The 2010 Snowmageddon event was quickly seized upon in an NYT op-ed by global warming zealot Al Gore as yet more proof of…climate…warming…mumble.. something.
Yet in this NASA article highlighting a new peer reviewed paper, global warming/climate change isn’t even mentioned. Hmmm, who to trust?
From NASA: Deconstructing a Mystery: What Caused Snowmaggedon?
In the quiet after the storms, streets and cars had all but disappeared under piles of snow. The U.S. Postal Service suspended service for the first time in 30 years. Snow plows struggled to push the evidence off of major roads. Hundreds of thousands of Washington metropolitan residents grappled with the loss of electricity and heat for almost a week.
By Feb. 10, 2010 the National Weather Service reported that three storms spanning from December to February in the winter of 2009-10 had dumped a whopping 54.9 inches of snow on the Baltimore-Washington area. The snowfall broke a seasonal record first set in 1899. Snowmaggedon, as the winter was dubbed, entered the history books as the snowiest winter on record for the U.S. East Coast.
Two years later, scientists are still searching to identify the unique set of conditions that enabled storms of this magnitude to occur. To determine a direct cause to infrequent but major winter storms, Siegfried Schubert and colleagues Yehui Chang and Max Suarez – all of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., – became detectives.
Schubert is a meteorologist and senior research scientist for Goddard’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO). Using a computer model that simulates the atmosphere, called the Goddard Earth Observing System Model, Version 5 (GEOS-5), Schubert pieced together the meteorological whodunit of 2010’s ‘Snowmaggedon.’
“There are things that we know that affect storminess over the U.S.,” Schubert said. “One is when there is an El Niño, which tends to favor more storms. Given the connection between El Niño and sea surface temperatures, we thought we’d actually do a modeling study to see if we could pinpoint the role of sea surface temperatures in driving the snowstorms.”
This is a satellite image of one of the massive “Snowmaggedon” blizzard systems in February 2010. Notice the distinctive comma-shaped cloud pattern. Credit: NASA/GSFC
Warmer Pacific Can Mean Stormy Atlantic
El Niño is an ocean-atmospheric climate pattern characterized by unusually warm sea surface temperatures and heightened rainfall in the central and eastern tropical Pacific. The increased rain occurs when warm sea surface temperatures heat the surrounding air, which then rises and condenses into rain clouds. The end result of these changes in the tropics is a shifting of the extra-tropical air currents, or jet streams. Changes in the jet streams can then alter storm paths around the globe.
Over the U.S., El Niño tends to produce an unusual eastward extension of the Pacific jet stream and storminess across the southern tier of states. Using the GEOS-5 model, Schubert and his team isolated the role that sea surface temperatures played in changing the storminess across the Northern Hemisphere. By initializing the model with the early December 2009 atmospheric conditions and the higher sea surface temperatures from that time, Schubert and his colleagues were able to reproduce many of the subsequent changes in winter storminess.
“El Niño is predictable on monthly and seasonal time scales. But we know that sea surface temperatures don’t control everything about the atmosphere,” Schubert said. “Storms develop in the atmosphere whenever they decide to as a result of instabilities. Models can’t replicate the actual sequence of events in predictions extending beyond a few weeks, but they can predict whether or not there will be more or fewer storms, because of the sea surface temperatures.” Schubert and his team ran 50 different simulations, slightly changing the atmospheric conditions each time while keeping the actual sea surface temperatures the same. In the end, the data showed that the storms were influenced more by the sea surface temperatures, and less by the changing atmospheric conditions.
“The atmosphere is chaotic, but if we do this over and over again, slightly changing the initial conditions, we can average the runs, filter out all the random atmosphere variability and see the part that’s driven by sea surface temperatures,” Schubert said.
Getting Snow Instead of Rain
While El Niño tends to produce greater storminess, it does not necessarily lead to more snowstorms along the East Coast. Without colder temperatures, these storms bring just rain.
Cue the second culprit: a fluctuation of the atmospheric pressure differences in the Atlantic between the Icelandic low-pressure field and the Azores high-pressure field further south. The North Atlantic Oscillation, as it is called, controls the strength and direction of westerly winds, as well as storm tracks across the North Atlantic. Scientists cannot predict these fluctuations very well. But it is known that in a positive phase, the north-south pressure difference is enhanced and the west-to-east winds are strong, effectively creating a wall that keeps cold air in the Arctic. In the negative phase, the north-south pressure difference is reduced, allowing cold Arctic wind to bear down across the North Atlantic.
