LETTER

Winter 2019 forecast: world’s delicate balance

 

1. The coldest weather for North America comes from the Siberian cold dome flowing through Alaska to reinforce this continent’s cold dome.

2. The conditions in Europe have a knock-on effect upon the status of the Siberian cold dome, influencing  South Asia and China.

3. The Atlantic’s Gulf Stream is the usual moderator of European weather and this winter in Europe is clear evidence that the heat is shut off, and that the fresh water outflow from Arctic melting has spread sufficiently southward in a thin layer to accomplish this.

4. If Summer of 2018 does not generate adequate mixing to disperse this thin layer, then, besides being a poor crop year in Europe and downstream, the stage will be set for worse weather next winter around the northern hemisphere.

North Atlantic data from 1960 to 2002, shows the advances of fresher water between 1995 and 2002 indicating how the Gulf Stream may be covered over. That advance had adequately dissipated in some subsequent years. Now it’s back.   

C. Odegaard
Ottawa