Carl's Climate Letters

The summer of last year was a season of record warming in the Arctic region. Siberia no doubt got the worst of it, with the Arctic Ocean area not far behind. The Climate Letter archives from those months provide a sort of running account, supported many times with imagery and also a good bit of commentary based on theories I was in the process of developing that would lead to a unique explanation of the causation of the warming. This summer looks like it might be heading in the same direction, except that the ocean area in the forefront for at least the time being. I want to provide even more material for the archives this year, hopefully better organized, which could be of use to interested parties in years to come. There is still a search going on for how to best explain the particular and rather alarming aspect of the global warming trend known as Arctic Amplification. My off-beat theories have so far received no public attention, but that could change at any time—who knows?

As for imagery, the most important thing is to stay on top of key temperature anomalies as they develop and if possible to then make direct connections to precipitable water (PW) inputs, either positive or negative, that I believe are responsible for a major share of every anomaly development.  In turn, according to my theory, the role of PW inputs is heavily influenced by jetstream wind activity in the upper troposphere, and the nature of that activity is in turn not only influenced but basically controlled by the configuration of air pressure differentials that occur in the upper troposphere of each hemisphere beyond the tropical belt.  Upper-level air pressure configuration in the NH is rapidly changing these days, and these changes need to be archived, along with images of the jetstream behavior that evolves under its control.  Here is an updated view of the configuration, which you may want to compare with the one from a week ago and numerous others:

One striking feature, the significant fracturing of the blue zone that you see, is causing changes in jetstream activity (next image) of a type quite capable of allowing unusual amounts of PW to roam directly over the heart of the polar zone. Some of the jets even act as carriers.

The numerous strong winds that you see are getting bunched up in some locations, in a manner that allows cold anomalies to form in those locations through the diversion of PW streams. The relative weakness of jet winds deep in the interior makes it possible for PW concentrations to easily pass right on through, there being no interior barrier in place due to the absence of a section of blue zone perimeter pathways that would otherwise be intact. The result is a set of warm anomalies sitting side by side over much of ocean. Not much has changed in that regard over the past week, and I think there is more of the same thing approaching:

Notice how the central anomaly is bounded by four extensions in the form of a cross. Their presence implies a strong likelihood that four more streams of concentrated PW are en route toward the same end points. Today we see them close at hand, serving as a source of warming in the places of current passage. All PW streams display a tendency to move toward one and the same spot if they can, that spot being the pole itself. Here they come, with no significant wind barriers in place and ready to stop them.

Just get up close to the screen to pick out the details.  Those gray shades are very meaningful because of the leverage implied by unit changes in the lowest kg weights.  (Each double over historical averages adds a quick but temporary 10C to local temperatures.)  Now I want to add a detailed image of PW movement on the other side of the hemisphere, where some parts of Siberia are being crossed over by incoming streams these days while others are prominently blocked off:

The alternating anomalies that result happen not to be of an extreme type, in part because it is not yet summer and there is still snow on the ground. It will be gone before long, and there should be plenty of big changes to document in the months ahead.

Carl

Today’s letter will be devoted to commentary related to the 5-day animation website of total precipitable water (PW), produced by a group of scientists and engineers based at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.  I find it invaluable as a tool of understanding for how this complex body of material affects our everyday weather conditions.  The website is updated daily, available at http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/product.php.  A great deal of effort and expense underlies the creation and maintenance of this imagery, the current version of which has only been published since 2016.  Since NOAA is heavily involved I believe the primary purpose is intended for usage by the meteorological community, as an assist for improving the accuracy of precipitation indicators that are such an essential part of daily weather forecasting.  PW is rarely if ever referred to in any kind of science literature as a primary source of causation behind globe-wide temperature changes.  In my mind this is a deeply significant oversight that needs to be corrected, with climate scientists rather than meteorological scientists doing the heavy lifting. Awareness of how and where these trails of PW concentration originate and how to follow them to the end of their short lifetimes can only be of great help in observing exactly what their total effect is along every step of the way.

