From Dr Roy Spencer
January 31st, 2019 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
It’s much easier to devise and promote a climate change theory than it is to falsify it. Falsification requires a lot of data over a long period of time, something we don’t usually have in climate research.
The “polar vortex” is the deep cyclonic flow around a cold air mass generally covering the Arctic, Canada, and Northern Asia during winter. It is irregularly shaped, following the far-northern land masses, unlike it’s stratospheric cousin, which is often quite symmetric and centered on the North and South Poles.
For as long as we have had weather records (extending back into the 1800s), lobes of cold air rotating generally from west to east around the polar vortex sometimes extend down into the U.S. causing wild winter weather and general unpleasantness.
We used to call this process “weather”. Now it’s called “climate change”.
When these cold air outbreaks continued to menace the United States even as global warming has caused global average temperatures to creep upward, an explanation had to be found. After all, snow was supposed to be a thing of the past by now.
Enter the theory that decreasing wintertime sea ice cover in the Arctic (down about 15% over the last 40 years) has tended to displace the polar vortex in the general direction of southern Canuckistan and Yankeeland.
In other words, as the theory goes, global warming sometimes causes colder winters. This is what makes global warming theory so marvelously adaptable — it can explain anything.
In the wake of the current cold wave, John Christy skated into my office this morning with a plot of U.S. winter cold waves since the late 1800s. He grouped the results by region, and examined cold waves lasting a minimum of 2 days at a station, and 5 days at a station. The results were basically the same.
As can be seen in the plot below, there is no evidence in the data supporting the claim that decreasing Arctic sea ice in recent decades is causing more frequent displacement of cold winter air masses into the eastern U.S., at least through the winter of 2017-18:
The trend is markedly downward in the most recent 40 years (since 1979) which is the earliest we have reliable measurements of Arctic sea ice from satellite microwave radiometers (my specialty).
Now, I suppose that Arctic sea ice decline could have some influence. But weather is immensely complex. Cause and effect is often difficult to ascertain.
At a minimum we should demand good observational support for any specific claim. In this case I would say that the connection between Eastern U.S. cold waves and Arctic sea ice is speculative, at best.
Just like most theories of climate change.
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vukcevic
“- polar vortex is electrically charged by cosmic rays or solar activity particles”
Vuk I think the only reason were here, is because of the processes from inside Earth itself ,generating electricity and then magnetism.
“Together, these signals form the magnetic field that protects us from cosmic radiation and charged particles that stream towards Earth in solar winds.
Measuring the magnetic field is one of the few ways we can look deep inside our planet. As Chris Finlay from the Technical University of Denmark noted, “We know more about the Sun than Earth’s core because the Sun is not hidden from us by 3000 km of rock.”
The field exists because of an ocean of superheated, swirling liquid iron that makes up the outer core. Like a spinning conductor in a bicycle dynamo, this moving iron creates electrical currents, which in turn generate our continuously changing magnetic field.
Tracking changes in the magnetic field can, therefore, tell researchers how the iron in the core moves.”
https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Swarm/There_s_a_jet_stream_in_our_core
The motto of the climate alarmists should be ” if you need a unicorn, model it”
Thank you. I’ve just read a global warming explanation for the polar vortex cooling by an Ethan Siegel and being skeptical I wondered if it had any basis in fact.
This is fun. Dr. Christie posts a graph showing that the number of cold spells in the USA has been declining for at least 40 years and everybody accepts this as proof that global warming is false. If anyone else where to post that same graph as evidence of global warming everyone here would attack it as biased and that it was not proof of anything.
This is fun . . . everybody accepts this as proof that global warming is false.
Which part is fun, building the Strawman or burning him down?
The post’s title, “If the Polar Vortex is due to Global Warming, Why are U.S. Cold Waves Decreasing?” declares the argument at-hand.
Wrong Percy.
Why make such inane comments?
What many here are criticizing are the contradictory, ad hoc, made to order, ever shifting, goal post moving, logically inconsistent, and unsupported claims of the church of the warmista jackass panic-mongering intelligentsia.
Of which you have just identified yourself as a card carrying member and knee-jerk disciple of.
Glad you are having fun.
I think you are not really finding it to be any fun at all.
But some people know better than to take themselves so seriously.
Better to laugh at fools than to cry about their foolishness.
I for one am laughing, not with you, but at you.
Re. Dr. Christie and others regarding global cooling. If it should occur the Greens will claim the credit for it, saying that it just proves that their policies are correct, and that we should continue to do what they tell is. To “Save the Planet”Hi.
MJE
I’d fit a sinusoid to that chart, not a straight line.
