From the Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Cliff Mass
As I have noted in a recent blog, it is no surprise that the low snowpack and warm temperatures have occurred over the Northwest during the past month or so.
This is a very typical pattern during El Nino years.
In particular, during El Nino years, when the tropical Pacific is warmer than normal, we often experience low pressure off the West Coast, with storms shunted into California.
To illustrate the current situation, here is the difference from normal of sea level pressure for the past two months. You can see the anomalous low pressure to our southwest.
This pattern pushes the jet stream south and leaves California wetter than normal. But their boom is our bust.
But why does El Nino set up this pattern?
Why do warm sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific associated with El Nino alter the pressure and wind patterns off the West Coast.
The answer to this question was found in the late 1970s and early 1980s by two researchers at the UW: graduate student John Horel and Professor Mike Wallace.
First, the warm waters of El Nino (illustrated by the shaded area near the equator) perturb the atmosphere above.
How? By creating lots of thunderstorms over the warm water. Thunderstorms that inject huge amounts of energy into the atmosphere (see below).
A series of waves….called Rossby Waves…then propagate into the midlatitudes, causing a series of low and high-pressure pressure areas (note the L’s and H’s in the figure in the figure below).
The jet stream….the current of strong winds in the upper troposphere… is distorted by this wave pattern (see the arrows in the figure). This pattern is generally associated with low pressure off the northern CA coast.
This situation is analogous to throwing a rock into a stream, with waves propagating away from where the rock hits the water.
In the atmospheric case, big thunderstorms above the warm water act as the “rock,”
During the next few months as El Nino makes way for La Nina, the central Pacific water will cool, the thunderstorms will shift westward, and the wave pattern change substantially.
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A better explanation of Rossby Waves would be nice.
As always…clean and clear explanation that non meteorologist can understand.
Thanks Cliff.
“As always…clean and clear explanation that non meteorologist, non alarmist, can understand.”
Fixed it!
This guy always has extensive and accurate El Nino and La Nina forecasts. AFAIK, he was the first to predict this year’s El Nino, well before NWS. https://www.youtube.com/@Stormsurf001
The El Nino circulation is why we are gettig all the mild Pacific ocean air coming into the United States.
El Nino also affects the Atlantic ocean in a similar fashion, is my understanding, so does El Nino circulation cause similar mild air to come into Europe, like it is doing now? In other words, does El Nino set up specific conditions unique to El Nino, in the Atlantic ocean like it does in the Pacific ocean?
Does El Nino circulation influence where arctic air circulates? The arctic air seems to have spent a lot of time on the opposite side of the globe from the United States recently, although it is getting closer now, after we got weeks of mild weather.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2024/02/13/1500Z/wind/isobaric/500hPa/overlay=temp/orthographic=-100.01,44.37,264.
And here’s how the jet streams look:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2024/02/13/1500Z/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic=-100.01,44.37,264
And yet it’s worse than we thought
“”Climate experts sound alarm over thriving plant life at Greenland ice sheet
Significant areas of Greenland’s melted ice sheet are now producing vegetation, risking increased greenhouse gas emissions”” – The Guardian
Down with gravity.
Down with photosynthesis
Something else is changing, in an LA Nina period it started with the Yellow Stone floods, since then Lake Mead has been filling, the Calif water system has been topped off, Burning Man flooded. In this short El Nino period it is warmer in US, but record cold in Eurasia with the US just getting a touch of it. Something seems to have changed regardless of which phase we are in. Comments??
No real change in the U.K. – yet
As a casual weather nerd with a farmer/sailor interest in these changes I vaguely
recall an old saying about the fishermen in Peru catching anchovies and the connection
to winters in NA. Something about the Humboldt Current and the Antarctic winters temps.
The overall lower-48 temperature was down in January. Check the Climate Reference Network.
California is subject to droughts and then excessive rains, like what they are getting now, so this situation looks normal.
The record cold in Eurasia may be a result of El Nino. Perhaps the El Nino circulation patterns are producing this effect. The United States and Europe both have access to mild air from the oceans in this type of circulation, but there is no oceanic air in inner Eurasia.
The question I have is does the El Nino circulation somehow push/confine the cold arctic air to the other side of the northern hemisphere into Eurasia?
