On Christmas Day, a thousand mile wide storm front rounded the tip of Greenland and started heading for Iceland and the Northern Arctic.
On the morning of December 30th, it dropped a low pressure zone of 930mb on the Northern part of Iceland -- an unprecedented deep low, comparable to Hurricane Sandy. This is only the storm center -- linked up with it are two more strong lows of 965 to 975mb and numerous other low pressure zones.
In short, this thing is shaping up to be one heck of a daisy-chained extreme storm system.
All along its eastern side, the system is sucking in warm winds originating to the west of Spain, and hurling them towards the North Pole. By Wednesday (aka today), that North Pole region is expected to see average temperatures of 1 to 2 degrees Celsius, or between 30 and 40 degrees Celsius above the annual mean temperature.
According to the latest weather data, one buoy [NPEO 2015 SVP-7 Buoy 558750 ] already indicates a temperature of minus 0.1 degrees Celsius.
This heating up follows a November month which itself was strongly anomalous compared to the average over the period 1985-2010 (figure 2b, figure 3); unusually high pressure differences, and an unusually small ice zone.
Hypothesis about what's really behind this here, but feel free to chime in with your own resources.
Related Stories
SoylentNews had a story last month about temperatures in the Arctic that were 20°C (36°F) warmer than usual. That was just a warm up.
Richard James, who holds a doctorate in meteorology, found November produced the most anomalously warm Arctic temperatures of any month on record after analyzing data from 19 weather stations.
In the middle of the month, the temperature averaged over the entire Arctic north of 80 degrees latitude spiked to 36 degrees [Fahrenheit] above normal.
Now, storm activity around Greenland has caused a warm spell in the vicinity of the North Pole, with temperatures 50°F (28°C) higher than usual.
As of the morning of Thursday, December 22 (3 a.m. EST), the International Arctic Buoy Programme (IABP), operated out of the University of Washington, recorded temperatures from these buoy[s] up to 0°C or slightly higher.
There was a similar pattern of unusually warm weather in the Arctic in November and December of 2015.
The warm spell [...] marks the second straight December of freakish warmth spreading across the Arctic due to weird weather patterns.
additional coverage:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 30 2015, @08:58PM
that is good. I'll be moving to Canada when Trump wins the election and I would prefer its thermostat nudged higher.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 30 2015, @09:03PM
I was thinking Sweden, but they might have enough migrants right now.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday December 31 2015, @12:23AM
Japan is top of my list. If I'm going to live in a society with restrictions I would rather it be there, the women are better looking IMHO and I would get to see the next Godzilla movie in a theater. :)
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 31 2015, @03:05AM
Japan is a dream if you're not Japanese, since the social restrictions they apply to themselves do not apply to you. I highly recommend it as such--expensive, but a great place to live. If you are single and your hair color is other than black, especially if it's blonde, you'll make a killing.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 31 2015, @12:32AM
Russia and Canada will rule this century. Plenty of water, mild climate, virtually unlimited resources.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday December 31 2015, @02:31AM
Sure, but recent empires are a great place to live once they give up on holding onto power.
(Score: 3, Funny) by davester666 on Thursday December 31 2015, @05:10AM
no thanks. We're good. maybe try mexico, there'll be a wall between you and Trump.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 30 2015, @09:04PM
I'm more concerned about the sailors who are out there in front of it. Fishermen, merchantmen, Navy squids, and the random nutcase who thought it would be a good time to go sailing in the North Atlantic.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 30 2015, @09:07PM
But I'm on the Moon so it's only the problem with the Northern I feel like he's got to be a total asshole and obviously deserves to be a bad thing, for Iceland specifically or between Iceland latest round of Iceland killings. And incidentally I consider cannabis or between. "Unreadable mess" qualifies as noteworthy in warm experience "just work" with custom xcompose files, but feel ones need a low ice of December elite.
-- OriginalOwner_
(Score: 5, Funny) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 30 2015, @11:00PM
I've never seen a human fail the Turing Test before.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Redundant) by jmorris on Wednesday December 30 2015, @09:45PM
Good grief, you would think these pussies have never seen winter weather before. Wow, this storm might be bad, so bad it might rival one in 1993. Folks, storms happen. Weather patterns are never constant, they change in patterns and cycles we do not yet understand because we lack records long enough to be able to identify all of them. That is even before the Warmists started tampering with the records so we will probably have to end up tossing most of them and starting over when we finally throw off this new age religion crap and get back to doing science again.
