From Penn State
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Depletion of Antarctic ozone is a more important factor than increasing greenhouse gases in shifting the Southern Hemisphere jet stream in a southward direction, according to researchers at Penn State.
“Previous research suggests that this southward shift in the jet stream has contributed to changes in ocean circulation patterns and precipitation patterns in the Southern Hemisphere, both of which can have important impacts on people’s livelihoods,” said Sukyoung Lee, professor of meteorology.
According to Lee, based on modeling studies, both ozone depletion and greenhouse gas increase are thought to have contributed to the southward shift of the Southern Hemisphere jet stream, with the former having a greater impact. B, but until now, no one has been able to determine the extent to which each of these two forcings has contributed to the shift using observational data.
“Understanding the differences between these two forcings is important in predicting what will happen as the ozone hole recovers,” she said. “The jet stream is expected to shift back toward the north as ozone is replenished, yet the greenhouse-gas effect could negate this.” Lee and her colleague, Steven Feldstein, professor of meteorology, developed a new method to distinguish between the effects of the two forcings. The method uses a cluster analysis to investigate the effects of ozone and greenhouse gas on several different observed wind patterns.
“When most people look at ozone and greenhouse gases, they focus on one wind pattern, but my previous research suggests that, by looking at several different but similar patterns, you can learn more about what is really happening,” said Feldstein.
In their study, the researchers analyzed four wind patterns. The first wind pattern corresponded to an equatorwarda shift of the midlatitude westerlies toward the equator. T; the second pattern also described an equatorward shift, but included a strong tropical component. T; the third pattern corresponded to a poleward shift of the westerlies toward the South Pole with a weakening in the maximum strength of the jet; and the. The fourth pattern corresponded to a smaller poleward jet shift with a strong tropical component.
In addition to their novel inclusion of more than one wind pattern in their analysis, the scientists investigated the four wind patterns at very short time scales.
“Climate models are usually run for many years; they don’t look at the day-to-day weather,” said Feldstein. “But we learned that the four wind patterns fluctuate over about 10 days, so they change on a time scale that is similar to daily weather. This realization means that by taking into account fluctuations associated with the daily weather, it will be easier to test theories about the mechanism by which ozone and greenhouse gases influence the jet stream.”
The researchers used an algorithm to examine the relationship between daily weather patterns and the four wind patterns. They found that the first wind pattern — which corresponded to an equatorward shift of the midlatitude westerlies — was associated with greenhouse gases. They also found that the third pattern — which corresponded to a poleward shift of the westerlies — was associated with ozone. The other two wind patterns were unrelated to either of the forcings. The researchers found that a long-term decline in the frequency of the first pattern and a long-term increase in the frequency of the third pattern can explain the changes in the Southern Hemisphere jet stream.
“Ozone had the bigger impact on the change in the position of the jet stream,” said Lee. “The opposite is likely true for the Northern Hemisphere; we think that ozone has a limited influence on the Northern Hemisphere. Understanding which of these forcings is most important in certain locations may help policy makers as they begin to plan for the future.”
In addition to finding that ozone is more important than greenhouse gases in influencing the jet-stream shift, the scientists also found evidence for a mechanism by which greenhouse gases influence the jet-stream shift. They learned that greenhouse gases may not directly influence the jet-stream shift, but rather may indirectly influence the shift by changing tropical convection, or the vertical transfer of heat in large-scale cloud systems, which, in turn, influences the jet shift. The researchers currently are further examining this and other possible mechanisms for how greenhouse gases and ozone influence the jet stream as well as Antarctic sea ice.
The results will appear in the Feb. 1 issue of the journal Science.
“Not only are the results of this paper important for better understanding climate change, but this paper is also important because it uses a new approach to try to better understand climate change; it uses observational data on a short time scale to try to look at cause and effect, which is something that is rarely done in climate research,” said Feldstein. “Also, our results are consistent with climate models, so this paper provides support that climate models are performing well at simulating the atmospheric response to ozone and greenhouse gases.”
The National Science Foundation funded this research.
