In case you haven’t noticed, it is as cold in Canada (and soon some parts of the USA) as it gets at the South Pole at times:
The video author writes:
Woke up to a balmy -41C (-41.8°F) this morning in South Porcupine, ON. Thought I’d share what happens when you mix boiling water and a water gun and take it outside for a few shots.
Watch:
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Leon Brozyna says: @ur momisugly January 5, 2014 at 9:27 am
Try Hardies, lo-carb burger. They use lettuce to wrap the burger instead of an eatable napkin (bun)
The lo-carb took ~ six months to have much of an effect on me. Even if lo-carb is “a wives tale” subbing veggies and meat for bread and potatoes isn’t going to hurt you.
Clay Marley;
Right. And when the hotter water cools to the same temperature as the cooler water was, the delta-T is the same and therefore the rate of cooling is the same from then on. Water doesn’t “remember” that it was previously hotter than it is.
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You would think that, wouldn’t you. I had a house in Winterpeg that had an edition with no basement. During cold winters, the water lines would freeze. Sometimes it was only the hot water line that froze, sometimes it was both, but if it was only one of them that froze, it was always the hot water line. I’d even run the water just before going to bed to fill the hot water line up with hot water, and on those famous Winterpeg 40 below incidents the hot water line would still freeze while the cold water line was fine. I eventually licked the problem with a combination of insulation and a thermo electric wire wrapped along the length of the hot water pipe. Cold water pipe never needed it.
Having grown up on the Cdn prairie, I’ve got other examples of the same effect. Never did understand it. Moved to the coast. Still don’t understand it, just don’t need to anymore.
This is pretty good:
http://chemistry.about.com/od/waterchemistry/a/Can-Hot-Water-Freeze-Faster-Than-Cold-Water.htm
I was in Alaska when it did not get any warmer than -50 for two weeks. At -70 one could take a cup of hot water and toss it into the air; the water never hit the ground. Or poor a pitcher of water from the second story and create a stalagmite.
Joe Bastardi speaks!
http://www.weatherbell.com/saturday-summary-january-4-2014
Would a better way of saying that be – the amplitude (north – south amplitude) of the Rossby waves (with embedded jet) has increased? This increased Rossby wave amplitude results in greater Meridional (N-S) air flow at the lower levels (like the surface!) versus Zonal (E-W) air flow, hence, more cold air at lower latitudes during winter (the converse is also true, some northward movement of warmer air at the surface at higher latitudes at the northern extent of the Rossby wave).
As it is, the jet, embedded in the Rossby wave is actually formed in the warm air mass with an undercutting, denser cold air mass. A lot of times it seems that people get confused and imagine that the ‘jet’ actually drives these colder air masses (with a vector in the direction of the cold air movement) southward when the vector would seem to be more ‘normal’ to that direction.
Polar water vapor satellite animation, where one can see the ‘waves’ progressing around the N pole:
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/ewall/SAT_NHEM/atlanimwv.html
It appears the Rossby amplitude is quite high at the present!
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossby_wave
” Atmospheric Rossby waves are giant meanders in high-altitude winds that are a major influence on weather. “
Davidmhofer – welcome to the wet coast. I was told some 50+ years ago that it was the dissolved gases – air bubbles even – that allowed the cold water to supercool. This would seem like an easy test to create using two ice-cube trays. Boil some water to drive off dissolved gases, let it cool to room temp in the first tray. Fill the second tray with hot water from either the tap or reheat some from the pan. THe latter might show that the tap water was gassier than the stagnant, boiled water, so maybe two tests, cooled, boiled against a) hot tap, then b) reheated previously boiled. Meanwhile, I have last night’s dishes to do.
A depiction of Rossby wave: Movement and fluctuation over the North Pole, showing wave patterns depicting the formation of an outbreak of cold air over Asia.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/106997/Rossby-wave-patterns-over-the-North-Pole-depicting-the-formation
Notice in panel (c) at the top of the polar air mass, it is about to ‘dislodge’ a contingent of cold air, resulting in panel (d) and an outbreak of cold air over Asia and indicated to be a Low (by the L in the circling isobars).
