By WUWT Regular “Just The Facts”
As discussed last week, the Northern Stratospheric Polar Vortex appears to have been displaced in January and now it appears to be splitting into two discrete lobes, i.e. see the image above with two areas of blue / cold air descending within the funnels/lobes of the Polar Vortex at 10 hPa/mb – 31 km – 102K feet. What follows is succinct summary of Polar Vorticity, followed by various current observations. If you aren’t familiar with Stratospheric Polar Vortexes, you can get acquainted here, here and here.
Planetary Vorticity is “generated by the rotating earth”, it “is zero at equator”, is at it’s “maximum at pole (one revolution per day)” and “is always positive (cyclonic [counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere])”, Lyndon State College Atmospheric Sciences i.e.:
Polar Vortices are “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
“The polar vortex extends from the tropopause (the dividing line between the stratosphere and troposphere) through the stratosphere and into the mesosphere (above 50 km). Low values of ozone and cold temperatures are associated with the air inside the vortex.” NASA
Below is Northern Hemisphere Area Where Temperature is Below 195K or -78C, and it shows very cold air within the Polar Vortex descended from 10 hPa/mb – 31 km – 102K feet down to 250 hPa/mb – 10 km – 34K feet, twice during January, 2014.
“During extreme variability of the Arctic polar vortex termed a “weak vortex event,” anomalies can descend from the upper stratosphere to the surface on time scales of weeks. Subsequently the outbreak of cold-air events have been noted in high northern latitudes, as well as a quadrupole pattern in surface temperature over the Atlantic and western European sectors, but it is currently not understood why certain events descend to the surface while others do not.” “The subdivision of such events into vortex displacements and vortex splits has important implications for tropospheric weather patterns on weekly to monthly time scales.” “Using reanalysis data it is found that vortex splitting events are correlated with surface weather and lead to positive temperature anomalies over eastern North America of more than 1.5 K, and negative anomalies over Eurasia of up to −3 K. The corresponding signals are weaker during displacement events, although ultimately they are shown to be related to cold-air outbreaks over North America.” Mitchell et al. 2012 – Paywalled
Onto the observations. If you look at the following 4 National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center Northern Hemisphere Temperature Analyses at 10 hPa/mb – 31 km – 102K feet showing the cold Northern Stratospheric Polar Vortex on January 7th and 11th, and February 7th and 8th, 2014 you can see the progression as the Polar Vortex was first displaced/squeezed and now spliting into two lobes:
Above you can also see an area of high pressure and warm air building between the lobes of the vortex. Polar Wind at 10 hPa/mb – 31 km – 102K feet clearly shows the two lobes of the Northern Stratospheric Polar Vortex spinning counter-clockwise (Click the Pic to Animate):
Also interesting is that Ozone Mixing Ratios at 10 hPa/mb – 31 km – 102K feet show the “Ozone Hole” within the Polar Vortex splitting:
The two lobes of the Polar Vortex aren’t just visible at 10 hPa/mb – 31 km – 102K feet, the funnels of the vortex also extend both up and down, as you can see in the following National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center Height Analysis, which starts at 1 hPa/mb – 50 km – 164K feet and extends down to 100 hPa/mb – 15 km – 49K feet. The Vortex appears to split into two lobes/funnels at about 5 hPa – 35 km – 115K feet:
For those unfamiliar with the variation of pressure with height, this graphic may prove helpful:
So what is the result of this Polar Vortex behavior? “Large regions in northern Asia, Europe and North America have been found to cool during the mature and late stages of weak vortex events in the stratosphere. A substantial part of the temperature changes are associated with changes in the Northern Annular Mode (NAM) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) pressure patterns in the troposphere.” Kolstad et al. 2010
Here is Northern Hemisphere – Vertical Cross Section of Geopotential Height Anomalies and the Northern Annular Mode (NAM) or Arctic Oscillation (AO) Index, which shows large positive Height Anomalies and the AO swinging negative in January and early February:
And here is North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) Index for the prior 4 Months, showing a positive swing in mid-January and remaining there until present:
Lastly, the causes of this year’s weak vortex events were discussed in depth last week on this thread, however two key drivers of recent Polar Vortex behavior appear to be Eddy Heat and Planetary Waves. In terms of Eddy Heat, i.e. “strong negative fluxes indicate poleward flux of heat via eddies. Multiple strong poleward episodes will result in a smaller polar vortex, Sudden Stratospheric Warmings and an earlier transition from winter to summer circulations. Relatively small flux amplitudes will result in a more stable polar vortex and will extend the winter circulation well into the Spring.” NOAA
Here you can see that 10 day Averaged Eddy Heat Flux Towards The North Pole At 100mb is near a record daily maximum as it was in early January when the earlier weak vortex event began:
In terms of Planetary Waves “a vortex displacement event is associated with anomalously high wave number-1 planetary wave activity entering the stratosphere and is characterized by a vortex with a comma-like shape that is shifting equatorward. Often this shifting occurs ‘‘top down’’ and the vortex has a baroclinic structure. Subsequently the Aleutian high, a weak anti- cyclone, encroaches over the pole and is especially dominant at lower levels.”
