Dr. Jeff Masters' name is "Masters" not "Master" as I wrote by writing his name "Master's." <br>---------<br><span class="gmail_quote"><br></span>
<div>The "Arctic Blast" hitting large areas of the US is big news right now, as the jet stream is heading south from Canada bringing freezing Arctic air deep into the southern US. But why? In part, a high pressure area over Greenland turning the jet stream, where temperatures were or are in some places warmer than Florida. Even the cheesy Weather Channel broadcast this analysis! I immediately wondered if temperatures warmer in Greenland than Florida could be linked to the polar amplification effect from warming global climate change, but this may not be largely involved. </div>
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<div>Dr. Jeff Master's offers his analysis at the website below (strong negative North Atlantic Oscillation, third lowest since 1950 for a winter month), with a revealing color coded to temperature map of recent northern hemisphere temperatures that shows the "hot spot" over Greenland, followed (if you click on the link) by some beautiful winter photos:</div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1409" target="_blank">http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1409</a></div>
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<div><span>The Deep South shivered through another frigid morning today, with low temperature records crumbling again over much of Florida. Lakeland hit 27°F, smashing the old record of 34°F; Melbourne hit 28°F, eclipsing the old record of 32°F; and West Palm Beach bottomed out at 37°F, besting the old record of 38°F. The cold wave is being driven by an unusual sharp and persistent kink in the jet stream that is being blocked from moving by a strong ridge of high pressure over Greenland. As a result, an exceptionally strong surface high pressure of 1055 mb over the North Central U.S. is pushing large amounts of cold, Arctic air southwards from Canada. No coldest January temperature records have been set yet from the cold blast, but the 500 largest U.S. cities have been averaging about 11 new daily low temperature records per day the first five days of January, according to the <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/records.php" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">National Climatic Data Center</a>. The cold will ease Friday in the Deep South, but return with a vengeance Saturday night though Monday morning, as another push of cold air descending from Canada promises to bring a cold wave that will approach the December 1989 and January 1977 cold waves in intensity, and may being some new all-time January low temperature records to the South.<br>
<br><b><big><font size="3">Colder in Florida than Alaska and Greenland</font></big></b><br>The sharp kink in the jet stream has brought record warm temperatures to a few stations in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest this week, making much of coastal Alaska warmer than Florida. Cold Bay, Alaska, set a record high yesterday of 47°F, after recording a low temperature of 30°F. This made Cold Bay warmer than Pensacola, Florida, which had a high of 47°F and a low of 24°F. In fact, most of Florida--including Jacksonville, Tampa, Melbourne, and Tallahassee--recorded lows at or below the 27°F low recorded in Anchorage, Alaska yesterday. The jet stream kink has also brought temperatures more than 30°F above average to Greenland. The temperature in <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/BGBW/2010/1/7/DailyHistory.html" target="_blank">Narsarsuaq, Greenland</a> at 10am EST today was 46°F, far warmer than most of Florida.</span></div>
<div><span><img src="http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/2010/jan3.png"><br><b>Figure 1.</b> Departure of the surface temperature from average for the first three day of 2010 shows much colder than average conditions were present over the Southeast U.S., much of Europe, and Central Asia. Much warmer than average temperatures were present over the Northwest U.S., Greenland, the Arctic, and Southern Asia. A sharp kink in the jet stream was responsible for the temperature anomaly pattern. Image credit: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/composites/day/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">NOAA/ESRL</a>.<br>
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<div><span>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett</span></div>
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