Polar Vortex Comes Back With Polar Sea Ice Melt Blamed (Dial-Up Warning)

[freshwest]

WHY'S THE POLAR VORTEX RUINING OUR LIVES? IS IT MELTING SEA ICE?

By Ap and Josh Gardner - 13 November 2014

A new study says that as the world gets warmer, parts of North America, Europe and Asia could see more frequent and stronger visits of that cold air. Researchers say that's because of shrinking ice in the seas off Russia...

That can happen for several reasons, and the new study suggests that one of them occurs when ice in northern seas shrinks, leaving more water uncovered...

Normally, sea ice keeps heat energy from escaping the ocean and entering the atmosphere. When there's less ice, more energy gets into the atmosphere and weakens the jet stream, the high-altitude river of air that usually keeps Arctic air from wandering south, said study co-author Jin-Ho Yoon of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash. So the cold air escapes instead.

That happened relatively infrequently in the 1990s, but since 2000 it has happened nearly every year, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal...





Illustration of Polar Vortex:



Niagara Falls was frozen by Polar Vortex in 2013:



Weekend forecast:



Read more:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2833543/Polar-vortex-return-winter-Expert-forecaster-warns-dreaded-arctic-blast-make-plunge-deep-U-S-braced-weekend-snow-record-November-lows.html#ixzz3IzOzT2Vq

Yes, it's the sensationalist UK Mail, but they have the best pictures.

[HereSince1628]

1. I saw a blog posting on this last year...got challenged when I mentioned it

It was from a meteorological meeting in the UK, but the scientist was American. So, while I am NOT enjoying the cold, I'm glad to have a reference that I can send to my critic.

These things look to be a regular feature of future winters for America east of the Rockies. Too late to second guess the cost effectiveness of geo-thermal as a heating option...

I'm glad we included in our planning a wood-burning supplemental heating source. Looks like there will be multiple times per winter when it will be needed to keep heating costs down.