Yea, it was weird having Christmas so warm. But guess what, I remember back in the late 60's early 70's having similar ones, playing with G.I. Joe in shorts in the back yard on Christmas Day. Reliable climate models predict a 90% probability of the East coast of the U.S. having a colder than normal winter before it is over. People who are putting their money where their mouth is are bidding up NatGas futures based on those predictions so I trust them a lot more than some goddamned hippy preaching another Doom! sermon.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 31 2015, @03:09AM
You know that doesn't count when you grew up in the South, right? It's supposed to be warmer there.
I grew up in the northern Rockies in that time period and every winter had multiple feet of snow and the temperature in January and February rarely got above -20F. It rarely ever drops below zero anymore, even with wind chill factored in.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday December 31 2015, @03:45AM
It is actually very variable. Xmas with highs in the upper 80s isn't common here but I do remember it happening. I also remember working in the early 80s bagging groceries and shivering my ass off in the winter with snow on the ground and looking across at the bank's thermometer/clock and seeing a big fat 3. Haven't seen that sort of cold around here lately. But if the solar cycle guys are right I might again. Point being there is just a lot we do not understand about climate. It would be pretty arrogant to think we do know much considering how short a time scale we have anything like good data for. Here in North America we really don't know jack about anything but the last five hundred years, most places far less. We really don't know what 'normal' is yet. I work in a library and we have local history books showing this area has had some serious snow in the past and those books only go back a little more than a century because before that nobody was here to write any history. So what would be 'normal'? The snow or the current warm? If it got cold again would that be a sign of 'the impending Ice Age' or a return to normal? Would it be a normal cycle at work? Or none of the above?
We still do not know what causes the flips between Ice Ages and the Inter-glacial Period we currently enjoy. All things being equal, I'd prefer a bit warm over flipping back to glaciers gouging their way down across the Canadian border. We thrive in warm, we can grow lots of food to keep the teeming masses in the third world from getting hungry and violent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 31 2015, @08:37AM
yeah. also i remember getting to bob-sledge in august in some european but not quiet european
country and watching the cherry tree split in half because of the snow load.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 31 2015, @09:41AM
There was an EXTREMELY POWERFUL HURRICANE off the coast of Mexico. News reports stated that it was off the charts! It was beyond all the categories! Was degraded to category 2 just before landfall, and actually ended up being just a tropical storm.
This is the kind of people who are pushing the warmist "extreme weather" narrative: scaremongering liars.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday December 31 2015, @06:52PM
People who are putting their money where their mouth is are bidding up NatGas futures based on those predictions so I trust them a lot more than some goddamned hippy preaching another Doom! sermon.
You mean these natural gas futures?
For the week ending December 18, natural gas prices were at a 16-year low. Futures prices had also settled at their lowest level since March 1999, with a near-month contract settling at $1.790/MMBtu December 16. [benzinga.com]
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday December 31 2015, @07:36PM
Something is totally fudged with that link. The headline is "Southwest Energy Up As Natural Gas Futures Rise On Cold Weather Predictions" but everything below contradicts it. The dateline is Dec 31 but the body text speaks of Dec 16 and Dec 18.
I saw this This Is The "Big Weather Pattern Change" That Is Sparking The Massive NatGas Rally [zerohedge.com]. Yea it is Putin's Propaganda spin on it but the prediction itself looks valid as does the chart of Natural Gas futures.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday December 31 2015, @07:43PM
It's a minor rally set against a massive down-trend. I work in this industry. Trust me, it's still grim....
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday December 31 2015, @08:02PM
Obviously. It would take glaciers racing across the Canadian tundra to, by itself, reverse the overall direction of the energy sector. This is an economic war where several sides are battling it out. Frackers who raced to build capacity on credit are doomed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 30 2015, @09:47PM
If I recall correctly, the prediction about warmer average temperature being linked to "extreme weather" refers to unusually sustained weather patterns (rain/snow/drought many days in a row). That is like Venus where it is very similar climate everywhere (dayside/nightside/pole/equator) all the time. This seems more like the opposite of warm one day and cold the next. Can't find a paper either way on it at the moment.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gravis on Wednesday December 30 2015, @09:49PM
it took hundreds of year but we finally managed to piss off mother nature! ;D
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 30 2015, @09:59PM
I looked at the linked source ( http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/ [washington.edu] ) It presents this data:
NPEO 2015 SVP-7 Buoy 558750 latest weather data
12/30/2000Z 79.262°N 5.785°W -10.60°C 998.50mb
Which implies that it not all that close to the north pole, and -10.6°C.
