Sea Surface Temperature And Sea Ice Trends

[summer blizzard]

I will start this thread by saying that Carinthian will be releasing his monthly sea ice update on tuesday.

As for sea surface temperatures, as you can see from the chart below, the La Nino is decreasing and the begginings of a El Nino are forming. As you can see there is a heavily beaurificated Jet Stream in the Pacific Ocean as well as in the Atlantic Ocean.

As it is hard to pick out the future trends for synoptics based on sea surface temperature anomolies, i thought that we would compare the current situation to the same time last year, as is shown on the chart below.

As you can see from that chart, it clearly favoured a mid-Atlantic High but crusially a much stronger Jet Stream which meant that due to the placement of the thermal gradiant the Jet Stream was much stronger however due to the Atlantic High, there were breif northerly outbreaks at the beggining of April last year.

Due to the position of the anomolies this year, i would favour a dominant Atlantic High once again, although weaker and more widespread than lat year, centred closer to the British Isles however i do not expect a sustained negative NAO period due to the northern arm of the Jet Stream being too strong resulting however i expect a stronger southern arm of the Jet Stream although i expect it to sharply rise northward over the British Isles however instead of a Bartlett situation i expect high pressure to toplle over the British Isles resulting in a sunny, cool and dry beggining to April.

[Zerouali lives]

Can anyone explain to me why the temperature of the North Sea off the East coast of Scotland has not dropped in the last week from 7.5° despite 6 consecutive days of freezing temperatures and snow?

Edited March 5, 2006 by Zerouali lives

[Evo]

Just a point that's been niggling me JS, I've never heard of the the term beaurificated. Do you mean bifurcated?

[shuggee]

Can anyone explain to me why the temperature of the North Sea off the East coast of Scotland has not dropped in the last week from 7.5° despite 6 consecutive days of freezing temperatures and snow?

Dam good question! I was wondering that too. Heavy snow showers, strong northerly winds which would generate waves and aid cooling..

[Steady Easterly]

Dam good question! I was wondering that too. Heavy snow showers, strong northerly winds which would generate waves and aid cooling..

I would imagine it will take a few weeks of such conditions to have an effect on ssts, i may be wrong but i also imagine them being much lower now than recent years.

[summer blizzard]

Evo, i have used the correct spell, and its definition is a split Jet Stream.

i.e. at least two Jet Streams

[carinthian]

I will start this thread by saying that Carinthian will be releasing his monthly sea ice update on tuesday.

As for sea surface temperatures, as you can see from the chart below, the La Nino is decreasing and the begginings of a El Nino are forming. As you can see there is a heavily beaurificated Jet Stream in the Pacific Ocean as well as in the Atlantic Ocean.

As it is hard to pick out the future trends for synoptics based on sea surface temperature anomolies, i thought that we would compare the current situation to the same time last year, as is shown on the chart below.

As you can see from that chart, it clearly favoured a mid-Atlantic High but crusially a much stronger Jet Stream which meant that due to the placement of the thermal gradiant the Jet Stream was much stronger however due to the Atlantic High, there were breif northerly outbreaks at the beggining of April last year.

Due to the position of the anomolies this year, i would favour a dominant Atlantic High once again, although weaker and more widespread than lat year, centred closer to the British Isles however i do not expect a sustained negative NAO period due to the northern arm of the Jet Stream being too strong resulting however i expect a stronger southern arm of the Jet Stream although i expect it to sharply rise northward over the British Isles however instead of a Bartlett situation i expect high pressure to toplle over the British Isles resulting in a sunny, cool and dry beggining to April.

Hi Blizzard ,

Thanks for the up-date. A cool sunny start to the cricket season late in April will do me fine .

cheers

C

[Evo]

Evo, i have used the correct spell, and its definition is a split Jet Stream.

i.e. at least two Jet Streams

Please could you provide a link showing this definition?

[Dave J]

Dam good question! I was wondering that too. Heavy snow showers, strong northerly winds which would generate waves and aid cooling..