“It’s a structure that tends to favor cold temperatures on the East Coast when it’s in the negative phase,” said Schubert. While the atmospheric pressure fields oscillate at daily and weekly time scales, the winter of 2009-10 saw the North Atlantic Oscillation in a strong extended-negative phase. Combine the resulting influx of Arctic air for an unusually long period of time with the moisture and storminess from El Niño, and the once fuzzy cause of these monster storms starts to come into focus. The research shows that the extreme weather over the Eastern U.S. in the winter of 2009-10 was part of a response mainly to El Niño and its associated Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures.
The results were then compared with those of a winter (1999-2000) characterized by having completely opposite conditions: a La Niña and a positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation. When compared with Snowmaggedon, the winter of 1999-2000 showed less storminess and decreased chances of snow. This comparison helped Schubert and his team corroborate the hypothesis, confirming that El Niño-induced sea surface temperatures and an extended negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation caused the changes in 2009-10 winter storminess.
Predicting Another Snowmaggedon
In order to improve snow predictions, scientists need to better understand how the North Atlantic Oscillation works and what causes it to stay in an extended period.
There is evidence that the extended negative mode is impacted by sea surface temperatures and maybe even snow cover in Asia. Scientists, however, have not directly linked any one weather variable to the North Atlantic Oscillation.
“People have done these historical studies before to come up with measures, and if you look at the record of major snow storms, some have occurred during El Niño winters and a negative North Atlantic Oscillation phase,” Schubert said. “But sea surface temperatures impacting storminess in the different ocean basins has never been quantified and it’s never been clear what is a relative contribution and in what way they are contributing,” he added.
Richard Seager, a research professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, also studies how El Niño and weakened atmospheric pressure contributes to snow anomalies.
“This model not only confirms that a negative North Atlantic Oscillation and El Niño conditions created the conditions that allowed these storms to form,” said Seager, who did not work with Schubert on this research. “But it is useful in showing how the atmosphere can act differently when combining El Niño with different sea surface temperatures. These models provide controlled conditions, which allow us to be sure about the exact causes,” Seager added.
Scientists have predicted that current La Niña conditions and below-average sea surface temperatures might be the cause for the mild 2012 winter on the Eastern U.S. Examples like this, Schubert said, is why it is important to better understand the relationship between sea surface temperatures and storminess. “People want to know whether it’s going to be a snowy winter. Snow prediction is developing but if we predict El Niño, we know it will be more likely stormier. Now whether those storms will be rain or snow depends on the North Atlantic oscillation, which is a big challenge for us because of its constant oscillations.” Schubert and his team’s extended findings on the role of sea surface temperatures in Snowmaggedon will be published in the Journal of Climate this spring.
Christina Coleman
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
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(The word “-ageddon”? This morning I read a paper and had a “cup-of-coffee-agedon”?)
Btw annoying how the well founded climate bandwagon in it’s (unnecessary) appearance always uses the weather, which has nothing to do with climate.
The NYT’s is ever eager to print speculative articles and opinion pieces when they’re supportive of CAGW, but loathe to publish actual facts when they are not. I wrote several letters to the Public Editor asking why it was ok to publish a front page piece that did everything but definitively blame the Russian heat wave of that year on global warming, but to make no mention of the peer reviewed paper that came out some months later showing that it was caused by nothing more than natural variation. Of course I got no reply.
The NYT’s as perhaps the preeminent liberal standard bearer is so deeply in the tank for global warming there’s no place for them to go but forward. They won’t back off until Canada and the northern part of the U.S. is once again buried under a mile of ice. Even then they’ll find a way to blame Co2…
I was hoping they’d tell me something that wasn’t already obvious. El-ninos are stormier, negative AO/NAO=more cold, resulting in more snow. Gee who knew? I hope they didn’t spend too much money on this study!!
I’m pretty sure I remember reading all of this here back in 2010. They really needed to model it to come to the same conclusions?
While El Niño tends to produce greater storminess, it does not necessarily lead to more snowstorms along the East Coast. ……Without colder temperatures, these storms bring just rain.
