Record cold expected.
The Al Gore effect as well as the testimony on Capitol Hill yesterday has caused a massive chunk of Arctic air to descend from Western Canada into the United States. How do temperatures 6o-70F degrees below average sound to folks along the Canadian border? During the next 10-days (or more!), a hemispheric realignment of the large-scale atmospheric circulation will cause a significant decrease in temperatures over North America and Europe. If this regime reinforces itself during the next few weeks, and a negative Arctic Oscillation phase strengthens, the brutally cold temperatures will provide a dramatic reminder that winter is cold regardless of “global warming”. I anticipate plenty of fossil fuel use coming up.
Weather weenie discussion after the break w/maps
With strong anti-cyclones developing over the North Pacific and North Atlantic at the same time, a highly amplified pattern is developing over the Northern Hemisphere. At the permeable barrier separating the troposphere and stratosphere lies the tropopause. On the tropopause, which is often identified by a constant potential vorticity (PV) surface of 2-PV units, one can plot the potential temperature (Θ) to identify upper-level synoptic phenomena such as the jet stream, Rossby-wave breaking, anticyclones, and cut-off lows. From these so-called “dynamic-tropopause” maps, it is relatively easy to see what’s going on.
The warmer potential temperatures ( Θ ) on the tropopause mean it is higher in the atmosphere since Θ increases with height, unlike regular temperature which decreases through the troposphere (before increasing in stratosphere due to ozone absorption of UV). Thus, tropical and subtropical origin air has much higher dynamic tropopause Θ than the Arctic vortex air which is signified by the gray and purple colors on the map above. Often the difference is well over 100-120 degrees Kelvin.
The sharp gradients of dynamic tropopause Θ are typically where the planet’s jet streams are located. During the 180-hour forecast period, the subtropical jet stream is easily identified over the central United States in conjunction with a powerful storm system. The counter-clockwise turning of the Θ represents cyclonic circulations while the opposite, clockwise circulations are associated with anti-cyclonic circulations or ridges.
The flow for the next week comes straight out of the Arctic over North America. Temperatures will easily sink below zero in many places and a hard freeze is likely for a lot of the US. Europe does not escape the bitter onslaught, either. I provide a couple maps below from my FSU website that show the temperatures for the next 180-hours, and the deviations from climatology.
All of this discussion is on the synoptic scale or days to a week time scale. Forecasts longer than this are not particularly skillful, so it is not clear how the La Nina will evolve over the next month. Furthermore, no two La Ninas act the same so averaging together previous events is not particularly skillful either. Main point: the atmosphere rarely matches the “mean state”. Perhaps Heidi Cullen can explain it better than I — after all she was on the Weather Channel.
Kinda makes me whimsically wish the warmistas were right. I hate the cold!
From the last map/animation, follow the stats at the top of the map. Using the newly released NCEP CFSR reanalysis dataset of 2-meter temperatures from 1979-2009, I compute a climatology based upon the average of the past 31-years using a 21-day centered mean. The deviation from this climatology is then area-averaged for the globe, midlatitudes, and tropics using the most current NCEP GFS deterministic forecast model output, which uses a very similar numerical weather prediction model as the NCEP CFSR reanalysis.
The Northern Hemisphere is currently a couple degrees F above the 31-year average, but gives it all back and more during the next 180-hours. The globe will be “below normal” for the first time in a while, likely wiping out the string of anomalously high temps measured by NOAA…
Ryan, many of the readers will find “anti-cylones” to be confusing. Please reduce the weather weenie speak a few notches.
Here in Europe we ain’t no chickensh*ts either.
http://www.meteogroup.co.uk/uk/home/weather/latest-model-forecasts/gfs-popup/archiv/Europe/tmin2m/2010111712/nothumb/on/312/ch/a9782f0477b99be6d84d0247b1ee5653.html
What’s the prognosis for the UK? Meteogroup and Accuweather seem to be forecasting central Europe to bear the brunt, but Blighty will be spared.
Ryan, disregard my earlier comment. I had only read as far as anti-cyclone and I hadn’t realized how far you into weather speak you actually went in the remainder of the paragraph.
[ryan: consider it like WGN meteorologist Tom Skilling’s forecasts where he shows a zillion maps that graduate students would only appreciate]
Anthony,
An early Christmas present for me?
No, you shouldn’t have.
No, REALLY you should not have!