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mrmethane;
This would seem like an easy test to create using two ice-cube trays.
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Been there, done that. The ice cube trays filled with hot water freeze first. Did it like 9 times to convince myself. Then I noticed the water vapour steaming off the hot trays. I figured the water vapour was taking heat with it, leaving less water behind. So, repeated experiment using Mason jars figuring to contain the water vapour. Only did that one once. The one with hot water not only froze first, it burst the Mason jar followed by an encounter with an enraged mother wanting to know why I would do something so stupid, and didn’t I know how expensive those Mason jars were? (It was many decades ago).
Jim, very interesting. I wonder if Rossby waves force the AO pattern, or something else that sets up the AO pattern forces the Rossby waves. Could it be that Rossby waves tighten or loosen the pressure edge of the Arctic polar jet? When it is tight the bunching up of the Arctic system increases the height in the middle of the Arctic as opposed to when it is weak and loose, thus spreading it out thus lowering the pressure height in the middle. So what causes Rossby waves (besides Steven’s theory)? What causes a tighening or loosening of the Arctic Polar Jet? Could it be the long term arrival of colder (which is due to less solar irradiance due to a consistent pattern of clouds around the equatorial belt) or warmer (which is due to more solar irradiance due to a consistent pattern of no clouds around the equatorial belt) pools of water into the Arctic circle? Could it be that the mother of Arctic blasts is an equatorial belt of clowds having been present some time in the past? How far back do we have to look for that event? Years? Decades? 60 years? More?
damn. “clouds”, not “clowds”.
Or is it a lack of equatorial clouds sometime in the past? Bob T? An*on*y? What pool of water do we have there right now? I am betting a warmer pool. Which would mean that we had a lack of equatorial clouds for a period of time sometime in the past. And here is the loop. When the AO is positive the easterlies are strong thus keeping clouds to a minimum and allowing full strength solar irradiance. So sometime in our past, we had that set up over a consistent period of time. The AO is said to have a 60 to 80 year oscillation. So I would go that far back, at least, to see what the equatorial belt was doing in terms of cloud cover and the strength of the easterly trade winds. But I would also consider how long it takes for oceanic currents to send these pools of water up north to knock at the Arctic doors.
Heads Up, Florida
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/heads-up-florid.html
By the way, Willis will probably concur, weather books meant for sailors are pretty good reading regarding this issue of trade winds and the AO, as well as other areas of interest in terms of sailing weather.
http://books.google.com/books?id=qXxIieLNl2gC&pg=PA133&lpg=PA133&dq=Arctic+oscillation+and+trade+winds&source=bl&ots=STXbdeiAfP&sig=QaUP2878FjBn1BoArXCMVqZHPlc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mabJUuzwLaacyQG2lIHACw&ved=0CFYQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Arctic%20oscillation%20and%20trade%20winds&f=false
That is the 64,000 US $ question … figuring in there other factors like ‘laminar flow’ around the pole that would be affected or disrupted by Hadley cell circulation and Ocean heating of low-level air masses … I can see the factors that would come into play, the ‘art’ being to quantify them in some sort of … dare I say it? A model .. Oops! I said it …
Back to Rossby waves – they look to be the product of two different fluids possessing different viscosities and when ‘passing’ by each other and possessing a coefficient of friction greater than zero ‘interaction’, a kind of ‘mixing’ takes place. If the two fluids possessed a coefficient of friction of zero, we might have a continually ‘rotating’ mass of cold air at the poles (different from mid levels) and no Rossby waves! That is a simplified view, granted, but, it establishes a lower bound for how the two fluids would interact with each other were their interaction ‘frictionless’.
I notice that we have two anamolous warmer pools sitting at both Arctic doors. Your Rossby link shows highs sitting over those two doors. Could there be a connection? Could the warmer pools of water set up a high right there thus creating the loopy Arctic Jet as it bulges out between these two highs?