Gotta love a theory that is effectively unfalsifiable. The ice sheets can grow, the glaciers can advance, and the alarmists will point to that as proof that we are responsible somehow. Nothing can disprove human-induced climate change. Not even the inevitable end of the current interglacial.
Is there a proxy – or historical record – to indicate polar vortexes have been happening over a longer time scale?
Is this a trick question, Bill?
The circum-polar vortex is something which can be read about in any textbook in physical geography, meteorology, climatology, or atmospheric physics going back many decades. 1950s at least.
Using the phrase “polar vortex” to describe the intrusion of cold air into the US in Winter is what is new.
The phenomenon itself has been going on for as long as there has been weather.
I posted just a couple of easily found historical accountings of polar air intrusions into the state of Florida, going back to the time of the American Revolution.
And you can be quite certain that if it is freezing cold in South Florida, it is very cold indeed in states far to the north that the air had to move through before arriving here. And it was warming the whole way down.
The sun angle is now the same as it was in early November. In six weeks it will be the same as it was in September, and the sun will rise on the north pole for the first time in six months. But it will still be snowing in the northern tier of states, and the date of average last frost in places like Philadelphia is not until mid-May.
By then, SW Florida will be hot as hell, and not see another day below 85 degrees until October.
Do you really think anything involving the weather is new?
If so, that is the problem: People who know nothing about such things and have zero historical perspective or knowledge of weather events, nonetheless feel qualified to make sweeping pronouncements about the what the weather will be doing in the year 2100.
“The Freeze of 1766
Seventy-five years earlier the “Father of American Botany” John Bartram and his son William came through Volusia, making a botanical and scientific tour of Florida in a dugout canoe just three years after England had obtained Florida from Spain. Of course, the Florida territory was a new British colony, and the Bartrams paddled along the western border of what is today Volusia County, and the father recorded in his diary on January 2, 1766, “The ground was froze [sic] an inch thick on the banks [of the St. Johns River]; this was the fatal night that destroyed the lime, citron, and banana trees in Augustine.” “
Due to a 15% reduction in sea ice in the past 40 years? According to George Kukla as reported in the Times in 1974, global cooling increased Arctic sea ice 12% in 4 years causing more severe polar vortexes.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060812025725/http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/archive/printout/0,23657,944914,00.html
Exactly.
Sea ice has nothing to do with outbreaks of polar air southwards into the US.
It has happened when ice is high and when ice is low and everywhere in between.
Sea ice is higher now than it was 10-15 years ago, when they claimed global warming meant no more snow.
Which they only said because of some not-so-severe Winters over a period of several years.
Interesting: ~ 30 anomalous cold snaps in the graph. And…
Wiki
They’re spaced about the same.
Timeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ni%C3%B1o
Is there a millennial record for polar vortices?
Polar vortex and extreme cold or heat waves it all goes to promote the climate change meme after ditching their catastrophic anthropogenic global warming meme for the obvious-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/australias-extreme-heat-is-sign-of-things-to-come-scientists-warn/ar-BBT3aIi
Climate Change the gift to doomsdayers that keeps on keeping on. Heads with extreme cold we win and tails with heat waves you lose skeptics and even the very weathermen tasked to collect weather data are now in their back pocket too-
‘“There’s been so many records it’s really hard to count,” said Andrew Watkins, a senior climatologist at BoM’ (whatever happened to meteorologists?)
So much for their weasel words- ‘We know individual weather events don’t prove climate change BUT…
Canuckistan?!
Dass raciss!
If the Polar Vortex is due to Global Warming, Why are U.S. Cold Waves Decreasing?
Because of global warming. See? It explains everything.
It must be clearly emphasized that sudden warming in the startosphere occurred at the end of December and its effects reached the surface only at the end of January.
Stratospheric Intrusions are when stratospheric air dynamically decends into the troposphere and may reach the surface, bringing with it high concentrations of ozone which may be harmful to some people. Stratospheric Intrusions are identified by very low tropopause heights, low heights of the 2 potential vorticity unit (PVU) surface, very low relative and specific humidity concentrations, and high concentrations of ozone. Stratospheric Intrusions commonly follow strong cold fronts and can extend across multiple states. In satellite imagery, Stratospheric Intrusions are identified by very low moisture levels in the water vapor channels (6.2, 6.5, and 6.9 micron). Along with the dry air, Stratospheric Intrusions bring high amounts of ozone into the tropospheric column and possibly near the surface. This may be harmful to some people with breathing impairments. Stratospheric Intrusions are more common in the winter/spring months and are more frequent during La Nina periods. Frequent or sustained occurances of Stratospheric Intrusions may decrease the air quality enough to exceed EPA guidelines.