REPLY: The Author is Dr. Ryan Maue
Bob Tisdale says:
November 18, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Ryan, many of the readers will find “anti-cylones” to be confusing. Please reduce the weather weenie speak a few notches.
========================================================
Bob, one should always offer a solution to a problem pointed out, when possible, so, I propose and addendum to your request!
Please see
Heidi, ehem, excuse me, Dr. Cullen for the proper monosyllabic synonyms.Beware the cold.
If it is warm, you have longer cropping seasons. If it is warm, you have more moisture to water the crops.
If it is cold, you have shorter cropping seasons. Crops cannot grow if the soil is covered by ice.
Beware the cold.
Here in Toronto, we’ll escape most of the blast thanks to La Nina. I have my snow shovel ready, though, because January could be a bit snowy.
But of course it is going to get cold. We saw just this week a “wonderful paper’ explaining how global warming oops climate disruption is caused the NH to cool. It is so obvious isn’t it?
This is consistant with my CAGW models!!!
I wonder how this will compare to the heat wave in Russia and media play time…
weather or not…
Yarmy says:
November 18, 2010 at 1:40 pm
What’s the prognosis for the UK? Meteogroup and Accuweather seem to be forecasting central Europe to bear the brunt, but Blighty will be spared.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_weather.html
Outlook for Saturday to Monday:
Getting colder as a northeasterly sets in. Early rain clearing southwest England on Saturday. Drier elsewhere. Some sunshine, but rain showers spreading to the northeast with snow on northern hills.
Updated: 1505 on Thu 18 Nov 2010
UK Outlook for Tuesday 23 Nov 2010 to Thursday 2 Dec 2010:
A generally unsettled and chilly start with clear or sunny spells in central and western parts, but cloudier with showers in the east, perhaps frequent at first. The showers will be wintry over hills, particularly in the north. It will gradually turn colder through next week with showers turning increasingly wintry to lower levels with a risk of some significant accumulations of snow in northern and eastern parts. Temperatures below average for the time of year with an increasing risk of overnight frost and icy surfaces, especially where skies clear. Feeling cold in the often fresh and mainly northeasterly wind. The cold theme continues into December for most parts, with northern and eastern parts most at risk from wintry weather, although western parts may start to turn less cold.
Updated: 1149 on Thu 18 Nov 2010
UK Outlook for Friday 3 Dec 2010 to Friday 17 Dec 2010:
Relatively cold across much of the UK, with precipitation amounts around average or slightly below, throughout the period. Northeasterly winds could bring wintry showers to northern and eastern areas at times. Amounts of sunshine should be around average away from northern and eastern coasts where it is likely to be cloudier. Temperatures are likely to be below average across much of the country, with locally frosty nights and the possibility of some wintry precipitation at times for many areas.
Updated: 1154 on Thu 18 Nov 2010
It’s all just further incontrovertible evidence of wilder weather and climate disruption which naturally causes polar bears to go hungry and skin thickening among climate scientists-
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/scientists-warn-to-expect-wilder-weather/story-e6frfku0-1225956156986
See? Proof that northern latitudes will get colder! Worse than we all thought! Run for the
hillsseassouthern latitudes….. just run around in circles!!!The Northern Hemisphere is currently a couple degrees F above the 31-year average, but gives it all back and more during the next 180-hours. The globe will be “below normal” for the first time in a while, likely wiping out the string of anomalously high temps measured by NOAA…
____________________________________________________________
I wouldn’t bank on it, methinks you are seriously under-estimating Dr. Hansen’s “resourcefulness”.
Look for a host of “2010 – The hottest year ever” headlines come mid-January, even if half the Northern Hemisphere is buried under six foot of snow…
Man even on these maps it looks like it is still going to be quite warm here in South Florida. I am sick of the warm weather, it doesn’t feel like Fall yet! I want my cool Fall breezes!
For reference, where I am is nice and orange in Figure 2.
Dr Maue,
Thanks for the post – those maps look cool …
The first interest my wife of 30 years showed in AGW, or any of my other science interests, was when I showed her a photo of Ryan!
I love you too xx.
Absent the 1,500-year Younger Dryas “cold shock”, an impact-induced period of glacial rebound ending about BC 7200 (9,200 years-before-present), Earth’s current Holocene Interglacial Epoch would likely have ended c. AD 450, coincident with the Fall of Rome.
