[ldavidcooke]

Hey All,

I really did not see a "chat" topic in the recent threads, so rather then hose up someones hard work I am creating this conversation piece. Generally, most folks here are serious about tracking local conditions and working into some means of early warning system.

To a similar end I try to track the Global Jet Streams. I used to use the NCEPs SRRS; however, with the recent reorganizations I have had to change sources. The point I guess is I use the Jet Stream and ENSO, NAO, PDO and AMO to suggest a 90 day outlook. The current conditions generally had pointed to more of the same until this morning.

Aparently, the cyclonic system over the central Siberian Arctic coast seems to be disassociating from the Northern Jet. Tied in with this appears to be a similar upper level event occurring near the Azores about 600km off the coast of Portugal.

Normally a meander like these continues their Eastward trek; however, I am seeing a strong change in the Jetstream windspeed to the immediate north of these two features. It looks almost like the extra energy there is simply being spun off to form two cutoff systems.

If that is true this bodes for an interesting Olympics. With a dominate Bermuda High forming North and West of its traditional parking space and a cutoff Low over SW Europe, lets just say the Sailing Events may get very interesting...

Coupled with this energy detachment may be a stablization of the Northern Jetstream. If this continues through June we may have one of the coolest/wettest Summers on record in Europe. Now don't quote me on this as I am having to employ new tools; however, looking at the pattern begins to remind me of 2006.

If memory serves me right 2006 was the year of "Fish" TSs and unusual flooding in the home lands...

(To this end I was interested if anyone else might have some non-modeled insights, as it could be helpful in fine tuning my "seat of the pants" forecast. By the same token if this is not an appropriate venue feel free to relocate/delete...)

[Ian Williams]

Interesting analogy Dave.

Can not offer any help, but if we get a summer like 2006 here in the UK i will be more than happy, we had a warm June and a hot July, OK August was a let down, but we had lots of thunderstorms, IIRC 6 in October alone and i think it were 18 in total for SW England that i encountered for that year, the average is around 3 or 4 i believe.

I am hoping its not the coolest and wettest summer on record in Europe though, there again perhaps the UK could be the chink in the armour and actually benefit from this by actually being warmer!

Will be interesting to see how things pan out

Cheers
Ian

[Dave W]

Will be very embarassing for organisers if the weather in late July/early Aug is terrible!

[ldavidcooke]

Hey Ian & Dave,

I think it maybe a cooler Continental event. Looking at the current 700mb & 500mb there are two strong LPs North of the continent now. If these act like normal Summer Lows they will likely orbit a Polar High. This was very similar to the 2006 season. The biggest difference are the semi-hemispheric Highs (NW Atlantic & NW Pacific) being North of normal. This could indicate a early GoM TS season followed by FSs; however, with the warmer E. Pacific tropical ponding the energy could lift over the SE US and directly feed the Arctic.

Clipping the normal W->E Temperate flow, with a cutoff to the S., a Blocking to the W. and a orbiting series of Lows to the North, well lets just say it could lead to a Dead Air Olympic Sailing Event in the South, paced by a TS meander on the way to soak the slopes of Europe proper. A venue move might be a consideration... Anyone have some land/marina options in the Channel Islands?

[Dave W]

No way can they move the venue now Dave!

[ldavidcooke]

Dave W, on 12 May 2012 - 19:02, said:

No way can they move the venue now Dave!

Hey Dave,

If they can't change the venue, can they figure out how to turn Andy' bane of Off Shore Wind Turbines into giant fans?...

[Paul Domaille]

ldavidcooke, on 12 May 2012 - 18:48, said:

Hey Ian & Dave,

I think it maybe a cooler Continental event. Looking at the current 700mb & 500mb there are two strong LPs North of the continent now. If these act like normal Summer Lows they will likely orbit a Polar High. This was very similar to the 2006 season. The biggest difference are the semi-hemispheric Highs (NW Atlantic & NW Pacific) being North of normal. This could indicate a early GoM TS season followed by FSs; however, with the warmer E. Pacific tropical ponding the energy could lift over the SE US and directly feed the Arctic.

Clipping the normal W->E Temperate flow, with a cutoff to the S., a Blocking to the W. and a orbiting series of Lows to the North, well lets just say it could lead to a Dead Air Olympic Sailing Event in the South, paced by a TS meander on the way to soak the slopes of Europe proper. A venue move might be a consideration... Anyone have some land/marina options in the Channel Islands?

He He.... I.m sure I can find some dave...back garden for rent and I can find a couple of acres for indoor venues at the right price

[ldavidcooke]

Hey Paul,

Just been boning up on ya'll, (terrible things 70ya). Glad to see the Marinas and beautiful Hotels though. As to venue was only thinking Sailing... Though you could always create a bid for the 2020 Summer Olympiad. Just blow a few stair steps into a few of the un-inhabited Is. (Maybe a few elevator shafts for the infirm..., like me.) Then create a bike path around the perimeter of Jursey and tell the Marathon runners to think NASCAR, (turn left and go a bit and turn left and go a bit..., 2 times...). You could always sell lemonade along the path to help recoop the costs.

