Climate Letter #1874

What exactly is the polar vortex?  An excellent description by a pair of US research scientists has been presented in an article written for The Conversation, available at this link:  https://theconversation.com/what-exactly-is-the-polar-vortex-153958. I think the authors are on exactly the right track, in part because everything they say fits so well with the phenomena we have been seeing in the Weather Maps throughout this winter.  The authors depict a strong connection between unusual vortex activity and abnormal jetstream behavior at a lower level but they overlook one of the key details, which would be a reasonable description of how the connection is transmitted.  Changes in air volume distribution in the stratosphere must occur when normally concentrated vortex winds collapse and spread out, implying changes in air pressure distribution on the top layer of the troposphere, starting right below the stratosphere.  There should be lots of randomly confused movement of regular pressures over an expanded area, with some downward pushing due to an increased accumulation of air molecules while other spots are lifting. A lifting of pressure would be expected close to the area of original vortex concentration, near the polar center. The entire pattern of disorderly distribution is consistent with what we see happening these days on the map of high-altitude air pressure configuration in the Northern Hemisphere. The pattern that results has a direct effect on the way multiple jetstream pathways are set up, along with the winds they bear, in a manner that never seems to change. Also, the shaping of each of these pathways and the proximity of any one of them to another has considerable effect on the relative strength and intermittency of their winds.

This newly organized and expanded pattern of jetstream winds will keep changing as the pattern of air pressure configuration changes, often in random ways, still affected by the behavior of vortex air movement as it seeks a return to normalcy. Once the vortex has normalized the air pressure configuration should become more compact, more like it is today in the Southern Hemisphere, and jetstream wind pathway locations will thus be tightened up, leading to weather patterns with anomalies that should be reduced in scale.

There are some big and rather interesting questions that remain outstanding. One concerns the exact reasons behind any abrupt collapse of a mid-winter vortex. Should we expect future increases in the frequency of these events? The event itself is marked by a profusion of both warm and cold temperature anomalies, all of significant magnitude, with cold ones presently appearing to have a considerable edge. Why should the cold ones be winning while the Earth is otherwise getting warmer? Will things stay that way in the future? Today’s air temperature for the globe, notably 0.1C colder than it was on average for the same day thirty years ago, is far off course by recent standards. There is only one good reason for this—the restricted movement of high-altitude streams of precipitable water (PW), lowering its normal greenhouse energy impact, due to the influence of current aberrations in jetstream behavior.

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One other question raised by the vortex story concerns the apparent fact, according to many reports, that collapse of the extremely cold vortex wind involves a sudden warmup of its air mass. What is the source of heat that does the warming? All I can think of, in speculation, is that the long heatwave we had in the Arctic earlier this winter must somehow be involved. Warmer than usual air above the pole—although still very cold—would nonetheless tend to expand, with some of it pushing its way into the stratosphere in quantity, quite possibly in a location where suction power at the center of the vortex would have access. If warming resulted within the central cone of the vortex and were to continue, would interior winds tend to increase in velocity, causing the suction power to accelerate as a consequence, drawing in still more warm air, etc? That sounds like the recipe for reaching a tipping point that could end with sudden destabilization. Just a thought.

Carl

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