Scientists track giant ocean vortex from space

Credit: Seung Joon Yang @ Wikipedia

This natural phenomenon is over 100,000 square miles in area, typically persists for about 200 days per year and is strongly linked to monsoons, but is not well understood.

Researchers have found a new way to use satellites to monitor the Great Whirl, a massive whirlpool the size of Colorado that forms each year off the coast of East Africa, they report in a new study.

Using 23 years of satellite data, the new findings show the Great Whirl is larger and longer-lived than scientists previously thought, reports Phys.org.

At its peak, the giant whirlpool is, on average, 275,000 square kilometers (106,000 square miles) in area and persists for about 200 days out of the year. Watch an animation of the Great Whirl’s evolution here.

2019 ENSO forecast

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We like a forecast at the Talkshop. Let’s see how this one goes.

Climate Etc.

by Judith Curry and Jim Johnstone

CFAN’s 2019 ENSO forecast is for a transition away from El Niño conditions as the summer progresses. The forecast for Sept-Oct-Nov 2019 calls for 60% probability of ENSO neutral conditions, with 40% probability of weak El Niño conditions. – Forecast issued 3/25/19

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Climate Crisis? Four Major Metrics That Say Otherwise

Credit: planetsave.com

Joe Bastardi argues that loud claims of a climate about to spin out of control are out of tune with various actual observations.

I have long advocated that climatologists take a course on long-range forecasting so they can better understand the inherent errors in trying to predict the weather or climate, says Joe Bastardi at Patriot Post.

In the debate over the fate of the planet, where one side is always pushing hysteria, the weather is plainly not cooperating with the missive.

Forecasters take climatology classes and are now being taught the one-sided climate narrative, but in general, climatologists do not have to learn how to forecast.

Polar vortex helping forecasters predict New Zealand weather

What is the dominant climate for Oceania, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica?

They refer to the ‘no-show El Niño event’ but allow that a weak version could still show up at some point this year, in theory at least.

Move over El Niño, and make room for SAM, says NZ’s Stuff website.

While attention over the summer focused on the much-promised but yet to arrive El Niño, SAM – or the Southern Annular Mode, to give it its proper name – has been working away quietly in the background determining our weather.

Forecasters are becoming increasingly enamoured with SAM for the valuable guidance it gives of likely weather conditions up to two weeks ahead.

What are the opponents of Donald Trump’s climate review committee afraid of?

Credit: nationalreview.com

Dr Roy Spencer tries to strike a note of sanity amidst the latest bout of doom-laden climate hysteria doing the rounds via cynical manipulation of the minds of school kids. What is accelerating is the bluster of alarmists, who lack credible empirical evidence of ‘human-caused’ as opposed to natural climate variation.

On March 5, 58 senior military and national security leaders sent a letter to President Trump denouncing his plan to form a National Security Council panel to take a critical look at the science underpinning climate change claims.

Their objections to such a Red Team effort were basically that the “science is settled”, writes Roy Spencer in The Washington Times.

But if the science is settled, what are they afraid of? Wouldn’t a review of the science come to the same conclusion as the supposed consensus of climate scientists?

MET-Office update: There is no update.

In the meantime, here’s how the 2016-2021 forecast (in blue) is doing compared to the latest data (red trace).

Last year, I wrote a short post entitled Met-Office invents infallible climate prediction method, in which I showed how the MET-Office would always update their ‘decadal’ (actually semi-decadal) climate prediction before the data caught up with them.

At the time, they were promising to update their prediction in January of this year. But they haven’t, despite describing themselves as “WMO Lead Centre for Annual-to-Decadal Climate Prediction“. So instead, I’ve done a retrospective update of the data on their 2016 to 2021″decadal” prediction.

Underwater drones could transform hurricane forecasts

Image credit: sanibelrealestateguide.com

H/T The Atlantic.
Researchers found that all 11 hurricanes they investigated that went through the mid-Atlantic in summer experienced ahead-of-eye cooling. This indicator was not previously known.

The key to predicting storm intensity may lie below the surface, says Undark magazine.

