AGW: atmospheric physics

[Star]

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Climate Change And Blizzards May Be Connected, Global Warming Studies Demonstrate


SETH BORENSTEIN
02/18/2013



WASHINGTON (AP) — With scant snowfall and barren ski slopes in parts of the Midwest and Northeast the past couple of years, some scientists have pointed to global warming as the culprit.

Then when a whopper of a blizzard smacked the Northeast with more than 2 feet of snow in some places earlier this month, some of the same people again blamed global warming.

How can that be? It's been a joke among skeptics, pointing to what seems to be a brazen contradiction.
But the answer lies in atmospheric physics. A warmer atmosphere can hold, and dump, more moisture, snow experts say. And two soon-to-be-published studies demonstrate how there can be more giant blizzards yet less snow overall each year. Projections are that that's likely to continue with man-made global warming.

Consider:
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[Old Rocks]

Or to simply the predictions, wider and wilder swings in the weather with an overall warming trend.

 

[polarbear]

Or to simply the predictions, wider and wilder swings in the weather with an overall warming trend.

Good morning to You from Manitoba.
I got to know You a little better since we buried the axe and in this spirit I`ll give You a little brain teaser today.
Yesterday, just outside my kitchen window it was -33. This morning it`s "only" -18 where I live. Only 22 km east from where I am it`s 5 degrees "warmer".


( not much, only slightly off topic remark..So how much sense would it make to average that?)




If there were no difference in temperature over distance there would be no "wild swings" or severe weather events.
Do You agree with that so far ?

Any severe storm regardless if it`s a winter blizzard, a summer hail storm, a tornado or a hurricane is triggered by rapid cooling of warm & moist air...not by rapid heating.
Do You agree with this statement ?

If You agreed to both then You are in a bit of a bind, because CO2 at the present level is said to slow the rate of cooling.

It`s alright with me if You quote a pro AGW web site, as long as the explanation is included how something that slows the rate of cooling can at the same time enhance the rate of cooling to a degree that triggers a severe weather event.

Don`t worry, I`m not trying to lure You into a "You said" trap for later use...I`m just sincerely interested what Your thoughts are regarding this paradox.

 

[Toronado3800]

Ug.

This is a tough one for alarmists in the global.warming camp. They yell too much about any one storm.

Please understand though if global warming affects the flow of the gulf stream England may well get colder!

I would think a warmer.atmosphere would be faster moving so maybe another mph or two on winds.

This is not a big part of my belief in the greenhouse effect though.

 

[polarbear]

Ug.

This is a tough one for alarmists in the global.warming camp. They yell too much about any one storm.

Please understand though if global warming affects the flow of the gulf stream England may well get colder!

I would think a warmer.atmosphere would be faster moving so maybe another mph or two on winds.

This is not a big part of my belief in the greenhouse effect though.

Are You responding to my paradox? I`m only trying to make the AGW subject a bit less confrontational and welcome all comments

Pretty good answer !
I especially liked the gulf stream reminder, because many are not aware that the gulf stream transports more heat energy from south to north than the heat energy that the air transfers.
It starts out at 30 Sverdrup and increases to 150 Sv north of 55 deg Lat.
That`s 39 600 000 000 gallons per second of warm water heading north & to Europe.

I`m an engineer not a "climatologist". As such I see an analogy between the paradox about a decreased rate of cooling, a prerequisite to wild temperature swings and severe weather events..... and how a Stirling engine works. It`s exactly the same factors that make a Sterling engine "tick" that You need for severe storms.

It would seize to function if the rate of cooling would be less than the rate of heating...or if it the cold side were as warm as the heated side.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

If the wilder and wilder swings were to lead to another mini ice age, would it be politically alright to seek warmth?

 

[polarbear]

Ug.

This is a tough one for alarmists in the global.warming camp. They yell too much about any one storm.

Please understand though if global warming affects the flow of the gulf stream England may well get colder!

I would think a warmer.atmosphere would be faster moving so maybe another mph or two on winds.

This is not a big part of my belief in the greenhouse effect though.