Now on the the threshold of a 70-year “dead sun” Maunder Minimum similar to that of 1645 – 1715, when wolves froze to death in Rhineland forests and Louis XIV’s wine-goblets frosted over during banquets at Versailles, resurgent Ice Time threatens after decades of climate cultists’ sabotage of global energy economies.
Warmists are Luddite sociopaths, Thanatists who “love death more than life” as their mullah-dullah confreres are wont to put it… either objective, rational discourse wins out, and soon, or worldwide mega-deaths will be the consequence.
Al Gore will be in The Netherlands for his doctor honoris causa in Tilburg on nov 23rd.
This comment is a bit off thread, but significant in the overall issue.
The city of Hamburg was yesterday named Europe’s greenest city, even though it is currently building the largest coal fired power station in Germany. !
If you want confirmation of the press release, you will find it on the TV show “The Journal” broadcast every week day out of Berlin, and seen in Australia on SBS TV.
The Germans aren’t going to freeze in the winter darkness, unlike some others in the world of the Greens AGW religion, where power cost increases are going to cause significant unnecessary pain for the less well off.. The Germans believe in the green concept, BUT they employ common sense on power issues, it seems.
James Sexton says:
November 18, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Please see Heidi, ehem, excuse me, Dr. Cullen for the proper monosyllabic synonyms.
===================================================
Bob never fails to point out the obvious….
….and James can always figure out a way to make me laugh out loud
Thank you both!
We’ve had a spectacular La Nina autumn here in the Denver area and I hope it continues despite the looming cold stated in the article.
Below zero – brrrrrrr!
The temperature maps should be compared along side water vapor maps. I think it would give a better picture of the relationship between the two.
Can we get our money back on the hybrid?It cooling the earth off too much. HELP
It would be pretty cool if the atmosphere was actually colored that way!
Else than that, we have early snow today in the Fraser Valley (British-Columbia). Compared to Calgary it will be fairly warm here.
Perfect timing of the severe cold air in the north and the start of the UN FCCC meeting in Cancun. Thousands of climate bureaucrats, politicians and environmental do-gooders will be reminded there that the planet has no fever.
James Sexton says:
November 18, 2010 at 1:35 pm
What he said!
DaveE.
This just in: It gets cold in in the northern latitudes in the winter months.
latitude says: “Bob never fails to point out the obvious….”
That’s what I do best, point out the obvious, like the global oceans integrating ENSO:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/11/multidecadal-changes-in-sea-surface_17.html
Regards
Maybe just in time for the Cancun climate conference. Hopefully, some of the delegates will be delayed due to airports being frozen out. :o)
Hydrocarbons… not “fossil” fuels.
Wind turbines anyone?
Ahhhh! I knew I read it here.
[November 16, 2010]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/16/in-climate-world-up-is-down/
I said:
Perhaps that cold arctic air will freeze the water along the southern shore of Hudson Bay. I just heard on CBC radio news that the ice is unusually slow in forming there and the polar bears aren’t able to get out and hunt seals.
IanM
Ray says:
November 18, 2010 at 3:08 pm
….. we have early snow today in the Fraser Valley (British-Columbia). Compared to Calgary it will be fairly warm here.
==========
Watching it outside my window as I type this. Not ultra rare by any stretch, but pretty uncommon to see snow ’round these parts in November. We’re called the ‘Wet Coast’ for good reason.
That e-mail from Westjet I got earlier had some pretty good deals down to warmer climes……
Nippy it is Down Under, too, with summer just round the corner. If those UAH anomaly numbers don’t rock below zero come month’s end, better get someone up there to have a look see at those satellites to suss what’s cookin’.
Getting my winter tyres installed tomorrow. This looks like a nasty one.
Presently -14 C here in Edmonton.
Supposed to go down to -29C or -20F tonight.
The irony abounds. First Nopenhagen got flash frozen just in time to save the world from Suzuki et al. Now legislators will head to Brazil knowing that back home, their constituents are shovelling a few feet of global warming off their sidewalks. It seems Somebody up there likes us. Don’t let them forget we are watching what they do, and will punish any that still don’t get it.
