Did you feel the pressure yesterday?
Feel a bit weighted down? If so, it may not be due to the political energy in the air.
Yesterday morning, sea level pressure around the Northwest was the greatest in ten years.
The average sea level pressure is approximately 1013 hPa (hPa is a unit of pressure).
Yesterday morning, several northwest locations experienced 1041-1045 hPa. This is high...very high.
Higher than any other time since 2015 in our area. To illustrate, here are the pressures observed at 10 AM yesterday (see below). Around 1042 hPa near Seattle and higher to the north and east.
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The pressure was above normal over a vast swatch of the west, as shown by the pressure map at 10 AM Wednesday. The shading shows the difference from normal.. with red being much above normal.
This high-pressure interlude is associated with a high amplitude upper-level wave pattern, with a ridge off the West Coast and a trough over the eastern U.S. (see upper level (500 hPa level) map at the same time).
The origin of this unusual situation is most probably the result of natural variability. My group has done regional climate simulations assuming aggressive increases in CO2. As shown below, global warming generally leads to lower pressures. This makes sense: warmer air is less dense, which leads to lower pressure below. Global warming also does not lead to transient ridges over the West Coast, something I have researched and published on.
Announcement
I will hold a special online Zoom session at 10 AM on Saturday for Patreon supporters. I will talk about our dry weather and when it will end.
Dr. Mass, is it possible that we here in the US Northwest are experiencing Hyperpressure Whiplash as one consequence of CO2-driven climate change; i.e., an emerging physical phenomena somewhat akin to Dr. Swain's Hydroclimate Whiplash in California?
ReplyDeleteIf indeed a climate-driven Hyperpressure Whiplash phenomena does in fact exist, perhaps Dr. Swain might be persuaded to add this cause for concern to his ever-growing list of concerns associated with climate change and the world's increasing carbon emissions.
Dr. Swain might also take up the question of whether or not Hyperpressure Whiplash and Hydroclimate Whiplash have some kind of physical interaction with each other, thus enabling a multi-phenomena amplification process to become operative -- a process which increases the combined adverse effects above and beyond what each separate process could produce by itself.
I'm sure Governor Newsom could, as one of his wildfire response actions, find several million dollars in California's state budget to fund a UCLA study of Hyperpressure Whiplash and its possible interactions with other wildfire-producing physical phenomena.
And if it becomes necessary to sacrifice the purchase of eight or ten new LAFD fire trucks to cover the costs of this study, I'm sure UCLA could write a Hyperpressure Whiplash study proposal which thoroughly justifies the funding trade-off, at least to Governor Newsom's satisfaction, anyway.
Somewhere in there is an argument that 8-10 more firetrucks would have countered the effects of 10 months of no rain combined with 60-80 mph winds. Those would be some really big firetrucks.
DeleteThose graphs appear to coincide with the 11-year solar cycles. Have you ever come across Ben Davidson and his amazing work with space weather?
ReplyDeleteAccording to NOAA's 2023 Annual Climate Report the combined land and ocean temperature has increased at an average rate of 0.11° Fahrenheit (0.06° Celsius) per decade since 1850, or about 2° F in total. The rate of warming since 1982 is more than three times as fast: 0.36° F (0.20° C) per decade.
ReplyDeleteYes but 465,237 years ago, the rate was 0.111 per decade. Yet, the earth is still here. Why the earth survived that period and is still here is the true, unanswered mystery.
DeleteI've felt lousy all week, largely attributable to politics. However, sure enough, I pulled my weather data, and my station recorded its all-time high barometric pressure of 30.748 inHg yesterday. So, maybe that's a part of it.
ReplyDeleteIs that why I was "sucking wind" riding my bike up hills yesterday? I knew it. Add that to my list!
ReplyDeleteHigher pressure provides more oxygen, not less.
DeleteI took a tumble in an icy parking lot last Monday and I've been riding inside on the stationary bike ever since. There's something a little cruel about the typical northwest dampness being replaced by brief (but annoyingly cold) stretches of sunshine. It's just one less than ideal situation being replaced by another. My bruised ribs can't wait for the first signs of spring to arrive.
DeleteCliff, do you know the record max SLP for BLI?
ReplyDeleteYour blog post from 12/30/14 (https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2014/12/highest-pressures-in-northwest-history.html) mentions that some monthly as well as all-time max pressure records were set that day and the data I downloaded from MesoWest shows that the pressure peaked at 30.91inhg/1046.7mb that morning.
Speaking of air pressure, there is a huge storm predicted to hit Ireland and Scotland Friday, with winds estimated to 100 mph and pressure of 935mb.
ReplyDeleteWow!
Delete"Natural Variability" strikes again! Almost seems as though we live in a natural world in which we humans are subject to the vagaries of how things actually are, or something normal like that.
ReplyDeleteThe winter that never was...high pressure week after week, month after month. Wildfire season will be wild this year if February ends up dry like January. Models don't show much promise. Weak fronts.
ReplyDeleteI wonder whether the high pressure ridge will break down next weekend as the forecast is for rain/snow in the lowlands and snow in the mountains. I notice that this is being discussed in the 10 AM zoom session that I just missed unfortunately.
ReplyDelete