Besides the massive Gulf stream current, the other thing that casual weather observes don`t consider are the mechanics at play at severe storms, such as hurricanes and tornadoes.
Both are less intense the farther north the event occurs and more violent the farther south.
That`s not so much due to warmer temperature farther south, but rather due to the latitude specific Coriolis effect which causes the high circular wind speeds in tornadoes and hurricanes.

Too bad, I was in a hurry and could not find a better Coriolis gif demo.
So just use Your imagination and reverse the direction how that ball moves. In a storm system that ball,...the air moves towards the center and rotates faster just like a figure skater increases "rpm" by drawing in his previously extended arms.


It`s better to demonstrate this effect in numerical form for a hurricane, like "Sandy" and compare "Sandy" to "Katrina", because hurricanes spread out over a larger area.
The Coriolis effect alone will account that "Katrina" which made landfall in New Orleans had higher wind speeds than "Sandy" @ New York.

At the equator the rotational speed is (40 000 000 * cos(0))/( 24*60*60)= 623 m/sec
At Lat 10 N the rotational speed is already down to 456 m/ sec
When an air mass moves from the equator 10 degrees North it retains the 623 m/sec momentum and is over a ground that has a 456 m/sec speed vector in that direction. That`s a speed difference of 167 meters per second. Friction is a good thing, because if there was none that`s the kind of wind speeds that would be achieved if there were no friction when an air mass travels from the equator 10 degrees north (=600 nautical miles).

If an air mass travels from 40 deg N to 50 deg N then the speed momentum vector difference is 57 meters per second...almost 3 times slower than from 0 deg to 10 deg N

It is the Coriolis vector quantity that contributes a large part of the mechanical energy in a severe storm system.
The rate of cooling, the more rapid the more violent will be the mechanical energy component the storm has drawn from the thermal energy and it adds up either to a hurricane category 1-2, 70 to 120 mph wind speeds (Katrina), or a tropical storm (Sandy)...40 to ~ 75 miles per hour.

 

[Saigon]

A warmer atmosphere can hold, and dump, more moisture, snow experts say.

Absolutely - the more humid it is, the more we get here in Finland. You don't hear people question climate change here.

There was another thread on snow in Russia a couple of weeks back where some of the science behind this was explained. The funny thing was, the thread was started by a Denier!!

btw - I'd like to warn posters about the Polar Bear - who started posting IP addresses last week after he got particularly humiliated on one thread. The posts were removed by the mods, but I suggest putting the guy on ignore if you value your privacy.

 

[TNHarley]

Blizzards have only happened in the last couple hundred years?

 

[Saigon]

Blizzards have only happened in the last couple hundred years?

Nope.

But areas such as the one I live in get more snow and bigger blizzards as the climate becomes warmer and more humid.

 

[Saigon]

Here's a nice overview of the science:

As climate warms, evaporation from the ocean increases. This results in more water vapour in the air. Globally, atmospheric water vapour has increased by about 5% over the 20th century. Most of the increase has occurred since 1970 (IPCC AR4 3.4.2.1). This is confirmed by satellites that find the total atmospheric moisture content has been increasing since measurements began in 1988 (Santer 2007).

The extra moisture in the air is expected to produce more precipitation, including more extreme precipitation events. Observations bear this out. A study of precipitation trends over the United States found that heavy precipitation events (over 50mm in a day) have increased 20% over the 20th Century (Groisman 2004). Most of this increase occured after 1970. Various analyses of precipitation over the globe have similarly found a widespread increase in heavy precipitation days since 1950 (Alexander 2006, Groisman 2006).

Does record snowfall disprove global warming?

 

[TNHarley]

I dont understand why people act oblivious to the fact that Earth has cycles. It happens, folks. Regardless if we influenced by a fragment or not, it is still natural. I think it is ignorant to think we are causing "weird" weather, even though weird weather has happened for millions of years. I mean if you blame us, you should also blame the dinosaurs. Ridiculous, ey?