I'm confused: where did the claimed temperatures come from? The historical data on that site does not seem to include the same data sets as the live stuff. I'm confused.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 30 2015, @10:10PM
Well - the arctic circle is located at 66 degree latitude. North Pole is at 90 degrees. That buoy at 79 degrees is roughly 1/3 of the way from the circle to the pole. Looks like so much BS to me - we steamed across the Arctic Circle in winter time way back in '77. Few people seem to realize that the Arctic Ocean hasn't been entirely frozen in our history. Few people seem to realize how vast that ocean is. The polar cap is way up there, and ships have steamed/sailed in the southern 1/4 to 1/3 of the ocean for as long as man has been sailing.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 31 2015, @01:24AM
Different AC. They seem to be comparing daytime temperature to annual average. Without knowing how much it varies this doesnt really mean anything. Also one buoy could be warm because a ship went by or a polar bear pissed near it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 31 2015, @03:26AM
That the temperature at the pole will be around 0 Celsius is a prediction, not a measurement. However, near 0 °C is being measured from some of those stations:
12/30/2100Z 75.539°N 11.741°W -4.90°C 977.60mb 0.50°C
12/30/1500Z 82.807°N 86.203°W 1008.80mb -1.90°C
12/29/2300Z 82.631°N 4.026°E -2.80°C 986.30mb
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 31 2015, @03:29AM
My mistake, the article does say 1.1 Celsius was measured at the north pole.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday December 30 2015, @11:29PM
I once had a dog that could play "Fur Elise" on the clavichord. From that I never inferred that all dogs could play keyboard instruments. Of course, if I came across a number of dogs that could, at an increasing rate historically, I might come to a different conclusion. Oh, and the dog was a total hippie, and was constantly saying "We're Doomed!" Hmm, never really struck me as strange that the clavichord-playing dog could also speak; maybe he wasn't a dog at all, just a Shaggy Musician! Morales of the Story: Anecdotal evidence is not. Changing the subject does not contribute to the discussion. Anthropogenic Global Warming is real.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 30 2015, @11:38PM
I once had a dog that could play "Fur Elise" on the clavichord. [...] Changing the subject does not contribute to the discussion.
(no comment necessary)
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday December 31 2015, @12:35AM
Too subtle?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 31 2015, @03:12AM
Whaddya want? Never use a dog metaphor with cat people. It doesn't take.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 31 2015, @04:33AM
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday December 31 2015, @05:13AM
And some people are in a desperate search for pedagogical methods to instill a minimal understanding of scientific method, laws of evidence, and scientific consensus. When all else fails, I always go for the Shaggy Dog. Even if it doesn't work, the most dense of deniers are smart enough to realize what is being said, and it shows when their only response is scatological. By the way, cried the day that dog died. He was a good dog.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 31 2015, @03:12PM
When all else fails, I always go for the Shaggy Dog.
When you have nothing to say, then saying nothing is a perfectly valid approach. You ought to try it sometime.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 31 2015, @11:31PM
When all else fails, I always go for the Shaggy Dog. Even if it doesn't work, the most dense of deniers are smart enough to realize what is being said, and it shows when their only response is scatological.
You imply that there's a better response to shaggy dog stories which is not scatological. What impossibility will you insinuate next?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday January 01 2016, @12:06AM
Let it go, khallow! Let it go. And Merry New Year!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 31 2015, @02:44AM
You know something is real when someone has to resort to the musical dog story to prove the point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 31 2015, @12:13PM
"Global warming is real. Why? Uh... well, I had a dog that could play the harpsichord, you shitlord! #triggered"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 31 2015, @04:05PM
I love Fur Elise! Your dog has great taste in music.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday December 31 2015, @01:42AM
Going to be considerably warmer at the pole than where I live. Which is disturbing, since I'm about half way to the equator from there. This happens from time to time, sometimes alaska is warmer than central USA.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday December 31 2015, @05:27AM
Alaska is a very big state. Southern Alaska is south of Stockholm.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 31 2015, @06:58AM
But Northern Alaska is beyond sanity. Everybody know there ain't no Sanity Clause.