In August 2011, with Hurricane Irene bearing down on the mid-Atlantic coast, Scott Glenn, an ocean engineering researcher at Rutgers University, made a bold decision.

While most other research teams moved their ships, personnel, and expensive hardware to safety ahead of the hurricane, Glenn left his data-collecting drone—a torpedo-shaped underwater “glider” about 6 feet long and worth about $150,000—directly in its path.

Extreme rainfall events are connected across the world

We’re told there are patterns which ‘appear to be created by Rossby waves – wiggles in fast-flowing currents of air high in the atmosphere, known as the jet streams.’

An analysis of satellite data has revealed global patterns of extreme rainfall, which could lead to better forecasts and more accurate climate models, reports Phys.org.

Extreme rainfall—defined as the top five percent of rainy days—often forms a pattern at the local level, for example tracking across Europe.

But new research, published today in Nature, reveals that there are also larger-scale global patterns to extreme rainfall events.

Is El Niño to blame for the big Southern storm?

Credit: NASA climatekids

The official view of US experts on the current status of El Niño will be delivered on Thursday.

Heavy rain in California and piles of snow in the Southeast may be signs another El Niño weather phenomenon is upon us, says CBS News.
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Heavy rain and mudslides in California, flooding in Texas, and up to 2 feet of snow in North Carolina — all these recent weather events are symptoms of the infamous climate phenomena called El Niño.

For months now we have been on the verge of an official El Niño, but so far the climate community has not pulled the El Niño trigger.

Ian Wilson: Is the Next Big Westerly Wind Burst On Its Way?

‘I am really sticking my neck out on this one!’ – IW. Indeed – good luck, results next week.
Note: El Niño link added, includes short video.

Information on the progress of the latest MJO that started on 02/12/2018
[As of 09/12/2018]
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/mjo/ – last accessed at 7:00 P.M. EAST 09/12/2018

Hypothesis: During periods leading up to the onset of El Niño events, nascent Typhoon/Cyclone pairs associated with the active phase of Madden Julian Oscillations are reinforced either at or 1-2 days after the maxima or minima in the Earth’s rotation rate that are induced by the monthly lunar tides.

Visualization of Pacific ocean temperatures shows El Niño brewing

Ocean currents
[image credit: SPL/BBC]

The latest NOAA synopsis says: ‘Overall, the oceanic and atmospheric conditions reflected ENSO-neutral, but with recent trends indicative of a developing El Niño.’ Sounds like a ‘definite maybe’ there, with models now forecasting a relatively weak El Niño.

Warming waters in the equatorial Pacific give increasing confidence that El Niño will be here soon, says Discover magazine.

It’s still not here yet, but El Niño sure looks like it’s coming.

In its latest forecast, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center says there is a 70 to 75 percent chance that El Niño will form “in the next couple of months and continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2018-19.”

Met-Office invents infallible climate prediction method

The Met-Office has issued a ‘decadal’ climate forecast which runs from 2018 to 2023. Maybe it should be called a ‘semi-decadal forecast’ instead, but we’ll let it pass, as that’s not the most amusing aspect of it by a long chalk.

For starters, there’s the baseline period chosen. 1850-1900. They’ve gone for this so they can scare us with the upper end of the blue prediction envelope exceeding the Dangerous! Global! Warming! politically chosen figure of 1.5C above “pre-industrial”.

Here’s the global measuring station coverage between 1891 and 1920. There was a lot less in 1850.

I thought it would be fun to see how the Met-O forecast is doing after 10 months, so I plotted the latest annually averaged HadCRUt 4 global data using Wood For Trees in red and overlaid it on the Met-O prediction plot:

Historic space weather could clarify what’s next

Solar flare [image credit: NASA/SDO]

Quoting from the research article’s plain language summary: ‘We find that some aspects of the space weather climate are in fact reproducible, they can be inferred from that of previous solar maxima. This may help understand the behaviour of future solar maxima.’ Solar wind variation is highlighted.

Historic space weather may help us understand what’s coming next, according to new research by the University of Warwick, says Phys.org.

Professor Sandra Chapman, from Warwick’s Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, led a project which charted the space weather in previous solar cycles across the last half century, and discovered an underlying repeatable pattern in how space weather activity changes with the solar cycle.