====================================================
We knew that without the computer games
Schubert is a meteorologist and senior research scientist for Goddard’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO).
_________________________
Assimilation Office? Has NASA joined forces with the Borg?
/sarc
More “models = reality” overconclusion.
Schubert and his team ran 50 different simulations, slightly changing the atmospheric conditions each time while keeping the actual sea surface temperatures the same. In the end, the data showed that the storms were influenced more by the sea surface temperatures, and less by the changing atmospheric conditions.
In the end the data showed? The data? No. The data are what go into the models. What comes out are not data. They are model results. Educated (perhaps) guesses about what happened – guesses that might later be confirmed with data. Not data.
“This model not only confirms that a negative North Atlantic Oscillation and El Niño conditions created the conditions that allowed these storms to form,” said Seager, who did not work with Schubert on this research.
A model confirms? What does it confirm, exactly? The understanding and assumptions bult into the model? If these guys want to study vortexes, they should cast an eye at their own high speed circular reasoning.
“But it is useful in showing how the atmosphere can act differently when combining El Niño with different sea surface temperatures. These models provide controlled conditions, which allow us to be sure about the exact causes,” Seager added.
Wow. Sure about exact.
I always cringe when I read quotes like this from scientists.
But they told us there would be no more snow
Best Snowmageddon photo, evah!
http://blog.etoncorp.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/lake_shore_drive_108758595.jpg
Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive, entirely crippled from a combination of heavy snow mixed with Lake Michigan spray generated by high waves crashing into the shoreline limestone barrier during 60 to 70 MPH winds….
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/02/01/officials-shut-down-lake-shore-drive/
.
And what caused the snowmageddon in Japan recently?
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1710/499/Prefecture_of_Japan_pleads_for_help_after_being_hit_with_record_snow-fall.html
And what caused the recent cold in Europe? (Again, the jetstreama have moved south, allowing a high pressure to sit over northern Europe.)
.
And in answer to Leif Svaggard’s comments that recent low sunspot numbers and long sunspot cycles have not caused any cooling, I would beg to differ. In N Europe we have now had three bitterly cold winters, and three disappointing summers. In my 45 years of noting winter weather, I have seen nothing remotely like it (I just missed the ’63 winter).
If I were a Charles Dickens-style author, I would be placing my characters in snowbound streets and ice covered canals, and writing about a Little Ice Age. And anyone claiming otherwise, like a climatologist saying that the last three years were the warmest on record, would be laughed out of polite society, especially as the Rhine is frozen over for the first time in nearly 50 years.
What a European farmer, industrialist, transport manager, airport manager or, indeed, barge captain on the Rhine wants to know, is WHAT WEATHER CAN I EXPECT OVER THE NEXT FEW YEARS. For climatologists at the Met Office to claim that it will be 6 degrees warmer, based upon a few hotspots in the tropics or the Antarctic Penninsular is not only irellevant cant, it is positively dangerous.
People are stuck at airports and on motorways, people cannot get to work, food is not being delivered, and hundreds of people are dying all over eastern Europe, because everyone was promised warmer temperatures, and no planning was made for colder waether. And still we are being told that these are indeed the warmest years on record ! These climatologists are not only dangerous, they have blood on their hands.
.
Why even bother to analyze with only part of the data. It’s been known since at least 1967 that space weather has a direct correlation with Earth weather, and yet you totally ignored the multiple M-scale Solar flares of Feb 6th-8th, 2010 when interpreting your results.
Central and Eastern Europe, extreme Northern Africa,and a goodly portion of Asia, are having their version this year.
Ocean surface temperatures affect the surface air pressure distribution from the bottom up via the width of the tropical air masses.
Solar variability affects the surface air pressure distribution from the top down via the intensity of the polar vortices.
Chaotic variability within the climate system then acts upon the net effect from those top down and bottom up influences.
At any given time the outturn is somewhat of a lottery.
Simple really.
Still no end in sight in the Balkans. Daily minimums are around -20 to -25 °C (and even colder in some places – down to -32 °C) and maximums are around -10 °C. Forecast for the weekend is even more snow! It’s brutal. Most rivers are completely frozen. Electricity generation and distribution is seriously endangered. Some areas already have no el. power and many people use el. power for heating. The whole power system is on the edge of collapse. They can’t get enough coal to the power stations and hydro stations are at very low levels.
