Sea Surface Temperature And Sea Ice Trends(2)

[Glacier Point]

Just thinking the same thing myself Ben. It's been quite some time since we've seen the North Atlantic Basin this cold.

La Nina also looks a bit iffy at surface level although -ve sub-surface anomalies still exist but whether they get the right conditions to be drawn to the surface is the key question. IRI update paints an excellent picture for those interested...

http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/ENSO/curre.../technical.html

1995 continues to look like the best match for the current SSTA pattern. Now how did that one go ?.........

GP

[cheeky_monkey]

is it unusual for nearly all the northern hemisphere waters to be below average...considering the mild winter experienced in the north?

[parmenides3]

Er... it's not below average; most of it is a bit above average. The blue colour on the map makes it look cool.

Still, I agree that the anomalies haven't looked this 'tame' for a while, but then we are just coming out of the winter; maybe the seasonal average for this period is generally higher, so the anomaly doesn't look so bad?

:)P

[beng]

2006 - http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-060521.gif

2005 - http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-050522.gif

2004 - http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-040516.gif

2003 - http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-030525.gif

The dates aren't an exact match granted (these are the closest I could find in the archives list though) - but from a Sea Surface point of view things are definitely cooler than recent years at this point in the year. This seems a bit strange though really given the warmth across the N Hemisphere so far this year. Anyone have any theories on that? It will be interesting to see how they look in a month's time - will we get the normal summer warm up of recent years.

1995 GP? I'd take the summer and the winter - although the winter wasn't amazing down here from a snow point of view - although i know a lot of people did very well that season.

Edited May 23, 2007 by beng

[Iceberg]

I find Unisys to be the least accurate.

Both the NHC and NOAA charts show that most of the atlantic is above, with the colder upwelling and eddying around the GS the only real cold feature.

Both similar to a 2003/2004 outlook.

Cheers

Matt

[noggin]

Might the recently reported "ice island" have anything to do with anything?

[beng]

I find Unisys to be the least accurate.

Both the NHC and NOAA charts show that most of the atlantic is above, with the colder upwelling and eddying around the GS the only real cold feature.

Both similar to a 2003/2004 outlook.

Cheers

Matt

2003 - http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data...t.5.19.2003.gif

To me it looks like we're quite a bit cooler than 2003 across the Atlantic.

http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data...t.5.22.2004.gif

2004 - perhaps similar over the whole north Atlantic with the positioning of various anomalies differing. N Pacific is colder this year.

Here's the may monthly mean for 1995 - there are indeed some big similarities!

http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data....95.anomaly.gif

[Iceberg]

Completly agree 2003 isn't similar at all

[summer blizzard]

Since my last update, the north Atlantic continues to cool..

[Glacier Point]

Current North Atlantic SSTA:

Change since May 1st:

The North Atlantic has widely lost between 0.5 and 1 C since May 1st continuing the trend set in the SE quarter last month. If this continues, we will find ourselves with a very different SSTA coming into the winter.

Edited June 12, 2007 by Glacier Point

[Anti-Mild]

Hi GP

In what sense do you mean this? Different to a current -NAO signature or different to last winter (which it certainly would be) ?

Tamara

Fingers crossed for this trend to continue because if it did and if we got a decent northerly next January it could be pretty potent!

Long time to go yet obviously but at this early stage there is some little cause for optimism for Winter 07/08.

[Jack Wales]

Doesn't bode that well for the rest of the summer though!!

[Anti-Mild]

Doesn't bode that well for the rest of the summer though!!

True, but due to the disaster that was last winter I am already counting the days until the possibility of snow rears it head! Sad I know but I can't help it!!

[Jack Wales]

Yes, it is hard not to!

I had high hopes after winter 05/06 - on the back of what had seemed a change of fortunes at the end of winter 04/05.

However, I have to admit I have lost a lot of my trademark optimism and my expectations have been very much lowered by the dreadful patterns and accelerated warming of the the last 12 months, particularly that horrendous winter just passed. So until that FI -15 850 isotherm predicted to flood the country actually reaches t24 I will stay rather twitchy!

