone. I am a German writer, thus not a climate scientist. But I am a freak of cold weather (don’t blame me! It’s just that I can’t help it).
I see a little further. The warmer than usual waters around Greenland and a little colder in lower latitudes leaves to the conclusion, that the absolute difference in temperature in the North Atlantic sea surface temp. is located much further south than usual. As the water temperature puts its mark on air streams, this means that in general the westerly flow equally should be located further south, maybe flowing over the Mediterranian. This would mean harsh cold for much of Western, Central and Eastern Europe.
So, I bet on a very severe winter! The strange behave of animals (birds, squirrels) which I haven’t seen for years underlines this bet.
Regards to all! Chris Frey
Chris Frey says:
October 5, 2010 at 11:38 am
That’s a fresh and cool forecast!
Chris Frey says:
October 5, 2010 at 11:38 am
And it’s pure common sense, that forgotten sense which only a few have!. As a song says:
Honesty it’s a word hard to find.
More realistic IMO: Joseph D’Aleo’s Winter 2010 – 2011 forecast:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/WINTER_201011.pdf
I see a lot of options are being expressed!
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6411
Thanks
Piers
PS CO2 changes have ZERO impact on weather or climate in the real world
Anthony, I just checked Caspers link. It mentions Dr Gianluigi Zangari, who if you google, you will find he claims the Gulf stream is dying because of the BP oil spill, thus our addiction to oil is causing our planet to cool(lol). This is sensational/conspiratorial BS news and does not deserve spotlight in your blog.
Przemysław Pawełczyk says:
“…blah, blah, blah….”
—————–
Przemyslaw,
While your antipathy towards Russians is of mild interest and although your English is quite good, my advice to you is to take a couple of Atiwan ( or however you might spell Ativan in Polish) and devote more effort to understanding some of the rudiments of our language. I understand that you don’t have definite or indefinite articles in Polish, but in English they convey meaning. A similar point can be made about verb inversion in direct questions.
Unfortunately, your command of English is not equal to the task of pedantic correction of a native speaker’s use of plural nouns and so, your purported grammatical point winds up looking like cultural chauvinism.
I think you’d have more fun contemplating the re-dilution of the saline oceans by the unknown, but massively increased, issue of unsalted water from the world’s continents.
I’d like to endorse the idea of more posts on the Gulf Stream, or the entire system of the Thermohaline current system in the Atlantic. A number of years ago I read a paper in the AGU (yes, they have good papers on most topics) about the location in ocean core samples where they found the remains of various organisms that are known to populate warmer or colder waters. The paper correlated the location of this particular organism that attaches to colder waters in an arc that went from west to east, at about the northern reach of the Mediterranean, during the last glaciation, as opposed to a much more northerly location in the Atlantic today. This lead the author to surmise that during the last glaciation the gulf stream turned east, considerably further south than today, lending credence to the southern advance of glaciation. And if this is nearly correct, it means that the Gulf Stream doesn’t go away during glaciation periods, it moves further south, and it stays there for a very long time, like 100,000 years.
Any data about the Gulf Stream flow rates and location would be appreciated.
Peter Taylor says: at 5:33 am
“The Gulf Stream is wind-driven . . .”
Is that 100% wind driven or just the part not controlled by topography and a rotating Earth?
And then there is the warmth supplied by the Mediterranean ouflow into the north Atlantic.
Otherwise, you make good sense, so it seems to me.
Please check the name Dr. Gianluigi Zangari. Couple of posters have already notised where this story has originated. It was reported couple of weeks ago, at a finish newspaper, as a frontpage news. Turned out to be completely bogus.
Some polish blogs told the story of Dr. Zangari, who claims that the Gulfstream has slowed because of the oil spill. Then, a radioshow interviewed a meteorologist, who told that if the gulfstream would slow, it could become cold in Europe. If.
After that, it was reported at a polish newspaper, witch claimed it to be a forecast by a polish meteorologist. And then a finish newspaper took the bate, with out bothering to check the facts. Finish blogs had to do the work for them!
So the forecast has not been made by meteorologist, it’s the courtnesy of Dr. Zangari. A polish meteorologist simply told what would happen if the Gulfstream would slow down.
My solar based forecast for deviations from normals through winter 2010/2011, is in general very similar to the forecast given by Theodore White
http://www.mywausanews.com/2010/03/weather-predictions-20102011/
with the stronger negative anomalies occurring from mid February through March. Not a classic `Modern Winter`, but milder than last winter.
John F. Hultquist says:
October 5, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Peter Taylor says: at 5:33 am
“The Gulf Stream is wind-driven . . .”
Is that 100% wind driven or just the part not controlled by topography and a rotating Earth?
_____________________________________________
The jet streams (apart from one occasional sub-tropical jet) are going in the same direction as the rotation of the Earth, but faster. If anything, the streams would be helping to spin the Earth, not the other way round !
And what about the `Eckman Spiral` and water being moved at right angles to the wind direction ?
Ummm….Isn’t Russia cold EVERY winter? For some reason, the names “Napoleon” and “Hitler” come to mind…
What does the Farmer’s Almanac say? It has a better record than most.
Policyguy says:
October 5, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Any data about the Gulf Stream flow rates and location would be appreciated
I dont have direct data but there is a possibly important source of indirect data in the form of sea temperatures (100-150m depths) in the Barents Sea measured over the last century. A paper by Levitus et al (2009) showed a striking correlation between these 100-150m Barents temperatures and the past century reconstruction of the Atlantic Multideadal oscillation (AMO). It was a WUWT posting last year:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/08/new-paper-barents-sea-temperature-correlated-to-the-amo-as-much-as-4%C2%B0c/
The paper is:
Levitus, S., G. Matishov, D. Seidov, and I. Smolyar (2009), Barents Sea multidecadal variability, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L19604, doi:10.1029/2009GL039847.
The Barents Sea is at the tail end of the North Atlantic Drift (NAD). The 100-150m water temperature century scale oscillation shown in this paper has amplitude up to 4C, which seems too large to be accounted for by atmospheric weather effects – it seems more likely that ocean currents – the NAD in particular – could account for this. Other papers on Arctic sea temperatures talk about inflow of warm Atlantic water as a dominant factor.
This would seem to suggest an oscillation in the strength of the NAD coinciding with the AMO.
BTW if you want proof that the NAD reaches the Barents, in the 1990s Bellona, a Norwegian Environmental organistation, measured radioactive waste isotopes in the Barents intending to find evidence of leaking Russian reactors dumped on the sea bed. Instead the isotope signature they found characterised another source of the radioactivity – discharges from the Sellafield reprocessing plant into the Irish Sea, UK.
Old Farmers Almanac has similar indications as myself and Theodore, and I would agree parts of December will be below norm`s, but not the coldest part of winter, considering November should be very mild well into the month.
http://www.almanac.com/forum/weather-forum/winter-outlook-2010-2011-firsthandweathercom
The media in the Baltic states have picked up on the dispute. The Lithuanian climatologist quoted says this winter is “unprognosible,” bravely staking out the middle ground.
My intuition says first snow in Vilnius before Halloween followed by cold but not extremely cold winter, a la a little warmer than the winter of ’41-’42. The kicker might be unusual precipitation in East Scandia/Finland/Kola with gusts bringing it south, in other words, there might be a few heavier than usual snowfalls.