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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
@John S.
Now, that was a preposterously stupid movie. Three choppers over Scotland, on a rescue mission to Balmoral Castle to save the Royal Family, got into the eye of the storm, where temperature dropped to an astounding -150°F (-101°C), the bloody fuel lines were starting to freeze, come on, you bastard! Crashed to the ground spectacularly, exposing survivors to an instant freeze. The Royal Family, presumably, perished. Later on we were told satellite readings had shown a temperature drop of 10 degrees per second over New York, a mighty feat indeed, for it must had dropped well below absolute zero in less than a minute this way.
Of course, Professor Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), the Scientist-Father-Hero explained it unequivocally. “The storm’s rotation is pulling supercooled air all the way down from the upper troposphere” and, although the air should have warmed up before it reached ground level, it did not, “The air’s descending too rapidly.”
Yeah, sure. Adiabatic processes are supposed to be suppressed, if things are happening too fast. Or is it the other way around? Otherwise, temperature of the tropopause seldom drops below -60°F, therefore lack of adiabatic heating is not enough to explain the woeful fate of the Royal Family, the opposite process is needed. Unfortunately thermodynamics is ruthless enough to refuse to make such a solution available.
I suppose it was not abrupt climate change after all that cut the royal bloodline of Britain short, but a somewhat revenge of the Stone of Scone or something. It did not like to be addressed as ‘turd’ perhaps.
It’s called strange / odd / wild / weird weather. The only problem is that this was in 1935!. Here are some of the headlines on the link. It’s just the weather and not the climate, as I have been told over and over again (IN THE PAST), but now all weather is a sign of a changing climate. BS I call it.
Britain Has Winter Heat Wave [Jan.]
COLDEST WEATHER IN MEMORY. MOTOR CARS SNOWED UP. [Britain] [Jan.]
SNOW IN MAY. Unusual Weather in England. [May]
FREAK WEATHER Frosts in England HEAVY LOSSES [June]
INDIA UNDER FROST Record Low Temperatures Many Deaths from Pneumonia
Freak Weather:…….Niagara Freezes:
AMERICA’S WINTER 200 Deaths From Cold Frost Reaches Florida
SNOW IN SWELTERING SAHARA ALGIERS
ls the Weather Abnormal?
OUR CHANGING CLIMATE Scientists Talk of Post…..[ Australia’s climate is bad,..]
CLIMATIC ECCENTRICITIES [… more or less off what is regarded as the normal…]
And just to balance things out for my last comment here are the unprecedented heatwaves!!! It’s all about the BS.
HEATWAVE IN FRANCE HUNDREDS OF CASES OF SUNSTROKE
HEAT WAVE IN ITALY DEATHS FROM SUNSTROKE [“…100 deaths…”]
…Most Of Continent, In Heat Wave [Europe]
122 IN THE SHADE. Madras Suffers. Deaths From Heat Stroke. [India]
WHEAT ESTIMATE IN U.S. REDUCED Effect Of Rust, Heat, And Drought
WEATHER EXTREMES. COLD FOLLOWS HEAT WAVE. Hailstorm in Perth Suburbs
EXTREME HEAT THROUGHOUT STATE 113 DEGREES AT WHITE CLIFFS. SYDNEY
HEAT WAVE. High Temperatures in New Zealand
EXTREMES IN WEATHER FOR SOUTH AFRICANS Heat Wave For Match Against Yorkshire
HEAT WAVE IN SYDNEY MANY PERSONS COLLAPSE
DROUGHT CONDITIONS Anxiety in Europe Heat Wave in England
ENGLAND’S HEATWAVE. DROUGHT CONDITIONS. NO WATER SHORTAGE
Ooooops! Here is the 1935 link for strange / odd / wild / weird weather again.
You missed some out hunter.
When it is slightly dry, it is AGW
When it is slightly wet, it is AGW
When it’s a little hot, it is AGW
When it is slightly cold, it is AGW
When it’s warmcold, it is AGW
When there is more snow, it is AGW
When there is less snow, it is AGW
When there is average snow, it is AGW
When there is slightly more or less or a lot more or a lot less………………. Less can be more or less and it’s all our fault.
I bet they’d prefer if it was getting warmer. But by their logic, if it does get warmer, will that mean that Global Warming is over? I’ve got my coat ready.
John S. says:
March 18, 2014 at 4:31 am
The premise behind the anti-science fiction movie Day After Tomorrow was that melting polar ice cooled the Atlantic. But the cold spells this winter have occurred with expanding Arctic & Antarctic sea ice. Big surprise!
The idiotic movie also claimed that similar climate change caused the climate change that led to the Pleistocene ice ages. Wrong again. The disruption of oceanic circulation from the formation of the Isthmus of Panama was the proximate cause, combined with tens of millions of years of global cooling, which had long previously already iced over Antarctica.
The models didn’t predict either the plateau in global temperatures experienced since the late 1990s, nor the more recent global cooling, let alone the exceptional cold of the past northern winter or the frigid snowy southern winter which preceded it.
In the last ice ages, it did warm first, then plunged. Fresh water from the Arctic, diverted the Gulf stream, but that is not news. Some twits were suggesting a few years ago, that giant fans be put on the ocean floor to keep the gulf stream circulating? (Can you imagine?)
Steven says;
“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.”
I wonder; in what way does prediction 1 differ from “The normal loops may not become larger”?
And is this how ‘prediction’ 2 would read; “If they don’t become larger, you can’t expect more stuck weather than normal”?
“melting Arctic ice is weakening the jet stream”
Whoever wrote that should be forced to spend a winter season on the south west coast of the UK. This last winter had some of the strongest North Atlantic jet stream winds ever experienced. The coast of the UK took a brutal pummeling from a continuous succession of deep low pressure systems that charged across the Atlantic for weeks on end.
“Weak jet stream” – tell that to the residents of Dawlish.
How can you people deny global warming? If there’s no GW, what the hell caused all the sharknados on the West Coast? EVERY respected scientist agrees with that, not just 97.5%.
Jennifer Francis has no credibility, as she cravenly displayed at the Senate Energy and Environment Committee meeting last year. Anything coming out of the Rutgers Climate Institute is suspect. I’d like to know if those people are among those who convinced people to try to sail Canada’s Northwest Passage who then got stuck and had to be rescued, like those mollusks in the Antarctic.
These liars are not merely purveyors of misinformation. They may well be leading people to their deaths.
“Brain snaps the result of Global Warming!” They’re everywhere.