Tamara

Agreed but I'd still like to have a nice summer first but the way it's going it could even turn out to be a summer horror show like in the late 80's!

As for winter I'm sure something will conspire against cold as always but with an easterly QBO, weak La Nina (probably) and encouraging SSTA's I'm sure we won't see the raging mild zonality of 2006/07.

Edited June 12, 2007 by Jack Wales

[Anti-Mild]

A much cooler north atlantic will be a good move in the right direction

I do agree regarding summer, for all my comments about wanting a cooler one and no repeat of last year. Afterall, look at what the dreadful atlantic westerly summer of 1988 portended for the following winter(s)??

Tamara

The 3 driest summers since 1914 and their following winters CET's are as follows:

1983 - 103.2mm. 1983/84 Winter CET - 4.2c

1976 - 74.0mm. 1976/77 Winter CET - 3.3c

1995 - 71.6mm. 1995/96 Winter CET - 3.0c

Average of the 3 combined - 82.9mm. CET - 3.5c

The 3 wettest summers:

1931 - 319.8mm. 1931/32 Winter CET - 4.8c

1956 - 323.3mm. 1956/57 Winter CET - 5.5c

1927 - 329.9mm. 1927/28 Winter CET - 4.4c

Average of the 3 combined - 324.3mm. CET - 4.9c

So, it would seem that a particularly wet summer spells bad news for the following winter, whereas a dry summer suggests a cooler than average winter to follow.

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

If, IF, the cold anomalies remain, and indeed spread to the waters around the UK (still +1 - 1.5C) watch the CET drop like a stone.

Not happened yet. But with SSTAs of -1C around the whole of the UK it will take significantly warmer air sources to keep temperature at the pleasantly high figures we have become used to.

Cold anomalies around the UK would affect the CET more than some would like to admit.

Edited June 12, 2007 by AtlanticFlamethrower

[kold weather]

Those cold anomalies could very rapidly warm back up again. The reason its so cold ther eis because there has been a constant upper level low nearby which has caused a lot of upwelling in the water. When that set-up shifts late rin the summer those SSt's could well vanish in the space of 2-4 weeks. Note alsp that right oppostie it is an nearly equally warm streak of water that extends NE up as far as the UK. The large pattern shift that the model is forecasting late June will change that set-up again...also IF a La nina forms, it promotes above average SSt's in the Atlantic generally so if La nina does develo pexpect those cold SSTA to weaken.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Those cold anomalies could very rapidly warm back up again. The reason its so cold ther eis because there has been a constant upper level low nearby which has caused a lot of upwelling in the water. When that set-up shifts late rin the summer those SSt's could well vanish in the space of 2-4 weeks. Note alsp that right oppostie it is an nearly equally warm streak of water that extends NE up as far as the UK. The large pattern shift that the model is forecasting late June will change that set-up again...also IF a La nina forms, it promotes above average SSt's in the Atlantic generally so if La nina does develo pexpect those cold SSTA to weaken.

KW

Is there a real correlation? El Nino brought warmer Atlantic so La Nina does the same? This is the coldest I've seen the Atlantic for some time and as we have entered a new phase I think this sort of SSTA will become more prominent. I don't see any rapid warm up but of course who cn really tell

BFTP

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

KW - are there not oceanologists who say SSTAs are also influenced by cycles and patterns that span hundreds of years, if not tens of thousands of years?

The world's oceans are regulated by the thermohaline circulation, whereby huge volumes of water are circulated due to imbalances that exist in water densities and temperature.

The physics of this are unstoppable.

The shallow north sea and Irish should warm this summer as they are warm already! but it would be worth watching to see if the waters west of Ireland do not warm to the same extent as the north sea and Irish sea - or drop in temperature.

Edited June 13, 2007 by AtlanticFlamethrower

[Gray-Wolf]

After watching the Antarctic summer, and the SST anoms around the Ross embayment/Ross sea area, followed by the cold anoms that appeared in the ridge/shelf/shallows flowing north from Ross as the 'summer' progressed (N.Z. and north into the island chains).