Some help with visualization …
http://i45.tinypic.com/ne827o.gif
= climatology map animation of (1) hemispheric seasonal extremes & (2) global annual averages of:
a) 2m Temperature
b) 200 hPa Wind — (streaks represent average jet streams)
c) Column Integrated Ozone
Credit: assembled using JRA-25 Atlas ( http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/jra/atlas/eng/atlas-tope.htm ) images. JRA-25 long-term reanalysis is a collaboration of Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) & Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI).
Still-Frames:
1. hemispheric seasonal extremes:
a) 2m temperature: http://i46.tinypic.com/2prtj5i.png
b) 200 hPa Wind: http://i45.tinypic.com/fvb9zk.png
c) column integrated ozone:
— JRA-25: http://i46.tinypic.com/346aut3.png
— ERA-40: http://i49.tinypic.com/2cqintu.png (for comparison)
2. global annual averages:
a) 2m temperature: http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/jra/atlas/surface-1/t2m_ANN.png
b) 200 hPa Wind: http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/jra/atlas/isobar-1/w200_ANN.png
c) column integrated ozone:
— JRA-25: http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/jra/atlas/column-1/ozone_ANN.png
— ERA-40: http://www.ecmwf.int/research/era/ERA-40_Atlas/images/full/C02_LL_YEA.gif (for comparison)
Note the steep equator-pole gradients north & south of the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP) and the more gentle gradients of the East Pacific (off the west coast of the Americas).
Average jet streams are more stationary where average equator-pole temperature gradients are steep, such as where cold winter continental-east-coasts meet warmer ocean-western-boundaries.
Stephen Wilde says:
February 1, 2013 at 12:54 pm
“I am not satisfied that there is any net warming from CO2 since it provides an additional radiative window for energy loss to space which is not supplied by non radiative gases.”
Well, you are not without support. Miskolczi thinks the atmosphere has a constant tau, that CO2 displaces water vapor as a greenhouse gas. Another commenter on a different thread says much the same thing you are saying.
Everything she writes is magic…
God made man and earth then rested. Then he made a red haired Irish woman and nobody’s rested since.
Wow, a hot July summer baby, wow that’s superb! July 31, me.
If I were blessed to be half as smart as you… get on me knees every day, Maranatha!
Is this true? Scientists say kissing started because of a craving for salt. They say a caveman discovered he could cool off on a hot day by licking his neighbors cheeks. Then he found it was much more fun if his neighbor was a female. Then he forgot all about the salt.
Gail Combs says:
February 1, 2013 at 5:18 am
Thanks for a link in that post. Gave me a chance for some layman waffle at:
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/thread-249-post-12270.html#pid12270
Time for a reminder:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6645
“How The Sun Could Control Earth’s Temperature”
Which covered much the same ground in November 2010
and which explains why the sign of the atmospheric response to solar variations must be wrong in light of events during the MWP and LIA and late 20th century.
Ulric Lyons says:
February 1, 2013 at 12:08 pm
The Arctic had a lot of ozone loss in the 1990′s, that was when there were very few sudden stratospheric warming events:
http://www.gmes-atmosphere.eu/news/ozone_mar2011/ozone_loss2011.jpg
Well actually, there was a SSW every year in the 90s except 1993.
http://curriculum.pmartineau.webfactional.com/ssw-animations/ may not have been all majors but there was warmings occuring.
Also The SSWs contribute to the creation of PSCs which leads to the rapid destruction of the O3
http://www.iap.unibe.ch/publications/download/3178/en
davidmhoffer says: January 31, 2013 at 6:36 pm
One has to wonder if:
c) this is an experiment to see how absurd your science can be and still get published.
_________________________________________
d) this is an experiment to see how absurd your science can be and still get another grant, most of which will be spent in the Uni bar.
.
@ur momisugly Ian W (February 1, 2013 at 4:33 pm)
I’d say we need to be mindful of longitudinal land-ocean alternations and related western-ocean-boundary gyre spin-up accumulation.
