We’ve just been waiting for this predictable headline to emerge somewhere, and it happened to pop up in Canada’s CBC News:
h/t to Ron Christie in WUWT Tips and Notes
That “new study” from Rutgers? Not even new. They write:
The 2012 paper says melting Arctic ice is weakening the jet stream. This weakening causes the jet stream to dip further south, which in Canada brings severe cold temperatures for prolonged periods of time.
Um, no. The 2012 study by Jennifer Francis of Rutgers they allude to (but don’t mention) is titled:
Evidence linking Arctic amplification to extreme weather in mid-latitudes
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL051000/abstract
Arctic amplification (AA) – the observed enhanced warming in high northern latitudes relative to the northern hemisphere – is evident in lower-tropospheric temperatures and in 1000-to-500 hPa thicknesses. Daily fields of 500 hPa heights from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction Reanalysis are analyzed over N. America and the N. Atlantic to assess changes in north-south (Rossby) wave characteristics associated with AA and the relaxation of poleward thickness gradients. Two effects are identified that each contribute to a slower eastward progression of Rossby waves in the upper-level flow: 1) weakened zonal winds, and 2) increased wave amplitude. These effects are particularly evident in autumn and winter consistent with sea-ice loss, but are also apparent in summer, possibly related to earlier snow melt on high-latitude land. Slower progression of upper-level waves would cause associated weather patterns in mid-latitudes to be more persistent, which may lead to an increased probability of extreme weather events that result from prolonged conditions, such as drought, flooding, cold spells, and heat waves.
So what is being argued is that somehow, Arctic Amplification (making the Arctic warm faster than the rest of the planet) results is bitterly cold air masses that protrude southward from the circumpolar vortex and linger longer. Note in this forecast panel for the next few days, the cold air outbreak is a regional issue. Would CBC care to say that the warm outbreak over Alaska and the North Atlantic (giving some very nice weather to the UK) is also caused by the same mechanism? If they do, then of course it becomes an unfalsifiable belief, essentially a religion.
Dr. Judith Curry has already taken on this nonsense back in January and writes:
Is global warming causing the polar vortex?
by Judith Curry
In a word, no.
And now for the 2nd question: Does the massive cold air outbreak blanketing much of the U.S. disprove global warming?
Same word: no.
The media are mostly in stupid mode over this one.
Cliff Mass provides a good overview, the punch lines:
The bottom line: the claims that greenhouse warming causes more cold waves like we have seen this week really seems to be without any basis in observational evidence or in theory. The media needs to stop pushing this unsupported argument.
It is SO frustrating that every major weather event causes such claims and counterclaims to be aired, with many media outlets unable to do the minimal research that would allow them to give the public more dependable information.
All this bogus reporting has done substantial damage, with many American’s believing that global warming is already causing our winter weather to become more extreme, while the observational evidence suggests no such thing. One day some sociologists will study this situation and the psychological elements that drove it.
The arguments in favor of an AGW impact on the cold air in the U.S. come from Jennifer Francis (see this previous post).
The bitter winter of 1976-77 in the U.S. with its large polar excursions certainly didn’t have anything to do with global warming then, and it would have been absurd then to make such a claim, it is no less absurd now.
Read the whole paper: 1977v002no04-Wagner (PDF)
The “blocking high” slowed down the progression of the jet stream much like Ms. Francis suggests in her 2012 paper, see this pictorial for what happened in January 2014, much like the pattern of 1977:
Except in 1977, “global warming” was the furthest thing from most scientists and journalists minds at the time.
John S. says:
March 18, 2014 at 4:31 am
“Does anybody remember how the movie The Day After Tomorrow ended? Hint: It wasn’t very warm in New York City.”
Yes, but the people froze to death due to a “tropospheric storm” that made very very cold air descend vertically. This is not what happened this winter in North America. Therefore, we can say that Roland Emmerich’s predictions have as of now not been confirmed. At least the ones in this particular work.