The cold arctic air does work its way around to the United States and Europe eventually but it seems to have spent an extra amount of time over Eurasia this year and maybe that’s because of the El Nino circulation patterns.
I’m just guessing.
Great to have this kind of basic weather/climate primer here….far better than just the “talking point” version of El Niño.
The LA Times is on-board with the Michael Mann jury decision.
I still haven’t got my head around that verdict
It was a NY jury and they focused on Mann and Penn State football controversy. It had nothing to do with Mann’s lies, damn lies and statistics.
Even so, it’s quite bizarre
It was a DC jury (although a NY jury might have returned a similar verdict). Also, the case wasn’t about The Hockey Stick or. Professor Mann’s science – it was a defamation case, in part about the Simberg and Steyn references to Penn State’s investigations of Sandusky and Mann.
I thought it was about reference to Nazis? Or pedos or whatever ! ;the whole defamation thing is a stretch,is counter to free speech generally and should not be entertained by the bench . ( this is the, leftist can say or do or burn anything down; but law abiding citizens better watch it verdict) More like this and we witness the end of the civil society.
haven’t you been paying attention?
Civil society has been declining since the Internet has become very popular.
The trial was held in Washington DC. Maybe they imported the jurors from NY.
Dear ‘Strativarius’ et al.,
perhaps I can help a bit re the Mann v. Steyn defamation case, especially since it will almost certainly be appealed to a higher court & hence continue to attract attention:
In the USA, one can find a jury to award damages to just about anyone who has suffered in some way, provided that a wealthy person or institution (‘deep pockets’) can be found who (which) has some relation to that suffering.
That should help you to understand why the jury awarded “awarded the scientist $1 in compensatory damages from each writer” (seriously, USD 1.00), “and added punitive damages of $1 million against Steyn and $1,000 against Simberg”, the former being better known and thus presumably able to pay up.
Given that Steyn published an entire book (title: ‘A Disgrace to the Profession’) that comprised an edited collection of “the world’s scientists, in their own words, on hockey-stick creator Michael E Mann, his stick and their damage to science”, there is little question that Steyn’s reporting would (literally) ‘defame’ Prof Mann.
So much is made of their outrageous analogy — “he [Prof Mann] has molested and tortured data” — inspired by the coincidence of his latest employer (the Pennsylvania State University) with that of a formerly highly honored football coach (and founder of a celebrated charity) who was convicted in 2011 of serious crimes, after also being protected by higher administrators. Such are Steyn’s hazards as a gifted satirist / parodist?
Anecdotally, the committee (composed of expert scientists), who later investigated the misconduct allegations against Prof Mann, also labored under extraordinary institutional pressure to clear him of the most serious charges. So the analogy while disgusting is not actually without a higher purpose, i.e. to redirect attention (away from alleged perpetrators) to the powerful network that protects them (perpetrators).
Anyway, anyway. Onward to the Appeals process:
On the one hand “[Prof] Mann said Thursday he intended to appeal a 2021 D.C. Superior Court ruling that found the [publishers] National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute were not liable for defamation over the articles.” [Emphasis added to the word “not”.]
On the other hand, the defendants’ planned appeals may have a better chance, the higher the Court that hears them. Readers from abroad may not be aware that, in the USA, it is very difficult for a ‘public official’ (if Prof Mann is deemed such) to win defamation cases against a journalist (if Steyn is so classified). See Sullivan vs. New York Times (1964 landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the USA) and subsequent rulings that seem to broaden its reach (definitions).
In other words, it ain’t over yet.
Best regards to you all, RLW. [ a mere scientist not an attorney-at-law ]
*P.S. Most of the passages quoted above are lifted from the summary report by Rebecca Falconer (Axios), will try to link here:
https://www.axios.com/2024/02/09/climate-scientist-michael-mann-defamation-lawsuit-win
Story tip – video – Lake Hodges Calif – City of San Diego releases 600 million gallons of water from Lake Hodges (youtube.com)
Story tip – Lake Shasta reservoirs ‘well above’ historical average after ‘experts’ predicted a global warming drought – American Thinker
“Californians planning to head to the Sierra Nevada for Presidents Day weekend should prepare for a few feet of snow. However, it’s too early for exact forecast snowfall amounts.
