Climate Letter #1753

“Single-day temperature anomalies.”  I like this term, and plan to keep using it.  I think it should become part of the scientific vocabulary, because it represents a class of natural phenomena that are very real, very well-defined, and arguably important enough to make them worthy of intensive study, which is now lacking.  These anomalies are found all over the surface of the globe, some cold and some warm, forever changing.  Some are large and some are small, in both area and degree.  Reliable information about them is gathered and reported daily, ready to analyze, including analysis of things already identified that cause them to rise and fall. In-depth analysis holds opportunities for gaining knowledge that can only be of benefit in serving the purposes of both climate and meteorological sciences. These never-ending occurrences actually constitute the “front lines” of future climate change, which should be of particular interest for application to climate science.

At present, climate scientists regularly add up the net results of all the daily temperature anomalies over a selected period of time and apply this information to different regions. We are given maps of this information along with some general explanatory information to think about, which is useful to some extent, but limited. As an alternative, suppose we had the ability and capacity to take these same anomalies and provide accumulations of specific information about each of the different things that caused them to be that way. Something, possibly a combination of things, has to deviate from normal in order to cause every anomaly of significant size. What are those things that did the job, and why? I think science today is capable of coming up with good answers to these questions, but is not taking the steps needed to find out. If that information were made available, with a full breakdown of specific sources of causation based on hard data, we could certainly start looking for trends to emerge, probably including some that are unexpected, and do some projecting.

Single-day anomalies are especially interesting because the numbers run so large, both cold and warm.  Two or three degrees (C) is very ordinary.  5C may get one’s attention, and 10C’s show up every day, while 15-20C can make headlines.  Only a handful of things are capable of causing these large numbers, and those very same things, according to my own observations, are also responsible for the bulk of the low anomalies, meaning the 2-3C type. Water vapor is at the top of my list.  Cloud cover is another one, especially low cloud formations that extend over wide areas.  High clouds have only a little effect, while those at a medium level have somewhat more. All clouds increase their effect when producing rain.  Single-day anomalies can sometimes be attributed to abnormal levels of outgoing surface radiation, particularly from oceanic surfaces, which may continue for extended periods.  Volcanoes and other kinds of uncommon plumes also occasionally produce anomaly numbers of some size.  By and large, I believe water vapor, low cloud cover and heavy rainfall are the main actors that are able to come and go on short notice, in ways that may often seem random, and generate sizeable anomaly numbers in the process.

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Today’s Weather Maps are extremely useful for identifying single-day temperature anomalies and for doing much of the causation analysis.  They have some limitations, one being a lack of specific information related to different kinds of cloud cover.  The Windy.com website nicely fills that gap.  Another shortcoming for those doing this work refers to the fact that no information at all is available for knowing what is “normal” as a baseline for making the comparisons that show how much deviation there is among the principal factors causing these anomalies.  This is especially frustrating when it comes to precipitable water but also applies to cloud cover and heavy rainfall.  That gap would need to be filled by the sciences but reasonable estimates can still be made as things now stand.

Carl

 

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