“Whys it’s so damn hot in the Arctic right now” (Vox) https://www.vox.com/2020/6/23/21300279/arctic-siberia-temperature-heat-wave-record-russia-fire-climate-change This article has the latest numbers from Siberia. It also has considerable commentary from a senior scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the U of Colorado bearing a set of explanations. I find it interesting that he has nothing to say about any greenhouse effect from high-altitude passage of water vapor streams or any other features of the temperature feedback loop that has been described in these letters. This reinforces my belief that this whole complex of ideas has either been rejected by the scientific community or has never even been taken into consideration. I suspect the latter, which compels me to keep on making the case for gaining proper attention.
The first thing I want you to do is to take a quick look at today’s animated version of the globe’s Precipitable Water streams, as issued by the U of Wisconsin: http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/product.php A truly astounding amount of content can be seen passing over Siberia. Moreover, values as high as 25kg are seen briefly traveling all the way to the North Pole. I wonder how long it has been since the last time this happened? This particular imagery is also highly revealing about what a difference the strength of jetstream wind velocity makes with respect to allowing or blocking the passage of PWat streams as they make their way toward the poles in both hemispheres. The jetstream image in the letter of two days ago is an ideal one to use for reference. In the south only a few minor amounts of vapor can get past 40-50S, while the north seems almost helpless at stopping massive movement at any latitude, most strikingly in the run over Siberia. Here is a snapshot of the results from today’s Weather Maps:
As things now stand, when water vapor of this magnitude does pass over the Arctic Ocean it has nowhere near the effect on surface air temperatures that it does over continental land. Mainly this is because the ocean is almost completely covered with thick low clouds while the land has no clouds of any kind over the warmest region. You can see just how sharp the distinction is by going to the Windy site at https://www.windy.com. The low clouds block a relatively high percentage of sunlight from ever reaching the surface, and what does get there is mostly put to use either by melting sea ice or by warming surface water that is still very close to freezing temperature and thus unable to give off more than a minor amount of radiation for greenhouse gases to trap.
Let’s look at one more of today’s images that is quite interesting because it shows how the deformation of high-altitude air pressure in the north has reached a new level of extremity. Not long ago we were noticing how there was nothing left of the “blue zone” over the pole. Since blue zones, even the little ones, are always encircled by a regular jetstream pathway this meant there was one less pathway encircling the globe, leaving only two in place instead of the usual three (as we see in the south). Now there is no longer any piece of green zone over the pole, and as you may recall every independent green zone has its own encircling jetstream pathway just as the blue zones do. So now there is only one pathway left that completely circles the globe, located far out in the red country. At least that one is safe, I think. But not very capable of producing strong winds, especially with all the crazy loops and twists we are seeing. Note the way it compares with the more healthy red zone pathway in the south!
Carl