I would not be surprised at all to see marked negative SST's to the West/SW/S of Greenland, especially focused around the 'inlets'/valleys of it's W/SW coastline, and for the anoms to be more pronounced over Shallows/Ridges/Shelfs in the ocean there.

The 'Super low' that seems to have dominated over Iceland/East Greenland, all winter and most of spring, will have also pushed/driven surface cold waters on it's western flank (in the northerlies that chilled east Canada and the Eastern seaboard U.S.A.) bringing in shallow/surface SST anoms.

As with last year watch the shallow seas (North Sea, Baltic, Black sea,Great lakes,Med.) to see what the undelying temp. trend is.

[Gavin P]

I think another concerning aspect of this summer is increasingly the SST set-up in the Atlantic;

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

Cooler waters from the eastern seaboard are increasingly moving into the mid Atlantic now, and with still exceptionally warm waters surrounding western Europe, I would have thought the differance between the warm and the cold water could generate instability and low pressure, with the cool waters in the mid Atlantic also possibly helping to promote Atlantic ridging

[kold weather]

KW

Is there a real correlation? El Nino brought warmer Atlantic so La Nina does the same? This is the coldest I've seen the Atlantic for some time and as we have entered a new phase I think this sort of SSTA will become more prominent. I don't see any rapid warm up but of course who cn really tell

BFTP

The warm wate rin the Atlantic was a lag from the weak La Nina type set-up of the winter of 05-06, it wasn't La nina but the pattern was very close to it. El nino didn't really get going till August-September, by which time obviously the warming had already finished in the Atlantic. Once the El nino got going the SSTA started to decrease. Indeed the cool SST's we see now are probably influenced by the El nino winter we had which allowed the water tmeps in the Atlantic to drop further. As it happens the Pacific synotpic pattern has only just in the last 2 weeks started to behave like la Nina, till then the atmopsheric pattern was acting like it was still weak El nino so its not surprising temps are still cool...

As for the eastern seaboard SSTA, wellthey are in direct response to the synoptic set-up that is present, they will remain til lthe set-up changes...that may happen soon if the models forecasted power-up of the Azores high is to be believed however as you say who knows.

Howe ver saying that it may already too late for there to be much warming, once we get past August the SST's wil lstart to come down anyway and so we relaly only have 2 months of heating of the seas and the deep water Atlantic may take longer to warm up from 2C below average like they are now.

Edited June 13, 2007 by kold weather

[Glacier Point]

The legacy of the Winter El Nino is a possible explanation to some if not all of the current SSTAs.

We know that winter el ninos lower the mean surface pressure in the Atlantic, and increased surface mixing will result in some reduction in SSTAS with a lag time of several weeks:

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ENSO/enso....=win&type=a

But I'm not sure this totally explains everything that's going on right now. The cold anomalies down the western Atlantic are possibly a result of the cold winter there, but in the coldest anomalies are in the SW Atlantic where El Nino didn't really impact. I have a hunch this is a cyclical event in progress, similar to the PDO.

[kold weather]

Hi GP, I wish i could remember what a met said to me a couple of weeks ago, but the Sw Atlantic anomalies are the result of a persistant synotpic set-up that has occured in the Spring, if I remember rightly it was something to do with an upper low being sat in a certain place and so we are seeing a certain amount of upwelling occur there, I wish I could remember exactly what it was!

Thats why i'm wondering whether or not the set-up change that is progged by the models and a stronger Azores high may shift things about a little. However saying that it may be part of a cyclical event as well though if it is it has only been present for a matter of 6-12 months.

(its interesting as well to see Uk is warmer during La nina then El nino...though clearly a huge cold pool just to our east in La nina winters as well.)

Edited June 13, 2007 by kold weather

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Cheers guys, some good conversation on this. I agree with the cycle theory and will also take note of your theories/suggestions and see how it develops.

BFTP