By the end of the storm sequence, Los Angeles could set a new February precipitation record. Through Feb. 11, the downtown Los Angeles weather station has recorded 10.6 inches of rain this month. The current February record of 13.7 inches was set in 1998.”
Cliff Mass is CLUELESS as to the causes of El Ninos and La Ninas!
First, with few exceptions, El Ninos always FOLLOW La Ninas, not the other way around, as he is predicting. (examples of exceptions are periods of 3-4 years without any volcanic eruptions, and reduced industrial activity due to a recession or a depression).
As to the cause of La Ninas, they are ALWAYS caused by increased SO2 aerosols in our atmosphere, usually from a VEI4 or larger volcanic eruption, but sometimes from increased industrial activity.
El Ninos, on the other hand, occur when the amount of SO2 aerosols in the atmosphere are decreased, and the less polluted air increases the amount of solar radiation striking the Earth’s surface.
Most El Ninos are volcanic-induced. When their stratospheric SO2 aerosols (fine droplets of Sulfuric Acid) eventually settle out, they coalesce with other industrial SO2 aerosols in the troposphere, flushing enough out to cause temperatures to rise enough to form an El Nino. The higher ENSO temperatures are the result of the higher air temperatures, NOT the cause of them!
Anything (such as “Clean Air efforts and Net-Zero activities) that causes atmospheric SO2 aerosols to decrease (by ~0.2 Megatons, or more) will cause temperatures to rise. Thus, the 1997-98, 2014-16, 2018-19 (and other El Ninos), were MAN-MADE events, caused by intentional reductions in industrial SO2 aerosol emissions).
The following Chem Map images show the atmospheric loading of SO2 aerosols in Jan 1, 2020, and in Jan 1, 2023 (before the 2023 El Nino), showing the decreases due to Clean Air and Net Zero activities
The above image is for Jan 1, 2023
This one is for Jan 1, 2020
This image is for Jun 1, 2023, shortly before the 2023 El Nino was called, on Jun 8.
“First, the warm waters of El Niño …perturb the atmosphere above.” appears to be a heretical claim, because it’s SUV Carbon in the atmosphere that is a Greenhouse Gas and the obvious inference is that the atmosphere warms the ocean water. Somebody needs to be burned alive at the stake.
Thanks Cliff.
Story tip.
Milk of Magnesium being trialled to reduce non-existent ocean acidity
St Ives Bay carbon capture trial ‘very low risk’ – report | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)
I’d like to ask if they can get any more idiotic…
… but we have seen that they only treat comments like that, as a challenge !
Good stuff as usual from Mass. He is persuaded that warming could become a problem but he is always quick to present analyses debunking alarmist rhetoric about specific extreme events. The record highs recorded in western WA, OR and interior, BC in late June 2021 under a heat dome was masterly explained as a meterologic/topographic phenomenon. Predictably, within a couple of days, temperatures in the region dropped back to seasonally cool.
Having said that, I’m always a little disappointed when on the subject of ENSO, it goes uncommented on by experts that there is not a lot of warm water in the current el Niño system. I noted a change in the previous el Niño and commented at the time the effect was being diluted by cold water slanting into the ENSO region from cold patches in the eastern Pacific of both hemispheres, instead of simply upwelling cold water at the east end of the equatorial area to cool the ENSO region. I had no takers back then.
What followed this situation in 2016, was the precipitous drop into la Niña from the peak high of the el Niño and into 7 years of la Niña. Since no one has acknowledged this sea change in ENSO, I am forecasting a repeat of a multi year string of of la Niñas. It is possible this is how an extended cooling period begins and the Holocene is getting a little long in the tooth …
Disclaimer: I am a mining/metallurgical engineer and geologist. Trougher consensus climate boffins won’t step up. They have gone into fearful prayer mode. So, I won’t apologize for stepping into climate science territory.
Solar wind affects circulation in high latitudes. As the strength of the solar wind will weaken the wind over the equator will also weaken. Therefore, the weak El Niño may be prolonged.