The sea has a much higher specific heat capacity and can store heat for a much longer period and therefore lags behind the change in temperature over land (which has a much lower specific heat capacity). Its response to the cold conditions will take a considerable time, having said that temperatures in the Nth Sea have probably dropped by a few tenths of a degree over the last few days!

Interestingly the sea around East Anglia and the southeast is now down to +5C, which is getting on for a degree BELOW average!

Edited March 5, 2006 by Dave J

[weatherfan]

I will start this thread by saying that Carinthian will be releasing his monthly sea ice update on tuesday.

As for sea surface temperatures, as you can see from the chart below, the La Nino is decreasing and the begginings of a El Nino are forming. As you can see there is a heavily beaurificated Jet Stream in the Pacific Ocean as well as in the Atlantic Ocean.

As it is hard to pick out the future trends for synoptics based on sea surface temperature anomolies, i thought that we would compare the current situation to the same time last year, as is shown on the chart below.

As you can see from that chart, it clearly favoured a mid-Atlantic High but crusially a much stronger Jet Stream which meant that due to the placement of the thermal gradiant the Jet Stream was much stronger however due to the Atlantic High, there were breif northerly outbreaks at the beggining of April last year.

Due to the position of the anomolies this year, i would favour a dominant Atlantic High once again, although weaker and more widespread than lat year, centred closer to the British Isles however i do not expect a sustained negative NAO period due to the northern arm of the Jet Stream being too strong resulting however i expect a stronger southern arm of the Jet Stream although i expect it to sharply rise northward over the British Isles however instead of a Bartlett situation i expect high pressure to toplle over the British Isles resulting in a sunny, cool and dry beggining to April.

Another reason for a strong jet stream this year esppeally in the USA Pac Jet this winter was in part thanks to what we had a record breaking exstream Easterly QBO event.Which are winds that blow eather west or east which are the phases west and east and changes every 12 months or so.moderate to strong East QBOs winters are featured with strong to at times very strong Pac Jets patterns.Which for the most part kelp most of the cold lock up to the North.The Easterly QBO is on a riseing standpoint all those still moderate.As far as the NAO this winter.Unfornatey it seemed like we just could it by a sustanied negative NAO periolds this winter.And when we did get negative NAOs it was it the classic set up that many would have wanted to see.And the blocks were modest at best.

Edited March 6, 2006 by weatherfan

[summer blizzard]

As you can see from todays chart, the sea surface temperature anomolies in the Pacific Ocean favour a negative PNA while the sea surface temperature anomolies in the Atlantic Ocean fovour a neutral to negative NAO.

When i have the time, i will do reasearch on what sea surface temperature anomolies favour different synoptic patterns.

[summer blizzard]

Looking at the latest sea surface temperature anomolies, the war anomoly in the Mid Atlantic seems to be narrowing favouring a more northerly April as the month progresses.

Here are the kind of synoptics which i expect...

[summer blizzard]

As you can see from the latest sea surface temperature chart, there are now two cold anomolies rather than the connected cold anomolies, this means that there will be no southerly tracking Jet Stream and as a result the Azores High will be allowed to ridge northward however due to a Greenland ridge, i suspect that a mid-Atlantic ridge will form with a series of northerly topplers due to a northerly tracking Jet Stream.

The latest sea surface temperature anomolies support a negative PNA due to the warm anomoly in the central Pacific and the cold anomoly to the west of Canada which means that the Jet Stream will come out of the United States Of America on a northerly track while the sea surface temperature anomolies in the Atlantic Ocean favour a neutral to negative NAO due to the cold anomolies in the Mediterranian Sea and the western Atlantic Ocean favouring a negative NAO but the average anomolies in the southern Atlantic Ocean favouring a neutral NAO and the warm anomoly in the north Atlanti favouring a negative NAO.

[Glacier Point]

My reading of the current SSTA is of a quite strong mean pressure differential north to south in the Atlantic:

http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html

this is the strongest it's been all year which would force low pressure systems tracking off the USA to dive south-east across the Atlantic. This, with the seemingly always -ve AO, could deliver another phase of high latitude blocking late April early May.

