Posted on 12/14/2002 4:55:40 PM PST by SamAdams76
I have been doing a lot of thinking about the pattern we are in against the backdrop of the overall climate. I have come to the conclusion that what we are seeing now could be the start of the earths natural thermostat swinging back to chillier times overall. The warning shots against global warming have been fired from some quarters, and lets remember what my stand is here: It is not that it is not occurring. Its just that if it is, then man may not be the cause. And if man is contributing, its our own arrogance that leads us to think the earth can not balance it out. That being said, there is no reason to trash the house one lives in, and many of the things advocated by the environmental movement I am for whole heartedly on principles. What I am not for is the draconian measures that can slow down the engine that pulls the train, and like it or not, there are some of us out here that still believe in manifest destiny and the shining city on the hill as the dream of this country. Judging by the amount of people trying to get into our country vs the amount that are fleeing, many on this globe feel the same way, and some of the things going on against this land are being initiated by people with motives that may be different from our principles. The overriding one of course being freedom, and with it the freedom to excel.
Remember when dealing with any issue, man being imperfect makes mistakes. We are in no means a perfect nation, but the difference between winners and losers is that the winner corrects the error and tries to build, the loser turns away from it and becomes like everyone else who got beat. Its all in the journey.
Why all this. Well one, I dont want folks to think that I am closed minded about this issue. I happen to think I am very open minded. If you read every day, you read me mentioning ideas that are not my own in a complimentary way, and you also read me issuing a challenge to compare and contrast... and by doing so allowing competition. Coming full circle to the original thought about what we have been seeing since coming off the peak of the solar cycle last winter, and the evolution on the patterns in the ocean, which by the way is eloquently handled by Mssr. D Aleo in one of his columns, one can see where this backdrop is vitally important, not only to this winter, but the coming 20-30 years. The warning shot of cyclical warming was issued by Bill Gray back in the late 70s, when he talked about the increase in hurricane activity that would go along with the cycle of warming in the atlantic. What is happening here, when we tie it with Mssr D Aleo's writings is an overall cooling in the Pacific, which blunts the extreme effect of the El Nino and a warming in the Atlantic. Lets examine the big picture.
The weather in the northern hemisphere moves from west to east. If the ocean west of you is in a warm phase, it has more of a chance to bring warm air to the continent downstream. The fact its warmer also adds to the magnitude as the swings that can take place. Having a huge body of water such as the Pacific in a warm phase can easily skew the climate of the earth. What is also crucial to the data is that there have been 2 cycles of solar peaks here, so that incoming radiation has coincided nicely with the decadal warming. Bang jump in earths temperature. In the meantime, the Alantic has started its cycle of warming and so basically we have reached a crescendo of warm Pacific warm Alantic, and high solar maxes the past few years. You dont have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what that means.
With all this going on, the effects to counter balance have started to kick in. Woods Hole fired a warning shot with the glacial melting idea releasing more fresh cold water into the atlantic, and you will have to go to their site to read this. However this idea is not new. It can' be. I read it when I was 8 years old in one of the weather books my dad gave me and that was in the early 60s. That the earth had a natural thermostat built in to counter the extremes. In fact if one considers the ranges here from dinosaurs in Canada to glaciers on Broadway, if we are starting a swing back from warm, the swing to warm was chicken feed. But look at what has happened the past 5 years...The most extreme el Nino ever recorded (97-98) followed by the most long lived La Nina. All this occurred as the solar constant was heading toward its peak, during the end of the warm cycle in the Pacific and the increase of the warmth of the atlantic. Now, lets go to the Joel Myers rubber band theory, that when something snaps, it snaps hard. We see the solar constant heading down, the Pacific cooling, the Atlantic warming. The action of the Alantic warming and the Pacific cooling does two things. 1) It creates water warm enough to melt glaciers which encourages cooling of the water in pockets and perhaps that is why we are seeing the type of water profile we are seeing in the atlantic, which I have theorized promotes the negative NAO and which so far has been ringing true. 2) It means the amount of warming from the west is diminishing and in fact the warm water to the east, the cooling of the air over the continent in winter by natural processes sets up a circulatory pattern in the means that encourages the flow to bring colder air, simply because warm sources downwind in the means invite the acceleration toward them of cooler, denser air. Dont believe me, then open your refrigerator in bare feet and see what gets colder first, your feet or your face. So we are reversing the cause of the overall pattern of the last 10 years or so with 3 major items. The situation can be likened to Rocky in the 15th round...the climate in North America has taken all the shots the warming can give it, and the warming is now punched out. The effect can be dramatic, perhaps like a rubber band snapping. This winter may indeed turn out to be the first of what will be an attempt at balance over the long term ( lets say 1980-2020). The natural tendency when something fights back is for extremes to occur. Naturally this will be blamed by various people on various things. Through it all, I wish to make clear my stance, and that is its a combination of events that leads to the end result, and in the absence of a very strong signal, be it el nino seasonally as in 97 , or conclusive proof that what is happening now has never happened before, simple pat answers are meant to, and sorry for how harsh this sounds, simple minds. The arrogance of thinking one can broad brush the majesty of nature with one answer, where nature is an infinite system and one answer is finite, defies logic.
