skadi

As you can see, there's an increasing amount of members going for colder weather. Yesterday evening: Compared to the one this morning:

Yes, you can! There's a button in green top left where you can choose Europa or N-Hem. Edit: Sorry, it's still the 00z output.

Well here's the ECM ensemble for The Bilt, Netherlands:

What we need imo is what we call in Dutch a "drafter", some LP near Italy (or Genua ) to make this work:

Contact: Heath Jeffries jeffrieshv1@cardiff.ac.uk 44-790-882-4029 Sun's energy influences 1,000 years of natural climate variability in North Atlantic IMAGE: This is a composite created from three images received from MODIS instruments carried on NASA's Terra and Aqua polar orbiting satellites. The images were received at the Dundee Satellite Receiving... Click here for more information. Changes in the sun's energy output may have led to marked natural climate change in Europe over the last 1000 years, according to researchers at Cardiff University. Scientists studied seafloor sediments to determine how the temperature of the North Atlantic and its localised atmospheric circulation had altered. Warm surface waters flowing across the North Atlantic, an extension of the Gulf Stream, and warm westerly winds are responsible for the relatively mild climate of Europe, especially in winter. Slight changes in the transport of heat associated with these systems can led to regional climate variability, and the study findings matched historic accounts of climate change, including the notoriously severe winters of the 16th and 18th centuries which pre-date global industrialisation. The study found that changes in the Sun's activity can have a considerable impact on the ocean-atmospheric dynamics in the North Atlantic, with potential effects on regional climate. Predictions suggest a prolonged period of low sun activity over the next few decades, but any associated natural temperature changes will be much smaller than those created by human carbon dioxide emissions, say researchers. The study, led by Cardiff University scientists, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Bern, is published today in the journal Nature Geoscience. Dr Paola Moffa-Sanchez, lead author from Cardiff University School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, explained: "We used seafloor sediments taken from south of Iceland to study changes in the warm surface ocean current. This was done by analysing the chemical composition of fossilised microorganisms that had once lived in the surface of the ocean. These measurements were then used to reconstruct the seawater temperature and the salinity of this key ocean current over the past 1000 years." The results of these analyses revealed large and abrupt temperature and salinity changes in the north-flowing warm current on time-scales of several decades to centuries. Cold ocean conditions were found to match periods of low solar energy output, corresponding to intervals of low sunspot activity observed on the surface of the sun. Using a physics-based climate model, the authors were able to test the response of the ocean to changes in the solar output and found similar results to the data. "By using the climate model it was also possible to explore how the changes in solar output affected the surface circulation of the Atlantic Ocean," said Prof Ian Hall, a co-author of the study. "The circulation of the surface of the Atlantic Ocean is typically tightly linked to changes in the wind patterns. Analysis of the atmosphere component in the climate model revealed that during periods of solar minima there was a high-pressure system located west of the British Isles. This feature is often referred to as atmospheric blocking, and it is called this because it blocks the warm westerly winds diverting them and allowing cold Arctic air to flow south bringing harsh winters to Europe, such as those recently experienced in 2010 and 2013." Meteorological studies have previously found similar effects of solar variability on the strength and duration of atmospheric winter blockings over the last 50 years, and although the exact nature of this relationship is not yet clear, it is thought to be due to complex processes happening in the upper layers of the atmosphere known as the stratosphere. Dr Paola Moffa-Sanchez added: "In this study we show that this relationship is also at play on longer time-scales and the large ocean changes, recorded in the microfossils, may have helped sustain this atmospheric pattern. Indeed we propose that this combined ocean-atmospheric response to solar output minima may help explain the notoriously severe winters experienced across Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries, so vividly depicted in many paintings, including those of the famous London Frost Fairs on the River Thames, but also leading to extensive crop failures and famine as corroborated in the record of wheat prices during these periods." The study concludes that although the temperature changes expected from future solar activity are much smaller than the warming from human carbon dioxide emissions, regional climate variability associated with the effects of solar output on the ocean and atmosphere should be taken into account when making future climate projections. ### Notes for Editors: Funding for this research has come from the Natural Environment Research Council, UK, the National Science Foundation, Switzerland, the European Commission and NCAR's Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL). This research forms part of the Climate Change Consortium of Wales (C3W; http://c3wales.org/). To arrange media interviews with Professor Ian Hall or Dr Paola Moffa-Sanchez, please contact Heath Jeffries, Media Manager, Cardiff University, on 07908 824029 or 02920 870917; email jeffrieshv1@cardiff.ac.uk Cardiff University is recognised in independent government assessments as one of Britain's leading teaching and research universities and is a member of the Russell Group of the UK's most research intensive universities. Among its academic staff are two Nobel Laureates, including the winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Medicine, University Chancellor Professor Sir Martin Evans. Founded by Royal Charter in 1883, today the University combines impressive modern facilities and a dynamic approach to teaching and research. The University's breadth of expertise encompasses: the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; the College of Biomedical and Life Sciences; and the College of Physical Sciences, along with a longstanding commitment to lifelong learning. Cardiff's four flagship Research Institutes are offering radical new approaches to cancer stem cells, catalysis, neurosciences and mental health and sustainable places.