To add to the interest the Canadian long range weather model drags the real cold arctic air all the way south through Nevada by about mid-next week. The model then develops a very intense storm moving up from the southwest and through the American mid-west by the later part of next week. Meanwhile the American GFS model has a much tamer scenario (albeit still cold) without this big storm. In my biased opinion, I think the Canadian model has been much better overall than the GFS this past year for some reason. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but right now I would suggest you folks in the mid-west stay tuned for a possible good winter storm (blizzard-like) about the end of next week.
geez i now have 3-5 ft of snow forecast. for the weekend. maybe more.
FOR SNOW TOTALS…LIQUID AMOUNTS ALONG THE EASTERN SIERRA CREST
ARE 2-3 INCHES AND WITH SNOW RATIOS AT 15-20 TO 1…THAT EQUATES
TO 3-5 FEET WITH POTENTIAL FOR HIGHER AMOUNTS….ONE FINAL NOTE…THE OVERALL PATTERN IS KNOWN TO PRODUCE SOME OF THE HIGHEST SNOWFALL TOTALS ON RECORD IN THE SIERRA AND WESTERN
NEVADA. SO AS THE EVENT UNFOLDS…LIQUID FORECAST AMOUNTS MAY
SLOWLY INCREASE AND THUS ANY OF THE TOTALS ABOVE COULD END UP
BEING HIGHER. BRONG
Ok I just have to say this-:
James Hanson, “paint it RED jimboy” atta boy.
We gotcha covered.
And same will happen in europe over next week…
Again funny how weather affects so many continents at same time.
Here in Norway temps are already running 3c below normal in some areas and it is expected to get even colder over the next two weeks.
To me this looks like a repeat of last winter expect it hit earlier.
Whoops C&P glitch
Send some down to Perth… we are set to exceed 102F today. unseasonably hot for late spring, but that’s the weather for ya. I shall have to clean the airconditioner filters this weekend.
But at least is a consolation that to know that “it is consistent with” global warming. LMAO
Colin from Mission B.C. – too bad the “Global Warming Winter Olympics” last year in Vancouver aren’t being held now. When I hear “Frazier River Canyon” I get cold chills
remembering my days freezing me arse off at Sea-Tac or Boeing field in January/February…
I say this is now a beginning of weather as I remember the 60’s and 70’s….
Too bad it isn’t a dry cold. However, at least the snow blanket will protect the ground a bit. If it gets much lower, especially in the daytime, freezing pipes are not the only concern. Frozen sewer pipes are much worse to deal with.
I guess I am a little slow being now classified as a senior citizen. What is all this fuss about. It is winter people and we that live in the north are missing our snow and cold. It is not that cold, I mean the polar bears in Hudson Bay, poor things, don’t even have ice to go out on. This arctic air mass, often called an Alberta Clipper, why I have no idea, is now giving Calgary its first real snow of the winter. About time I say. Had those cross country skies ready to go for weeks now. Anyway this is how I remember it from my youth. You know when I trudged through Wisconsin snow, waist deep all way to and from school, up hill in both directions mind you.
Lets hear it for temperatures about – 20 C is best for flooding the ice skating rink you know.
All this cold just in time for Cancun where the temps will hover around 80 degrees F (27 d celcius) and showers for the next 2 weeks. As the eco elite wine and dine their way to global warming bureaucracy heaven most of the world will freeze.
Time to fire up the ice auger and go after those 14 inch perch
Winter is Coming.
Cant wait for it to hit the great divide…
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas….
Yarmy says:
November 18, 2010 at 1:40 pm
What’s the prognosis for the UK? Meteogroup and Accuweather seem to be forecasting central Europe to bear the brunt, but Blighty will be spared.
Yes, also Bastardi thinks south and central Europe will get it worst – but we in the north-west will be spared any extreme cold, and I think he means the long term winter forecast, not just the coming week:
http://www.accuweather.com/video/677466324001/hey-europe-the-arctic-hound-is-getting-ready-to-howl.asp?channel=vbbastaj
That said winter has already started in Scotland; we’ve had hard frosts in October and November, various roads have been blocked with snow a few times, and the Cairngorm ski centre opened a month earlier than normal.
Benjamin P. says:
November 18, 2010 at 3:21 pm
“This just in: It gets cold in in the northern latitudes in the winter months.”
Try telling the warmistas that – they are in denial.
So, we’re going to have an arctic outbreak, eh? BFD. The 8-14 day has above normal temps (11/26 out…) for the northwest and below normal for the northeast and southeast. But 40 below normal? Here in the NW where we get it first, temps look to be about 20 below normal, but this is nothing weird for this time of year. Weather happens.
