I did one of these years ago, during the “Snowmageddon” events of 2009, and have been meaning to update. The current situation lends itself perfectly.
I continued the tradition of interviewing Jeff Masters at Dunham Lake, near his pastoral southeastern Michigan home, and by serendipity, caught up with Jennifer Francis at the nearby University of Michigan School of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences. for a quick update/interview.
Update:
Case in Point.
Several parts of northern Norway has also had an unusually dry period and combined with high winds it was a recipie for disaster. Two fires, one in a city took out several houses and then a bush fire taking out a lot of houses in Flatanger these past days. Today there is another one at Frøya just developing. Ofc nothing like the huge recent fires in California, but still a reminder that the changes in weather pattern and stuck systems due to the meandering of the jetstream creates perfect conditions for all kinds of new problems.
Just been reading about it in attached link
“The fire in Flatanger on the West Coast of Norway is the most extensive fire catastrophe in Norway since World War II.”
http://www.norwaypost.no/index.php/news/latest-news/29482
Yes its pretty unusual to have this here as we generally have enough precipitation to limit the extent of these, but the past month has been unusually dry for middle and northern part of Norway.
The other fire on Frøya has developed into something they cant contain either:
http://www.nrk.no/trondelag/overvaker-flammene-med-helikopter-1.11506518
The little vegetation that exists in these parts are still enough to spread the fire pretty fast in the winds.
Is all that warm air in the North going to have a significant impact on ice melt in the Arctic or Greenland or is it still too early in the season?
Possibly, if you follow the ice extent it has leveled out somewhat already and is about the same as 2012 now at the same time last year (and 2012 was the record low year as we all know).
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
I check this every day to see how much this warm shift will affect the start of the melting of the Arctic again.
Thanks for this – posted it on my facebook page because it will answer the questions of a number of my friends.
Hi Peter,
Outstanding video. This is one of your best editing extravaganzas ever. Kudos!
***
OFF TOPIC
Re: Pacific Northwest wind power development put on hold
http://tinyurl.com/k5mj85t
The gist of this article appears to be that there’s been a bit of a slowdown of PNW wind power development as California shifts policy toward more in-state generation.
Further Off Topic….
A humor break courtesy of Andy Borowitz, Michelle Bachmann and The Black Hole Brouhaha…
http://tinyurl.com/p76zcgo
There is a “climate change” hook. Look for it. 🙂
Excellent Borowitz, but the sad thing is that it does sound exactly like what Bachmann might say. The proof of that will be if it soon appears on some of the wing-nut sites as evidence that “Ol’ Michelle the Wing-Nut” hasn’t lost her touch, and still knows how to speak the truth.
(And my all time favorite is her speaking about being “so glad to be visiting the state where the shot heard round the world was fired”—to a crowd in New Hampshire).
There is all kinds of nuttiness going on in energy. Natural gas prices spike in cold extremes as pipelines reach max capacity. The same natural gas prices are spiking due to peak electric demand. We have a capacity glut and peak demand at the same time. Go figure. So we have underutilization of base load,(too much large thermal PP) and not enough peaking. Sometimes the best choices are not made relative to CO2. US is not a single interconnected grid. Interconnection could be better. .
My heart goes out to all those suffering in the freeze.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/29/us/winter-weather/
Meanwhile, Alaska is melting in record warmth, and the Pacific states are warm and no rain. Drought will likely have its impacts. Earlier, Pacific states had freeze. Extreme weather.
Hi Christopher,
I’m in Bend, OR, near the center of the state. We’ve been getting a bit of moisture over the past three days. And the forecast is for the high pressure system over the Pacific to slide to the northwest over the next couple of weeks, bringing much needed precipitation to the region. We had our cold weather in early December. -22 F. was kinda brisk. 🙂
Send some warm weather to the East and some rain to California. Lost in the shuffle is that 11 Western States are in drought conditions. British Columbia is not currently, but has faced recent drought in past years.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/01/16/drought-west-disaster-declarations/4522651/
This is why I said, its almost impossible for any one person to contemplate global warming and its effects. Not even as an astronaut. However, if like on this page, we can get together and explain to each other the vast array of conditions across both hemispheres, we can get an idea of the human dimensions. I enjoy your posts, and the brilliant links.
A Year of Weather – 2013 is a mesmerizing look at our Blue Marble.
Can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before or not (on this blog), but I live in Taiwan and we’re having the warmest and driest winter in memory. I’m sure enjoying the nice weather, but the farmers aren’t too happy as their wells dry up.
By the way, Happy Chinese New Year (it’s New Year’s Eve now). It’s a rather big deal around here.
And we are entering the Year of the Horse? Is that good or bad for the Earth?