In 2008, global warming was making the jet stream go north…
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/jet-stream-moved-northwards-270-miles-in-22-years-climate-change-to-b
As usual…whatever happens, it’s global warming.
Official prophecy of doom: Global warming will cause widespread conflict, displace millions of people and devastate the global economy
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/official-prophecy-of-doom-global-warming-will-cause-widespread-conflict-displace-millions-of-people-and-devastate-the-global-economy-9198171.html
just one of a barrage of co2ers reports today. The articles have no balance. Its just one sided.
Journalism loves scary headlines, it is what drags eyeballs to pages, clicks to online media and all to look at advertising that generates their $revenues to pay salaries. Global Warming or Climate Change is a perfect never ending story of doom gloom and guilt. The International Green Industry just takes their fund raising marketing plan, literature and money to provide what Mass Media needs – doom, gloom and guilt.
Sooner or later they will move on. Reality, in the form of the ongoing computer models – data disconnects, will be noticed, the public will disconnect from the message track and a new scary meme will be adopted by the mass media.
Too bad about the $Trillions of public dollars wasted on Greenie instigated CO2 fairy tales.
Could have bought a lot of health care public education and infrastructure.
“Storm Threatens village!”
“Village Saved from Storm!”
James Strom says:
March 18, 2014 at 6:03 am
The Francis abstract you post says this–”These effects are particularly evident in autumn and winter consistent with sea-ice loss,…”, and while the theory is conceivably correct, this is the wrong year to bring it up, since the later part of 2013 saw a large Arctic ice gain.
Arctic sea ice extent has been near record lows for most of the winter. Whether this is a cause or an effect of the jet stream excursions is the issue. That is, is the sea ice affecting the weather or is the weather affecting the sea ice?
“Coach Springer says:
March 18, 2014 at 6:39 am
Falsifiable? It’s a good thing we can go back in time and see jet stream activity. No? Perhaps there is still a need at Rutgers for Michael Mann and another tree ring study to prove definitively that jet streams have never behaved like this before.”
#################
Thats not the argument.
1. The jet streams have always had loops.
2. These loops can cause certain weather patterns to persist
3. We’ve seen this in the past. It’s normal.
Along comes Global warming and arctic amplification and we Predict:
1. The normal loops may become larger in amplitude
2. If they become larger, you can expect more stuck weather than normal.
So the argument is NOT that arctic amplification causes this.
The argument is NOT we have never seen this before.
The argument is:
A) we’ve seen these loops before. they are normal.
B) Arctic amplification may cause the loops to have larger amplitudes than normal.
C) The weather extremes caused by the loops, become more frequent/intense.
Time will tell.
Its definitely falsifiable. Measure the mean amplitude of the loops over the last couple decades we have data. Wait 30 years for the arctic to warm and we hit ‘ice free” conditions in the arctic.
measure loop amplitude again.
What’s not falsifiable is the skeptical position
IF they had predicted this before it happened, I’d be impressed, but the game seems to be, “Whatever happens, it MUST BE proof of Global Warming”, is just foolish. It’s like saying,, “Heads I win, tails you lose!”
Steven Mosher says:
“Wait 30 years for the arctic to warm and we hit ‘ice free” conditions in the arctic.”
The Arctic has very likely been ice-free in the past, before CO2 began rising.
What were the jet streams doing then?
Here is another b.s. article from Canadian media on March 13th.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/experts-quiet-climate-change-skeptics-warming-leads-to-longer-cold-snaps-1.1727176#commentsField-494486
Just skip reading the article and go right to the 167 comments.
Who do the media and faux scientists think they are fooling? It seems not many Canadians. Yet this madness continues. Interesting and a little nervous how this will all play out as here in Ontario our world is governed on one alternate plane of existence and we the people live on another called the real world. With rising energy prices and another cold winter like the last, the masses will not be amused. In times past this difference is solved with revolutions. Hope it will not come to this.
