A friend told me that he heard that the west coast of the U.S. may have two
more months of this rainy weather we've had for the last 36 days here in N.
Calif. It wasn't much better before this period, but we did managed to get
in a near 10 day period of above avg. temps in Feb. In his words, he heard
it has something to do with El Nino. Any comments on that?

I heard part of a weather announcement a few days ago that said scientists
had detected the unusual appearance of warm air above the antarctic. Are
there any more details on that. This leads me to ask scientists can detect
this? I would think weather balloons, but perhaps satellites too.

Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet
--
"It is with things that you can neither see nor feel
that it is important to guard against flights of
imagination." -- Antoine Lavoisier, Chemist, 1743-1794

Web Page: home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews

"W. Watson" wrote in message
link.net...
|
|...
|
| I heard part of a weather announcement a few days ago that said scientists
| had detected the unusual appearance of warm air above the antarctic. Are
| there any more details on that. This leads me to ask scientists can detect
| this? I would think weather balloons, but perhaps satellites too.
|

The article I read described this as a "Stratospheric Warming". I am not
sure how common they are over the Antarctic, but if it is the phenomenon I
think it is, then they are certainly not unknown in the Arctic and are not
directly related to the "Global Warming" scare.

The ones over the Arctic happen two or three times in most winters. The
temperature in the lower stratosphere rises markedly and this affects the
wind pattern also as the warm air causes a pressure rise above it. The
normal low pressure westerly vortex at middle to high levels caused by the
cold air over the poles is greatly weakened or may even be replaced by
easterlies at certain levels in the stratosphere. Weather balloons can rise
high enough to detect both the temperature and wind field changes.

The direct cause of this is not greenhouse gases, but is believed to be
transfer of energy upwards from the troposphere. Energy accumulates in the
wave patterns that can be seen on middle-level pressure charts, especially
the large scale waves which produce "blocking highs" and "cut-off lows" at
the surface, and in the right circumstances this energy can pass through the
tropopause and warm the lower stratosphere.

Presumably the climatology of the Antarctic with its stronger cold vortex
than the Arctic makes such warmings more unlikely there, which is why the
phenomenon attracted attention. Similar episodes in the Arctic pass without
comment, except in the higher meteorological circles.
--
- Yokel -
oo oo
OOO OOO
OO 0 OO
) ( I ) (
) ( /\ ) (

"Yokel" now posts via a spam-trap account.
Replace my alias with stevejudd to reply.

Yokel wrote:

Presumably the climatology of the Antarctic with its stronger cold vortex
than the Arctic makes such warmings more unlikely there, which is why the
phenomenon attracted attention. Similar episodes in the Arctic pass without
comment, except in the higher meteorological circles.

Apparently the US and what was the USSR have only recently started to
let us in on the details of the Arctic's climate.

One wonders exactly how much change this winter has been to previous
ones on the same sort (or part of) the cycle - if there is such a
cycle.

But the Antarctic's cycles are up for ayone to inspect. And there
appears to be a marked increase in the melt rate there too. Just why
that should be seen as disasterous per se is a question for a subset of
inquiry, in itself.

Personally the more desert that can be turned over to the plough, the
better isn't that so?

Wouldn't it be nice if the western powers stopped Africa mutilating
itself and allowed agricultural and political innovation to mature
there. It's about time the Sahara was made viable isn't it? It would
cost a lot less than an international space station.

It will not happen whilst people will vote for monkeys though. Someone
told Chimpzilla that Mars was full of bananas. (This is someone who
believes that What is the capital of Texas?)

Oops there goes a million brazillion...
Oops there goes a million brazillion...
Oops there goes a million brazillion dollars damn!

In article , Yokel wrote:



"W. Watson" wrote in message
hlink.net...
|
|...
|
| I heard part of a weather announcement a few days ago that said scientists
| had detected the unusual appearance of warm air above the antarctic. Are
| there any more details on that. This leads me to ask scientists can detect
| this? I would think weather balloons, but perhaps satellites too.
|

The article I read described this as a "Stratospheric Warming".


this is inaccurate, the warming is in the troposphere
the paper is
'Significant Warming of the Antarctic Winter Troposphere'
Turner et al. Science, 311, pp1914 et seq.

sidd