See for example the illustrations I’ve shared here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/31/ozone-depletion-trumps-greenhouse-gas-increase-in-jet-stream-shift/#comment-1214445
Adding more …
http://i50.tinypic.com/4v0qxj.gif
Climatology map animation of:
a) 2m temperature hemispheric seasonal extremes
b) 200 hPa wind hemispheric seasonal extremes
c) mean sea level pressure (MSLP) interannual variability
MSLP interannual variability still-frame:
http://www.ecmwf.int/research/era/ERA-40_Atlas/images/full/B01_LL_IAV.gif
Credit: ERA-40 Atlas: http://www.ecmwf.int/research/era/ERA-40_Atlas/docs/index.html
Solar-SLP correlations are observed in regions where high interannual MSLP variability reaches equatorward into the midlatitudes (e.g. southeast Pacific & particularly the northeast Pacific — e.g. recent exploration by van Loon & Meehl and Roy & Haigh).
Average jet streams are less rigidly anchored in these regions of relatively shallow midlatitude equator-pole temperature gradients.
Conceptually it’s clear what exploration needs to be done to determine which equator-pole gradients (e.g. 200hPa? surface? western boundary? etc.) are driving this meridional circulatory integral …
http://i46.tinypic.com/303ipeo.png
… of solar-modulated westerly winds:
http://i49.tinypic.com/2jg5tvr.png
(By universal laws the orange curve is generalizable to all solar-modulated terrestrial processes. In layman’s terms, it measures change in the rate of stirring regardless of how fast individual gears, wheels, & fluid eddies in the system are turning & spinning, so it’s sort of like a tachometer in a car.)
I have neither the time, the funding, nor even the computing hardware to begin the exercise at present, but I’m eager to proceed should favorable circumstances develop. From universal laws (of large numbers & conservation of angular momentum) we already know macroscopically what the aggregate midlatitude westerly circulatory constraints are. That’s by far the most important awareness step.
However, climatologists don’t come across as generally being well-versed on earth orientation parameter fundamentals, so they’ll want to see the aggregate constraints derived using data they’ve amassed. Plus: Curiosity will naturally lead us to explore details anyway, despite whatever data limitations exist (particularly since we don’t have the law of conservation of angular constraining observations, as in the EOP context).
Personally, I really want to know which equator-pole gradients. Some think it’s gradients due to ozone up high. Others maintain that it must be the sea surface gradients that matter most. It will be interesting to explore the data to find out using methods that aren’t blinded by ENSO (something I’ve only seen twice in the climate discussion) when time & resources permit.
Note in some of the leads given by Ferdinand E. that some researchers (e.g. Shindell) appear to believe they already have it all figured out, but they do appear to be relying heavily on modeling. Personally I’ll never be convinced (as Piers Corbyn appears to be) that ozone is the agent and not just a strong symptom until I carefully explore the various equator-pole gradients firsthand using quantitative methods that are not Schwabe-cycle-blinded by ENSO’s statistical irregularities.
Regards.
A cautionary note:
Total column ozone (TOZ) is synchronized with the solar Schwabe cycle, but it differs in phase by 1/4 cycle …so the Schwabe cycle’s driving the rate of change of TOZ.
Compare the following:
http://i45.tinypic.com/bfxn4.png
http://i48.tinypic.com/349fbs2.png
Goode’ nuff you are as charming as a meadowlark singing to his girl. When I was managing the family ranch I could count on that wonderful bird to sing to me every morning and evening from its perch high up in a Ponderosa Pine on the hill.
Back to the topic at hand. I speculate the North Atlantic Current (and its teleconnection with the North Atlantic Oscillation) may have something to do with the ozone hole up there along with the ice extent position retreating from the incoming warm current, preferring the colder Pacific side of the pole.
The tropospheric component of column ozone tracks ENSO:
http://acd-ext.gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/cloud_slice/gif/enso10.gif
http://acd-ext.gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/cloud_slice/#oei
In our study of tropospheric solar-terrestrial relations, how can we isolate decadal latitudinal-gradient effects when interannual longitudinal-gradient effects intensely scramble the signal?
