Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Record cold from global warming causing 'polar vortex' debunked

The global warming apologists are struggling to explain the record cold on global warming due to an alleged slowdown in the jet stream keeping a 'polar vortex' alive. However, a recent paper finds no evidence of any unusual or unprecedented changes in the latitude or speed of the North Atlantic jet stream over the past 142 years since 1871. Another 2 papers confirm there is no evidence that climate change has slowed the jet stream or increased frequency of jet stream blocking which controls the polar vortex.

Once again, the global warming apologists are caught out again in the face of real-world data. Dr. Roy Spencer sums it up in a post today:

Does Global Warming Theory Predict Record Cold?
January 6th, 2014 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
 
NO.
Related:

New paper debunks claims that 'Arctic amplification' causes extreme weather

A new paper published in Geophysical Research Letters debunks claims that "Arctic amplification" is causing an increase of extreme weather in North America or the North Atlantic, finding such claims are "an artifact of the methodology" and not real. The paper finds no evidence of an increased frequency of jet stream blocking or a decrease of jet stream speed, a result corroborated by a recent paper finding no significant changes of the jet stream over the past 140 years. The paper debunks claims by climate alarmists such as Heidi Cullen [and Jennifer Francis] that "Arctic amplification" is causing a "constipated jet stream" leading to increased extreme weather in North America.


Other related links via Climate Depot:

Scientists reject claims of record cold being caused by ‘global warming’ – Time Mag. blamed ‘polar vortex’ on ‘global cooling’ in 1974 – Special Report

Time Magazine Goes Both Ways On The Polar Vortex: ‘In 1974, Time Mag blamed the cold polar vortex on global cooling’ — In 2014: ‘Time Magazine blames the cold polar vortex on global warming’ (Via Real Science)

U.S. News: ‘Is Climate Change Causing the ‘Polar Vortex’? Article rebuts: Claim ‘appears unsupported by the observations’

Wash Post Throws Cold Water on Idea that Global Warming Is Causing Record Cold: ‘It’s still heavily debated…Elizabeth Barnes of Colorado State disputed the link’

Meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue rejects claim that global warming is causing record cold: ‘This polar vortex episode is the global warming media’s most recent ‘Snapchat’ message: after a few seconds, explanation just dissolves’

Princeton Physicist Dr. Will Happer refutes claims that global warming is causing record cold: ‘Polar vortices have been around forever. They have almost nothing to do with more CO2 in the atmosphere’

Is Climate Change Causing the 'Polar Vortex'?
A blast of severe cold is sweeping across the country

By TERESA WELSH January 6, 2014 US News & World Report



A blast of severe cold is sweeping across the country.

Large portions of the United States are currently experiencing the effects of a "polar vortex," an area of low pressure bringing dangerously cold air over the country. Temperatures in the Midwest and Northeast are below zero in many areas, with wind chills as low as -50 degrees.

Temperatures in many cities are expected to hit record lows, 30 to 50 degrees below typical averages. Thousands of flights have been cancelled, and schools across the country have been closed.

Jennifer Francis, a research professor with Rutgers University’s Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, said that such extreme weather events can be caused by global warming. Despite the fact that the extreme weather is bitter cold in this case, warming of the arctic can have such an effect because it changes the flow of the jet stream. Sea ice melts, leaving more water surface area exposed to absorb sunlight, leading to further warming. [Dr. Judith Curry on Jennifer Francis' credibility and Dr. Elizabeth Barnes' rebuttal of Francis' claims]

"Extra heat entering the vast expanses of open water that were once covered in ice is released back to the atmosphere in the fall," Francis said. "All that extra heat being deposited into the atmosphere cannot help but affect the weather, both locally and on a large scale."

The arctic is warming about twice as quickly as the rest of Earth, according to Francis, and this shrinking temperature difference slows down the jet stream. It then gets stuck, leaving weather patterns lingering longer than usual.

Yet a study by Colorado State Professor Elizabeth A. Barnes suggests that this explanation oversimplifies the impacts of Arctic warming, as well as the subsequent impacts on severe weather:

We conclude that the mechanism put forth by previous studies … that amplified polar warming has led to the increased occurrence of slow-moving weather patterns and blocking episodes, appears unsupported by the observations.

19 comments:

  1. Jennifer Francis so called AGW theory called for the opposite of what she is wrongly attribute to the theory today, which is BS.

    THE THEORY ORIGINALLY CALLED FOR A MORE ZONAL CIRCULATION, WHICH IS WRONG. THE MORE MERIDIONAL ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION FURTHER HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GLOBAL WARMING, BUT RATHER THE SUB-SOLAR ACTIIVTY POST 2005

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  2. Jennifer Francis = model based evidence (sic).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. models do not produce evidence, nor data, nor are they scientific 'experiments' as claimed by the cli sci community

      Delete
    2. I'm retired after a 40 year career as a research scientist in the real world around us. You are exactly correct in your proclamation regarding models. Regardless, they have taken root in the scientific community, particularly in our university system. For some reason, the university nuts believe that the more complex the math, the better the model. This is simply pure poppycock...garbage for input provides garbage for output regardless of the math's complexity.

      Delete
    3. The black box models supposedly lend an air of sophistication to climate prognostications, but when the curtain is pulled back are shown to be unskillful computer games.