And we're getting our share too in the Low Countries...

hmmm, pressure rising around Nova Zembla...retrograde Russian High? at t+192

At least we're getting rid of that Alaskan block that kept pushing the cold air into the US

Slightly off topic:I wonder why the tropospheric response is so sluggish, or if any at all. Could there be any relation with the +QBO, and the neutral ENSO and El Nino conditions this season? link: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

It has probably been stated here before, but 1962 was a "summerless" year. And we all know what followed... Umm..uncle Barty...? No thanks!

Forgotten about the pre 2008 winters? Now that was a dreadful period, tbh. This is only one winter and not even finished, btw. Who knows, Februari and March are still ahead of us. And how many times has been stated here, the pattern can't stay like this forever. Each day works more in our favor for change. I might annoy a bunch of summer lovers (though I would dearly miss it as well) but I keep wondering if this could be a summerless year... And then straight off to a record breaking winter...

Yes but a lot of energy is transferring to the Canadian side of the Purple Blob, this cannot be the basis of anything good on our side imho. t+192:

Amazing that Russian "Comeback Kid" High

At t+72: Let the floodgates be opened... and at t+120 the low gets squeezed like a tube of toothpaste by the Russian High

EC +240 ends with fairly mild uppers apart from Scotland

As a distraction from the current lousy winter charts: I stumbled across an interesting article on the correlation of Arctic warming and Northern Hemisphere blocking. From the conclusion: No evidence was found for an influence of a warm Arctic for cold European winters... Arctic warming, atmospheric blocking and cold European winters in CMIP5 models T Woollings1, B Harvey2 and G Masato Received 1 November 2013, revised 20 December 2013, accepted for publication 20 December 2013 Published 15 January 2014 Conclusions: Arctic amplification of global warming is clearly a dramatic environmental change which will have numerous impacts. As described in section 1, there is evidence that the long-term trend in Arctic warming will have a strong influence on midlatitude atmospheric circulation. The associated decrease in the lower tropospheric meridional temperature gradient is one of the competing factors driving changes in the midlatitude jets and storm tracks (Woollings 2010). However, whether Arctic changes have influenced the midlatitudes in recent years, or whether they will do on the interannual timescale in the near future, is much less clear. Previous modelling work has shown the potential for sea ice perturbations to influence the midlatitude circulation but these signals are weak compared to the natural variability. The analysis of 12 current climate models presented here has not found any evidence of stronger links than this. We focused on the detrended variability of Barents–Kara Sea temperatures and searched for links with mid-latitude blocking and with European winter temperatures. In contrast to previous work we found no evidence of an influence of a warm Arctic on cold European winters. Removing the long-term trend is key to this difference, and we consider it is more informative to remove this trend when looking for physical links. Similarly there is only weak evidence in these models of an Arctic influence on Atlantic or Eurasian blocking on this timescale, as correlations are weak and generally not significant. There are positive correlations with Eurasian blocking in some of the models which have the best representation of blocking in CMIP5. However, the significance of these correlations is limited and the direction of causality is not clear. The atmospheric circulation response to forcings such as sea ice changes is often quite sensitive to the basic state (Kushnir et al2002, Bader et al 2011). Given that blocking is a feature which is still poorly simulated by many models, it is possible that an Arctic influence on the midlatitudes will become more apparent as models improve. For example, increases in horizontal (Berckmans et al2013) and/or vertical (Anstey et al 2013) resolution have been shown to improve blocking and may enable a more trustworthy multi-model assessment in the future. Source: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/1/014002/article

Thanks for clarifying. Could you give an example of a situation where the jet does sink south with all in its wake?

At T+192 the energy of the Canadian Blob is spilling over to the Siberian side, could this be caused by the strong ridges on either side, the Scandinavian/Russian block and its counterpart over Alaska...? Also interesting is the low at the Aleutian Islands. It is preventing the block there from sinking...imo.

The Alaskan high growing in strength on the UKMO +120. On the other side that Russian Bear that keeps her ground...Either one has to give in at some point.

Thanks for clarifying Tamara, as always very helpful. Add to that the expected phase 7 of the QBO, hopefully in time to save the season!

That purple blob over NFL (with ref to Tamara!) still not backing away...

EC + 144 looks like a slider...?

This output by JMA looks tasty, but might be too short-lived for some of us. Lot of energy coming across the Atlantic.