There was a brief spell when the SSTA in the western Pacific varied enough to suggest the development of a Bartlet mid to late April, but this quickly disappeared and I think another easterly late April is the inference from the oceans of the northern hemisphere.

http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-060212.gif

GP

[summer blizzard]

Glacier Point, i understand what you mean in regards to the pressure differential however the sea surface temperature anomolies in the Pacific favour a PNA value of around -3, this means that the Jet Stream will be highly amplified in that it goes north, not south due to the ridge off the east coast of the United States Of America, therefore in my opinion the best we can hope for is a short easterly spell (such as late Deccember) or a northerly toppler however i do not expect a full blown Bartlett High.

[summer blizzard]

There are some bad developments today, in that the cold anomolies to the south of Greenland have spread, indicating a northerly tracking Jet Stream in late April, because this in combination with the average anomolies in the southern Atlantic Ocean will most likely lead to a northward displaced Azores High and the collapse of the Greenland High however the anomolies in the Mediterranian Sea do not favour a Bartlett High, therefore i would favour a senario similar to the one below.

[Thundersquall]

This chart shows the SST temperature anomalies. That very large high anomaly over the North Atlantic surely spells

the end of winter and an on-rush of Spring conditions.

Having said the above, a very negative NAO doesn't seem to fit together with an above-avergae SST. :

Edited March 25, 2006 by Thundersquall

[summer blizzard]

In order to get a negative NAO, we need a tripole, that is a cold anomoly in the southern Atlantic Ocean as well as the western Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranian Sea because that will indicate a southerly tracking Jet Stream, we also need a warm anomoly in the central Atlantic Ocean and a cold anomoly to the east of Iceland, the anomoly in the Labrador Sea is not important as long as the other factors are present because a cold anomoly or ice will indicate reinforcement from the Canadian High and a warm anomoly would indicate a trough providing warm air advection, i would say that the two most important factors are:

1) cold anomoly in western Atlantic Ocean does not link with cold anomoly near Iceland as that indicates northerly tracking Jet Stream

2) cold anomoly in western Atlantic Ocean connects to Mediterranian cold anomoly because that indicates southerly tracking Jet Stream, if link is not present Azores High is allowed to migrate northward and risk of toppler increases

Because the cold anomolies to the south of Greenland have a better link with each other than the cold anomolies in the western Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranian Sea, i suspect that high pressure will be centred closer to the west of the British Isles than is indicated on the sea surface temperature anomoly map.

Edited March 25, 2006 by summer blizzard

[summer blizzard]

While the sea surface temperature anomolies on the chart above indicate a increased likely hood of a northerly end to April, they also show the cold sea surface temperature anomolies to the south of Greenland becoming more prominent which indicates a stronger northern Jet Stream.

[Optimus Prime]

I'm not a fan of these SST's. They change so suddenly and without warning and they also hardly ever correlate to what is supposed to happen when they are showing warm/cold.

A Northern Jet allowing pressure to build to the south would give us a hot summer?

[summer blizzard]

A Northern Jet allowing pressure to build to the south would give us a hot summer

Yes it would, however in order to get the Azores High to ridge into Europe, we need the cold sea surface temperature anomolies to lessen significantly.

[Glacier Point]

Wow !

http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html

biggest -ve NAO on its way for early May. Just look at that extratropical banding cold anomaly.

With the Pacific signal quiet, this I think will strongly favour cool conditions for the UK and western Europe.

GP

[The PIT]

Interesting.

The year without a summer.

[Optimus Prime]

I will be astonished if we get a warmer then average summer. In my opinion it's going to be very cool and wet. Temperatures at least a degree below average. Coolest since 1988 I reckon.

It's not often we get cool summers.

Edited March 29, 2006 by Optimus Prime

[summer blizzard]

Glacier Point, while the extratropical banding would favour very negative NAO conditions, the cold sea surface temperature anomolies to the south of Greenland would increase the risk of low pressure in that region, therefore i would favour a split Jet Stream with high pressure over or just to the west of the British Isles with the confluence point over central Europe.