By “total effect” I am talking about temperature effects, not just precipitation.  The animation site has nothing of its own to say about a temperature connection.  For that one must switch over to Today’s Weather Maps at https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx/DailySummary/#t2 and check out the section with PW maps.  This can be confusing in one respect, because the maps are designed to tell you where all of the PW in the atmosphere is positioned on that day, regardless of how it got there or how long it has been there. What appears to be a long, integrated trail created by a concentration that is nearing the end of its run is actually a composite of snapshots of trails that began on following days from about the same location. One thing we learn from 5-day animation is that the sources of PW stream concentration on the borders of the tropical belt shift a little every day, of may even come to a halt. The same things are true of the courses that are followed thereafter. The weather maps cannot restore all of that information, but they do guide us to good information about temperature effects that are happening everywhere, currently, from all concentrations in all stages of trail variation.

Moving on to a different subject, the animation imagery always shows us a clear division between PW activity within the tropical belt when compared with the higher latitudes. Within the belt there is no outstanding sense of differences in direction of movement. On the outside, one direction dominates, west to east, plus a strong tendency for material to move outward, or toward the nearer pole. This needs some explanation. We know that “total” PW represents a measure of all the PW in the atmosphere above a given location, at every altitude. We also know that the most familiar kind of PW, composed mainly of water vapor at ground level, does not move around in any such way, with or without wind carriage. Often it does not show much change or move anywhere at all for many days. That means something other than ground-level water vapor must be responsible for a substantial portion of the total, because of the constant motion, constant change, and singular directional effects that total PW has in the higher latitudes. The only possible explanation calls attention to the level of the atmosphere that holds jetstream winds and its peculiar form of activity. There must be substantial amounts of PW up in that same part of the atmosphere, quite possibly exceeding amounts closer to the surface in a substantial way much of the time. We can always see considerable differences in the engineered measurements of total PW concentrations every day, accurately representing full totals and constantly varying from any one place to another. More common measurements of surface level water vapor show differences as well, but not of the same magnitude, and bear patterns quite unlike the patterns of variation found in the engineered measurements. One cannot avoid thinking about the suggested implications, that something special is going on with PW in the upper atmosphere on a very large scale, and it could be having an effect on the temperature variations at the surface that also occur on a very large scale. The animation of total PW shows us the truly dynamic nature of how those variations come about.

Carl

The close relationship between the high-altitude air pressure configuration (500hPa Geopot. Height) map in Today’s Weather Maps, and the positioning and strength of jetstream winds that are viewed on another map, is a vitally important factor in my complete hypothesis relevant to the mechanisms behind global temperature changes. Close observations make it very clear that that shapes taken by separated shades in the blue, green and red zones in the configuration depicted on the maps have complete control over the establishment of pathways along which the winds are blowing. That is, the winds have no other choice than to stay in positions that follow those paths, no matter how or where the paths are set up. The manner in which they are set up constantly changes, for a different set of reasons that we need not get into at this time. I will say that on some days the setup has a “regular” sort of feel about it and on other days it is much more convoluted, such that some of the usual components may even disappear for awhile. The jet wind components can do nothing more than adapt to whatever pathways are being offered. Wind velocities, meanwhile, as commonly observed, are highly dependent on the relative proximity of different pathways, apparently through a natural process of mutual acceleration whereby adjacent winds are able to give each other a push.

Anyway, the main purpose of today’s letter will be to shed a little more light on the pathway part of the mechanism, which is graphically represented on the jetstream maps in the form of isobars. Isobar lines on high-altitude maps depict the separation of differences in adjoining levels of air pressure in much the same way that similar lines do on surface maps. The patterns on the two maps differ simply because of significant changes in the environmental mechanisms that pressures respond to. The changeover is completed by somewhere around an altitude of three miles above the surface and then remains constant for another seven miles or so, when the troposphere gives way to another new kind of environment in the stratosphere. In the situation that results we can see that the troposphere, as observed in each hemisphere outside of the tropical belt, is divided into two highly distinctive layers with respect to air pressure differentials, the isobars that mark them, and the establishment of wind pathways that track along the isobars, creating an entirely independent wind system with its own unique set of behavioral characteristics..

