The New Normal − Weird Waters
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November 2012 Vol. 37, No. 10 World Reports Covering Climate, Behavior, and Commodities Original Papers Historical Perspectives ©BRBREvelyn Browning Garriss WNINGWNINGN E W S L E T T E R A FRASER MANAGEMENT PUBLICATION THE NEW NORMAL − WEIRD WATERS IN THIS ISSUE SUMMARY US National Hurricane Center model Hurricane Sandy is a precursor for a stormier, but predicted that the tropical storm would • The hot Atlantic waters have produced not necessarily colder than average winter. The flow out of the Caribbean into the At- an extremely stormy hurricane season. El Niño conditions are fluctuating so they are lantic and shearing winds would kill it. Hurricane Sandy, for example, was able to hard for modelers to predict, but we will see the Instead, the waters off the East Coast grow to the largest Atlantic hurricane on were so hot that the storm grew faster record despite shearing winds. conditions and a potential weak El Niño will have some influence on the weather, warming the than the upper level winds could shear • In the Tropical Pacific, a cool Madden it and the winds ended up slamming the Julian Oscillation drifting through the West and providing cooler, wetter weather for system has stalled the warming El Niño the Southeast. storm into the US. [Editor’s note − Dis- conditions. This means that this year’s El cussion of Sandy’s impact will be in the Niño will be weak for most of its duration, News Notes] allowing cold air to plunge into the Mid- As you receive this issue, the US East west and Eastern US. Coast is recovering from Hurricane San- On the opposite side of the world, • Expect a warmer winter in western North dy, A.K.A. Frankenstorm. Originally, the scientists are going nuts because the America and a cooler, very wet winter in the East. This winter will see numerous Nor’easters. • Even a weak El Niño will be good for South American corn and soy production. • The hot Atlantic waters have shaped a poor growing season in Europe and are expected to create a cold winter, with plentiful Mediterranean moisture. fig. 1 A busier than expected hurricane season, though relatively few storms CONTENTS menaced land. 1 The New Normal 5 South American 6 Europe and the 8 NEWS − Weird Waters Update Hot Atlantic NOTES Experts have had problems predicting hurricanes, Will a weak El Niño dim the How the hot waters that distorted the El Niño and the outlook for winter. Why is outlook for a good South Europe’s summer and hurt its crops this year so difficult and what is the best current American growing season? will shape the upcoming winter. outlook for winter? This newsletter contains articles, observations and facts to We feel that the reader, attuned to the changes that are support our contention that man is significantly influenced occurring, may develop a competitive edge; and, by the climate in which he exists. Our calculations show the by understanding his now and future environment, can climate, over the next term, will cause dramatic changes in use the momentum of change to his advantage. our social and economic patterns. unfavorable winds. Instead of beheading the storm, the winds merely slammed Sandy into the East Coast. Meteorologists and climatologists look at weather differently. What the meteo- rologists are looking at is a dipping polar jet stream and the “Greenland block.” Nor- mally the eastward moving cold front would have pushed Sandy toward the Northeast. However, the “Greenland block”, a high- pressure area south of Greenland com- pletely blocked it from moving out into the Atlantic. Sandy was squeezed between the two, shooting her northwest. Climatologists are seeing such unusual- ly hot water off the East Coast that normal shearing winds could not kill the storm. Instead, the hot waters kept the storm ex- panding in size even as the shearing winds kept it from growing in strength. (It is now the largest Atlantic hurricane on record.) Experts thought the cold front and hur- ricane would merge into a “weird hybrid” combining the cold storm with the hur- fig. 2 When monsters merge − a cold front and a hurricane. ricane. Instead, the hot waters kept Sandy http://www1.nasa.gov/images/content/700874main_20121026_Sandy-GOES_full.jpg tropical, so that she made landfall as a hur- ricane and retained tropical storm strength El Niño that most services were predicting HOT WATER-The reasons are simple – and moisture all the way into eastern Penn- for late August/early September still hasn’t the waters off the East Coast are hot and sylvania. Then, the storm will merge with arrived! The Tropical Pacific has had El the expected El Niño never fully arrived. the cold front (like the notorious “Perfect Niño