[Paul Domaille]

ldavidcooke, on 12 May 2012 - 21:24, said:

Hey Paul,

Just been boning up on ya'll, (terrible things 70ya). Glad to see the Marinas and beautiful Hotels though. As to venue was only thinking Sailing... Though you could always create a bid for the 2020 Summer Olympiad. Just blow a few stair steps into a few of the un-inhabited Is. (Maybe a few elevator shafts for the infirm..., like me.) Then create a bike path around the perimeter of Jursey and tell the Marathon runners to think NASCAR, (turn left and go a bit and turn left and go a bit..., 2 times...). You could always sell lemonade along the path to help recoop the costs.

LOL Dave, well it's Guernsey tyo start with...but I won't hold that against you (bit of inter island rivalry). Actually for a small island of c65,000 inhabitants we do pretty well, we can claim 3 world champions in the last couple of decades, a number of UK champions, we have held at least one marine world championship numerous times here in the past. We do have an island marathon( one fn the local competitors will be representing the UK in the Olympics), even though as you say it's a bit like NASCAR, except we go the other way round...keep turning right. Hotels and Marinas, several. I think you can see them at nest.gg. Anyaway somewhat off topic ! Interesting theory you have. Certainly, for the next 14 days I can't see anything, temperature wise, actually attaining the average !
What I would like to understand though, is the relationship betwwen thye Hadley Cell/Feral Cell and the jetstream and how to actually forecast the cells characteristics as I believe this takes it back one stage further.
Age.....70 yo, well, it won't be too long before I'm there. It's all relative tio ones lifespan...but thats another story
Cheers,
Paul D

[ldavidcooke]

Hey Paul,

My apologies wrt to the "Age", actually was refering to the occupation...

Anyhow, yep, forgot its left turn has the right of way..., so going right around you can own the track, though it is pretty rare to get 42 runners all bunching up in 400 meters of a 6km round a' bout.

As to Jursey, I was suggesting letting the Marathon runners to have at it on Jursey, figuring the tourists and money would stay in Guernsey... (I was aware of your "leanings"..., though Ian might consider that a poke...)

As to general circulation, what I see at the 250mb region is a bit of concern for me. I have been carefully/periodically monitoring the N. Jet for over 6 years, the problem is I had never seen loops in the jet stream as deep as I have seen over the last 18 months. Generally, most times in the past we would see the N Jet get a "twist or a broad U shape for as long as I can remember. About 9 years ago a weird thing happened the U became a kind of V shape and then ended up with a kind of looping flair. Now we have the N Jet spining off Low Pressures that look like the Big Red Spot on Jupiter.

So what has changed, why would in a former climate that at the ITCZ it was the Southern Jet, not the Northern Jet spawning cyclones? Well this starts to address your concern wrt, the Hadley and Ferrel cells. These upper atmospheric patterns have not significantly changed, except in the region of extreme troughs and ridges. The flow from the ITCZ through to the Ferrel Cell interfacce near 100mb in altitude or roughly near to 16km has not changed much. Most of the rising heat energy there continues to rapidly rise drawing both warmth and wv with it to between 45 and 60 deg. N/S. At that point it normally would lose a large portion of its heat and fall back towards the Earth feeding both the Jet Stream below and the Ferrel cell. At this point the super cooled high altitude air would interact with the lower sub- inversion layer warmth rising again in an upper level cyclone then this re-warmed air would move towards the pole falling back towards the ground creating a polar vortex.

So what has changed in the last decade, two things, first an increase in CO2 warmed air at about 4km in altitude that carries about twice the water vapor that it did a decade ago. Add to that roughly a 10% higher wv content in the Hadley cell air. (Part of the intersecting air at about 12-14km goes into feeding Polar Stratospheric Clouds.) The second thing is that the drop in 50-65% of polar ozone has caused an increase in UV energy entering the air column, with greater intrusions above 45 deg. during the winter. All of this extra heat energy goes into the water vapor laden air with the biggest concentration between 4 and 8km or just below the normal Jet Stream height.

So what we see happening to the Jet Stream is it contains more heat then we saw a decade ago. This results in an expansion of the gas and wv contained in this region. By rotating, the jet stream simply draws the combination of additional heat and wv along warming the wind current, creating wild looping features to accommodate the added energy. These loops progress to the point they break off with anti- cyclonics forming North and Cyclonics to the South or the opposite of what we see near the ITCZ during tbe Summer.

Now I must tell you that you may want to take this idea with a grain of salt as there is no direct evidence that all these parts fit together as I am describing. However, based on my study of atmosheric processes, (notice I said processes rather then science, I simply link the evidence not the explanations or the conclusions). As to more details yea we can discuss them,; but, to do so we have to pick the processes apart a bit so we can talk about them. I will tell you that most of the data is supported by either radiation physics, earlier climate thread discussions, and papers coming from a diverse group of schools ranging from Washington State, UCLA, Colarado State, Penn State, Cambridge University, Uninersity of Ohio and Illinois. (I refuse to include Harvard due to certain Satellite Huricane analysis papers that were patently wrong , initally...)

[Ed.]

Crumpets anyone..?

