SSW and Extreme Heat in Australia

[Jan]

Just watching the news about the extreme heat in Australia which is causing the terrible wild fires and wondered if the SSW had anything to do with the high temps they are experiencing. According to their forecast the temps are going to carry on and maybe rising further. Does the sudden stratosphere warming cause this?

[Harve]

Almost certainly not. There's the slight issue when you consider that, erm, Australia is in the southern Hemisphere and the most recent SSW was in the northern Hemisphere? Not to mention that the extreme heat started building beforehand. I suppose you could link the occurrence phenomena of heatwave and SSWs in the context of rising global temperatures, but you could do that with any other weather event. You could also say that the southern and northern Hemispheres are both affected by activity in the tropics but I wouldn't know where to go from there.

[Relativistic]

Are you referring to the SH SSW that occurred a while back?

Edited January 9, 2013 by 22nov10blast

[Jan]

Are you referring to the SH SSW that occurred a while back?

Yes......the SSW that affects our weather pattern, would an SSW in the SH make the weather hotter in that part of the world, where as in the NH it makes it/us colder? Don't think I am explaining it very well

[Harve]

Yes......the SSW that affects our weather pattern, would an SSW in the SH make the weather hotter in that part of the world, where as in the NH it makes it/us colder? Don't think I am explaining it very well

Although the SH is rather different from the NH as it has far more ocean, I assume the crude effects would still be similar: the release of cold air to somewhere in the mid to high latitudes. Also bear in mind that the SSW in the SH was a number of months ago and it is now high summer summer, where the polar vortex as a whole will be a lot weaker there.

[Bottesford]

Just moving this one to the world weather area