New paper confirms 2010 Russian heat wave was result of natural variability

A paper published today in the journal Monthly Weather Review confirms (along with several other studies) "that the anomalous long-lasting Russian heat wave in summer 2010, linked to a long-persistent blocking high, appears as a result of natural atmospheric variability." Natural climate change denier Kevin "missing heat" Trenberth, however, continues to cry wolf insisting that the Russian heat wave and every other 'extreme' weather event of 2010 "would not have happened without global warming." 

Monthly Weather Review 2012 ; e-View

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/MWR-D-11-00249.1

Large scale flow and the long-lasting blocking high over Russia: Summer 2010

Andrea Schneidereit*

Leibniz-Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University Rostock, Kühlungsborn, Germany

Silke Schubert

Meteorological Institute, KlimaCampus, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Pavel Vargin

Central Aerological Observatory, Dolgoprudny, Moscow region, Russia

Frank Lunkeit and Xiuhua Zhu

Meteorological Institute, KlimaCampus, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Dieter H. W. Peters

Leibniz-Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Rostock, Kühlungsborn, Mecklenburg, Germany

Klaus Fraedrich

Meteorological Institute, KlimaCampus, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Abstract

Several studies show that the anomalous long-lasting Russian heat wave in summer 2010, linked to a long-persistent blocking high, appears as a result of natural atmospheric variability.

This study analyzes the large scale flow structure based on ERA-Interim data (1989 to 2010). The anomalous long-lasting blocking high over Western Russia including the heat wave occurs as an overlay of a set of anticyclonic contributions on different time scales: (i) A regime change in ENSO towards La Niña modulates the quasi-stationary wave structure in the boreal summer hemisphere supporting the eastern European blocking. The polar Arctic dipole mode is enhanced and shows a projection on the mean blocking high. (ii) Together with the quasi-stationary wave anomaly the transient eddies maintain the long-lasting blocking. (iii) Three different pathways of wave action are identified on the intermediate time scale (~ 10-60 days). One pathway commences over the eastern North Pacific and includes the polar Arctic region; another one runs more southward and crossing the North Atlantic, continues to eastern Europe; a third pathway southeast of the blocking high describes the downstream development over South Asia.