A Sober Look At The Northern Polar Vortex

Image Credit NASA – Polar Vortex on Venus

WUWT Regular “Just The Facts”

Currently there is a lot of media hype about the Polar Vortex over North America, but little in the way of coherent explanation as to what a Polar Vortex is and how it affects Earth’s temperature. As such, a Polar Vortex is “caused when an area of low pressure sits at the rotation pole of a planet. This causes air to spiral down from higher in the atmosphere, like water going down a drain.” Universe Today “A polar vortex is a persistent, large-scale cyclone located near one or both of a planet’s geographical poles.” “The vortex is most powerful in the hemisphere’s winter, when the temperature gradient is steepest, and diminishes or can disappear in the summer.” Wikipedia In addition to those on Earth, Polar Vortices also have been sighted on Venus, Mars, Jupiter , Saturn and Saturn’s Moon Titan.

“Long-term vortices are a frequent phenomenon in the atmospheres of fast rotating planets, like Jupiter and Saturn, for example. Venus rotates slowly, yet it has permanent vortices in its atmosphere at both poles. What is more, the rotation speed of the atmosphere is much greater than that of the planet. “We’ve known for a long time that the atmosphere of Venus rotates 60 times faster than the planet itself, but we didn’t know why. The difference is huge; that is why it’s called super-rotation. And we’ve no idea how it started or how it keeps going.

The permanence of the Venus vortices contrasts with the case of the Earth. “On the Earth there are seasonal effects and temperature differences between the continental zones and the oceans that create suitable conditions for the formation and dispersal of polar vortices. On Venus there are no oceans or seasons, and so the polar atmosphere behaves very differently,” says Garate-Lopez.” Phys.org

So with that background, let’s take a look at the Polar Vortex currently over North America. Starting at 10 hPa/mb – Approximately 31,000 meters (101,700 feet) here we have a Height Analysis showing the low pressure area;

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

a Temperature Analysis showing the cold area;

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

Zonal Mean Temperatures showing the cold area from a global perspective;

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

a wide perspective Wind Animation and more focused Wind Animation showing the motion of the Vortex,

and Ozone Mixing Ratio map showing the “Ozone Hole” within it:

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

Now we are going to travel down the Polar Vortex in several steps, so here’s another Height Analysis showing the low pressure area at 30 hPa/mb – Approximately 23,700 meters (77,800 feet);

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

a Temperature Analysis showing the cold area;

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

Zonal Mean Temperatures showing the cold area from a global perspective;

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

and Ozone Mixing Ratio map showing the “Ozone Hole” within the Vortex:

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

Here’s  a Height Analysis showing the low pressure area at 70 hPa/mb – Approximately 18,000 meters (59,000 feet);

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

a Temperature Analysis showing the cold area;

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

Zonal Mean Temperatures showing the cold area from a global perspective;

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

a wide perspective Wind Animation and more focused Wind Animation showing the motion of the Vortex,;

and Ozone Mixing Ratio map showing a slight “Ozone Hole” within it:

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

And here’s here we have a Height Analysis showing the low pressure area at 100 hPa/mb – Approximately 15,000 meters (49,000 feet);

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

a Temperature Analysis showing the cold area;

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

Zonal Mean Temperatures showing the cold area from a global perspective;

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

and Ozone Mixing Ratio map showing a slight “Ozone Hole” within the Vortex:

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

Per this Northern Hemisphere – Vertical Cross Section of Geopotential Height Anomalies you can see that the Polar Vortex currently extends to approximately 100 hPa/mb:

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

also reflected in this Northern Hemisphere – Area Where Temperature is Below 195K or -78C:

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

So why is it so cold in North America right now? Per Global – 10-hPa/mb Height Temperature Anomalies – Atmospheric Temperature Anomalies At Approximately 31,000 meters (101,700 feet);

NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source

it appears that that we are having an [Upper Stratosphere Lower Mesosphere (USLM) Disturbance] that could lead to a Sudden Stratospheric Warming growing over East Asia, i.e. “the breakdown of the polar vortex is an extreme event known as a sudden stratospheric warming, here the vortex completely breaks down and an associated warming of 30-50 degrees Celsius over a few days can occur. The Arctic vortex is elongated in shape, with two centres, one roughly over Baffin Island in Canada and the other over northeast Siberia. In rare events, the vortex can push further south as a result of axis interruption, see January 1985 Arctic outbreak.” Wikipedia ”The January 1985 Arctic outbreak was a meteorological event, the result of the shifting of the polar vortex further south than is normally seen. Blocked from its normal movement, polar air from the north pushed into nearly every section of the eastern half of the United States, shattering record lows in a number of states.” Wikipedia This BBC Article and Video are helpful in understanding Sudden Stratospheric Warmings. (Note that the text within the [brackets] above has been added and the struck-through removed to correct the article based upon learnings from this comment and this comment below.)

In terms of claims that “US polar vortex may be example of global warming” Guardian and “Polar Vortex: Climate Change Could Be the Cause of Record Cold Weather” Time, these appear to be unsupported conjecture as:

“Many atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs) and chemistry–climate models (CCMs) are not able to reproduce the observed polar stratospheric winds in simulations of the late 20th century. Specifically, the polar vortices break down too late and peak wind speeds are higher than in the ERA-40 reanalysis. Insufficient planetary wave driving during the October–November period delays the breakup of the southern hemisphere (SH) polar vortex in versions 1 (V1) and 2 (V2) of the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) chemistry–climate model, and is likely the cause of the delayed breakup in other CCMs with similarly weak October-November wave driving.”

“In the V1 model, the delayed breakup of the Antarctic vortex biases temperature, circulation and trace gas concentrations in the polar stratosphere in spring. The V2 model behaves similarly (despite major model upgrades from V1), though the magnitudes of the anomalous effects on springtime dynamics are smaller.”

“Clearly, if CCMs cannot duplicate the observed response of the polar stratosphere to late 20th century climate forcings, their ability to simulate the polar vortices in future may be poor.”

Assessment and Consequences of the Delayed Breakup of the Antarctic Polar Vortex in Chemistry-Climate Models Hurwitz et al., 2009

“It is unclear how much confidence can be put into the model projections of the vortices given that the models typically only have moderate resolution and that the climatological structure of the vortices in the models depends on the tuning of gravity wave parameterizations.

Given the above outstanding issues, there is need for continued research in the dynamics of the vortices and their representation in global models.”

Stratospheric Polar Vortices, Waugh et al. 2010

To learn more about Polar Vortices please visit the WUWT Polar Vortex Reference Page.

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TB
January 8, 2014 11:42 am

TomRude says:
January 8, 2014 at 8:43 am
And what is the density of the air at 100 hPa supposed to drive 1050hPa polar air into lower latitudes? Notwithstanding that polar air driving south (north in the austral) happens on a continuous basis since it is atmopsheric circulation!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Tom:
The main driver in Temperate/Polar regions of the atmosphere is not density per say, as in a denser mass of air will sink through another.
Think of it this way – in terms of warm/cold next to each other and a temperature differential horizontally through them both. That creates the winds at that level. The Earth’s spin turns it. In order to disrupt the PV then we want the winds to change from anticlockwise to clockwise (westerly to easterly. This happens when we put warmer air on the N side and colder on the S. It is this effect that subsides down the vortex and weakens/disrupts it.
This can be achieved both by wave-breaking from air being deflected over high mountain ranges (Mountain Torque events), and thrusting up the air on a mass-scale, so intruding into the Stratosphere – or by the O3 warming effect described.
The atmospheric circulation you talk of is continually being influenced by a myriad of effects (many akin to the so called “Butterfly” chaos effect). But some are feed-backs – here I talk of just some significant ones. A circulation will feed on itself IF the jet-stream wobbles (Rossby waves) have the right amplitude to self-reinforce – becoming stationary or even retrogressing (move backwards). Note, I mean the loopy pattern of the jet and NOT the track of Lows necessarily below it. However the “blocking” High cell will move backwards.
And no, cold air from the Arctic does not “continually move south” – it needs these meridional (more N>S) jet patterns to make it do so. Quite often the jet has a majority zonal component (mainly W>E without many wobbles) – when this happens the climate heat-engine equalises the Equatorial warmth with the Polar cold via turbulence at the boundary (Jet) by means of strings of Lows/Depressions mixing the two air-masses together. This has been happening recently in bringing wet stormy weather the UK and western Europe. This despite the major wave induced by the ridge of HP through Siberia/Alaska earlier, causing the downstream PV Pole to sink into N America. As I say, the forecasts are for the meridional pattern to propagate into Eurasia within the next 2 weeks.

Robert W Turner
January 8, 2014 12:38 pm

From NASA (regarding sudden stratospheric warming in the Arctic): ” Research has led to a good documentation of the frequency and seasonality of sudden warmings: just over half of the winters since 1960 have experienced a major warming event in January or February (e.g., Charlton and Polvani, 2007). The event in early January 2013 is thus not atypical, but, like all of these events, has unique dynamical characteristics in terms of its development and interactions with the tropospheric flow.”
And from the conclusions of Extreme Cold Outbreaks in the United States and Europe, 1948–99
JOHN E. WALSH, ADAM S. PHILLIPS,* DIANE H. PORTIS, AND WILLIAM L. CHAPMAN
“There is no apparent trend toward fewer extreme cold events on either continent, at least over the period since 1948.”
Regarding the oft-mentioned oscillation of the jet stream as a sign of AGW, here is an interesting read:
The Behavior of Jet Streams over Eastern North America during January and February 1948
NORMAN A. PHILLIPS, University of Chicago (1950)
Which describes the Jetstream dipping as far south as 20 degrees latitude over NA bringing with it Arctic air. The word unprecedented did not appear in the paper.
Lastly, here is what the IPCC (2007, 3.8.5) has mentioned about the “extreme” event of more frequent cold snaps and late/early freezes that are a danger to crops throughout the world like what we have witnessed over the past few years and are now being told by certain blogactavists is the result of AGW:
[Cold spells/snaps (episodes of several days)] Insufficient studies,but daily temperature changes imply a decrease

Theo Barker
January 8, 2014 12:40 pm

Robert Brown aka rgbatduke posted great treatise. Excellent grounded critique of the wild postulations without physical support and brilliant insight into human nature, vis-a-vis, “prophets of doom”. Thanks again!

TomRude
January 8, 2014 12:51 pm

TB, you should observe satellite animations of weather systems and field measures for a change. Your verbose style reminds me of some vintner… who could not even recognize low clouds on satellite imagery and was pontificating about mete and climate. Ciao!

TB
January 8, 2014 2:03 pm

TomRude says:
January 8, 2014 at 12:51 pm
“TB, you should observe satellite animations of weather systems and field measures for a change. Your verbose style reminds me of some vintner… who could not even recognize low clouds on satellite imagery and was pontificating about mete and climate. Ciao!”
Don’t mention it – I just thought you might be interested, since you asked the question.
Oh, if you thought that was “verbose” – do realise I was talking down to the imbicile you proved youself to be.
Whatever you may think my friend – weather and climate is far from being conveyable in simple terms – as you have spectacularly proved – alongside your snarky contempt for professional knowledge. That sadly seems all too common on here – well with some of my exchanges anyway.
Cheers!

Pkatt
January 8, 2014 2:06 pm

Loads of good comments here. I should like to add that if we are seeing temps to the negative we have not experienced for about 100 years, when there was a solar low.. and we are experiencing a similar solar low (which apparently effects our magnetic shield), perhaps, just perhaps we are witnesses of the renewal of a cycle we barely understand. Polar vortexes are not new, and neither are huge dips in the jet stream. Maybe the combination of low solar activity, a weak magnetic field and a downswing of a 30 or so year sine wave like variation between warm to cool creates such conditions when the elements line up? The term “a perfect storm” is ridiculous considering the events it describes have occurred before, it would seem uncommon is more common then most folks would like to admit. My point is this.. we have yet to enter a realm of temperature never seen before on this planet, both pre and post mankind… and if we cannot deal with temperature variation with level heads then maybe we should go extinct, but to sit and cry out about pollution in developing countries, then buy their goods because they are cheap is what is truly counter intuitive and quite frankly our biggest REAL problem.

DonS
January 8, 2014 2:49 pm

HGW xx/7 says:
RE: Your reply to the always entertaining “pippen” or pepin, or whatever its name is.
Sarcasms emulating Rubens working in oils? Now, I know Peter Pauls’ work. I just can’t fathom how a string of non sequiturs from a poster here can be in any way compared to Peter Pauls’ prolific output, in oils, of naked fat lady pictures. I admit to a certain lassitude today.