 

[Saigon]

I dont understand why people act oblivious to the fact that Earth has cycles. It happens, folks. Regardless if we influenced by a fragment or not, it is still natural. I think it is ignorant to think we are causing "weird" weather, even though weird weather has happened for millions of years. I mean if you blame us, you should also blame the dinosaurs. Ridiculous, ey?

I hear this a lot, but it largely comes down to a kind of misinterpretation of what we are talking about. Climate has always changed - but there has often been a reason WHY it changed.

Here's another synopsis on this:

Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing.

A common skeptic argument is that climate has changed naturally in the past, long before SUVs and coal-fired power plants, so therefore humans cannot be causing global warming now. Interestingly, the peer-reviewed research into past climate change comes to the opposite conclusion. To understand this, first you have to ask why climate has changed in the past. It doesn't happen by magic. Climate changes when it&#8217;s forced to change. When our planet suffers an energy imbalance and gains or loses heat, global temperature changes.

There are a number of different forces which can influence the Earth&#8217;s climate. When the sun gets brighter, the planet receives more energy and warms. When volcanoes erupt, they emit particles into the atmosphere which reflect sunlight, and the planet cools. When there are more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the planet warms. These effects are referred to as external forcings because by changing the planet's energy balance, they force climate to change.

It is obviously true that past climate change was caused by natural forcings. However, to argue that this means we can&#8217;t cause climate change is like arguing that humans can&#8217;t start bushfires because in the past they&#8217;ve happened naturally. Greenhouse gas increases have caused climate change many times in Earth&#8217;s history, and we are now adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere at a increasingly rapid rate.

What does past climate change tell us about global warming?

 

[polarbear]

I dont understand why people act oblivious to the fact that Earth has cycles. It happens, folks. Regardless if we influenced by a fragment or not, it is still natural. I think it is ignorant to think we are causing "weird" weather, even though weird weather has happened for millions of years. I mean if you blame us, you should also blame the dinosaurs. Ridiculous, ey?

Ironic isn`t it?
AGW cultists like to call skeptics "flat earth scientists" while they can`t even imagine what a cycle is. Their whole "science" is based on a linear relation ship between ppm CO2 and "average temperature" while the function for CO2 IR absorption is a logarithmic function that almost levels out long before we double CO2 ppm in the atmosphere.

 

[Saigon]

Average of GISS, NCDC, and HadCRUT4 monthly global surface temperature anomalies from January 1970 through November 2012 (green) with linear trends applied to the timeframes Jan '70 - Oct '77, Apr '77 - Dec '86, Sep '87 - Nov '96, Jun '97 - Dec '02, Nov '02 - Nov '12.

 

[Intense]

A warmer atmosphere can hold, and dump, more moisture, snow experts say.

Absolutely - the more humid it is, the more we get here in Finland. You don't hear people question climate change here.

There was another thread on snow in Russia a couple of weeks back where some of the science behind this was explained. The funny thing was, the thread was started by a Denier!!

btw - I'd like to warn posters about the Polar Bear - who started posting IP addresses last week after he got particularly humiliated on one thread. The posts were removed by the mods, but I suggest putting the guy on ignore if you value your privacy.

The IP Addresses were only visible to the current user. There was no Security breach. Here is a similar Site. No One can see tha IP Address but you.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

These AGW threads are the funniest ever!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Wider swings! Wheeeeeeeeee

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Jesus said, not in all east angelia have we seen faith such as yours. Go! Your faith has warmed the planet...er, I mean changed the climate

 

[westwall]

A warmer atmosphere can hold, and dump, more moisture, snow experts say.

Absolutely - the more humid it is, the more we get here in Finland. You don't hear people question climate change here.

There was another thread on snow in Russia a couple of weeks back where some of the science behind this was explained. The funny thing was, the thread was started by a Denier!!

btw - I'd like to warn posters about the Polar Bear - who started posting IP addresses last week after he got particularly humiliated on one thread. The posts were removed by the mods, but I suggest putting the guy on ignore if you value your privacy.

Of course it must be COLD to make snow..you all seem to forget that...