“A vortex splitting event is associated with anomalously high wavenumber-2 planetary wave activity entering the stratosphere. During such an event the vortex barotropically splits into two ‘‘daughter’’ vortices that tend to align along the 90°E – 90°W axis, with one centered over Siberia and the other centered over northeastern Canada (Matthewman et al. 2009, hereafter M09).” Mitchell et al. 2011
Planetary Wave 1 activity can be see on this Zonal Wave #1 Amplitude Jan, Feb, March Time Series showing strong Wave 1 activity in January;
but in February we are seeing more Planetary Wave 2 activity:
So if the Northern Stratospheric Polar Vortex splits and does not break up, and if Mitchell et al. 2012 are correct, we should begin see “positive temperature anomalies over eastern North America of more than 1.5 K” and “negative anomalies over Eurasia of up to −3 K” in the coming weeks. We shall see.
For an array of real time Northern Stratospheric Polar Vortex graphs and graphics please visit the WUWT Northern Polar Vortex Reference Page.
I can guarantee you this vortex system will never be modeled. Academics may try, and fail, and then claim they’ve been successful, but it will all be lies.
Can anyone explain to how come the DMI temps for 80deg north and above are showing a consistent 5degC positive anomaly (it was as high as 10deg), yet the charts for sea surface anomaly just below it (in Anthony’s sea ice references) show neutral to slightly cold, and winter temps in North America are said to be at 30 year lows.
It doesn’t seem to make sense.
And our January thaw, the one that was just like clock work for 40 years.. didn’t happen this year in the US West and Mid West…
The cold air massing in the arctic with the vortex split will resume shortly. The split, disintegration and rebuild happens in about 5-10 days. The remains of the split is still stronger than many winter vortexes of the 80’s and 90’s. This has not warmed the west and midwest as of yet.
After getting two days with record lows being smashed by 11 deg F (-32 deg F) and record low highs below zero, I am all for some global warming.
J Martin says:
February 8, 2014 at 2:47 pm
Coincidental that both vortices are located in the vicinity of the two magnetic North poles ?
============
maybe not. Oxygen is attracted by a magnetic field.
@justthefactswuwt
http://phys.org/news194504586.html
seems like a decent theory at least.
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? It lurches this way and that, always trying to escape its confinement. Sometimes a constellation of circumstances arises that allows it to lurch a long way. Often it will then become a “cutoff low”, just as in a military engagement, too large a salient from the “front” is at risk of being pinched off and isolated.
Fear not. It is raining in California. Relief is coming.
@ur momisugly #10
Sorry, that is nonsense. You have those effects on a global (sic!) scale and they never show up in your bathtub or toilet. You could ask a physicist; or watch The Simpsons which is made by physicists and which make good fun of this 😉
This has NEVER been demonstrated – show me one actual drain mentioned in literature or on video that is claimed to possess such properties.
ferdberple says:
February 8, 2014 at 6:05 pm
J Martin says:
February 8, 2014 at 2:47 pm
Coincidental that both vortices are located in the vicinity of the two magnetic North poles ?
============
maybe not. Oxygen is attracted by a magnetic field.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Vukcevic (I hope I spelled his name correctly) had some info in the past with regards to a relationship to the polar vortex and the two north magnetic poles. It was in a comment on WUWT and linked to his website. Interesting.
jorgekafkazar says: February 8, 2014 at 5:26 pm (Edit)
I can guarantee you this vortex system will never be modeled. Academics may try, and fail, and then claim they’ve been successful, but it will all be lies.
Never is a really long time, but we can certainly agree that we are no where close right now, i.e.:
“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
@ur momisugly
ferdberple says:
February 8, 2014 at 6:05 pm
and
J Martin says:
February 8, 2014 at 2:47 pm
=========
To add to my previous comment above.
I hope that Vukcevic will join in this discussion. Until he does I located this from his site. Not sure if it is the link I was looking for. http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Arctic.htm
Interesting.
I would suggest putting all the plots on a common scale, and units, with a modern geodetic projection and center-frame then re-plot all and re-present to us for inspection and comment.
Of course, you will NOT do this! Check, Mate, and Win for me.
Ha ha
It is interesting that where the spin is greatest at the poles, humans experience no centripetal force. However where humans experience no spin at the equator, they experience the greatest centripetal force due to the spinning earth. This is of course the reason the earth bulges at the equator.