Wermet says:
The Borg yeah , Hansen must have been assimilated early on.
What NASA needs is to get back to their main business and leave the political stuff to others.We can’t even get to the space station anymore but we sure can bail out banks and print money. If they need to forecast the weather, I suggest they hire Joe Bastardi-he’s the only one who seems to know how to do it.
…AND on Jan 13th 2010 Asteroid AL30 2010 entered the Earth-Moon System and pierced the invisible “solar Veil “.
Sunspots => Solar Flares (charged particles) => Magnetic Field Shift => Shifting Ocean and Jet Stream Currents => Extreme Weather [including earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes or other extreme natural events] And then there’s usually a near Earth asteroid in place which pierces the solar veil and starts/escalates the cascading series of events. Somebody prove me wrong.
Usually weather moves. When it doesn’t move, we get floods and major snowstorms on one side, and droughts on the other.
When do I get my million dollars for this “model”? Never.
I’m a meteorologist and I read the article with interest since I’m always interested in seeing if we can predict mega snowstorms far out in the future. It’s not earth-shattering that El Nino combined with a negative NOA phase, especially a persistent one, would combined to create snow at times. Sea surface temperature is a good “atmospheric memory” (i.e., colder persistent conditions would eventually lead to below average sea surface temperatures). However I’m not convinced by the article of the larger predictive weight being given to sea surface temperatures.
Warmer sea surface temperatures many put more moisture in the local boundary layer – which can feed into storms – but you can’t do anything big without sufficient cold air that sticks around for the storm (whether warm or cold water temperatures).
I applaud the attempt to keep looking for cause and effect, just think more work needs to be done.
“Hmmm, who to trust?” What? Now we trust NASA’s interpretation of possible AGW related events? I trust NASA’s hard data more than most, but disagree with many of their interpretations. It hasn’t been long since NASA was telling us there was nothing unusual about the sun’s behavior during the current solar cycle. It hasn’t been long since NASA was telling us the abrupt change in sea level rise was nothing unusual (and then U. Colorado Boulder papered over much of the change by torturing the data). It hasn’t been long since NASA was describing “a cold year” in such patently fraudulent (although technically accurate) English terms as, “It was the ninth hottest year of the past ten years.”
Like most, I tend to cheer NASA on when it tells me what I’m inclined to hear. I also give ’em the fish-eye when they do otherwise. This latest NASA performance gets my personal “smiley face”, of course, but NASA has a long way to go before earning “trust” in the realm of AGW.
Moderator: It seems that everything I send you lately disappears into the spam filter (it apparently just ate another one – no “comment awaiting moderation” message popped up). Anything I should do to stop that from happening?
Claude Harvey
[Reply: Probably the word “fraudulent” was the cause. ~dbs, mod.]
Its all about the Lunar declinational tides in the atmosphere and the resonate cyclic patterns of their interactions over the 18.6 year Mn cycle. To not consider the main driver of the global circulation, with its resultant Rossby wave, and jet stream fluctuations leaves you with a limited forecast range, of less than 27.32 days or 13.6 days, the periods of the atmospheric tides.
I’ve always been amazed that there is an animal called a chicken which everything tastes like. Now we have a phenomenon called global warming that alarmists claim everything looks like.
It is not news that El Nino brings moisture and rain. Enough to make the Atacama desert bloom and turn sunny California into cloudy California. All this is caused by warm water from the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool that an El Nino wave carries across the Pacific. It splashes ashore in South America, spreads out north and south about 15 degrees, and warms the air. Warm air rises, stops the trade winds, and creates cloudiness and rain. Westerly winds then carry it across the continent and surprise – the Southern tier gets it too. What is new in their observations is not the El Nino effect but the role of the North Atlantic Oscillation in regulating temperature of the east coast.
Jon Flatley says:
I’m a meteorologist and I read the article with interest since I’m always interested in seeing if we can predict mega snowstorms far out in the future. … However I’m not convinced by the article of the larger predictive weight being given to sea surface temperatures.
How can you not be convinced? The modelers are sure that the models confirm that the modelers have pinpointed the exact cause by using the models.
/sarc
🙂