      A scientific 'no change in temperature' model outperforms IPCC climate models by factor of 7

      http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-scientific-no-change-in-temperature.html

      Scathing MIT Paper Blasts Climate Models as 'Close to Useless' & 'Can get any result one desires'

      http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/08/scathing-mit-paper-blasts-climate.html

      etc etc

      Delete
  3. Interesting that Heidi Cullen uses the term "constipation. For sure she seems to be suffering from a similar malady: constipation of the brain and diaria of the mouth.

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  4. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  5. The media delight following the "ship in the ice" tells you everything you need to know about denial. Literally dozens of sites are dancing for joy. The Koch roaches are delirious.

    This is a juicy cherry to be picked, of course. Who would have expected otherwise?

    Look at the NASA temperature anomaly map. It records global temperatures.

    http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a004000/a004030/

    If you look carefully at this world map you can find a "colder" region (in blue). It's a tiny little portion amongst the "hotter"red regions. Someone found one of the very rare blue areas (Antarctica) and the Priests of Drivel are howling their victory.

    Did anyone mention that Australia had the hottest year on record? Pretty extreme, as predicted.

    Denial kills. The Koch Bros. and Friends who have pumped hundreds of million into anti-science distraction/delay has conservatives tied up into knots.

    Example: a typical page from the anti-science denier playbook goes like this, given the following hypothetical.

    Let's say scientists predict that 100 year floods will occur five times more often, every 20 years. So, for 19 "normal" years (on average) deniers would crow and hoot, "so where's your climate change?' Then on the 20th year (on average), after a massive record breaking flood, their standard meme will be "one cannot say with certainty that THIS flood was the result of climate change; we had a big flood in ____, too"

    Can't lose, right? If climate had actually changed as above, deniers would simply ignore the fact that the odds (and the frequency and the cost to life and property) of destructive floods have increased fivefold.

    H0w do they sleep at nigh? Seriously.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "H0w do they sleep at nigh? Seriously."

      Seriously? We sleep knowing that these things are not new, that severe weather has occurred throughout history, that it is not any more severe now than it has ever been, and that there is nothing we can do about it, either through quasi-religious self-flagellation or any other means within our present-day capability.

      And, we know that quasi-religious nutcases proclaiming that the end of the world is upon us unless we change our sinful ways, like you, have similarly always been among us, and there is similarly nothing we can do about it.

      Delete
  6. Thanks well said Anonymous

    I meant to reply to this jzf nutcase, but got busy on other things and forgot about the ridiculous jzf comment, the claims of which have been repeatedly debunked here and elsewhere.

    ReplyDelete
  7. http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/record-flooding-caused-by-climate-scam-of-the-week/

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  8. http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/washington-post-slams-obama-bbc-and-npr-for-pushing-climate-bs/

    ReplyDelete
  9. http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/inquiring-minds-jennifer-francis-kevin-trenberth-jet-stream-winter

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  10. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013JD021191/abstract

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  11. "I think it proposes a new mechanism, but there is still a long way to prove the argument," said Qiuhong Tang, climatologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Bejing. "I can hardly find any observation-based evidence in the essay which can support the argument."

    http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Scientists_link_wild_winter_to_rising_ocean_temps_global_warming_999.html

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  12. Papers debunking Jeniifer Francis' polar vortex claims:

    Screen and Simmonds 2013, 2014, Barnes 2013, Barnes et al 2014, Screen et al 2014, Hassanzadeh et al 2014

    Barnes E A 2013 Revisiting the evidence linking Arctic amplification to extreme weather in midlatitudes Geophys. Res. Lett. 40 4734–9
    CrossRef↑
    Barnes E A et al 2014 Exploring recent trends in Northern hemisphere blocking Geophys. Res. Lett. 41 638–44

    Hassanzadeh P, Kuang Z and Farrell B F 2014 Responses of midlatitude blocks and wave amplitude to changes in the meridional temperature gradient in an idealized dry GCM Geophys. Res. Lett. 41 5223–32

    Screen J A and Simmonds I 2010 Increasing fall-winter energy loss from the Arctic Ocean and its role in Arctic temperature amplification Geophys. Res. Lett. 37 L16707
    CrossRef↑
    Screen J A and Simmonds I 2013 Caution needed when linking weather extremes to amplified planetary waves Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 110 E2327
    CrossRef↑
    Screen J A and Simmonds I 2014 Amplified mid-latitude planetary waves favour particular regional weather extremes Nature Clim. Change 4 704–9
    CrossRef↑
    Screen J A, Deser C and Simmonds I 2012 Local and remote controls on observed Arctic warming Geophys. Res. Lett. 39 L10709
    CrossRef↑
    Screen J A et al 2014 Atmospheric impacts of Arctic sea-ice loss, 1979–2009: separating forced change from atmospheric internal variability Clim. Dyn. 43 333–44
    CrossRef↑
    Simmonds I 2015 Comparing and contrasting the behaviour of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice over the 35-year period 1979–2013 Ann. Glaciol. 56 18–28

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  13. another debunking

    http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/nasa-study-finds-winter-blocking-a-natural-and-commonplace-event/

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  14. http://mashable.com/2014/10/27/global-warming-doubles-risk-frigid-winters-eurasia/

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  15. http://www.popsci.com/article/science/are-we-doomed-arctic-winters-america?src=SOC&dom=tw

    ReplyDelete