Nature Unbound IX – 21st Century Climate Change

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A wide-ranging discussion of climate scenarios here, including the likely efficiency of global carbon sinks and the pros and cons of a forthcoming solar grand minimum.

Climate Etc.

by Javier

A conservative outlook on 21st century climate change

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A Greener Future Starts With Natural Gas, World Energy Chiefs Say

Bloomberg:

By

Jonathan Gilbert

and

Jennifer A Dlouhy

16 June 2018

World energy ministers representing about two thirds of the global population tussled over how the world can achieve a cleaner energy future. The compromise answer: Natural gas, at least for now.

A consensus statement from G20 energy ministers meeting in Argentina cited the potential of natural gas “to expand significantly over the coming decades.” Meanwhile, the group said that nations that “opt to enhance their renewable energy strategies” should boost investment and financing within that arena.

Rick Salvador’s 2013 Pattern Recognition in Physics solar prediction now validated

Our hypothesis that solar variation is affected by planetary motion, developed over the last 10 years here at the talkshop received a boost today when one of its main detractors, Anthony Watts, published an article declaring that solar cycle 24 is entering minimum.

I’ve left a comment there, something I rarely do since the debacle back in 2014 when Anthony and his sidekick Willis attacked our work and banned discussion of our solar-planetary theory. I’ll be interested to see if it passes moderation.

Here’s the plot I linked. It shows that Rick Salvador’s model is spot on track over the last 5 years.

Media starting to pick up on our Solar slowdown warnings: Food production could be hit soon.

As we’ve been warning for years on the talkshop, the incoming solar grand minimum is likely to hit world food production negatively.

@dbirch214 @GrizzlyGovFan @RogTallbloke @canberroo @andyoz2 @climaterra @climatempo @metsul @SMN_Argentina @ClimaFlorida @boleadorcharrua @CharlesAmorin @navegoYpirateo @Balinteractive https://t.co/z75RREF6Vd

— gddcunha1961 (@gddcunha1961) May 23, 2018

Politicians and policy makers have no excuses here. They’ve been enthralled by the scientists they pay to tell them what they want to hear for years.

Met Office Predicted The Cold Weather That They Did Not Predict!

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Met Office seasonal forecasting skill turns out to be below average – heading towards the lowest 20%.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Conditions over the weekend and into the early part of next week will become increasingly cold, possibly exceptionally cold.

Yellow National Severe Weather Warnings for snow are in force for parts of eastern and southeast England from 4pm on Monday and for large parts of the UK through Tuesday and Wednesday.

Snow showers are expected to develop widely during the start of the week, with some locations likely to see accumulations of 5 to 10 cm. Although other sites may see less frequent showers leading to much smaller accumulations up to 2 cm.

The very cold conditions, which are likely to be the coldest spell of weather for several years, are likely to remain in place for the remainder of next week. The cold easterly wind will persist bringing a significant wind chill which will make it feel several degrees colder than thermometers indicate. Even without…

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Researchers find way to give advanced notice for hailstorms

Credit: NOAA

It’s those wavy jet streams again.

A new study identifies a method for predicting the likelihood of damaging hailstorms in the United States—up to three weeks in advance, reports Phys.org.

Hail is the most economically destructive hazard posed by severe thunderstorms, producing on average billions of dollars in U.S. losses each year, including damage to roofs, homes and especially crops.

“We found a really strong relationship between jet stream patterns over the Pacific Ocean and U.S. hail frequency,” said Victor Gensini, a meteorologist at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois and lead author of the new study. “In simple terms, when the jet stream is really wavy, the likelihood of experiencing hail greatly increases.”

Wet summer warning system developed

Forecaster highlights the jetstream over the UK [image credit: BBC]

It’s more predictable than we thought, they say – at least in some ways. The test of time awaits.

Researchers in the UK have developed a method of improving the long range accuracy of summer weather in the UK and Europe, says the BBC.

The scientists found a connection between sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic in March and April and the subsequent summer’s rain or shine.

The researchers say the new method may benefit agriculture, tourism and construction.