Why is it So Cold Right Now? (Polar Vortex)

[GordMay]

Why is it So Cold Right Now?
Well, it is winter, but much of this cold spell can be blamed on the polar vortex, a large current of frigid air that, because of the Earth’s rotation, circulates, counterclockwise, in the upper atmosphere around the Arctic Circle. The polar jet stream—the strong winds that push the air—usually keeps it on a tight path, but every once in a while, the spin of the vortex kinks, the jet stream weakens, and a massive chunk of the vortex sags and swoops downward, blasting regions of the Northern hemisphere with Arctic air.
Occasionally (about once every other year or so) the perturbation is so pronounced that the vortex breaks down completely. Scientists call these “sudden stratospheric warming” events, when a continent-sized chunk of rapidly sinking air quickly heats up and disrupts the polar circulation, sometimes completely disintegrating it. Statistically, that’s when the cold air floodgates can really open as the jet stream scrambles to contain the chaotic swirls of polar air that descend southward in the aftermath.
The result isn’t necessarily a one-to-one link from the stratospheric disruption to a blast of cold at the surface, but more of a tilt in the odds favoring extremely cold weather.

[Sand crab]

That weather is a funny thing cause today we are 1 degree short of a record high in the PNW. Vortex-shmortex.

[sailorboy1]

It’s because of Trump

[Orson]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Why is it So Cold Right Now?
Well, it is winter, but much of this cold spell can be blamed on the polar vortex....

Occasionally (about once every other year or so) the perturbation is so pronounced that the vortex breaks down completely. Scientists call these “sudden stratospheric warming” events, when a continent-sized chunk of rapidly sinking air quickly heats up and disrupts the polar circulation, sometimes completely disintegrating it. Statistically, that’s when the cold air floodgates can really open as the jet stream scrambles to contain the chaotic swirls of polar air that descend southward in the aftermath....

Well said and well identified. Space weather - it's not a term you hear often.

The Space Weather Prediction Center is operated by NOAA in Boulder, Colorado. Their primary concern is global electronic communication users, but also power grids and their users. Both can be disrupted by coronal mass ejections from the sun.

These polar vortex events caused by Sudden Stratospheric Warming events - rushing downwards from the poles (where our planet's dipole magnetism least shields the earth from solar wind-related intrusions) - are more the concern of meteorologists, which remind us that our ordinary lives on the surface are indeed vulnerable to "outer space" and beyond. 'Tis humbling to behold.

[DeepFrz]

Very interesting. I was looking at the Earth Wind Map yesterday and it seemed very strange to me. Temperatures higher in the north in many places than they were much farther south and very large in and out flows from the Arctic region. Gord, your post pretty much explains what I was seeing.

[zeehag]

it is winter. it is cold in winter in frozen north. wear fur. wear uggs. stay inside with a nice warm toasty wood stove. knit a scarf/muffler.
winter ends around april or may or whenever it feels like ending, so ye have a few more months of skiing and ice skating..in your cars. if you can find em under the snow.
be careful and stay warm.
winter sucks. hahaha make a snowman.
or move south. it is warmer south. one can sail in winter when one is south.
back in the day when -46f wind chill temps were forecast all one did was stay in and keep warm by a fire reading books. today you have cell fones and video games. enjoy your winter. winter is cold.

[Group9]

Next Maunder type solar minimum starting to arrive?

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by Group9

Next Maunder type solar minimum starting to arrive?

Yes?

Are We Headed Towards Another Deep Solar Minimum?

And... The earth's magnetic field may be starting to flip...

Earth Magnetic Field Still Decaying/

[GordMay]

At the same time much of Canada & The USA is in a deep freeze, other parts of the world are experiencing the opposite.

The atmosphere is always trying to balance out its energy. So right now, on the other side of the globe, parts of northern Europe and northern Russia, they're actually experiencing record-breaking warm temperatures for this time of the year, and really close to the north pole.
In the past, the jet stream moved fairly smoothly around the northern hemisphere. But recently, it's developed more pronounced kinks that can bring cold, Arctic air much farther south than in the past, or bring heat from the Gulf of Mexico further north than has been typical.
And it's linked to the Arctic.
Though it's a relatively new area of study, there's increasing evidence* that suggests this phenomenon will happen more often and become more extreme.

* “Persistent shift of the Arctic polar vortex towards the Eurasian continent in recent decades”
“The wintertime Arctic stratospheric polar vortex has weakened over the past three decades, and consequently cold surface air from high latitudes is now more likely to move into the middle latitudes. However, it is not known if the location of the polar vortex has also experienced a persistent change in response to Arctic climate change and whether any changes in the vortex position have implications for the climate system. Here, through the analysis of various data sets and model simulations, we show that the Arctic polar vortex shifted persistently towards the Eurasian continent and away from North America in February over the past three decades. This shift is found to be closely related to the enhanced zonal wavenumber-1 waves in response to Arctic sea-ice loss, particularly over the Barents–Kara seas (BKS)...
... In summary, our analysis suggested that the vortex shift towards Eurasia could lead to a cooler climate over some parts of the continents during late winter and early spring, which may partly offset the climate warming in these seasons. Under the scenario of persistent sea-ice loss due to global warming in the future, the potential polar vortex shift and its associated climatic influences deserve public attention. As a final remark, other factors, such as polar stratospheric ozone depletion and AO, may also have impacts on the vortex position and these issues are worth further investigation.”