Now let’s take a close look at actual isobars as they are set up today in this upper level pressure system. I suggest that you make the comparisons yourself, in as many places as you can on these maps, using 200% magnification. To start with, just focus on isobars, not the winds, when shifting your eyes over to the configuration map and taking note of how many of their features are closely related. To get a broad view, we’ll start with a pair of global maps:

The main thing to take note of here is that in the inner parts of the tropical belt the isobars are just plain runts. They curl up and don’t go anywhere, and being few in number there is no amount of closeness in between. That means there are no meaningful pressure differentials in place to speak of and hence no pathways can be set up for winds to follow. Pathways only begin to exist when certain proper requirements are met, which are first observed in higher latitudes of around 15-20 degrees. Now we’ll look at two regional map scenes where the principal requirements are widely met and much more isobar detail is able to be rendered:

If you have a little extra time you can have a lot of fun and fascination matching up various isobar arrangements with corresponding features on the configuration map.  See for example how circular “pressure centers” get set up in certain strategic places, and compare these with the long strings of parallel isobars that are more common, also strategically located as they trend along the shaded borders of the configuration zones. This particular region is full of complicating factors today.  Then go on to see how the winds actually respond in the way they blow, or don’t blow, on all of the different isobar pathways that have been set up for them. Enjoy.

Carl

The theory I have been developing over the past year finds compelling evidence that properties of the complex substance known as precipitable water (PW) have a dominating role in the causation of everyday temperature changes that occur on all planetary surfaces outside of the tropical belt. The theory goes on to explain the basic mechanisms that are involved in production of the changes that occur. I don’t believe there is anything comparable to be found in the literature of any of the sciences, which makes it highly unorthodox. Credibility depends on the quality of the evidence. Over the last few days I have posted a considerable amount of evidence relevant to Earth’s two polar zones. Today I need to shorten the letter a little, but can still show how the same relationship plays out on a broad scale in the middle latitudes. We are faced with a very extensive strong cold anomaly in the center of North America today. Continental Europe is partly neutral and otherwise on the moderately warm side. Non-tropical Asia is split into two substantial anomalies, one warm and one cold, sharply divided by a long sloping line. All of these anomalies are readily associated with shadings in the first map indicating higher or lower total content of PW in the atmosphere. The long sloping line is right where it belongs, and more evidence just like it can be found in several other places. You can also get another good look at the strong PW penetrations in the highest parts of the northern polar zone and their relative absence in the same latitudes in the south, producing another two anomaly opposites.

Carl

Yesterday we looked at reasons for why the Arctic was warming so much.  Today we’ll do the same for Antarctica, except this time it’s about cooling—big-time cooling, which today is just one-tenth shy of a full 5C lower than this day’s average for 1979-2000, and lower than any in my memory.  It greatly helps to explain why the planetary as a whole, for now, shows virtually no change at all in air temperature over the last three decades in spite of all the carbon we have added. Note how many anomalies there are in the -18-24 brackets:

Antarctica, the continent, sits squarely in the middle of the Antarctic Circle.  It is all but completely covered by a thick mountain of ice, all year around.  A combination of glacial ice shelves and ordinary sea ice surrounding the continent extends outward and fills almost the entire Circle, also mostly for the year around.  Beyond the sea ice there is an exceedingly wide border of ice-cold ocean water, much of it less than one degree above freezing, again having year-around durability.  This ice water is constantly being fortified with fresh meltwater produced all year long by the activity of low-level currents of warm ocean water that moves in and attacks the shelves from their undersides. This image outlines the total extent of all these cold surfaces, which together have the ability to keep Antarctic air near or below freezing for practically the entire year:

We still need to explain how the entire interior of the Circle can be a full five degrees colder than average on some days.  Some would say the cold air just “moves in.”  Sure, and where from? Let’s get serious.  The only thing that “moves in” on a given day is a scattering of little bits of precipitable water (PW) at high altitude, the last remnants of concentrated streams of PW that have made the long southward trip from warm water sources on the tropical border. (Go to http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/product.php and watch this happen from start to finish.)  It does not take many of these bits to change the air temperature inside the Circle when their greenhouse effect is added to that of the very dry surface air.  Some days more than the average number of bits come in and some days less.  When more come in the air temperature gets warmer; if less than average, colder. I think today is one where this input happens to be very much less than average.  Here is a map of in-place PW that could be compared with any older ones that might be found for this day. I think you would see how unusual is the amount of area having a total PW content of less than 1kg (per m-sq)—some of which could possibly be holding less than 100 grams! (At the equator, holdings are 500 times higher than this, and more.)

Now, for the record, several more maps. First, a map of average temperatures for the day, where a good many spots shaded in white are most likely well off the scale and thus below -60C:

Next, a map of high-altitude air pressure configuration, featuring an extra-large and compact blue zone.  Compare it to the one in yesterday’s letter.  Also, compare its size and shape with those of sea surface temperatures, up to a limit of plus one or two degrees, in the map near the top.  Blue zones ordinarily form only over regions that are loaded with freezing temperatures, just like this one is doing.

Finally, a map of jetstream activity for the day, which should also be compared with what we saw in yesterday’s letter, followed by a study of the regular relationship of these winds to pathways established on the blue and green zone borders in the air pressure configuration:

Carl

Today, the Arctic Ocean and the seas that surround it are nearly 100% engulfed in a substantial warm air anomaly, enough so to be considered a cause for concern. Roughly half of this surface show readings near +10C or more, with one area about one-third the size of Alaska in the +18-21 bracket. The bit-sized “cold” anomalies are at most only -2C. Meanwhile, on a larger perspective, the entire Arctic region, at +3.2C, stands in sharp contrast with the -4.0 of the Antarctic. Explanations are needed, and they are available from the Weather Maps, so let’s get at it, with a primary focus on happenings in the north:

There is one explanation, the only one I know of, that makes sense of the whole situation and can readily be demonstrated. The ocean surface is in fact being overridden by the remnants of two massive streams of high-altitude precipitable water (PW), one of which originated in the Pacific and the other in the Atlantic. Stream contents heading toward the pole have penetrated barriers set up by jetstream winds that are no longer as strong or well-organized as they were in the past at this time of year. This situation is only true in the north. In the south the barriers are stronger, in their regular place, and effectively working normally. Here is what the PW streams in the north generally look like, from start to finish, over five or six days of continuous movement:

Both streams become significantly whittled down as they travel northward.  Their total atmospheric content, some of which is near the surface and relatively less mobile, is always measurable, based on the relative weight of vertical columns.  The stream remnants that realize the final stages of penetration while moving at random create the extra warming via the localized provision of additional greenhouse energy effects. Their molecules often outweigh those of the less mobile PW that exists close to the surface by considerable factors, sometimes as much as 4 to 5 times, or even more.  Each double, as it occurs, can be found to add about 10C to surface air temperatures through the extra greenhouse effect, but only for as long as the relationship lasts.  (Part of any of this extra greenhouse effect is in fact retained for a longer period of time by the more dense matter that makes up the surface itself, a subject I will come back to at another time.)

On the above two maps you will find that the bright red spot where the anomaly is +18-21C corresponds closely in position with a patch of PW that has readings in the 7-8kg bracket.  I think the average PW value for that patch on this day of the year would be in the upper part of the 1-2kg bracket, more like the spots near the pole that today have minimal anomalies, except for being fractionally higher because of residing in a place of lower latitude.  The next map shows actual average temperatures for this day, where the warmest anomaly spot has a reading of one-half degree above zero, seen as a dull shade of light green on the color scale, while the cooler spots near the pole (magnification needed) look like they average around minus-22C. 