Fascinating presentation, Ryan. Thank you. Keep up the good work.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Just a little south, like Vancouver, WA and all that cold would scoot right past and give you a miss. It’ll all be gone by T-day from the looks of it on weather.com, but weatherunderground seems to think it’ll linger about that long. No record breaking forecast for MT yet.
Bulldust send some heat over sydney we have ad the heater on all day with the power bills going up because of our carbon tax we know some people who have fired up the old wood fire and cooking outside on a wood fire .and it feels good to go back to the old days thanks too our greeny govt
Oh dear, a cold winter. I have already put a heating unit in my birdbath to keep the water liquid in the coldest part of winter. An important consideration for those of you who love birds. If all is ice the birds cannot drink. I am frantically trying to figure out a way to keep a warm area around my birdfeeder so the seed doesn’t freeze together stopping the birds from feeding.
And these fools go to Cancun. They would be better off taking care of the birds in their backyard.
Ski hills from Whistler to Banff are opening early with good winter snow storms and the freezing level already at the mountain base … if you want to go skiing at 20 below C … But it will warm to close to the freezing level by late next week.
In a gratuitous self-plug and temporally displaced fashion (for you gals and guys in the US at least) I shall don my “Bulldust” shirt and head to my local (Aussie) pub to celebrate this anniversary of the dubbing of ClimateGate:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/
Bulldust says: November 19, 2009 at 3:52 pm
“Hmmm how long before this is dubbed ClimateGate?”
I can’t believe it has only been a year, but what a year! Cause for celebration I think.
I nearly died laughing as I was scrolling down the main page and the pic came up
hahahahahahahahhahahaha
Argh… mean temperatures of the last 30 days where I live are already 1.1 C below the “normal” (of the relatively cold 1961-90 period….), and the next two weeks we seem to get at least 5 C below normal.
“Often the difference is well over 100-120 degrees Kelvin.”
I know I’m being pedantic – this is a science article, after all – but ‘degrees’ has not been used with the Kelvin temperature scale for decades. Thus, 100-200 kelvin (lowercase ‘k’).
See http://www.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/chapter2/2-1/kelvin.html for details.
And on the anniversary of the “stolen” CRU e-mails, here in Sydney, Aus, it’s STILL a cool end to late spring. Dec 1st, fist day of summer, apparently, but (As I predicted last summer) it will be cool again. I am liking the lack of flying bugs however. But this coolness is being reported as normal weather, onshore winds etc etc blah blah blah, soon as there is a “hot” day, it’ll be proof of AGW, CAGW, CC and/or CD. Well, we now know what Cancun is all about. So weather it be, cold, hot, wet, dry, snowy, rainy…won’t matter. The real fix is in.
hi guys
I am picking up the 4×4 next week, bought in anticiaption of the cold a coming (thanks to all on this website as I took note of their predictions and prepared for the winter, logs and coal are also in), thing is I haven’t got it yet, oh well, will pick up said Yeti after a long drive up North next week. ideal conditions to test it out, hurrah.
Ryan!
How good is your computer graphic interface into looking at past hourly data, could you assemble subsequent hourly patterns of past data back as far as 1979?
If you took these maps and sequenced them into a movie with each frame one every hourly map until you had 27.32 days, then tile a second coordinated 27.32 day set to the right of the first until the progression is back to the start of the cycle again, keep adding tiled stacks so you can view the maps that are in phase by the North to South declination of the moon. You should be able after four set after starting the fifth tile it should look much like the first as the whole lot changes in synchrony every hourly maps simultaneous progression.
The other way to visualize the same effects to be to superimpose a small white circle, upon the maps as they progress in a single stack (instead of multiples) centered on the long/lat of the overhead position of the moon, so the movement of the tidal effects could be visually understood. You should be able to observe the atmospheric tidal bulges following the daily advance in the hourly position as well as the longer 27.32 day declinational effects.
The moon crossed the Equator on the 16th and is now in the end of what I call a western Canadian cycle, this Alberta clipper should become a shift to the pacific air mass invasion regime at Maximum North LD on the 23rd.
If you could produce the same format of lunar circle viewing of periods of tornado or hurricane production, the resultant interactive drive and storm generation should be easily seen, no fudged data, just a clear picture of reality. If you could derive such a movie from stored data it will teach you a lot about storm genesis timing and impact strength, if you look at the same pattern 6558 days earlier, those two shifting frames should be almost twins.