Gail Combs says:
January 5, 2014 at 9:50 am
Interesting option.
My focus is less on lo-carb and more on more fruits & veggies. In the last couple months I’ve had more salads than in the last several years. This afternoon’s grocery run will see even more greens than ever and even some salad dressing. Also, have increased tuna, salmon, & chicken. While I’m not looking at lo-carb, I’m getting there by the elimination of processed foods.
The most important detail most often missed (that you mention) is that it takes months for changes in diet to have an apparent effect. While I’m in much better shape now, I figure it’ll be at least summer of 2015 before I’ll be able to say I’m “fully recovered” from my bout with CHF.
re: Pamela Gray says January 5, 2014 at 11:02 am
Indeed, it could.
Take a look here at about 1/2 the page down, at how ‘convergence’ (settling or descending air) and ‘divergence’ (upwelling or diffusing) works in connection with ‘highs’ and ‘lows’ respectively.
http://earth.usc.edu/classes/geol150/stott/weather/circulation.html
That page is a wealth of info showing the interaction highs and lows, Hadley, mid-level and polar cells as modified by real-world Rossby wave behavior. The difficulty with atmospheric air flow systems/dynamics is – it’s a complex 3 dimensional system where density, temperature, Coriolis effect, un-even heating etc is not uniform, never in actual equilibrium and adjoining air masses are always in ‘conflict’!
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http://mashable.com/2014/01/04/polar-vortex-expected/
Take a look at the warm pool sitting outside Alaska right now.
This morning at 9am MST in Calgary my outdoor thermometer said -28.7C
My lake was invisible from ice fog. It was cold, and completely still, and the night appears to have been cloudless.
Currently, 3.5 hours later, it’s -17.2C, the sun is shining, and things are slightly more tolerable.
We currently have near record levels of snow on the ground, at least for this time of year. My snow pile from shoveling the driveway is about 7-8 feet high. We had a few inches yesterday and I really couldn’t even find anyplace to put it.
Again, it makes it really difficult for people who live here to buy into any claims of warming.
Contrary to “solar top-down” Arctic weather system variations and jet stream meanderings, this demonstrates an intrinsic equatorial slide via ocean currents to the Arctic and then up into the atmosphere propagating system that loops back to the equatorial belt as the AO causes stronger or weaker trade winds, which affect the absence or presence of clouds around the equatorial belt, thus causing solar irradiance trends which eventually affects the AO as the ocean currents send these pools of water northwards (and likely southward to Antarctica as well).
Leon Brozyna says:
January 5, 2014 at 11:15 am
“…in the last couple months I’ve had more salads than in the last several years. This afternoon’s grocery run will see even more greens than ever…”
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The only problem with a diet like that, you’ll find your ears getting bigger and you’ll start to move about in short hops.
And there clearly is a swinging weather pattern variation oscillation that varies quite a bit (IE 60 to 80 or more years with just one of those systems before swinging back). Not only is there a swinging event but each oscillation can be stronger or weaker as it progresses, just as we see in El Nino, El Modoci, and El Nada oscillations.
Looks like Chemtrails to me [/sarc]
Tenuc says:
January 5, 2014 at 8:31 am
I’d start with an experimental design that includes very well controlled freezers, and include “boiling beads” or something else that provides ice nucleation points to prevent supercooled water. I suspect one aspect is the heated water looses dissolved air and that may help lead to supercooling.
I’d also cap the containers being frozen in case there’s some odd convection or other air current effects.
In some of the experiments I’ve seen, they’ve frozen both samples at the same time. Which is good. If samples are frozen separately, the hot water may increase the temperature enough to trip the thermostat and provide faster cooling.
One thing that might be tough to do well is to do calorimetry on the samples. It’s easy to compute the number of joules to be removed to freeze a sample of water. It’s tough to count them, but I think that would provide very important information on either sloppy design or an interesting process.