Mostly for purposes of future reference, I do want to include the jetstream map for today, which is full of twists and turns, and not much in the way of velocity in the more northerly parts. As usual, you can find some interesting relationships with the movement of courses taken by the PW streams.

You may also want to accept the challenge of tracing the three major jetstream wind pathways, blue, green and red, as they follow the tracks laid out by the high-altitude air pressure configuration pattern. The relationships get confused in a few of the more off-beat situations, but otherwise never fail.

Carl

The Climate Letter archive from last year holds an image of high-altitude air pressure configuration on April 15 that I will show here so it can be compared side by side with the one for today. They are both in a state of accelerated transition from winter to summer, and I can see little difference in the overall amount of deterioration up to this date:

I do think the total perimeter of the blue zone is a little shorter this year, and the same may be true of the “inner perimeter” of the green zone that remains in place when there are separations. More comparisons of these particular maps should be of interest as summer progresses and will become available in the weeks to come. The coordinated archiving of many kinds of map images for future viewing is now a primary objective of these letters.

With this last image as a reference, we have an opportunity to throw some light on how jetstream pathways are set up and what happens to the winds they contain when pathways become twisted and scrambled, as they certainly are right now. The view for today:

In order to visualize the pathway locations one should give primary consideration to isobar lines that are in place rather than just wind speed imagery. The actual wind speed that exists along any one pathway tends to be highly variable, sometimes moving too slow for imaging. In general, speediness should be thought of as mostly an effect created by the relative proximity of separate primary pathways, blue, green and red. Closeness, over any distance, is sure to produce the highest of all speeds due to mutual acceleration. Other than that, speeds on a more isolated pathway often tend to be ramped up when a reasonably straight course continues that way over a considerable distance. As soon as there is a sharper type of bend the speed will be slowed, and in some cases, especially in the red zone, the path may even be split into two or more pieces.

The red zone pathway is problematic in another way, because its location is not quite as dependable as those of the blue and green zone pathways, and also more prone toward splitting and other types of sporadic multiplication. The location, whether singular or plural, does seem to stick to the area separating lighter and darker shades of red. This is an area that at times can be quite convoluted. No matter how the red pathway is constructed, I don’t see it as an effective barrier to the forward progress of streams of precipitable water (PW) seen occurring at that altitude. It will often pick up streams near their point of origin and do little more than to transport them for some distance before offloading. Follow-up encounters with green or blue zone perimeter winds under more constricted conditions then become definitive as to the ultimate fate of each stream.

Having mentioned PW, I had best submit today’s map, so you can examine what happens to streams as they emerge from warm subtropical waters, rise up high, and promptly enter a new world where jetstream winds are blowing. How all of this activity relates back to the air pressure differentials depicted by the blue and green zones cannot be ignored. Watching these two zones deteriorate in the future will set the stage for answering questions about the ultimate fate of each PW stream, all of which have a brief but insatiable proclivity for moving their contents—and powerful greenhouse energy effects—toward and into the polar zone.

I”m adding one more image today, showing current snow and sea ice cover, as an afterthought, mainly for the sake of archiving. The timing of snow removal will have no small impact on surface air temperatures, and thus also on the near-term durability of the blue zone, so we must keep an eye on it. Warm anomalies in northern Canada, Alaska and Siberia are possibilities that can be looked for each day, knowing they would have a hand in the timing.

Carl

Here is something you don’t see very often, as both poles are being warmed up by close to +10C at the same time:

Meanwhile, the numbers under the map tell us the planet as a whole is undergoing a cool down period, more so in the SH than in the North. Related to the 1979-2000 baseline average, the SH has had a negative number about like this one for most of the last year or so. What is happening to make the pole location so warm today? (Actually, today’s high is still a bit below -30C.)