SOI values for 14 Feb, 2024
Average SOI for last 30 days:-14.48
Average SOI for last 90 days:-5.57
Daily contribution to SOI calculation:-19.84
There is currently a strong El Niño effect as the atmospheric circulation responds to the high surface temperature of the tropical Pacific.
El Niños and the Hunga Tonga Sub-Surface Volcanic Eruption
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/hunga-tonga-volcanic-eruption
Refer to this URL to see images
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/natural-forces-cause-periodic-global-warming
EXCERPT
WV, worldwide: WV is highly variable between locations, from 10 ppm in the coldest air, such as the Antarctic to 50,000 ppm (5%), such as in the hot, humid areas of the Tropics.
WV in atmosphere, worldwide average, weight basis, is about 1.29 x 1016 kg, or 7.1667 x 10^14 moles
Atmosphere weight, dry, is about 5.148 x 10^18 kg, or 1.7752 x 10^17 moles
WV percent, weight basis, is about 1.29 x 10^16 / 5.148 x 10^18 = 0.002506, or 0.2506%
WV fraction, mole basis, is about 7.1667 x 10^14 / 1.7752 x 10^17 = 0.004037, or 0.4037%, or 4037 ppm
WV molecules, worldwide average, are about 4037/423 = 9.54 times more prevalent than CO2 molecules
.
WV, temperate zones, north and south of the equator, where most of the world’s population lives, is more prevalent, than the worldwide average of 4037 ppm.
WV, in temperate zones, is about 9022 ppm, at 16 C and 50% humidity. See Note
WV molecules, in temperate zones, are about 9022/423 = 21.33 times more prevalent than CO2 molecules.
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WV, Tropics, is about 24811 ppm, at 27 C and 70% humidity
WV molecules, in the Tropics, are about 24811/423 = 58.66 times more prevalent than CO2 molecules
.
WV much Better Than CO2: Whereas CO2 absorbs energy (gets warmer), transports that energy (convection) and distributes it by collision (conduction) and radiation, WV does all that so much more effectively by incorporating phase change, liquid-to-vapor (constant temperature), transport, collision and radiation, but then adds in condensation (constant temperature) to rain/snow/ice.
It’s not merely the molecule-count of WV vs CO2 that makes WV the dominant global warming gas.
WV is much more efficient in absorbing, transporting and distributing energy than CO2, and it is far more abundant than CO2, especially in the Major League Tropics compared to the Minor League temperate zones.
.
NOTE: At 16 C and 50% humidity, WV in air is 0.0056 lb H2O/ lb dry air, or 2.5424 g H2O/ 454 g dry air After converting to moles, 0.009022 mole H2O/mole dry air, or 9022 ppm.
A mole of WV is 18 g, a mole dry air is 29 g
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water-vapor-air-d_854.html
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Official Contribution to Greenhouse Effect
.
Below is a summary of official numbers regarding the greenhouse effect. They can be found on many websites.
They were determined in a laboratory by relatively few people
Atmospheric scientists cannot definitively say, based on direct experiments, exactly how much greenhouse effect is caused by each GHG.
They cannot simply remove one gas and see how the absorption of IR photons changes. Instead, they must use subjective models of the atmosphere to predict the likely changes.
So, they run their models with one GHG removed; say, for instance, WV. They might find that this results in a 36% reduction in the greenhouse effect.
I have been unable to find the calculations and or measurements that yielded these values
https://www.windows2universe.org/earth/climate/greenhouse_effect_gases.html ;
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H2O molecules, as WV, 39 to 62%
Clouds, 15 to 36%
WV and clouds, 67 to 85%
CO2 molecules, 14 to 25%. See below Molecules Absorbing Photons Excites Molecules and Creates Heat
All other GHGs, 5 to 9%
http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9636.pdf
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WV (human, 2% and natural, 95%) causes 97% of global warming. Reducing fossil fuels would reduce the human 2%. The world surface temperature has increased about 1 C in 100 years. That caused about 7% more WV in the atmosphere, which caused more global warming. It likely cannot be determined how much of the 1 C was due to the CO2 ppm increase in the atmosphere. See URL
https://globalchange.mit.edu/news-media/in-the-news/greenhouse-gases-water-vapor-and-you
Heavy rainfall in California will continue until February 25.
Tropical storm in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
