Polish Meteorologists: Europe is Expected to Have the Worst Winter in the Last 1000 Years
Veli Albert Kallio
The Polish climatologists report in the media that the Gulf Stream has suddenly weakened and now impacts the whole Nordic region.
One theory for the suggested weakening of the Gulf Stream results from large amount of fresh water that heads south via the Fram Straight. The suggestion is that this summer's largely broaken and large amount of honeycombed sea ice has diluted surface water salinity and produced extraordinarily large pulses of low salinity water coming from the Arctic Ocean which has been heading to south and this flux of fresh water is hindering the nortward passage of the Gulf Steam and stalls water along the southern Greenland.
Normally when sea ice is forms in the autumn, the salt crystallises out of the newly formed ice as the sea water freezes up on the surface. It has been assumed that the autumn-time removal of sea water from its salt contents (when ice freezes) has been in almost equilibrium when the melting re-occurs the salt mixes back to the newly melted sea ice. Now the concern is that the sea ice has been melting so extensively that the salt removal and salt re-absorbtion to the melt water from sea ice are not in total balance. This summers strong melting of the Arctic Ocean's sea ice around the North Pole and behind the Spitzbergen produced melt water more rapidly than usual and the diluted sea water had no time to recapture its saltiness as proportionally more salt remained in the layers beneath the immediate surface layers and this produced a disequilibrium that is packing the Gulf Stream water in South Greenland.
The Polish climatologists fear also that the Deepwater Horizon oil slick and the huge amount of chemicals to supress the slick in order to make it to sank below surface has also contributed to the situation altering the fluid dynamics. As a result the Gulf Stream has become more turbulent and unstable. The weakened Gulf Stream is expected to create perhaps the coldest winter in Europe for about 1,000 years due to the various factors.
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I would like to hear more about the salinity mesurements and the water flows in East Greenland Sea and the build up of warm water in South Greenland. I am enclosing the latest NOAA links about the sea currents. Any comments whether sudden sea ice melt-away could trigger disequilibrium and how strong effect such can come if the sea ice melting in spring becomes a very sudden one. How strong is the disequilibrium of the autumn-time sea salt (that has not find its way back in time) to keep the salinity levels in the Fram Straight normal?
PIOMAS suggested this summer that the loss of sea ice volume over the entire Arctic was 4 standard deviations off the mean (aonce-in-15,770 year event if event distribution is standad). If the autumn time sea salt shedding and its recapture to the melted ice are not in exact balance, how big is the gap between the two after this year's record melting. What are the salinity and flows in East Greenland. How much is the Gulf Stream reduced from normal as the Polish climatologists are now forecasting for 2010/2011 winter to be the harshest.
What is the disequilibrium ratio between autum salt disposal (freezing) to its recapture into water from (melted) sea ice? Is this big enough and now the salt sails further down while the surface water blocks the northward movement of the Gulf Stream.
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Kind regards,
Albert
http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/09/22/21716105.html
This year's winter may be the harshest - Polish climatologists
© Flickr.com/freefotouk/cc-by-nc
According to Polish climatologists, the Gulfstream- the Atlantic warm current, which protects Europe against the Arctic cold, is cooling fast. It might even disappear completely, they warn.
Russian meteorologists disagree with the pessimism of their Polish counterparts, agreeing though that the speed of the Gulfstream has indeed been reduced two-fold for several years. The Scandinavian countries are already feeling the breathing of the Arctic.
The Polish climatologist, Mikhail Kovalevski believes that if the
trend continues, the climatic zones will move North and Europe
will become a permafrost area for ever. But after looking at satellite
pictures, NASA officials say that the global warming of the past 18 years has
made the Gulfstream stronger and warmer. Russian meteorologists however hold
the middle ground, Alexander Frolov, head of the Russian Meteorological Agency
says.
The Gulfstream is powerful and is not declining; it warms up Europe, and consequently, it has a high significance for both Poland and the Scandinavian nations. But access to the heat might be restricted by the thawing of the ice and the turning of the water fresh - that is cold fresh water may appear on the surface, preventing the heat from going into the atmosphere to have an impact on the climate. We do not overestimate such a phenomenon, Frolov says.
He agrees that the Arctic ice is thawing fast, and according to the specialists, the area of the ice is now 4.8 million kilometers-600 thousand kilometers less than in 2007. said Frolov. That is the third minimum area of ice ever recorded since the beginning of meteorological observation. The Arctic is indeed very warn at the moment, particularly the western part, Frolov says.
But despite the warning in the North Pole, winter will set in,
and according to the preliminary forecast by Russian weathermen, the country
will have a normal Russian winter, perhaps not as harsh as last year,
Frolov says.
January will be the coldest and February will produce a mixture of weather, he said. He promised Russians a two-week frost in many regions of the country-most likely in the northern parts.
Saturday, September 25, 20
Europe is Expected to Have the Worst Winter in the Last 1000 Years
If we hoped for a soft winter, a warning from Polish meteorologists gives us creeps. They believe this winter will be the coldest in the last 1000 years.
In the 2010-2011 we can freeze more than ever.All this because the change of oceanic current Gulfstream, that keeps a climatic equilibrum on Earth. Soon, the hot waters transported by Gulf Stream won’t fight the cold air from the Arctic Ocean. The first signs of the phenomena can already be seen in the Scandinavian Peninsula, the specialists say.
Gulf Stream or Gulf’s Current works as a ‘radiator’ for the north part of Europe, and his dissapearance or even a slight diminish can have as a consequence a new Ice Age.
Such a catastrophe might be hurried by the explosion of the petrol platform from Gulf of Mexico, just the place were Gulf Stream is formed. Then over 700k tons of petrol were discharged into the Ocean. The situation can change dramatically. A part of the petrol passed from Caribean Sea into the Atlantic Ocean, reducing the speed of Gulfstream, that transports less warm water.
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j270/JohnnyGunn/NOAAAtlCurr20090820.png
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/ofs/viewer.shtml?-natl-cur-0-large-rundate=latest
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=5548