We can see it now. Think, folks think of all the things going on that were not seen, then blamed on something that is supposedly causing them. Yet if one goes back and looks, one can see the constant repetition, perhaps not in a perfect rhythm, but at least in a way that one can see, of a fighting back taking place. Since February, long and strong cold shots have come into the nation and taken hold in areas in pulsing variety for 2-3 months at a time. The late winter to mid spring was as cold a period as we have seen in the plains at that time in 50 years. The east was on the fringe, only experiencing a small period in May when the extreme cold got in but it left fast. Think about now. The very cold in October started in the plains like it did in 91. 91 was a time much like now where the solar cycle was at its peak, but the Pacific was warming, not cooling overall. The cold never really came east. Why. The influence of the el nino with an overall warming Pacific just kept pushing warmer and warmer air toward the states. This year, the plains got cold in October, but the atlantic is warmer, the Pacific cooling. This argues for an eastward migration of the cold pool as the seasonal jet intensifies. If one takes the lesson of the rubber band snapping ( Myers) The analogs to 69-70 ( both myself and D Aleo), the pattern of 3 month cold shots, where warm ups are not so warm and the turns to colder outduel them ( plains this spring) the UKMET and Canadian objective winter guidance, and a host of other reasons listed in my winter prelim and forecast, one can make a strong argument for why we are now in what should turn out, when totaled up, to be a very cold period from the south to the lakes that lasts through much of January.
This mornings run of the ensembles, though only out until the 30th threatens to start sending cross polar air masses southward into the United states after the 27th or 28th. The models go right back to the rex block pattern that set the extreme cold up for the east Dec 1-10 and basically if one looks at the pattern of redevelopment of the positive height anomalies, over the period from the middle of last week to around the the New year, we see it having backed from Scandinavia to western Canada, where because there is an el nino it can be undercut. The million dollar question remain how much Siberian air can get involved. It seems quite likely that from the first to the 10th, the same place that shivered the 1-10 this month will be cold again. But that was regional cold that extended southwest into Texas. This is a much larger type outbreak. It will get much colder in the plains first, but bearable cold after the 20th. I still like my 3 storm idea, each further south than the one before, though I am getting more nervous that the one late next week, after running for the lakes tries to exit south of New england, courtesy of our negative NAO. The second one, starts in Texas a couple of days later and is the hope for a while Christmas for alot of people from the southern plains northeast. Gut call remains the same with a track toward the Ohio valley and then perhaps popping off the east coast south of New England.Why not, we have had 16 in that areas since late August. The post Christmas storm starts over the gulf the 26th and reaches the east late the 27th and 28th. The is an amazingly similar look to December of 69. Bitter cold overwhelmed all the east and plains in early January that year. While all this is going on, the infiltration of cross polar air starts, but only from northeast Siberia. The ensemble pattern in Asia on day 16 would indicate to me, that the cold is transient and regional. Think about it. The cold without that Caspian connection has just been aimed to one general place, then uses the suppressed jet to spread out southwest in the means. So one argues that while it gets cold, it may mean that like now, the plains do not stay that cold relative to averages, but instead the action of much below Jan 1-10 is where it was. In other words pattern repetition, January style, more extensive cause there is more cold air in January, but still not the kind of wicked cold that came in Jan 70. Similar than not the same. And finally there is the very valid argument of Mssr Tolleris, that it warms rapidly the first week of January. One can see the Asian pattern in 16 days with the ridge in Japan and say, here it comes. But is it right? and will the negative NAO, which is vivid on day 16 fight it off so what warming there is in an area that gets cold is like kissing your sister, in other wards like things will average out in the period Dec 11-20 in the areas that were coldest the 1-10.
I am positioned this time with idea number 2 of the three. Not 1970 cold, but a repeat in the general sense of what has just happened
Which brings us full circle to what is in front of us. The frigid shot in the northeast Mon-Wed, centered on Monday night through Tuesday night, which I jumped on Wednesday. That was a case of a computer model making me stop and thing and figure it out. Not to disappoint, it was the UKMET, not GFS. But once seeing the suggestion and looking at the factors, I did not do my usual stubborn take your stand ( that stubborness is a trait of the Calabrian region of Italy, and I have that blood) and torpedoes be damned, but instead got on it right away. One of my major emailers, who is spy in my weather army ( that army by the way melted away in last years winter much like Charlie Browns army of snowmen did in a famous peanuts cartoon, but this guy stayed and was promoted to spy) informed me that irrational exuberance about how warm its going to get the middle and latter part of next week in the east was still prevailing as of Thursday night. You will see forecasts change now and if they havent, well, compare and contrast is all I ask. I am not changing a single thing on this evolution sunday -Monday including the idea this thing lays down snow from Michigan to south Jersey and the coldest morning of the winter so far in the big cities Tuesday!
