Credit: weather.com

By what known physics could a few molecules of carbon dioxide upset the jet stream? A meteorologist is not impressed by such claims.

By Chris Martz | November 9, 2019
INTRODUCTION Just when wildfires weren’t enough, we now have people blaming cold weather on a warming climate, which seems quite contradictory.

In light of the Arctic outbreak in forecast this coming week, people like Phil Plait (who has since blocked me) took to Twitter (Figure 1) to claim that man-made climate change is causing frigid, Arctic air to be displaced south into the United States, Europe, and Asia.

His argument, which is supported by some climate scientists, suggests that man-made global warming causes the polar jet stream to destabilize causing it to become wavy rather than zonal, sending Arctic air southward into the mid-latitude regions.

He also stated that without global warming, the polar air would stay near the north pole.

Both of these claims are exactly backwards from reality and are not supported by weather dynamics, the global warming theory, or statistical observations in long-term temperature data.

1. WHAT CAUSES COLD AIR OUTBREAKS?

Cold air outbreaks are generally caused by disruptions in a large scale atmospheric circulation known as the polar vortex which surrounds the coldest air above the North Pole.

Contrary to popular belief, the polar vortex is not unusual, extreme, or a new phenomenon. As Waugh et al., 2016 stated, “they are simply basic features of Earth’s climatology.”¹

There are two main polar vorticies in each Hemisphere, but for sake of time, I’m only going to discuss the one that gets the most attention; the Northern Hemisphere polar vortex.

It’s commonly believed that the two polar vortexes, one in the troposphere and the other in the stratosphere, are directly connected as one, but they are in fact quite different (Waugh et al., 2016).

The tropospheric polar vortex is found between approximately 5,000 feet (850 mb) and 52,000 feet (100 mb) with it’s core at approximately 18,000 feet (500 mb) in altitude (Waugh et al., 2016). The stratospheric polar vortex however, is located much farther up in altitude (Figure 2).

Continued here [with links and graphics].

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November 10, 2019 at 12:52PM