I am greatly interested in the relationship between the 500 hPa air pressure configuration, as we see it on one of the Weather Maps, and surface air temperatures on another map. These images are spatially separated by a minimum of about 5000 meters, or roughly three miles of atmosphere depth. Past efforts have led me to believe that each of these phenomena has an effect on the formation of the other, which by definition would compose the workings of a positive feedback loop. I want to revisit that idea. There is an alternative possibility, that one of them is deeply involved in causing the other to be formed as it is, but without the reverse. That idea has seemed much less likely. The starting point, the one thing that seems abundantly evident, is the constant and extraordinarily close relationship in locations and other features revealed by the images, in one detail after another. At the very least, one cannot fail to imagine that a cause and effect relationship must be in play as the likely source of this closeness. Today we will look at just one example of what the evidence amounts to, as portrayed on two such maps:
The particular features of the one large “block” of air pressure zone formation that we see here, representing only about half of today’s total for the polar region, are a bit unusual, in that the block in its entirety lies outside of the pole itself. The borders are very regular and well-rounded for an off-center block of this size, and the flattened-out shape is also uncommon for a situation like this. Will temperatures on the map below be able to match any expectation requiring them to line up in comparable zones, i.e., where all locations beneath the blue zone must record actual degrees that are consistently cold, followed outward by consistent warming beneath the other zones in all directions—regardless of what normal temperatures for the day should be like? Here’s the map:
Ignore the Himalayan Range for now and focus on the zone with mostly dark blue tones, plus magenta. Indeed, every bit of that area, without exception, has actual average temperatures below zero for the day. For some spots that’s normal, maybe even warm, but for others a strong cold anomaly is in place as a consequence. Another consequence—or is it a cause?—of all the cold on the surface is the simple fact that the blue zone for air pressure fits so well on top of it. How could a fit like this be nothing more than a pure coincidence? The same type of fit, though not quite so perfect on the borders, also applies to the greenish-colored zones on each of the maps, and then on to the reddish zones as well.
The Himalaya Range, in contrast, sticks out like a sore thumb on one map, yet make not even a blip on the other. How can that be? I think because so much of its surface is above the three-mile division between atmospheric layers. These surfaces can only record ambient temperatures as they exist in the upper troposphere, which have minimal exposure to greenhouse energy effects, quite unlike places nearby that add the effect of low-level evaporation. Meanwhile the 500 hPa level for air pressure cannot be physically lowered because of lower-than-normal air temperatures down below. There is just no air at all down below, nothing but intrusions of high-level rock that never move.
The next two maps are being added with little discussion, in order, first, to show the regular positioning of current jetstream winds that depend on the shape of air-pressure zone configuration, and also to show how precipitable water readings once again tend to be held down (by jetstream activity) when they exist within the confines of an established air-pressure blue zone, no matter where that zone may be situated.
(The long low band of speedy jetstream wind is traveling on the outermost major pathway, the one associated with pressure deviation in the inner part of the red zone. The two major inner pathways lie close enough together to have merged in many places.)
Carl