Things like this can happen every day on one or more spots of this continent, because a small amount of precipitable water (PW) always manages to slip past the protective jetstream barriers for a day or two. Note that the anomaly for Antarctica as a whole remains quite frigid today at -2.6C. Now let’s compare all this with warming activity in the north, where things are quite different:

This view tells us that well over half of the Arctic Ocean surface and its fragile ice cover are being warmed. We’ve watched the trend progress over the past few days, with more than one infusion of overhead PW being largely responsible. How serious is the threat that still more of these infusions could be coming? On today’s PW map I can count five good-sized stream concentrations that are either contributing or very close to doing so. Keep in mind the fact that the natural tendency of every one of these streams is to find avenues allowing them to carry their contents northward, which in this case is precisely the same as poleward. All of that “artillery,” despite any zigzagging observed along the way, behaves as if it has just one primary target in mind:

Check out the five streams in light brown and see how they release some of their content, continuing in light gray, when the brown part stops.  Seemingly small bits are able to use leverage as a cause of considerable warming as they progress into this very dry region. See how the bits heading poleward from the Siberian entry point have found a narrow avenue of open passage, spreading out thereafter, and are still ending up with a great amount of warming.  What stops other stream concentrations from doing the same thing, on potentially a much larger scale?  The only answer I have found to this question is the presence of jetstream winds, which are positioned in ways that may sometimes aid the PW movement but usually set up barriers—as long as they stay in those positions and keep blowing as hard as ever. An illustration:

More questions: What are those winds doing there?  Why are they taking these positions?  How permanent are they?  As stated here many times, I think they are there as a result of sharp air pressure differentials unique to the upper atmosphere, which have a pattern that serves to determine both their position and their strength.  The pattern is never a secret, and it keeps changing to some extent every day. (We’ll see today’s pattern on the next image.)  Nor does it have much permanence as far as the blue and green zones are concerned.  These zones tend to fade away, allowing the red zone to expand, whenever high-latitude surfaces below grow warmer, becoming more like those closer to the equator that are subject to less change. Many of the jetstream winds are taken down at the same time, giving more freedom to overhead PW movement. This is a process we’ll be watching out for in the NH this summer, with regular reporting.

Carl

There are new developments affecting the seasonal warming trend in the Arctic region that will be reported in today’s letter. The images you see can be compared with those in Monday’s letter, which are easily accessible on this website. The main focus today is not the Arctic region as a whole, which has cooled down some over the two days, but the portion of it that contains the Arctic Ocean. We want to keep an especially close eye on the ocean because of the ongoing trend of reductions in its summer season ice cover. Losses have not yet begun this year, but initial warming trends are here and do not look favorable. Here’s today’s anomaly map:

The most interesting development is that one large warm anomaly is now being formed because of the joining together of substantial PW infusions arriving from two sides of the globe, as we’ll next see. This would not happen without an exceptional breakdown of the regular set of jetstream barriers that normally hold back large-scale infusions. The infusion coming from western Asia via a roundabout route is still there, although slightly weaker. The second one, coming directly off the Pacific, is much more pronounced than before, and more deeply extended, such that the two are now head to head as they create one big anomaly. The only thing preventing a 100% warm anomaly for the ocean area is an infusion coming directly out of the top of Atlantic, which has the potential to be every bit as heavy as any others but is currently blocked off.

