'Warm blob' in Pacific Ocean linked to weird weather across the US

[knocker]

 

An unusually warm patch of surface water, nicknamed 'the blob' when it emerged in early 2014, is part of a Pacific Ocean pattern that may be affecting everything from West Coast fisheries and water supplies to East Coast snowstorms. The blob is just one element of a broader pattern in the Pacific Ocean whose influence reaches much further -- possibly to include two bone-chilling winters in the Eastern U.S.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150409143041.htm

[Gray-Wolf]

So it's another " not caused by global warming" that will " become more common with global warming"?

 

Does that mean that any pattern of weather noted before cannot be 'caused by global warming' as it has happened before? Four will be very pleased at this news I guess?

[stewfox]

So it's another " not caused by global warming" that will " become more common with global warming"?

 

Does that mean that any pattern of weather noted before cannot be 'caused by global warming' as it has happened before? Four will be very pleased at this news I guess?

 

You can say any unusual phenomenon  is caused by global warming past or present. Other folk may say lets see what happens

[nicknacknoo]

Perhaps someone could explain how a warm blob gives rise to hp....... I would have thought the reverse to be true, with the air being heated more than normal and rising?

[J10]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/32355644

 

A bit more on this from BBC weather team.

Edited April 19, 2015 by J10

[johnholmes]

Perhaps someone could explain how a warm blob gives rise to hp....... I would have thought the reverse to be true, with the air being heated more than normal and rising?

 

your answer is in the link K provided with an interview with a BBC weatherman-good stuff

[Gael_Force]

Will we get three in row? The NMME forecast shown on the BBC link has more of the same for this coming autumn.

 

 

 

Our cold pool in the Atlantic is still in situ too.

[knocker]

Yes still there but is forecast to weaken

 

http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/view/#SSTA

[len]

Posted 19 April 2015 - 20:56

nicknacknoo, on 19 Apr 2015 - 14:14, said:

 

From John Holmes

 

your answer is in the link K provided with an interview with a BBC weatherman-good stuff

 

Perhaps someone could explain how a warm blob gives rise to hp....... I would have thought the reverse to be true, with the air being heated more than normal and rising?

 

your answer is in the link K provided with an interview with a BBC weatherman-good stuff"

 

--------------------------------

Sorry John, but I've listened to it 3 times and it doesn't explain at all.

He says "the area of warm water warms the air above it" . He doesn't say why this encourages High Pressure.... rather than, (as I & nicknacknoo expect) LOW Pressure!

I can see why the JetStream ridge that is there could cause the warm water; but, to my understanding, the warm water should be a negative feedback for High Pressure not a reinforcing/causative factor.

Can somebody explain please?

Personally I think we have a JS ridge for other, stonger factors and the warm blob is a side-effect?

[knocker]

 

Posted 19 April 2015 - 20:56

nicknacknoo, on 19 Apr 2015 - 14:14, said:

 

From John Holmes

 

 

 

your answer is in the link K provided with an interview with a BBC weatherman-good stuff"

 

--------------------------------

Sorry John, but I've listened to it 3 times and it doesn't explain at all.

He says "the area of warm water warms the air above it" . He doesn't say why this encourages High Pressure.... rather than, (as I & nicknacknoo expect) LOW Pressure!

I can see why the JetStream ridge that is there could cause the warm water; but, to my understanding, the warm water should be a negative feedback for High Pressure not a reinforcing/causative factor.

Can somebody explain please?

Personally I think we have a JS ridge for other, stonger factors and the warm blob is a side-effect?

 

 

I think there is a danger of the cart before the horse here. The original paper doesn't say the blob causes the HP in fact they emphasise the paper  does not focus on the cause(s) of the anomalous atmospheric forcing.

 

 

6. Final Remarks

 

A prominent mass of positive temperature anomalies developed in the NE Pacific Ocean during winter of 2013-14. This development can be attributed to strongly positive anomalies in SLP, which served to suppress the loss of heat from the ocean to the atmosphere, and lead to a lack of the usual cold advection in the upper ocean. The extra mixed layer heat persisted through the summer of 2014, and may have represented a significant contribution to the unusually warm summer (in some locations record high temperatures) observed in the continental Pacific Northwest. The linkage between the upper ocean temperature and downstream temperatures over the coastal region of the Pacific Northwest may provide a secondary source of predictability for seasonal weather forecasts. In particular it suggests that coupled atmosphere-ocean models such as NCEP‟s Coupled Forecast System (CFS) model may need to properly handle the evolution of the upper ocean in the NE Pacific because of its regional influences.

 

The present analysis does not focus on the cause(s) of the anomalous atmospheric forcing. A broad region extending from the North Pacific across North America is known to be subject to the effects of teleconnections from the tropical Pacific in association with El Niño -Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, i.e., the “atmospheric bridge†[e.g., Alexander et al., 2002; Lau and Nath, 1996]. But such an explanation fails to account for the winter of 2013-14 since ENSO was in a neutral phase. On the other hand, SST anomalies in the far-western tropical Pacific, and accompanying deep cumulus convection, appear to account for a significant portion of the anomalous circulation [seager et al., 2014; Hartmann 2015; Lee et al. 2015] that occurred in the winters of both 2012-13 and 2013-14, with intrinsic atmospheric variability probably an additional important factor

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL063306/pdf

Edited April 28, 2015 by knocker

[johnholmes]

 

Posted 19 April 2015 - 20:56

nicknacknoo, on 19 Apr 2015 - 14:14, said:

 

From John Holmes

 

 

 

your answer is in the link K provided with an interview with a BBC weatherman-good stuff"

 

--------------------------------

Sorry John, but I've listened to it 3 times and it doesn't explain at all.