What I wouldn’t do to have access to data and programs to view what I wanted in the formats I would like to present, to see the QBO just add a yellow circle for the spot the sun is on the zenith. 28 cycles of the 27.32 day declinational pattern, when the lunar phase and the declination syncs up again ~765 days.
You will be able to watch the shifts in the trade winds as the phase shift between them changes the drive harmonics over the 18.6 year pattern, the PDO as the declination plays with the winds in the lee of the Himalaya mountain obstructions, that splits the zonal flow across the Pacific that allows the trades to come and go in the partial vacuum driven by the lunar tides interactions giving rise to the SOI and ENSO effects. These patterns will be modified by the interactions of the outer planets, including them in the process will help to define their parts in the tornado, hurricane, and typhoon cyclonic genesis.
Just thinking out loud, if you get a chance to look I would be interested what you thought………
Richard Holle
[ryanm: daily gridded atmospheric fields do exist, and are easily analyzed using the GrADS software…]
I think this winter will be very mild in the Europe!
James Sexton says:
November 18, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Kinda makes me whimsically wish the warmistas were right. I hate the cold!
I know it was said in jest, but seriously: NEVER wish for that. I’d exchange the current tyranny for an ice age ANY day (and no, I don’t underestimate the power of an ice age).
AGW, ACC, CAGW….
Every time I manage to memorise the acronym and what it means, the b….dy warmistas just change the thing and I have to start all over again and with my low intelligence, lack of memory and brain cell depletion to the the rise of CO2, its very hard for me to understand and remember things.
It seems that the only anthropogenic change happening is in the acronyms themselves……it’s just catastrophic for me. What next? Any guesses?
Sth eastern Aus, cold! the days have been ok this week but the nights are well below the norm. I have never! had the fire lit after august before, but this year, I have, in Nov? in Aus..wow.
Six inches of snow overnight with winds building drifts across roadways here in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Cold too. My wife reoprted from Vancouver Island that they had the first snow of the season down on the lowlands, that’s almost unheard of for this time of year, at least in the last 30 years or so. Luckily for her, it will melt, here in Winnipeg, its just the start of a long cold winter, they don’t call it Winterpeg for nothing.
“How do temperatures 6o-70F degrees below average sound to folks along the Canadian border?”
As extreme cacophony, nails on the chalkboard. I see I should expect single digits +/- which would be some small number of weeks early.
Looks like the real shock is for points well south.
http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/full.php
Is it just me, or do a lot of the little events showing up on the above center on urban areas? Is it just ground clutter, or is it “UHI effect” precipitation?
Is it true that in Winnipeg you can watch your dog run away for three days?
It has to be ground clutter. They really center on radars, as can be seen by the artifact in Lake Michigan, if you needed proof.
– Emily Latella.
Dennis Nikols, P. Geol. says:
November 18, 2010 at 5:57 pm
The the ‘alberta clipper’ is not just the cold air although that does arrive with it. I believe it to be a secondary low which forms in the ‘warm’ sea off vancouver and deepens rapidly while pushing in_land at great speed. It travels along the isobars and therefore close to the jet stream. This combination can makes it a vicious storm. Relatively high sea temps, high humidity, with very low temps to the north of the perturbation and warm air to the south equals violence.
Dennis
In europe will call it a polar low and they can also be nasty affairs but not like the clipper; a sailing boat, of course, which rides on the wind just like the low pressure clipper.
So … winter is coming?
Love the tongue-in-cheek, especially the cause and effect.
“”””” Pete says:
November 19, 2010 at 2:58 am
“Often the difference is well over 100-120 degrees Kelvin.”
I know I’m being pedantic – this is a science article, after all – but ‘degrees’ has not been used with the Kelvin temperature scale for decades. Thus, 100-200 kelvin (lowercase ‘k’). “””””
I don’t know where you got that; BUT (k) is the standard symbol for “kilo” meaning 1,000 in the SI units system; and then (k) is also universally “Boltzmann’s Constant”.
And in the SI system of units all units that are proper names (of scientifically historic figures) use capital letters; and Kelvin most certainly is a proper name; and is also the accepted unit for Absolute Temperature. That is the Temperature in Kelvins, always refers to the Temperature relative to the absolute zero of Temperature; so there are NO degrees Kelvin.