[ldavidcooke]

Hey Ed,

Are you serving coffee with those crumpets or tea? If tea, then is it Orange Peacote, Early Gray or simple Black tea? Then if it is Simple Black tea, is it hot or cold, sweet or citrus spiked..., or simply a bit blonde...? Sorry even the simplest questions may be loaded..., didn't realize that did ya?

So yes, Crumpets would be welcome... got any good recipies? I warn you, even my best biscuit ( "Banger?" ) comes out a bit like a hockey puck... ( I have even used seltzer/skim milk and a bit of butter to try to develop lo-oil/salt version.) How about a good tart recipe, I have a few cherries I need to harvest ... Oopps, sorry that could be taken wrong, no I actually have a Nepolean Cherry tree that is dragging the ground... I just need a couple of good low kcal recipies for them...

[Sam Jowett]

Fascinating theory Dave... is there any pier reviewed research being conducted in to hypothesis' ike this do you know? Sounds like a good Phd topic for someone to me...

[Dave W]

Basically youre just saying there's likely to be more meridionality than zonality then now overall, with a tendency for cut off vortexes to develop in the mid Atlantic ?

[Sam Jowett]

That's how I'd read Dave's theory Dave, yeah. It's perhaps something with evidence in how our warming climate seems to have evolved over the last couple of decades too, not to mention how colder periods tend to leave a signature of increased zonality in palaeoclimatic proxies. Interesting that Dave has come up with a theory that could justify the changes we're seeing...

[PJB]

very little is understood between the relationship between what goes on above 100mbs and the subsequent impact to the surface weather. There is without doubt a correlation. Lack of ZOnal flow is more normal in the summer months in the northern hemisphere with a very weak subtropical jet the norm. I for one would not want to draw any conclusions from the current upper level pattern to what might be experienced in July.

[Dave W]

Fair enough. Would anyone else ?

[ldavidcooke]

Hey Paul;

Likely the best tracers or recent events that could support circulation flow in the atmosphere would be the trace cesium from the reactor failures, both the historic recordings from Russia and the series in Japan.

There are several military birds that could trace atomic radicals. Concentrate at least two if not three satellites to isolate points in 3D and you have instant insight, regardless the optical depth. Similar actions with regards to volcanic dust or even sodium. These three options offer specific choices we can currently employ and are emitted either point source or from specific alitude domains allowing insight that would highly enrich our current state of atmospheric physics.

However, I have access to none of these tools. So most of my preliminary observations are limited to water vapor, both the publicly available GEOS/MODIS and the A-Train the Lidar based tools. If you have a good alternative I am willing to explore it with you.

[ldavidcooke]

Hey Sam,

As a unified theory, no. There are several papers that discuss saturated polar circulation above 500mb. Likewise we have the CLYPSO and the aerosol remote observatories for tracing vertical flows in slices. The biggest source of supporting data will have to come from side scanning lidar with a sodium photon emission band sensitivity. There are a number of papers that offer pieces to the puzzel. I had referenced most of them over the years in both the Climate Discussion and Chat forums these past 6 years.

(Generally, the detailed data will likely have to come from the "Home Security" experimental packages that were being planned several years ago. There were plans to create a bird that could trace atomic radiation. Whether this went forward or not I don't know.)

[ldavidcooke]

Paul Domaille, on 12 May 2012 - 22:03, said:

LOL Dave, well it's Guernsey tyo start with...but I won't hold that against you (bit of inter island rivalry). Actually for a small island of c65,000 inhabitants we do pretty well, we can claim 3 world champions in the last couple of decades, a number of UK champions, we have held at least one marine world championship numerous times here in the past. We do have an island marathon( one fn the local competitors will be representing the UK in the Olympics), even though as you say it's a bit like NASCAR, except we go the other way round...keep turning right. Hotels and Marinas, several. I think you can see them at nest.gg. Anyaway somewhat off topic ! Interesting theory you have. Certainly, for the next 14 days I can't see anything, temperature wise, actually attaining the average !
What I would like to understand though, is the relationship betwwen thye Hadley Cell/Feral Cell and the jetstream and how to actually forecast the cells characteristics as I believe this takes it back one stage further.
Age.....70 yo, well, it won't be too long before I'm there. It's all relative tio ones lifespan...but thats another story
Cheers,
Paul D

Hey Paul,

I just found a thread from a few years back discussing the general atmospheric circulation. It was a NWS educational venture called The Jetstream. (I discovered it while chasing posts by Michael Shouler..., regarding observations tracking cutoff lows in the Eastern N. Atlantic...)

The site pretty much clarifies my earlier post describing the circulation and adds in the Polar Cell, that I described; but, did not name/define. Generally, the info. there was similar to what I suggested. The difference I think, is the change in the temperature range vertically today, as opposed to conditions say 50 years ago (ya).

As to the drivers, there are a number, of which aerosols, CO2 and UV all play a part. The end results are also as we have discussed in the past in the Climate Chat/Discussion Forums. That there are changes in all the variables I do not think it possible to suggest one has more weight then the other. However, it is apparent these changes appear to be affecting the circulation currents, both atmospheric and oceanic.