January 2006 temperature anomalies

[phantom power]

Damn. Just... damn. Look at Europe and Asia, compared with North America. Looks like a THC shutdown profile.

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Not exactly a THC Shutdown Profile -- "merely" quite unusual

With a North Atlantic THC shutdown, we'd expect to see cooling, not anomalous warmth, in Scandinavia and the British Isles. In fact, given the observed loss of a number of THC current "chimneys" in the last two years, it's much warmer than I would have expected.

I'd go looking for anomalies with the polar currents and weather vortex, instead. Much less is known about the dyamics of the weather of the extreme north, but this kind of exact-hemisphere extreme difference is startling -- especially given the overall warmth for the entire rest of the world. I would expect prevailing south-to-north winds to develop as the atmosphere turns into a heat pump. Perhaps they have already done so over the Americas. (Sub-equatorial north-to-south winds would develop a little later, since the southern hemisphere is somewhat more stable than the north -- although it, too, is starting to experience major changes beyond Antarctic ice melting and rafting.)

The excessive heat over North America and the northeastern Atlantic basin, as well as off the western coast of Africa, does not bode well for the early part of hurricane season. With any luck, this does not reflect sea-surface anomalies, and the Atlantic will be cooler this summer.

There is a little good news -- it means that a lot of the thawed permafrost has re-frozen, even in extreme North America. But the progress of that phenomenon has been unmistakable, and we should be on the lookout for an early thaw next month.

By the way, it got up to about 75F here in suburban Philly. Is anyone taking bets that we'll have a major snowstorm between next week and the first week of April?

--p!

[phantom power]

3. Increased atmospheric heat flow will be interesting.

When you have heat trying to make it from a hot equator to cold poles, over the surface of a spinning sphere, coriolis force causes that flow to become "banded" In this way, earth isn't vastly different than jupiter, just smaller and with fewer bands. Heat energy works its way from band to band.

I would expect that to continue, but what will it look like when that system is now trying to move much more heat? More turbulence between the bands?

[Viking12]

2. Global Average Surface Temperature January 2006 = 5th Highest on record

behind 2005, 2002, 2003, & 2004

and February 2006 is #2 on the all-time list behind only 1998.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts.txt

[hatrack]

4. This is going to be a VERY interesting year

nt

[jpak]

5. Notice the blue dots in the Equatorial Pacific

La Nina is coming....

[phantom power]

6. The thought of an Atlantic hurrican season....

like last year, but with lower wind shear, disturbs me. Even last year, there were at least a couple of storms that thrived in wind-shears that the meteorologists previously thought impossible.

[jpak]

7. It's going to suck large

But this year, I will have 20 gallons of gas plus a full tank ready at all times for evacuation - and plan do so early and often....

[Odin2005]

8. A subtle shift of the upper-level winds, most likely.

A shift of the Polar High away from North America and towards Russia maybe?