Three degrees Kelvin other than being improper usage refers to a Temperature that is extremely cold; not to the amount that it may have warmed since sunrise this morning. Degrees celcius, are identical in magnitude to Kelvins, but have their zero point at 273.15 Kelvins. One Kelvin is 1/273.16 of the Triple point Temperature of water. (0.01 deg C).
No rotten baby ice at the Antarctic either
http://notrickszone.com/2010/11/19/antarctic-ice-explosion/
Well I see that the BIPM has gone totally nutz and demoted all the great scientists to just nouns.
I’m happy to use their units; even though I know as a good American that the “metric system” is just a communist plot to wreck America; but they can go to hell, before I will use lower case letters for the proper name scientific units.
Hey even the Germans have the good sense to put caps on all nouns. So now I’m going to get roasted and told that habit went away with the umlauts. Isn’t anything sacred any more.
To me it is just daft; and very typical of the French, to use the same unit for Boltzmann’s Constant as is used for Thermodynamic Temperature. So what are we supposed to do when they both occur in the same formula.
So now Planck’s Constant and Inductance are the same thing; simply wunnerful ! And femtoFarads is now simply ff
would this be a good time to watch “An Inconvienent Truth” we must be reminded that when it gets cold it isn’t really getting cold, the planet is getting warmer… remember?
Improve that photo shop by changing Al baby’s face to a GREENER one (and more convenient color).
I now consider my new thermal underwear purchase to be somewhat of an investment.
A taste of what’s to come in the following years ?
Time will tell.
Good luck to all AGW alarmists in trying to convince the masses that the earth is heating up whilst scraping the ice off of their windshields in unprecidented bitterly cold temps.
Somebody pass the popcorn.
This is gonna be good.
Great, wonderful, and all that jazz. On top of this inflation has been showing its ugly head so it could be a cold and expensive blast.
Wrong.
A cold event of this duration and magnitude cannot be happening. AGW and all that evil CO2 in the atmosphere, placed there by man’s irresponsible actions, is warming the winters.
The consensus of learned scientists say this.
Therefore, it is just not possible for an unusual cold event to occur – the CO2 is on guard against it. The little CO2 molecules bombard the Earth with tiny rays of heat energy, and those tiny rays make more water evaporate into the air, which absorb even more heat – this then warms the Earth like a blanket. Thus, extreme winter cold events will not happen. The science on all this is settled, as everyone knows.
Please. Disregard the evidence provided by your lying eyes.
Also, if you are exposed to the bitter cold, disregard the evidence provided by your lying skin. And hands. And toes. And nose. And ears. None of that is to be credited as true.
Have a short memory. Remember the warm and hot events, and all the heat waves, and notice the sea level rising and encroaching on the shore, and note the sudden drop in coastal property values. Remember that the science is settled, and climate scientists were exonerated from any wrongdoing.
The scientists have spoken. So be it.
Me? I’m believing my eyes and senses. We’re expecting FOUR FEET of snow this weekend at Lake Tahoe and surrounding areas. Normal for the entire month of November is 16 inches of snow (1914 – 2006 average) – per the Western Regional Climate Center – Desert Research Institute.
Roger Sowell said:
In AGW world 1 foot = 4 inches, so that’s OK then 🙂
Here’s one, from yesterday:
@roger Sowell — my friend in your area just posted on Facebook:
“INTENSE STORM DUMPS 1/2 FOOT OF SNOW IN 2 HOURS AT LAKE LEVEL.”
A ski day tomorrow for him, I assume. 🙂
The local weather channel is showing temps in Vanc. BC running 6-8°C (12°F) below normal for the next week. Snow on the ground; kind of nice, sometimes we go a whole winter without seeing any! And we know it will melt soon — it had better! Vanc. drivers are DEADLY on cold, snowy, or icy roads. Crazed killers …
Thanks for the heads up.
We got 2 cold fronts back-to-back here in NW Ca.
First one came from the Pacific Northwest. No big deal.
2nd one came from the Yukon (so they tell us) and the weather outside is blustery and downright bitter.
The dog doesn’t want to go outside.
Can’t blame her. I don’t either.
Northern Exposure says:
November 19, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Hey, that’s Anthropogenic Global Catastrophe that you’re scraping off the window.
It’s the backfiring from the GoreCruiser that you gotta watch out for.
