[FRIAM] Nothing to do with nick, do we have a formula

Tue Feb 16 16:49:16 EST 2021

I don’t know the answer to your question below, Gillian, but I think it is something along the following lines:

There is a natural conveyor on Earth, with air warming and rising (on average) near the equator and cooling and sinking at the pole.  That means it should run equator-ward down lower to the ground, and pole-ward at high altitudes.  I am sure it is not simple like that, but on average something like that seems like it should be happening.

But because the Earth spins, air coming from the equator has too much angular momentum to just move north; it will spin faster than the ground beneath it as it drifts northward.  Air near ground level should do the opposite, though maybe there are frictional effects near the surface that don’t allow the air to slide back as much near the ground as the equatorial air overshoots up high.

Anyway, I think two main features result.  One is the polar vortex, and the other is the jet stream.  The directionality of the polar vortex would make sense as the excess angular momentum from north-moving air.  I have _not_ every learned or worked through the fluid mechanics that would explain the jet stream.  

As I understand it, just because the arctic isn’t cooling as much due to excess CO2 and less ice-reflection during the summer months, that conveyor is weakened and the polar vortex is slower.  What I believe I heard from the atmosphere specialist is that it is the slowing of the vortex that results in the more wavy jet stream.  

So the effect of CO2 would just be the one we already know: that it traps heat in the atmosphere and leads to overall heating, and that the amount of heating is greater at the poles than the equator, so their temperatures are less different.  That is why the conveyor would slow down.

Best,

Eric

> On Feb 16, 2021, at 4:39 PM, Gillian Densmore <gil.densmore at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Eric, Ahh. ok. As it's been explained to me, basically like say the jet stream is a  wall(sort of) it keeps it place like much smaller vortexes like dust devels (sort of).  Something about carbon pulling  the cold har the polls usually keep in place down both up down and north and south down. 
> What i don't  get is why we get them now. How is that working?  Like is it directly the c02 somehow bonding ocasionally? pushing the  jet streams around?  or more indirect because more energy and heat in  the air somehow  causes the colder heavier air to sink  to the ground just  enough it causes so much to practically freeze?
> 
> On Tue, Feb 16, 2021 at 2:29 PM David Eric Smith <desmith at santafe.edu <mailto:desmith at santafe.edu>> wrote:
> Gillian,
> 
> I was told several years ago (2018) by a specialist in this area that these extreme southerly dips in the jet stream are a consequence of the weakening of the polar vortex on Earth.  It happens I was in Korea at a time corresponding to the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, and we were freezing our asses off under a cold spell similar to this one.  It too was due to a very southerly dip in the jet stream.  So it was timely for this scientist to talk on the subject, and I got to sit with him at lunch and ask more questions.
> 
> I have an impression the jet stream functions, at least during part of the year, a little like a wall between arctic air contained to the north of it, and temperate or equatorial air to the south side.  So when it swings very far south, the domain of arctic air extends further south than it normally would, and since we don’t normally experience winter arctic air, it seems very cold.  But apparently these more extreme north-south swings are due to weakening of the vortex — when it turns faster the jet stream has less severe excursions.  
> 
> My impression, in looking at jet stream patterns after that, is that when we see these swings we tend to see them in three places around the world: the central-to-eastern US, Eastern Europe or very-west Asia, and then over the Korean Peninsula.  I haven’t checked whether they are doing the same thing just now.
> 
> (The fact that the jet stream likes to make these polygonal shapes reminds me of the pictures of the hexagonal patch on the north (?) pole of Saturn, the boundary of which I think is a similar kind of formation (roughly).  The presence of continents on Earth causes this to not be a pure fluid phenomenon as it would be on Saturn.)
> 
> The non-intuitive part of it is that the vortex weakens because the arctic is not as cold as it should be.  So we feel more cold, but on a global average, we are less cold.  A similar phenomenon becomes more intuitive during the summer, when northern Sweden is experiencing uncontrollable forest fires.
> 
> n.b.  There may be things in what I said above that are wrong because I haven’t understood them or didn’t hear it all correctly.  So do find somebody who does this for a living to ask.
> 
> Eric 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Feb 16, 2021, at 1:58 PM, Gillian Densmore <gil.densmore at gmail.com <mailto:gil.densmore at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> For how ass the weather is because of artic air? 
>> 
>> I am prepared for  to see a lot of fur-fetched replies. We can Wolf down some facts, or just retriever it out as just how it is.
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