* The Paper ☞ https://www.nature.com/articles/ncli...ingtonpost.com

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by GordMay

At the same time much of Canada & The USA is in a deep freeze, other parts of the world are experiencing the opposite.

The atmosphere is always trying to balance out its energy. So right now, on the other side of the globe, parts of northern Europe and northern Russia, they're actually experiencing record-breaking warm temperatures for this time of the year, and really close to the north pole.
In the past, the jet stream moved fairly smoothly around the northern hemisphere. But recently, it's developed more pronounced kinks that can bring cold, Arctic air much farther south than in the past, or bring heat from the Gulf of Mexico further north than has been typical.
And it's linked to the Arctic.
Though it's a relatively new area of study, there's increasing evidence* that suggests this phenomenon will happen more often and become more extreme.

* “Persistent shift of the Arctic polar vortex towards the Eurasian continent in recent decades”
“The wintertime Arctic stratospheric polar vortex has weakened over the past three decades, and consequently cold surface air from high latitudes is now more likely to move into the middle latitudes. However, it is not known if the location of the polar vortex has also experienced a persistent change in response to Arctic climate change and whether any changes in the vortex position have implications for the climate system. Here, through the analysis of various data sets and model simulations, we show that the Arctic polar vortex shifted persistently towards the Eurasian continent and away from North America in February over the past three decades. This shift is found to be closely related to the enhanced zonal wavenumber-1 waves in response to Arctic sea-ice loss, particularly over the Barents–Kara seas (BKS)...
... In summary, our analysis suggested that the vortex shift towards Eurasia could lead to a cooler climate over some parts of the continents during late winter and early spring, which may partly offset the climate warming in these seasons. Under the scenario of persistent sea-ice loss due to global warming in the future, the potential polar vortex shift and its associated climatic influences deserve public attention. As a final remark, other factors, such as polar stratospheric ozone depletion and AO, may also have impacts on the vortex position and these issues are worth further investigation.”

* The Paper ☞ https://www.nature.com/articles/ncli...ingtonpost.com

Cooling causes the same problem, too

[GordMay]

I don’t know what the screenshot of part of a NYT article from 1978 is supposed to prove; but here’s the scientific paper, on which they were reporting.

“The Expanded North Circumpolar Vortex of 1976 and Winter of 1976–77, and Attendant Vortex Displacement” ~ J. K. Angell and J. Korshover
☞ https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf...O%3E2.0.CO%3B2

A look at the authors’ conclusions might be instructive.

See also, a much later paper, published June 2006, by one of the original authors:

“Changes in the 300-mb North Circumpolar Vortex, 1963–2001" ~ James K. Angell
☞ https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/ful...175/JCLI3778.1

“... 9. Summary
With the termination of the Berlin map series, I terminate my own work in this “vortex” field. Despite the early recognition of the north circumpolar vortex as a basic circulation feature of the Northern Hemisphere (e.g., Willett 1949), the size of the 300-mb north polar vortex per se has not caught on as a useful tool in the study of global warming, even though the size represents an integration of tropospheric temperature around the hemisphere in midlatitudes good to about 0.1 K on mean monthly maps and is an easy concept to visualize and grasp. If the vortex position could be reliably estimated (which it could not in this analysis because of the imprecise measurement of quadrant size), the vortex might be considered a Lagrangian entity allowing for estimates of the changes at fixed points (such as the NAO index) due to movement of the vortex (vortex position) and change following the vortex (vortex size)."

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by GordMay

...Though it's a relatively new area of study, there's increasing evidence* that suggests this phenomenon will happen more often and become more extreme....

I guess, the climate science found finally the ctrl-c / ctrl-v key strokes, in every weather report on any event this is the standard disclaimer.

Hurricanes, blizzards, storms, unusually nice weather, rain, seasons - you name it.

If the weather was bad, it will be extremely bad in the future, if it was nice - it will be extremely nice, and when is warm, it will be extremely warm - will happen more often, even when is average - it will be more average tan ever and also more often as in the past.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

I guess, the climate science found finally the ctrl-c / ctrl-v key strokes, in every weather report on any event this is the standard disclaimer.

Hurricanes, blizzards, storms, unusually nice weather, rain, seasons - you name it.

If the weather was bad, it will be extremely bad in the future, if it was nice - it will be extremely nice, and when is warm, it will be extremely warm - will happen more often, even when is average - it will be more average tan ever and also more often as in the past.

Indeed. In meteorology, it's called "persistence".
➥ http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Persistence_forecast

[jpstevens]

Thanks Deepfrz, for the video from the CBC.

[Kenomac]

OH NO....... GLOBAL COOLING!!!!

WE'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY.... I want it to get warmer.