The argument is:
A) we’ve seen these loops before. they are normal.
B) Arctic amplification may cause the loops to have larger amplitudes than normal.
C) The weather extremes caused by the loops, become more frequent/intense.
********
**IF** the earth is warming and the loop de loops produce larger amplitudes, because of the a ‘warmer earth, what if the purpose of the larger de loops is to cool the earth won’t the loop de loops end the long run get smaller.
What if grasshoppers had tail gunners, would birds eph with them?
What if the larger amplitude loop de loops are a sign of a colder atmosphere and we in fact have it sdrawkcab ssa?
This boils down to … “climate change causes climate change”.
Wow! In 24 hours two Nobel prize winning scientific discoveries are announced. First gravity waves are confirmed by microwave spin mapping from a south pole telescope (which despite global warming somehow still has cold clear air over it).
And now … climate change causes climate change! Pure genuis. A historic day for science!
\sarc off
What is it about paradoxical presentations do they not understand?
Its warmer up there so it must be global warming doing it? Right? Yet they do not follow the simple flow of heat and cold differential which every person who understand thermodynamics can tell you will cause greater air movement.
SO, which area is causing the increased movement? The tropics has remained nearly the same. Yet the poles have been cooling rapidly. If the arctic was warming the polar jet would be greatly reduced in size and the air movement minimized. The increased differential has caused wild swings of air movement which will pull heat to the poles in an attempt to warm them. This however is short lived and once the mid latitudes cool enough the real cooling in the arctic will be seen.
Would someone please slap these guys up side the head.
hmmm This is slightly different to what AGW were claiming only a few years ago ..
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/jet-stream-moved-northwards-270-miles-in-22-years-climate-change-to-b
Link to original paper: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008GL033614/abstract where the authors make the following disclaimer.
….. Continued…
I forgot this from Weather underground …
That explains a lot.
I’ve sat at a campfire where my front got warm (due to the CO2 released by the burning of the not-yet-fossil-fuel no doubt) and my back was cold. Now I understand why. If I had sat on a rotating stool powered by a windmill or a solar panel, I would have been warm all over.
Wait a minute…those things are supposed to keep me from getting warm.
Guess I’m confused again. 8-(
(I’m sure I had a sarc tag around here somewhere…..)
I want a movie that combines climate change with a homicidal bulldozer that has a mind of its own.
Sharknado vs Killdozer.
The warmists regularly cite the 2013 Australian temperatures as proof of CAGW however there is little real analysis of the underlying conditions. The BOM analysis is a mish mash of meaningless AGW propaganda. Even a cursory examination of the weather observations shows record levels of solar radiation, in many cases over 2Mj/M^2/day (anyone want to convert that to hiroshima bombs?). The BOM chart for solar radiation shows average levels but the chart bears no resemblance to the individual records. You have to wonder if that is shoddy workmanship or a deliberate attempt to hide an inconvenient truth. The record levels of radiation (data only goes back to 1991) coincide with very dry conditions. The regular heat waves in Eastern Australia were produced by a large blocking high over South Australia which forced the usual pattern of cold fronts south over Tasmania (relatively cold and very wet for a lot of the year.) This weather pattern is typical of a positive Antarctic Oscillation. Coupled with a neutral to slightly positive Indian Ocean Diode and a Neutral ENSO and you have all the ingredients for a hot dry year in Australia. Although the alarmists like to characterise this weather as unprecedented there are many instances where the late 19th century was hotter – just not enough coverage to create a truly national picture but it would be more accurate if they at least acknowledged the older records. Still think it is just weather.
Sorry, should have said “over 2MJ/M^2/day above the 1991-2013 average.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/18/climate-craziness-of-the-week-cold-snaps-result-of-global-warming/#comment-1593127
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Hey!
I think that might be the first time I had a typo and a messed up blockquote in the same comment!
(Where’s my calendar…..)
(How I went from “with” to “wing” I’ll never know.)