The models are still not showing my front runner hitting the west coast today, coming through, but now they show a great deal of the energy late next week coming right through the mid atlantic states. The surface low gets up to the lakes, but even if its right, its cloudy Thursday and wet Friday in alot of places and so much for the kind of weather the mid and late part of next week that one can walk around in shorts in ( granted I had shorts on in my hot tub this morning and I had to walk to it in 33 degrees, but it was only 10 feet). The air next weekend, while cooling in the means, may be milder in many places in the east, than it is Thursday and Friday. Of course if my sinister plot gets hatched, then the front runner cuts through establishing a boundary from the midwest to the Va capes wed night and Thursday ( after it snows or ices north of it) then the next system winds up even further south. While there is support for the model idea of a jet exiting fairly far south, there is still not model support for the sinister ideas listed the past few days. Its the negative NAO that has me worried. And when folks from the lakes and midwest to the northeast Monday afternoon please remember what was being touted here Wednesday and what was being said in other quarters..and then if my plot is not working out, then one can say, okay he missed that one, but at least I knew to bundle up first.
You have just read my longest single post ever. You have my permission to relax now Ciao for now.
For a pre-emptive strike on the El Nino propaganda, issued yesterday afternoon from here before the story went berserk on all the wires today, see the comments below from yesterday bounded by the ************. Please understand my attitude on this: I do not deny the El Nino is there, I do vehemently object to the idea that it is causing all this weather as it is my stance it is a myriad of things. I feel the deck is being loaded by the people spouting this to blame anything that happens, be it severe cold or a very warm, floods ice storms, whatever, on this. I believe they are purposely ignoring the other factors that many in the private sector are looking at as a way of not admitting to the fact that this is not the controlling beast they are trying to say it is, but instead as our stance is, just a piece of the puzzle. There may be time it takes full control, but one can not have it all ways..unless of course one is allowed to stack the deck.
Too much time and energy is being spent on this. Know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Interestingly enough, forecasters screaming how warm it will be in the northeast next week ( I know your out there guys, I was with you up until Wednesday morning) will blame El Nino of course if the bone chilling idea for early next week comes true. And whose to say once to Wednesday sinister sinister turn things may take after that with all this so called warm weather caused by El Nino. But wait no problem, if it is as cold as allude to below, its part of El Nino, right? No sweat ( how can you sweat in wind chills near 0 Monday afternoon in the northeast?)
If you can't hit the link provided, you have to join the beta Accuweather site. It is free at the current time. If you are halfway interested in the weather, Joe puts out a killer column almost daily with videos as well.
(In all honesty, the only weather I trust.)
;-)
That is the frustrating part of this whole subject.
Most Americans refuse to spoil their own environment and never needed the EPA or the envirowackos to live properly and avoid polluting themselves. It's common sense.
Now it has become an industry and it's all about the power of control over other people. I have no use whatsoever for them. They're in the same category as the Taliban and the extreme religious right.
What I am not for is the draconian measures that can slow down the engine that pulls the train, and like it or not, there are some of us out here that still believe in manifest destiny and the shining city on the hill as the dream of this country.
Despite what the other nations might say, the United States is one of the cleanest nations in the world. If the rest of the world was like the United States, we would have very little pollution.
What's more, technology breeds efficiency. As we become more advanced, we discover more ways to decrease pollution. By "slowing down the engine that pulls the train" as Joe Bastardi so aptly puts it, we actually make the environment worse. That is why third world nations are such cesspools while advanced Western nations like the USA are for the most part clean and sanitary. It is our technology that enable us to make this a cleaner planet while at the same time racing full speed ahead to make our lives easier and more comfortable.
I'v'e read him daily for years. He's at the top of my favorites list. I am always two to three days ahead of my friends in knowing what the weather will be thanks to Joe.
His column will cost $ soon and it will be every bit worth it.
The guy deserves reward for his prodigious efforts.
Mr. Atomic Vomit
Mrs. Vomit and I both are proud supporters of FR too. Just a Hundred bucks at a time (twice now, I think. She keeps the books while I'm away from Maine while working up here in AK) but it's the most effective use our money can be put to.
I consider it an investment.
Mr. Atomic Vomit
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