@ Nelly Bly
Here’s a site with webcams of several Lake Tahoe skiiing venues, also Yosemite Valley, showing the snow’s progress.
http://rntl.net/tahoecam.htm
Throw another chair leg on the fire Mother.
Wow. This prediction is laughably wrong.
Low temps in Washington DC today (Nov 22) were predicted in the illustration to be the mid 20’s F. Last night’s low was 42, Tonights is supposed to be 52.
Low Temps in Bozeman Montana were -11 last night, predicted 7 tonight, whereas the illustration predicts -15 F or below.
For Boise Idaho, the map says a low of under 10 F today. Yesterdays’ low? 30, tonight’s predicted? 32.
Just as accurate as the sea ice prediction from August. That is to say, not at all.
Ryan Maue: the map you are looking at is apparently too complicated. See ur next comment…
REPLY: Yep sort of like those Higgs Boson predictions that never materialized, but forecasts require patience. You really should have a look at this forecast:
Source: http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/graphical/sectors/
Quite a bit of cold covering the nation there. Oh and don’t forget where the official temp for Washington DC is taken is UHI compromised, have a look at surrounding stations.
*snort*
I can walk outside an feel the demonstrable lack of veracity of the prediction.
The map you just posted is 10 degrees warmer at a minimum, virtually everywhere in united states than the prediction map (and also for nov 25 instead of today. The NOAA Map for _this_ morning (Nov 22, the same day as the prediction map above) is even _warmer_.
Highlights include a 40 degree misprediction in central Missouri (actually in the 70’s instead of the predicted 20’s) 30 degrees off in Michigan, Over 20 degrees off in North Dakota.
This was a truly awful and inaccurate prediction, and the smug reactions to it above, accepting it as fact before the evidence was in, quite saddening.
[ryanmaue: Unfortunately, you are not interpreting the minimum temperature plot correctly. It is the coldest temperature to be experienced during the forecast period of 180-hours at each grid point. You need to look at the individual forecast maps for each day … The high in Helena Montana is going to be 4F, which is about 35F below normal for the day.]
Nope. The lows on every NOAA prediction map (1am, and 4am) from now to Saturday are consistently 20 to 20 degrees warmer at a minimum than the prediction map in this article across the country.
As for Helena (aside from the fact it’s 5 now, but that’s the tiniest quibble), the lowest low predicted in the next 10 days is -11 F, whereas the prediction map shows somewhere between -15 and -20 for Helena. Fargo, ND has a predicted lowest low in of about -2, which looks to be among the only hits the prediction map has.
Places like Walla Walla, with a minimum of 4F predicted Tuesday night are still ~20 above this post’s map’s prediction. I stand by the assessment that the posted prediction map is at least 10-20 F colder than NOAA says, on average, for the vast majority of the US.
The NOAA prediction map is based upon the same model I am plotting. There are higher resolution versions… Two different model cores of a similar system: 4-km WRF run minimum temperatures during the next 48-hours for ARW and NMM cores. You must consider the grid spacing of the GFS model results, inherent model bias, the height reduction of the temperature measurement (2-meters), and the forecast lead time. Thus, a 5-day forecast has skill, but clearly not as much as a 24-hour one.
All right, I’m willing to take that grain of salt. I still think this particular 180 hour prediction looks to be significantly overstating minimum temps. But then no predictor is perfect.
The point that winter is cold despite warming trends is something that could do with more recognition. A degree or two of warming will barely register to a local population when the average low temp of a winter region is, say, -5 vs. -7 degrees F.
It’s conversely interesting that the temp anomalies in the arctic – and especially over Greenland and Alaska at this same time are 30-40 or more degrees F _above_ average.
Currently
30-40 or more degrees F below
average in Alberta, Canada.
http://www.wunderground.com/global/CA_AB.html
Yes, but as you say Xeno, a huge change in the Arctic is a small blip against the variability from year to year. The temperature in the Arctic in a given November has a large standard deviation, and of course tails in each direction making it hardly normal. I produce plots which take into account the variability and will put some on my website soon.
Went into DC yesterday and it was 70 degrees, far above normal. But that’s pointless to bring up in a climate discussion, because the real measure we are looking for is climate trends, which is not going to be determined by localized, short term temperature swings. And yes, the lower 48 states are localized, as they represent less than 1.5% of the Earth’s surface.
I can’t believe people here are still struggling with the concept of climate and weather, but then again, there is little skeptics can hang their hat on these days…