If it’s not warming, it’s not global warming. What’s there to understand?
The CBC is an absolutely pathetic excuse for a news organization and i have noticed recently that they seem to no longer be allowing comments on articles concerning the climate. It wasn’t long ago that they did, maybe they got tired of the constant cavalcade of idiots proclaiming the end was neigh and being easily rebutted. Though i doubt that, more likely they are taking the ‘debate is over’ tact that some other alleged news outlets have taken.
Pat says:
In 2008, global warming was making the jet stream go north…
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/jet-stream-moved-northwards-270-miles-in-22-years-climate-change-to-b
As usual…whatever happens, it’s global warming.
Pat,
While attempting to pin this on humans, they have provided evidence of the complete opposite:
From this study:
“Climate change is forcing the jet stream higher and closer to the pole in both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, according research published this April in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. In their paper, “Historical trends in the jet streams”, researchers Cristina Archer and Ken Caldeira of Stanford’s Carnegie Institution of Washington analyzed data from 1979-2001, and found that the Northern Hemisphere jet stream moved northward at approximately 125 miles per decade (270 miles during the 22-year period of the study)”
1. We had global warming during the period studied, 1979-2001, the jet stream shifted northward and CO2 went up every year.
2. Since then, global warming stopped, the jet stream is seeing extreme displacement south at times again(Polar Vortex) and CO2 is still going up every year.
3. This Winter, the jet stream acted like it did more frequently in the 1970’s. What do these recent colder and snowier Winters(2009/10 was also extremely cold/snowy) have in common with 1970’s Winters?
Is it CO2 levels………nope, they were not that high back then and we spent 25 years in between with a different pattern as CO2 went up in the 80’s/90’s.
Global warming? Can’t be that, since we had global cooling in the 70’s and no warming/stalled warming the last decade. In fact, the years when this DID NOT happen to the Polar Vortex as often, were the global warming years of the 80’s/90’s.
Climate change? Bingo, the PDO shifted back to negative a decade ago, like it was in the 1970’s after being positive during the 80’s/90’s. This is the smoking gun of climate change………NATURAL climate change!
“Time will tell.
Its definitely falsifiable. Measure the mean amplitude of the loops over the last couple decades we have data. Wait 30 years for the arctic to warm and we hit ‘ice free” conditions in the arctic.
measure loop amplitude again.
What’s not falsifiable is the skeptical position”
Steven,
Time has already told. It’s pretty dang clear to me from being an operational meteorologist, looking at global weather patterns every day the last 32 years and also comparing them to the 1970’s and prior years. (See my link earlier if you want to view these maps yourself)
The Arctic did warm and lots of ice did melt in the 80’s/90’s and we did NOT see any evidence of this when there should have been.
Why suddenly now? And also after we have one of the coldest Summer’s with year to year ice gains in the Arctic………………the complete opposite time when one should have seen the signal of it in the atmosphere………………..it’s happening after the warming stopped.
This pattern was more common in the 1970’s when the PDO was negative after having a positive PDO during the 80’s/90’s. When the PDO was positive, we also had global warming and we also saw the jet stream move north.
We can watch for another 30 years to see if this repeats again but all the proof has taken place right under our meteorological noses the past 30+ years………..that is to meteorologists that were watching.
Since that includes very few people, I will again, share the view with those that might actually care to look..
To view the daily weather maps for the Winter of 1976/77 go to the following link:
http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/ncepreanal/
Plug in a starting date of 1976-year 11-month 15-day
This will get you started on November 15, 1976. Hit the + to advance by day thru December, January and February.
The Polar Vortex drops way south repeatedly, causing numerous, extreme cold outbreaks in the eastern half of the US and Canada during that Winter as you can plainly see.
Other Winters in the 1970’s saw this occur much more frequently than the 80’s/90’s. 76/77 was chosen because it happened alot…………more than this Winter. Go ahead and use this link to look at all those Winters if you have the time. You will see it yourself.