New Weather

[andygates]

Well Def Jeff over at Weather Underground has a detailed post on a new weather pattern that's been identified over the Arctic:

The old atmospheric patterns that controlled Arctic weather--the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and Arctic Oscillation (AO), which featured air flow that tended to circle the pole, now alternate with the new Arctic Dipole pattern. The Arctic Dipole pattern features anomalous high pressure on the North American side of the Arctic, and low pressure on the Eurasian side. This results in winds blowing more from south to north, increasing transport of heat into the central Arctic Ocean.

This is fascinating - we knew there would be these large-scale changes, but not really what they'd be until they happened. The heat transport possibly explains the excess melting that has occurred in recent years: it wasn't in the current crop of ice prediction models, so they've been conservative.

The Arctic is switching from swirling jetstreams around the pole to winds from the South slurping warm air, so "fascinating" should be accompanied with a generous side of "oh crap".

Comments

[simoneck.livejournal.com]

changing wind patterns...oh well
changing sea patterns...oh shit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/29/climate-change-gulf-stream-hollywood

[andygates.livejournal.com]

I thought THC shutdown panic had been turned down a notch... ah well. :)

[simoneck.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's likely to shut down, I was just extrapolating that if the wind patterns can change.......
and if it does shut down, it could be very quick.


I had to look up THC, which shows what I know.