Much is to be studied in regard to magnetic pole (s) field component strengths (x,y,z).
The pseudo-opposite, strato-warm conditions are also worth study along with the upper atmospheric mixing between the layers.
What stimuli and conditions are needed within the ocean phases, and their contributions toward glacial and inter-glacial transitions & visa versa ?
How does the thin layer of our planetary mesosphere change during these conditions and what relationships are noted through all spheres held within the magnetosphere, troposphere included?
The chemical and typical physical properties may be less or equal to the electromagnetic influences…
@Nemo Thanks I went there because as I was reading the earlier comment my first thought was solar effect, that was great information and looking forward to the Japanese sat. getting there (could not resist though where there any polar vortexes @20,000 Leagues?)
I live in Japan and just got through digging out of the worst snowstorm to hit the Kanto Region (where Tokyo/Yokohama/Nagoya cities are located) in about 20 years….
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/rare-snowstorm-for-japan/23094551
It was incredible! It was much worse than the big snowstorm that hit Kanto 20 years ago….
Thank you, Polar Vortex, that was quite a display you put on yesterday….
Daniel Vogler says: February 8, 2014 at 5:25 pm
Freie Universität Berlin – Department of Earth Sciences / Institute of Meteorology – Click the pic to view at source[/caption]
Ke et al. 2007 – Click the pic to view at source[/caption]
The split doesn’t last for long, reforms over Northern Canada in a few days. Just goes to show us how strong the PV has been this winter.
http://users.met.fu-berlin.de/~Aktuell/strat-www/wdiag/figs/ecmwf1/ecmwf10f120.gif
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="394"]
Firstly, that forecast comes from this valuable Freie Universität Berlin – Department of Earth Sciences / Institute of Meteorology Stratosphere Diagnostics page;
http://www.geo.fu-berlin.de/en/met/ag/strat/produkte/winterdiagnostics/index.html
which is solid site and I was not aware of. I will need to put some of their products on the Northern Polar Reference Page. Thank you
In terms of Polar Vortex persistent, “mean breakup date ― when the winter westerly at the core of polar jet turns to summer easterly ― is about April 10. The breakup time has large interannual variation with a time span of about 2 months. It also has a long-term trend with the 1990s and 2000s witnessing more and more late breakups of polar vortex. Composite of wind speed at the core of polar jet for the extremely early and late breakup years shows that late years have two periods of westerly weakening while early breakup years have only one. The first weakening in the late years happens in middle January with wind speed dropping sharply from more than 40 m s − 1 to about 15 m s − 1. This is accompanied with anomalous activities of planetary waves in both stratosphere and troposphere; while the second weakening in the late breaking years is mainly the results of diabatic heating with very weak wave activities. In early breakup years, the transition from westerly to easterly is rapid with wind speed dropping from more than 30 m s − 1 to less than − 10 m s − 1 within a month. This evolution is associated with a strong bidirectional dynamical coupling of the stratosphere and troposphere. The circulation anomalies at low troposphere are also analyzed in the extremely early and late breakup years. It shows that there are significant differences between the two kinds of extreme years in the geopotential height and temperature composite analysis, indicating the dynamical coupling of stratosphere and troposphere with the evolution of stratospheric polar vortex.”
“The 45-year time series and its long-term trend of the breakup date of stratospheric polar vortex are shown in Figure 3. As mentioned above, the breakup date has large interannual variation with a time span of about 2 months from middle March to middle May. It also shows a long-term tendency with delay of the breakup date. Therefore, the persistence of the polar vortex has been enhanced, especially in the 1990s. This confirms the previous studies [12,15,29]. This delay in the Arctic vortex breakup may be related to the reduction of planetary wave activities, few stratospheric sudden warming events, and depletion of ozone in recent decades [15,28,30]. Also, there is decadal variability with late breakups in the late 1960s, late 1980s and late 1990s, but with early breakups in the early 1960s, late 1970s and early 1990s.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="394"]
“Composite of circulation and wave activities for 10 extremely early and late breakup years shows that late breakup years have two periods of weakening of the winter westerly while early breakup years have only one. The first weakening in the late breakup years happens in middle January. This weakening is accompanied with strong wave activities in polar stratosphere. However, the second weakening in the late breakup years is mainly the results of diabatic heating while the wave activities are weak. In early breakup years, the transition from westerly to easterly is rapid, which is associated with a strong bidirectional dynamical coupling of the stratophere and troposphere. These results make it clear that the debate on the breaking characteristics is mainly due to the different criterions. The Nash criterion [27] defines most of the first polar weakening as the final breakup and gets the conclusion that the remnants of the vortex persist longer in early breakup years. In fact, this weakening is related to wave activities and mid-winter stratospheric sudden warming, rather than the exact breakup. Obviously, the polar stratosphere is still dominated by winter westerly.”
