An ominous report prepared by the Hydrometeorological Centre of Russia (HCR) on the “Frankenstorm” (aka Hurricane Sandy) barreling towards the Northeastern United States warns that this superstorms origins lie in the near complete collapse of the Deep Southerly Return Flow (DSRF) of the Gulf Stream this past week due to the unprecedented melting of the Greenland Icecap.
The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic Ocean current that originates at the tip of Florida, and follows the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The Gulf Stream, also, influences the climate of the east coast of North America from Florida to Newfoundland, and the west coast of Europe.
The warm water and temperature contrast along the edge of the Gulf Stream are, also, responsible for increasing the intensity of cyclones, tropical or otherwise, such as the one approaching the US, this HCR report says.
HCR scientists in this report note that NASA had previously warned about the melting of the Greenland Icecap this past July when they released satellite photographs documenting this environmental tragedy.
The NASA satellite pictures of melt covering most of the ice sheet surface on 12 July (corroborated by several independent satellite methods and research groups) is dramatic, and several key Greenland scientists have confirmed it is unprecedented in the satellite record going back to the late 1970s. The Danish Meteorological Institute website, also, showed Greenland temperature anomalies about 2-4C higher than the 1961-90 baseline average during these last three months.
In 2010, NASA had, also, forewarned that the change in salinity caused by a massive melt-off of the Greenland Icecap could depress the Gulf Stream and alter North Atlantic circulation patterns that control weather in Europe. Combined with a loss of Arctic sea ice, NASA said, this effect could radically change global ocean circulation patterns and give rise to such superstorms such as are now occurring.
In the current situation, this report says, a strong ridge of high pressure over the Canadian Maritimes and Greenland due to this massive melt-off will help push this superstorm northwestward, into the Mid-Atlantic or New England, rather than allowing it to move out to sea.
That will also make this superstorm a slow mover, which will only worsen the damage in affected areas. A ridge of such high pressure is known as a “blocking high,” and while its occurrence is not particularly unusual, HCR experts say in this report, its intensity is.
Not just to the horrific damages from wind, rain and coastal flooding from this superstorm are to feared either, this report says, but, also, to the massive amounts of snow measuring up to nearly 1 meter (2 feet) expected to impact an area roughly 1/3 the size of the Eastern United States. A situation, HCR scientists say, that has the potential to be catastrophic as these snows fall upon trees that have yet to shed their leaves.
Most ominous, perhaps, in this report are the warnings that this unprecedented superstorm effects may, also, include earthquakes in the Northeastern US and Canadian regions such as the one that occurred in the State of Maine on 16 October and rattled all of New England, and the 10 October one that shook Montreal...
link
Re: Here and Now...What's Happening?
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks