A Sober Look At The Northern Polar Vortex

TomRude says: January 8, 2014 at 9:17 pm
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
I agree that the tri-cell model is simplistic, Wikipedia refers to it “highly idealised”, however, in terms of a graphic showig the height and location of the Polar Jet in relation to the Tropopause, there aren’t many options. This one is better:
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="578"] ddata.over-blog.com – Click the pic to view at source[/caption]

Carla says: January 9, 2014 at 6:55 pm
But I do wish we would stop, raping the Earth of its resources and stop polluting.
I agree, I think Thorium power;
http://www.theengineer.co.uk/energy-and-environment/in-depth/your-questions-answered-thorium-powered-nuclear/1017776.article
might be a good step in that direction.
Natural variability will eventually trump mankinds error of its ways.
Yes, probably via a glacial period.

benjaminbruce36 says: January 9, 2014 at 9:43 pm
The statistical data are so terrible…!!!!
Oh Jesus please stop; we request from our heart..!!!
I am praying to stop it.!!!
I’d recommend SkepticalScience.com, they try to avoid data over there…

Stephen Wilde says: January 10, 2014 at 9:28 am
There are some clear upward spikes in recent years.
Anyway, it is the region above 45km that warms first and then the Lower Stratosphere follows later.
The period 2004 to 2007 showed more ozone and warming above 45km.
What has happened since 2007 ?
Southern Polar is positive, but Northern Polar continued to decline.

Carla says: January 10, 2014 at 5:19 pm
Do you see Earth’s rotation speed making a difference for further development of stronger more lasting polar vortex..?

The Earth rotates once in about 24 hours with respect to the sun and once every 23 hours 56 minutes and 4 seconds with respect to the stars (see below). Earth’s rotation is slowing slightly with time; thus, a day was shorter in the past. This is due to the tidal effects the Moon has on Earth’s rotation. Atomic clocks show that a modern day is longer by about 1.7 milliseconds than a century ago,[2] slowly increasing the rate at which UTC is adjusted by leap seconds.

Wikipedia

“Research at the University of Liverpool has found that variations in the length of day over periods of between one and 10 years are caused by processes in Earth’s core.
Earth rotates once per day, but the length of this day varies. A year, 300million years ago, lasted about 450 days and a day would last about 21 hours.”
“As a result of the slowing down of Earth’s rotation the length of day has increased.
The rotation of Earth on its axis, however, is affected by a number of other factors — for example, the force of the wind against mountain ranges changes the length of the day by plus or minus a millisecond over a period of a year.
Professor Richard Holme, from the School of Environmental Sciences, studied the variations and fluctuations in the length of day over a one to 10 year period between 1962 and 2012. The study took account of the effects on Earth’s rotation of atmospheric and oceanic processes to produce a model of the variations in the length of day on time scales longer than a year.
Professor Holme said: “The model shows well-known variations on decadal time scales, but importantly resolves changes over periods between one and 10 years.
“Previously these changes were poorly characterised; the study shows they can be explained by just two key signals, a steady 5.9 year oscillation and episodic jumps which occur at the same time as abrupt changes in the Earth’s magnetic field, generated in the Earth’s core.

Science Daily
Lambeck et al., 1976 found that;

“The long-period (greater than about 10 yr) variations in the length-of-day (LoD) observed since 1820 show a marked similarity with variations observed in various climatic indices; periods of acceleration of the Earth corresponding to years of increasing intensity of the zonal circulation and to global-surface warming: periods of deceleration corresponding to years of decreasing zonal-circulation intensity and to a global decrease in surface temperatures. The long-period atmospheric excitation functions for near-surface geostrophic winds, for changes in the atmospheric mass distribution and for eustatic variations in sea level have been evaluated and correlate well with the observed changes in the LoD.“http://people.rses.anu.edu.au/lambeck_k/pdf/37.pdf

Over long enough timeframes changes in Earth’s rotation would likely have influences on vorticity, however on decadal timeframes I am not aware of a mechanism whereby millisecond changes in Length of Day would have a significant influence on Polar Vorticity.
There have been;

“several studies (including Waugh and Randel 1999; Waugh et al. 1999; Karpetchko et al. 2005; Black and McDaniel 2007) have indicated a trend over the 1980s and 1990s toward a later vortex breakdown.” “Final Warming Date of the Antarctic Polar Vortex and Influences on its Interannual Variability” http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7598/is_20091115/ai_n42654411/

The chart on page 10 of the following paper shows the vortex break-up dates for the Northern Hemisphere since 1960 and Southern Hemisphere since 1979:
http://www.columbia.edu/~lmp/paps/waugh+polvani-PlumbFestVolume-2010.pdf

It states that:

The intense cyclonic vortices that form over the winter pole are one of the most
prominent features of the stratospheric circulation. The structure and dynamics of these “polar vortices” play a dominant role in the winter and spring stratospheric circulation and are key to determining distribution of trace gases, in particular ozone, and the couplings between the stratosphere and troposphere.”
“Until recently, it was thought that sudden warmings were exclusively a NH phenomenon. However, a dramatic event occurred in the SH in September 2002, when the Antarctic vortex elongated and split into two.This is the only known SSW in the SH, and there has been considerable research into this event,much of which is summarized in the March 2005 special issue of the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences [see also Baldwin et al., 2003]. Although there have been many studies into the dynamics of this event (see the above mentioned special issue), the exact cause remains unknown. Most of the focus has been on upward propagating Rossby waves, but Esler et al. [2006] provide evidence that the event may have been the result of a self-tuned resonance. Kushner and Polvani [2005] documented the spontaneous occurrence of a sudden warming, resembling the observed SH event, in a long numerical simulation of a simple troposphere-stratosphere general circulation model with no stationary forcing, suggesting that the 2002 event may have been just a rare, random (“natural”)event.”
“Several studies have examined decadal variability and trends in polar vortices over the past 4 decades using meteorological reanalyses [e.g., Waugh et al., 1999; Zhou et al., 2000; Langematz and Kunze , 2006; Karpetchko et al., 2005]. Because of the lack of stratospheric measurements in the SH in the presatellite era, reliable trends can only be determined from 1979 on. However, there are sufficient stratospheric observations inthe1960sand1970sintheNHto perform trend analyses from 1960 to present day for the Arctic vortices. These studies have shown that there are significant trends in the springtime Antarctic vortex and that the vortex has become stronger, colder, and more persistent (i.e., breaks up later) since 1979;see Figure 8.”
“The large interannual variability of the Arctic vortex (e.g., Figure 2) makes detecting long-term trends very difficult. Although trends have sometimes been reported for shorter data records, there are no significant trends in the size or persistence in the Arctic vortex between 1958 and 2002 (Figure8)[see also Karpetchko et al. ,2005]. However,trends in the area or volume of temperatures below the threshold for PSC formation have been noted [e.g., Knudsen et al. , 2004; Karpetchko et al. ,2005; Rex et al. ,2006].”
“There is a great deal of interest in possible future trends in the polar vortices. As significant changes in concentrations of key radiative gases in the stratosphere are expected over the 21st century (ozone is expected to increase as the concentrations of ozone-depleting substances decrease back to 1960 levels, and GHGs are expected to continue to increase), some changes in the polar vortices may be expected. It is also possible that increases in GHGs could lead to changes in wave activity and propagation from the troposphere, which could then lead to changes in the vortices. There have been numerous modeling studies examining possible changes in the stratosphere over the 21st century, but the majority of these studies have focused on changes in stratospheric ozone [e.g., Austin et al., 2003; Eyring et al. ,2007; Shepherd, 2008] or circulation [e.g., Garcia and Randel, 2008; Oman et al., 2009; Butchart et al. , 2009], and there have been limited detailed studies of changes in the vortices. However, there has been analysis of monthly mean temperatures in these simulations that provide insight into possible changes in the vortices.
An early study by Shindell et al. [1998] indicated a significant cooling (and strengthening) of the Arctic vortex as GHGs increased, leading to significant ozone depletion and formation of an Arctic ozone hole. However, more recent simulations with more sophisticated chemistry-climate models (CCMs) that have a better representation of the dynamics and chemistry (and couplings between them) do not show a significant strengthening or formation of Arctic ozone holes during the 21st century [e.g., Austin et al., 2003; Eyring et al., 2007]. The long-term trends in Arctic temperatures in these chemistry-climate models are small, with no consistency as to whether the polar stratosphere will be warmer or colder [Butchart et al., 2009]. The CCMs also predict a limited impact of increased GHGs on the Antarctic vortex during the 21st century. However, the same simulations all predict an increase in the tropical upwelling as GHGs increase, which has been attributed to changes in subtropical wave driving [e.g.,Garcia and Randel, 2008; Oman et al., 2009]. This change in tropical circulation appears not to be strongly connected with changes in polar regions [e.g., McLandress and Shepherd, 2009].
In terms of sudden warmings, it is important to note first that most state of the art chemistry-climate models severely underestimate their frequency [Charlton et al. , 2007]. As for what might be expected in the 21st century, only one study is available [Charlton-Perez et al., 2008]: On the basis of several long integrations with a single model, the Charlton-Perez et al. suggest that the frequency of sudden warmings (currently six events per decade) might increase by one event per decade by the end of the 21st century. Needless to say, owing to the large interannual variability, such trends are very difficult to estimate, and the question remains largely open.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the recovery of Antarctic ozone is predicted to cause a positive trend in lower stratospheric temperatures and vortex strength in late spring to summer. As discussed in section 5, changes in the Antarctic lower stratospheric temperatures over the last 2 decades have been linked to changes in Southern Hemisphere climate. The ozone recovery over the next 4 to 5 decades is predicted to reverse these changes [e.g.,Son et al., 2008; Perlwitz et al., 2008]. It is important to note that in the latter part of the 20th century, the impact of ozone depletion on the tropospheric circulation has been in the same sense as the impact of increasing GHGs. However, as ozone recovers, the strato-spheric impact will oppose, and even reverse, some of the expected changes to increases in GHGs.”

In summary, I don’t think we know what causes variability in Polar Vortex strength and persistence, thus I don’t think we have any predictive capacity in this area.

Michael Snow says: January 10, 2014 at 8:55 pm
Did anyone click on the supposed NASA link for the pictures at the top of the article?
It is not a “supposed NASA link”, it is a link to a Wired article;
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/venus-polar-vortex/
that contains the NASA image:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/591917main1_polar-vortex-set-226wide.jpg
To avoid confusion, I changed the Wired article out for this NASA article that also contained the image:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/venus-temp20110926.html
This is on VENUS !
Corrected the image at the head of the article is an example of a Polar Vortex on Venus. The goal of the introduction of this article was to explain what Polar Vortices are, including those on other planets. For some reason we have much better imagery of the other planets’ vortices than our own. To avoid others experiencing your apparent surprise, I’ve added the words “Polar Vortex on Venus” next to the Image Credit above.