TB
January 8, 2014 4:05 pm

herkimer says:
January 8, 2014 at 7:42 am
TB
Since 1998 these SSW events have been more frequent , earlier and of greater impact [ last one only a year ago,[ january 2013 ] They happened every other year before . Does anyone have an answer why there is a more frequent pattern to them ? To me it appears that SSW is a cooling and rebalancing mechanism for the planet when excessive warm pockets of air build up.?
They may have been there all along [ unexplained cold winters during warm years ] , except we are now becoming aware of them . For example locally we had a near record very cold day. and the previous january record cold for that same day was 1945, the era of very warm years ]. So perhaps these SSW events are present as the globe moves from a warming planet to a cooling planet?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
After a quick look-up, it seems there have been SSW’s every year since 1998, bar 2005. Prior to that there were 22 of them from 1958 (as far as data goes) – mind you there were 5 years within which 2 of them occurred. Or put another way out of the 40 years 1958-98, 17 winters had a SSW. And latterly 15 in 16 years. Also there will have been events that did not meet the criteria for the designation of a SSW (Mean zonal winds at 60N and 10mb become Easterly during winter), but still caused N’ly outbreaks somewhere in the NH.
I don’t think we have enough evidence yet to conclude whether the greater regularity of them these last 16 years is down to any one cause – more likely there’s a number of reasons. One could be more open and much warmer Arctic waters come Autumn especially the E Arctic Seas. Recent anomalies of SST’s there by that time have been +5C. The mechanism for this would be the greater availability of moisture there feeding back to earlier/heavier Eurasian snowfield build-up into early winter. There is a known correlation with that and stronger/earlier Siberian Highs – which later migrate into the Arctic, then to cause more widespread Arctic cold plunges.
I suppose you could look at it as a “mechanism for the planet when excessive warm pockets of air build up”. I think of it in terms of atmospheric mechanics though, which is basically fluid mechanics on a rotating surface. The mechanism involved from the bottom up is largely as a result of topography inducing deflection/channelling of air-masses and without the high mountain ranges the atmosphere would have been quite happy to flow in a more undisturbed fashion.

SAB
January 8, 2014 4:06 pm

rgb
Thank you for your long comment. I didn’t understand all that much of it. However, what I really appreciated was the honest perception of how far off we are from truly understanding this whole gigantic area.
My original discipline was Experimental Psychology (don’t laugh).
I took much that was valuable from its study, but the single most valuable lesson was that we really don’t understand the fundamentals of perception, cognition, motivation, memory or learning, let alone the far more tricky constructs of personality or consciousness.
Anyone who says they do is a charlatan.
We don’t yet even have the cognitive tools to really approach these things.
Anyone who says we do is misguided.
I think it advances science far more to lay out the problems honestly rather than shying away from them with hubristic (or at the least, wildly optimistic and premature) claims about grand causes and explanations.
I say this as someone who took a fashionable route away from true experimentalism, into another kind of ‘modeling’ – Artificial Intelligence. It took me three years to see the overwhelming difficulties of using AI to gain the simplest insight into the workings of the human brain (apart from the shortcomings of my own apparatus). Accordingly, I took a more modest direction, applying some of the same techniques to model computers instead – even this is quite difficult, and subject to well-known limitations, but at least it’s a living where the distinction between success and failure is rapidly obvious…
The science that is being done nowadays is, I think, attacking increasingly ‘difficult’/wicked areas, and we may be requiring techniques which it will take us a long time to achieve, in order to make any appreciable headway. In the face of this, many would-be scientists seem to be resorting to either ‘re-enactment science’ or facile pseudo-science, like the current infatuation with ‘big data’. I just hope we get over it and start tackling the difficult stuff with more honesty and humility again.
Stuart B

Ghandi
January 8, 2014 4:14 pm

Comment on: Box of Rocks says: January 7, 2014 at 7:38 pm
So a large chunk of air is moved pole ward, loses energy then is squeezed south, right?
This sounds just like a description of Al Gore’s life over the past 20 years.

January 8, 2014 6:42 pm

Polar high – where did the usual Polar high go that sits atop the pole? You know, downward descending drier air that is part of the ‘polar circulation’ cell? Downward moving air as in a High-pressure anti-cyclone system?
Are we sure we aren’t dealing with this effect?
Image alone showing polar ‘jet’ and circulation about the pole on for panels depicting the spinning-off of a low (“L”) pressure system … or vortex? here:
http://media-3.web.britannica.com/eb-media/29/101929-004-0AC1F903.jpg
Note that image (d) shows a spun-off Low from the polar jet into Asia …
.