http://cmsr.iap.ac.cn/upload/File/cw/2007SCSD-Weietal-en.pdf
“Short- and long-term changes in the intensity and persistence of the Arctic and Antarctic stratospheric polar vortices during spring have been analyzed, using NCEP/NCAR (National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research) reanalyses. For the Arctic the results confirm the existence of low frequency variability in the winter stratosphere. During the 1980s and early to mid-1990s the northern hemisphere (NH) polar vortex was intensified in spring and broke up late. Since the late 1990s however, major stratospheric warmings occurred more frequently, so that the polar vortex in spring still intensified in March but with a smaller magnitude. As some of the major warmings occurred early in winter, the polar vortex was able to recover leading to late breakup dates in spite of the dynamical disturbances. In the long-term, there is no statistically significant change in Arctic vortex intensity or lifetime. In the Antarctic, the significant intensification of the polar vortex found in the 1980s and 1990s has been considerably reduced due to an unexpected enhancement of dynamical activity in southern hemisphere (SH) winter since 2000, masking the significant increase in polar vortex persistence found for the period 1979–1999. Still on the long-term, the Antarctic vortex shows a significant deepening and shift towards later spring transitions.” Langematz, et al., 2008
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4020-6766-2_20
@asybot
Heh, well, there’s a mælstrom…
wbrozek says: February 8, 2014 at 7:58 pm
It is interesting that where the spin is greatest at the poles, humans experience no centripetal force. However where humans experience no spin at the equator, they experience the greatest centripetal force due to the spinning earth. This is of course the reason the earth bulges at the equator.
“Do you weigh differently at the North Pole than what you do at the equator?
Yes you do, because at the equator the centrifugal force due to the spinning of the Earth is at its maximum, and vanishes at the poles. This means that the attractive force of gravity is slightly reduced because it is directed towards the center of the Earth, while the centripetal force is directed outward from the center. The effective acceleration of gravity at the poles is 980.665 cm/sec/sec while at the equator it is 3.39 cm/sec/sec less due to the centrifugal force. If you weighed 100 pounds at the north pole on a spring scale, at the equator you would weigh 99.65 pounds, or 5.5 ounces less. Your mass, in grams, however would stay the same because ‘grams’ is a measure of the resistance of a body to being moved and has nothing to do with acceleration or gravity. Your mass in kilograms would remain the same. It is common for people to use ‘pounds’ and ‘grams’ interchangeably but they are not.” NASA
http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/a11511.html
The Polar Vortex is not caused by the mechanical rotation of the earth like a set of gears. It is at the foot print of the magnetosphere(magnetic fields) and the rotation/convection is an ionic wind…
“High-latitude plasma convection from Cluster EDI: variances and solar wind correlations”
“The magnitude of convection standard deviations is of the same order as, or even larger than, the convection magnitude itself. Positive correlations of polar cap activity are found with |ByzIMF| and with Er,sw, in particular. The strict linear increase for small magnitudes of Er,sw starts to deviate toward a flattened increase above about 2 mV/m. There is also a weak positive correlation with Pdyn. At very small values of Pdyn, a secondary maximum appears, which is even more pronounced for the correlation with solar wind proton density. Evidence for enhanced nightside convection during high nightside activity is presented.”
‘Low to Moderate values in the solar wind electric field are positively correlated to convection velocity.”
“A positive correlation between Ring current and convection velocity.”
http://web.ift.uib.no/Romfysikk/RESEARCH/PAPERS/forster07.pdf
Low Energy ion escape from terrestrial Polar Regions.
http://www.dissertations.se/dissertation/3278324ef7/
How long have we been able to track these?
Now let’s just integrate the PDO and ENSO too, for simplicity.
Don’t know about you, kina stifling, no?
Like learning to fly.
http://youtu.be/eCB_INs2E24
Do we have another paradigm shift in knowledge?
I remember an older one that happened
http://youtu.be/Iwuy4hHO3YQ
Dedicated to Mosher.
Its all good !
Mike says: @ur momisugly February 8, 2014 at 4:37 pm
Yes Steve Goddard
jorgekafkazar says: February 8, 2014 at 5:26 pm “I can guarantee you this vortex system will never be modeled. Academics may try, and fail, and then claim they’ve been successful, but it will all be lies.”
justthefactswuwt says: February 8, 2014 at 7:08 pm “Never is a really long time, but we can certainly agree that we are no where close right now….”
Agreed. But the lies have started already, anyway:
There is no such need because there is no effective way to incorporate vortex dynamics in a fully determinate GCM. For several hundred million dollars of our resources, they may succeed in emulating polar vortices, but they’ll never be able to predict their chaotic loci, paths, or velocities for any significant period of time.
English is not my mother language, but in the title should “becomes” not be “become”?