conditions for months, but is still too The El Niño will be discussed later; so Storm of 1991), and become a very power- wavering to fit the “official” definition of for now let’s focus on the Atlantic. The ful extratropical storm as it charges north an El Niño event. We see El Niño weather current off shore waters are between 1˚ towards New York and Canada. patterns, then a break, then a return to the -- 3.5˚C (1.8˚ -- 6.3˚F) warmer than nor- El Niño patterns. mal. Hurricanes are fueled by heat energy and Hurricane Sandy has In short, the weird ocean waters of 2012 Positive NAO entered a pool of fuel. The entire are bewildering the experts. Let’s see why North Atlantic has been abnor- and what the latest findings are. mally warm. Basically, the Atlantic heated up unusually fast (tempera- Sandy, Hurricanes tures in May were as warm as they Negative NAO normally are in July) and are slow- And Hot, Hot, Water ing down extraordinarily slowly. Did you hear the predictions about the The tropical Atlantic currents are quiet Atlantic hurricane season of 2012? flowing very fast and rushing warm Everyone, (including the Browning News- tropical waters north. letter) expected a normal to below normal The heat means stormier weather storm season. Groups that have had a 95% – more hurricanes and blizzards. accuracy rate predicted a low number of tropical storms. Instead, the East Coast is HURRICANES – Hot waters mean battling the remnants of Hurricane Sandy “zombie” hurricanes, storms that were and Tropical Storm Tony has already ap- supposed to die off but remain strong. peared and disappeared. The normal sea- We saw this early in the season with son has 9.6 storms and this season has had Hurricane Chris and we have just seen figs.3-4 nineteen. This is still far below the record it with Sandy. Tropical Storm Sandy was Negative NAO 28 storms in 2005, but it is still unusual. supposed to be destroyed by sheering patterns bring colder winds, but it kept reforming despite the and stormier weather along the East Coast. © Browning Newsletter Browning Newletter November 2012 page 2 It is extraordinary for a hurricane that warm, they tend to produce the “Green- of the El Niño. Its strong winds are over- has remained out to sea north of Virginia land bloc”. This is a characteristic pattern turning the region’s surface waters, cooling to veer inland. It has only happened six of a negative North Atlantic Oscillation the El Niño east of 120˚W, just as it previ- times in 143 years of records. All of these (NAO). ously had cooled the waters further west. were mid-season storms, occurring late Au- gust and in September, when the ocean is The NAO pattern can be described two This has baffled the models. The ma- hottest. (Even the “Perfect Storm” never hit ways. jority of global weather service mod- els in August expected a mildly mod- land.) It is rare that the current waters are • Climatically, the Arctic air mass ex- so hot that this can happen. erate El Niño, with Tropical Pacific pands south in wintertime. When the temperatures between 0.5˚ − 1.0˚C (0.9˚ Sandy’s winds weren’t that strong, but Atlantic is hot, heating the air above − 1.8˚F), that would last until mid-spring. it entered a region that seldom sees hurri- forms a “high”, it limits the southward In September, the global models expected canes. As 2011’s Hurricane Irene and this movement of polar air. Instead, the air a weak event. In October, the official pro- summer’s derecho showed this region is un- plunges even deeper over the adjoin- nouncement by the US Climate Prediction usually vulnerable. ing air masses, in both North America Center was: and Europe Normally, the Atlantic Hurricane season “Borderline ENSO-neutral/ weak would end early with an El Niño out in • Meteorologically, the hot waters pro- El Niño conditions are expected to the Pacific. However, the Pacific El Niño duce blocking high-pressure areas over continue into Northern Hemisphere conditions are very weak and the Atlantic the Atlantic. This stops cool continen- winter 2012-13, possibly strengthen- is very hot. The hurricane season still has a tal storms from flowing out into the ing during the next few months.” month to go. ocean. Instead, cold front after cold front piles up over the East Coast. The “possibly strengthening” clause is Storms are quick to arrive over the because another MJO is drifting eastward WINTER STORMS – This autumn’s Eastern Seaboard and slow to leave. hurricane season is an indication of what Just as Sandy was forced north into is coming in winter. It takes months for the Mid-Atlantic, so Gulf Coast land large water masses to cool and even as they storms will be forced north along the cool, they remain warmer than average for coastline in stormy Nor’easters.