January 8, 2014 6:50 pm

jmorpuss says January 8, 2014 at 4:36 am

Remembering energy will always take the path of least resistance I can see why the pause lines
exist.

Old wive’s tale; not codified in any of the ‘laws’ of physics. Take lightning, for instance. It provides its own ‘path’ so to speak. And it’s never a straight path. Take a magnetron as the second example and note the ‘path’ electrons take from cathode to anode.
.

TomRude
January 8, 2014 6:57 pm

TB you’re hilarious. Keep them coming…

Ed, Mr. Jones
January 8, 2014 7:05 pm

Stephen Wilde:
“The observations suggest that the quiet sun increases ozone in the stratosphere above the poles and the warmed stratosphere descends in height which pushes the polar air masses more often towards the equator.”
Why would the warmed Stratospheric air descend?
You note the occurrence of Stratospheric Warming, and claim that it rebuts many other points. Is all Stratospheric Warming ‘unnatural’? Would Stratospheric Warming not take place if humanity produced no fossil fuel Co2 emissions?
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you.

January 8, 2014 7:18 pm

Stephen Wilde says January 8, 2014 at 11:10 am
Note that it was a sudden stratospheric WARMING that made the jets more meridional.

Does dog wag tail ,or tail wag dog?
Since the ‘jets’ are a creature living within the boundary between the two air masses (actually, it seems, within the warmer of the two air masses at a ‘front’) how does it achieve the ‘drive’ meridionally (vs zonally) and futhermore, aren’t the jets actually artifacts of the interface (a complicated interface involving classically ‘fluid flows’ which sets the jet into motion within this interface area) of the two airmasses, and not the other way around?
Example of ‘area’ where jet resides:
. . http://tornado.sfsu.edu/geosciences/classes/m201/GeneralCirculation/PolarJetBlank.jpg
Primer, atmospheric circulation (derivation from a uniformly heated, non-spinning orb up to the real deal), including Polar high and an apparent resident polar low as well:
. . http://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~cfjps/1400/circulation.html
3-D Jet Stream and 0 C temperature surface loop (not from this last event, just an example of a jet and movement across US 48 state area):
. . . http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/idv/gallery/jetStream.gif
Also, this phenom could be termed “Wave Breaking”, as shown here, where an “L” is spun off intruding into the warmer air and also entraining (at low levels) warm air masses into the cold above the arctic circle:
. . http://www.mi.uni-hamburg.de/Wave-Breakin.6896.0.html
A sampling of Jet stream diagrams some depicting cross-sectional details.
.

TomRude
January 8, 2014 9:17 pm

A sober look at… those figures from Encyclopedia Britannica: Cold air mass qualified as “L” lows… Really, lows at 1050hPa… And of course, the undying tri-cellular 1856 Ferrel representation seriously discredited since Leroux 1993…
http://ddata.over-blog.com/xxxyyy/2/32/25/79/Leroux-Global-and-Planetary-Change-1993.pdf

January 9, 2014 12:21 am

“Why would the warmed Stratospheric air descend? ”
A warm stratosphere reduces tropopause height and a cold stratosphere lifts it.
Either way I think natural processes are magnitudes greater tan human influences.

January 9, 2014 12:24 am

JTF
Thanks for that data.
Do you see a slight upturn or at least a cessation of cooling since around 2000 ?
It looks that way to me.

TB
January 9, 2014 2:00 am

TomRude says:
January 8, 2014 at 6:57 pm
TB you’re hilarious. Keep them coming…
I plan too – Thanks….
If i bring a little levity into your life – Oh, and maybe teach you a little civility along the way.
Then you could take both those things as a bonus at least.
To you and some others I’ve come across on here.
Just because you have “issues” with climate science – doesn’t make the basic physics of Meteorology wrong or easily assimilable to the layman, and to expect otherwise is sheer hubris.
If you want to learn a little of the way things work then read on and. Otherwise you know what you can do.

January 9, 2014 8:36 am

The “basis” of the 2004 end-of-the-world-by-freezing movie “The Day After Tomorrow”, with Dennis Quaid in a frozen New York. -135F in seconds as the cold air plummets, but doesn’t warm up because it falls “too fast to heat up”:
Global warming was the cause by destabilizing the planetary atmosphere.