Here’s an example of the clarity with which aggregate axial constraints can be detected if due care is taken in the design of metrics to ensure that mathematical properties of irregular downscale spatiotemporal turbulence are not allowed to dominate & corrupt macroscopic statistical summaries:
Solar-Terrestrial Magnetic Polarity Weave
http://i48.tinypic.com/2cfy0rm.png
****
Stephen Wilde says:
February 1, 2013 at 12:54 pm
“I am not satisfied that there is any net warming from CO2 since it provides an additional radiative window for energy loss to space which is not supplied by non radiative gases.”
****
Stephen, you’re not understanding the effect of GHGs. The radiative cooling of CO2 at a high altitude (cold temps) is exactly why there is surface warming. The earth has to radiate overall the same amount as it receives (in equilibrium). Either it will happen w/CO2, or, if no CO2, it’ll happen from somewhere lower down at a higher temp (greater heat loss). The more there is a “cold”, high-altitude radiative window, the less heat-loss from lower down (like the surface) overall.
The semi-permanent polar atmospheric pressure oscillations create extensive winds or lack thereof that widen (and weaken) or tighten (and strengthen) the pressure systems at the poles. Since stratospheric ozone can get moved around by winds (aka pressure systems), it makes sense that if the pressure system spreads the ozone out, it will look like a widening hole. If the pressure system squeezes the ozone into a tighter and thicker amount at the poles, it will look like the hole has closed. Yes?
beng.
I am aware of that theory but think it wrong.
What actually happens is that if anything warms the atmosphere above equilibrium then it simply expands and lets energy out faster with no need for a rise in surface temperature.
Instead of radiating from a colder height it radiates from a higher level which is at the same temperature as the lower level was previously.
Pamela,
That doesn’t work because in the late 20th century the polar pressure systems tightened up yet the ozone hole increased.
That is the opposite of your scenario.
Now with a quieter sun the polar prssure systems have loosened up but ozone is recovering.
That is one of the reasons I think that the consensus has the sign of the solar effect wrong.
Stephen, I sure wish I had access to this article. It might inform your understandings as well.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v432/n7015/abs/432290b.html
I almost hate to go there, but do you suppose there are emails somewhere on someone’s server between today’s scientists who contemplated the ozone hole and atmospheric pressure systems? Who thought of reversing the link suggested in 2004 between the Antarctic Oscillation and ozone hole cause and effect in the paper I referenced in order to get today’s grant money for today’s research paper?
I could envision training a model on the link between the two and then dialing up the ozone hole input (and assuming it is anthropogenic) to produce a change in the Antarctic Oscillation which in turn would probably change the jet stream. Models may not be able to produce cause and effect internally. But the researchers may be saying that SIMPLY because THEY turned up the dial.
I hope not. We are screwed if that is what they are doing with models and their input dials.
Thanks Pamela.
Seems to support what I said but adds that CO2 increased along with the decline in ozone and more positive vortex at a time before significant human impact.
So I would say that an active sun had caused a more positive vortex which involved less ozone (not more) and that the more poleward jets resulted in more solar energy getting into the oceans which outgassed more CO2.
Stephen, this may also help.
http://jisao.washington.edu/data/annularmodes/other_papers/appenzeller_GRL_original.pdf
Note that in the above washington paper, CO2 is an artificial ramp value commencing in 1970. Meaning that other influences were not considered. The new and improved calculation in the paper still has the CO2 ramped value but adds NOA calculations to the formula. It’s almost as if CO2 fudge factors are the 11th commandment.
It is much more likely that the ozone layer is influenced by the jet stream rather than the jet stream influenced by a trace gas at altitude. The idea that ozone may influence the jet stream is the same aberrant thinking that allows the idea that a trace gas, CO2, drives the climate.
“It is much more likely that the ozone layer is influenced by the jet stream rather than the jet stream influenced by a trace gas at altitude”
The temperature inversion at the tropopause is caused by sunlight on ozone in the stratosphere.
Therefore the jet streams can be affected from above because changes in ozone amounts alter the temperature differential either side of the tropopause so as to cause it to change height.
Daniel Vogler says:
February 2, 2013 at 3:28 am
“Well actually, there was a SSW every year in the 90s except 1993.”
Not major mid winters SSW’s apparently:
http://www.geo.fu-berlin.de/en/met/ag/strat/produkte/northpole/index.html