Behind the scene, something is going on that is really quite dramatic. We can view it in the form of a major rupturing of the blue zone on the high-altitude air pressure configuration map. Several small bits and pieces of the zone have already broken away. The main rupture now is the one in progress that cuts straight across the middle of the ocean, along a line adjacent to the pole itself. Compare today’s advanced features with those on Monday’s image. What remains of the original blue zone is still effective, but one must expect that its days are numbered, probably following a course of elimination similar to that of a year ago:

Jetstream wind formation is of central importance as a direct consequence of the ongoing air pressure configuration changes. You can have a field day studying these images if you take time to trace out the winds and even the bare isobars that appear as they follow the increasingly complicated borders of the blue and green zones in the above image. Every bit of wind on those pathways, including some too weak for displaying in color, can then be separately viewed within a context of effects they have on the movement of PW concentrations of all shapes and sizes in the preceding image :

The imagery and explanations provided by these letters offer what I believe to be a unique perspective on atmospheric processes that demonstrate an ability to cause considerable amplification of warming in the Arctic.

Carl

If a relatively small amount of precipitable water (PW) traverses over the Arctic Ocean at this time of year, what damage can it do? That’s my subject for today. By using the Weather Maps we can come up with some numbers that are useful. The damage, if any, will be caused only by an increase in surface air temperatures. It won’t be enough to cause any of the sea ice to melt at this time, but the air and the ice will still be engaged in a heat exchange, resulting in a considerable cooling of the air and a modest warming of the ice. That little bit of extra warming, on top of what the sun is producing at an increasing rate, if repeated over a number of days, will ultimately cause an amount of ice to melt completely away at an earlier than usual date. The “regular” mix of greenhouse gases, when their concentrations are increasing, with some PW included, do this same thing, but at only a slow pace and over a long time. When an extra amount of PW gets involved, making a sort of surprise appearance at a high altitude, the process can be quickly amplified. The full amount of amplification won’t be known until later in the summer, but we can still check out the early stages of its startup period.

We’ll start with the PW map. The principle we are going to apply, a basic component of my complete hypothesis, is that any doubling of the total amount (by weight) of PW in the atmosphere over head has the immediate effect of adding about 10C to surface air temperatures, entirely attributed to temporal greenhouse energy inputs. We have access to practically all of the numbers we need to validate the computation on any given day except for one, which is the historical average of PW value for the day. That has to be estimated, which we can do with reasonable confidence of getting a good answer. When studying most of these maps, be ready to magnify the images on your computer by around 300% in order to take away the best numbers from the tight scaling.

The focus today in on the light gray stream seen heading north in the upper center of image. The stream makes a curl to the right jut before it reaches the North Pole cross-hairs on the map. I get a reading of 6 to 7kg for the weight values of most of the “head part” of this stream. Nearby, at about the same short distance from the pole, values have fallen all the way down to as low as 1kg or an unresolved fraction thereof. The relative difference of about 7x thus represents nearly three consecutive doubles from one area to the other. Assuming that much of this entire central polar region will have about the same historical average PW value at this time of year, which I believe is a fair supposition, we can be looking for close-by temperature differences of around 25C or more across this region today and also anomaly differences in the same range. First, the temperature map:

One spot within the observed warm outline of where the head of the PW stream curls over shows a temperature of only about -5C. The pole itself sits at -30C, and places all around it are either warmer or colder by a pretty wide range of degrees. (You’ll need to magnify.) I think It all checks out quite well by spot locations, so let’s move on to the anomaly map:

The small area of bright red represents an anomaly of +18 to 21C. The blue area surrounding the pole is mostly made up of anomalies between -3 and -6C. It’s all in proper correspondence with temperatures. There is one more map to show today, because it holds a clear image of the very light jetstream wind that must be responsible for carrying the PW stream toward the pole as depicted on the first map:

Note how this jet started bending toward the right before reaching the pole, then widened and basically disintegrated, with pieces continuing over an array of different directions. This is how such a wide total expanse of warm anomaly can be created. Its relative high temperatures, caused by such a small modicum of PW material, attests to the power of leverage when the density of effective H2O molecules is at such a minimal level. This little PW concentration, given the opportunity to make deep penetration, was able to produce results that are indeed spectacular. From this day forward the frequency of repetition will be a matter of real importance, based in large part on rapidly evolving changes within the sequence of preceding events as described in other recent letters.

Carl