He says "the area of warm water warms the air above it" . He doesn't say why this encourages High Pressure.... rather than, (as I & nicknacknoo expect) LOW Pressure!

I can see why the JetStream ridge that is there could cause the warm water; but, to my understanding, the warm water should be a negative feedback for High Pressure not a reinforcing/causative factor.

Can somebody explain please?

Personally I think we have a JS ridge for other, stonger factors and the warm blob is a side-effect?

 

 

hi Len

I have my thinking cap on but for the time being I am at a loss to explain in simple terms how this comes about. It is, in part, I suspect something to with an anomaly in temperature of the sea so may not be an 'actual' value. I will listen again and see if I can come up with something that sounds acceptable.

 

I’ll have a go!

The first part is the fact that the warm area of water has been in about the same place for a long time. This has the effect of causing the west to east jet stream to be diverted north around this stagnant area of air. As this occurs so it creates a tendency for the air to circulate in an anti-cyclonic direction or clockwise direction. Over time again this will slowly extend down through the atmosphere creating a high, first at altitude and later on the surface.

Not sure if this is totally meteorologically correct but it does explain what has happened.

By all means anyone with a better handle on this please drop your idea in. My brain is far less capable recently of getting back to total basic meteorology. If I find something more sensible I will drop it in here.

John

Edited April 28, 2015 by johnholmes

[knocker]

As far as I'm aware research is ongoing as to the causes of the particularly stubborn "blocking ridge" over the northeastern Pacific -popularly known as the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge, or "Triple R"

[Gray-Wolf]

The 'Blob' also took some aid from the record KW from last Feb? The waters pushed up the US coast and fed into the 'blob'. Wildlife is now being badly impacted by the capping of the nutrient rich cold waters below.

[knocker]

Out of interest the current anomaly. We still have the cold pool in the Atlantic.

Chart courtesy weatherbell

 

[len]

And our Atlantic "cold pool" seems to lead to?.......A Mid-Atlantic-High!. The opposite of the "arm-blob-causes-High" idea?

[Methuselah]

And our Atlantic "cold pool" seems to lead to?.......A Mid-Atlantic-High!. The opposite of the "arm-blob-causes-High" idea?

Are you confusing cause with effect, len?

 

A persistent area of HP, at low latitudes, would cause SSTs rise, by dint of increased insolation; however, an already cold mass of surface water would cause higher pressure as a result of increased atmospheric density???

[knocker]

Are you confusing cause with effect, len?

 

A persistent area of HP, at low latitudes, would cause SSTs rise, by dint of increased insolation; however, an already cold mass of surface water would cause higher pressure as a result of increased atmospheric density???

 

Yup, I did post this in MOD thread earlier

 

I still don't agree that the recent paper on the blob says that it causes the anomalous HP. Rather it's the other way around unless I'm misreading it.

 

Quote

 

Final Remarks

A prominent mass of positive temperature anomalies developed in the NE Pacific Ocean during winter of 2013–2014. This development can be attributed to strongly positive anomalies in SLP, which served to suppress the loss of heat from the ocean to the atmosphere, and leads to a lack of the usual cold advection in the upper ocean. The extra mixed layer heat persisted through the summer of 2014 and may have represented a significant contribution to the unusually warm summer (in some locations record high temperatures) observed in the continental Pacific Northwest. The linkage between the upper ocean temperature and downstream temperatures over the coastal region of the Pacific Northwest may provide a secondary source of predictability for seasonal weather forecasts. In particular, it suggests that coupled atmosphere-ocean models such as NCEP's Coupled Forecast System model may need to properly handle the evolution of the upper ocean in the NE Pacific because of its regional influences.

The present analysis does not focus on the cause(s) of the anomalous atmospheric forcing. A broad region extending from the North Pacific across North America is known to be subject to the effects of teleconnections from the tropical Pacific in association with El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, i.e., the “atmospheric bridge†[e.g., Alexander et al., 2002; Lau and Nath, 1996]. But such an explanation fails to account for the winter of 2013–2014 since ENSO was in a neutral phase. On the other hand, SST anomalies in the far western tropical Pacific, and accompanying deep cumulus convection, appear to account for a significant portion of the anomalous circulation [Seager et al., 2014; Hartmann, 2015; Lee et al., 2015] that occurred in the winters of both 2012–2013 and 2013–2014, with intrinsic atmospheric variability probably an additional important factor.

 

Causes and impacts of the 2014 warm anomaly in the NE Pacific

http://onlinelibrary...15GL063306/full

Edited by knocker, Today, 09:15.

Edited May 20, 2015 by knocker

[knocker]

The blob is weakening

 

[knocker]

Blob Watch: The Latest on the Northeast Pacific’s Unusual Warmth

 

 

A huge swath of ocean, extending from Hawaii to Baja California and north to the Alaskan coast, has been dominated for much of 2015 by unusually warm sea-surface temperatures (SSTs). In part of the North Pacific, the warm temperatures extend back more than two years. The region that’s come to be known as “The Blob†is more than just a fixed pool of warm water: it’s a dynamic entity that’s been shape-shifting throughout the last couple of years. Persistent as it’s been, The Blob may get a death blow this winter from El Niño.

 

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=3154