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_int/
The graphic shows how the stratospheric polar vortex was broken in January.
I remind you that solar activity is currently minimal.
The graphics show a huge anomaly of zone winds in the stratosphere.
A negative wind means a change in the wind direction in the polar vortex to the opposite in the middle of winter!
The following graphic shows the temperature anomalies in the stratosphere from the beginning of the year.
Sorry.
Currently, the temperature in the stratosphere returns to average.
The ozone wave in the stratosphere is now moving over the Northwest Atlantic.
There is some historical documentation of polar outbreaks going far back in history, such as this one. Many such accountings exist:
http://www.floridahistorynetwork.com/blog—floridas-worst-freezes.html
Grim stories like this one provide perspective on what has occurred recently.
This year, Florida has so far been spared any major cold snaps.
But way bac in 1894:
“Karl Abbott, whose parents owned the San Juan Hotel in Orlando at the time, recalls a boyhood memory:
“By 2pm., the San Juan was in an uproar. Prices had dropped to ‘no sale’ commission merchants were frantically trying to get out of options, and heated debates and fistfights started in the lobby.
About 9 that night, a fine looking grey-haired man in a black frock coat and Stetson hat walked up the street in front of the hotel and looked at the thermometer, groaned, ‘Oh, my God!’ and shot himself through the head.
For three days icy winds blew over a dead world. The gloom in the San Juan was something you could touch and feel.”
https://medium.com/florida-history/the-great-freezes-1894-95-and-the-collapse-of-the-florida-orange-industry-7442e5d75337
Just as an aside, the reason Florida has had no major intrusion of the polar air mass so far this year is very simple: The cold air is almost always propelled as far south as Florida by large coastal storms…nor’easters.
The kind that form off the southeast coast, move northward and “bomb out” offshore of the mid-Atlantic and northeastern states.
Sometimes they form in the Gulf and move across the peninsula and then up the coast.
From December through February, if there is a huge coastal storm at the same time as Arctic air is being push south, it will get the extra kick it needs to keep on going far enough to freeze central and south Florida.
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, the phraseology most often heard by forecasters to describe what was happening was that a trough of low pressure was causing the jet stream to “dig” southward, and that this digging trough induced a low to form somewhere in the Gulf or Atlantic and move up the coast.
Arctic outbreaks, polar intrusions, dip in the jet stream, digging trough of low pressure in the upper atmosphere…all described the same thing as what is now being called “the polar vortex”.
Those previous ones were descriptive, and the more recent one, just dumb.
I like to go into digitized newspapers to find items of historical significance.
“November, 1922 Monthly Weather Review (Title section and lead paragraph)
The Changing Arctic
By George Nicolas Ifft
Under date of October 10, 1922, the American consul at Bergen Norway submitted the following report to the State Department, Washington DC
The Arctic seems to be warming up. Reports from fisherman, seal hunters, and explorers who sail the seas about Spitzbergen and the eastern Arctic, all point to a radical change in climatic conditions and hitherto unheard-of high temperatures in that part of the earth’s surface.”
There must have been a HUGE vortex then.
Interestingly, iffen we have ourselves a gander at the by-now highly adjustamacated temperature history graphs, we can see that according to the people who have “fixed” all of the mistakes people made back then, when they were reading thermometers, and writing down what they said, when of course they had no idea how to do so…well according to these now “fixed temperature records, that period of time mentioned in this article, in which people could see with their own eyes that Arctic ice was melting and was far lees extensive than it had been in years and decades prior, was actually the COLDEST period of time in the last hundred plus years, and it has been warming (more or less) steadily ever since.
Of course this by itself proves that the adjustments are bogus, and do not “fix” anything at all, but instead distort the historical record in ways that make it useless for any purpose at all, unless that purpose is to tells lies and spread global warming propaganda.
We know that in the 1970s Arctic sea ice was expanding rapidly, such that 1980 or so was a recent maximum in ice extent. And yet in the time series graphs of global temperatures, it is clearly shown that the 1970s were far warmer than the 1920s.
All claims of unprecedented events can be proven to be anything but unprecedented.
In reality, there is nothing at all that is even unusual, except that a wave of mass hysteria and psychosis is spreading throughout some segments of a startlingly miseducated and highly gullible populace.
you might want to read my comments here
from
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/31/bill-nyes-latest-climate-warning-the-us-will-have-to-grow-its-food-in-canada/#comment-2610623
downward
it is globally cooling….