Michael Billingsley

Climate, solar weather, hazards & mitigation, defence policy, infrastructure security, mass psychology, disaster preparedness & indigenous rights - EU/US/Canada

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

Alarming deviations in Sea Surface Temperatures. These anomalies (added to last year's) show rapid destabilisation of ocean thermal characteristics. And this sets up even faster increases.

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

@jonathanwatts A more recent 110-year AMOC collapse around 6250BC which I researched (later confirmed by North Irish sediment research done by Bowling Green U team). Unpublished... but the evidence is there. An abrupt climate shift in a few months after collapse. Temperate to icebox, quickly.

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

Beginning-of-year Global Sea Surface Temperatures are off the charts (upper left)... a full .5°C above the graph for any previous years. The ocean absorbs atmospheric heat. When it *stops* being able to do that, our surface air temperatures rise with less ocean-based moderation.

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

We've seen a procession of +24 to +18°C-anomalously warm daytime temps in the north Baffin & Greenland Arctic. Today more of that continued... resembling a red bull (with Svalbard as its eye) arced over by a blue bull jumper. (ClimateReanalyzer)

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

A cogwheel-locked High & Low pair of systems have been sucking Azores heat up to Greenland and Baffin Island for three days now. Temps running 24°C/43°F above normal - a bad setup for winter.

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

Another ocean wrinkle - My hopes are fading for a softening el Niño event as the western end of anomalously warm equatorial waters is now warmer than its eastern counterpart. Looks like we might be in it for the long run. (https://t.co/EDiKdZbHCw)

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

(Seemingly) for the 3rd day in a row, the Gulf Stream is looping back on itself off the shores of Virginia. Strong fresh-cold surface waters arising south of Nova Scotia appear to block a more direct flow of the GS current.

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

Global ocean and particularly N. Atlantic sea surface temperature Anomalies are remarkably high. This is not because the seas are heating up, but rather because they are not cooling DOWN to normal late fall temperatures. Weather outcomes can be expected.

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

Very odd... that vast area of S Pacific SST anomaly arrived and disappeared again in less than 48 hours. I am not clear what dynamics are at work to make such a thing possible.

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

A new (and large) SST anomaly has recently appeared in the S Pacific... ominously close to Antarctica. What deep ocean currents are connected to the El Niño warm band (or some other warm source) which might well up further south... anyone know?

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

@Scobleizer It's interesting to achieve this - the actual first iteration was by ARPA in the 1980s. Multiple slides of a general's head & expressions so he could speak "as if real" to troops over a landline telephone connection.

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

Meanwhile, Arctic ice, typically its minimum now (and so starts to increase into the winter months) is still decreasing. Warmer ocean temps in the North Atlantic and off the Yamal Peninsula may be delaying winter ice formation.

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

Antarctic ice (already at the lowest level... ever... for winter) has stopped increasing 2 weeks before typical max, and is decreasing again. Another bad sign for Antarctic stability.

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

Another major record fell again (and again, and again). Yesterday recorded the highest overall average Sea Surface Temperature for the North Atlantic. Ever.

And most likely ever in human existence.

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

@EliotJacobson It might be germane to add the highly increased evaporative rate from mostly landlocked seas like the Mediterranean, Black and Caspian as well as the shallower seas like the Baltic, to the water vapor equation. And fast-warming littoral seas now add methane seeps from clathrates.

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

Well... another record fallen. 2-metre air temps in the Arctic exceeded the all-time high daily temperature EVER recorded (and perhaps in human history). Very high anomalous sea surface temps along Barents Sea shoreline as well.

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

Today the North Atlantic reached its highest temperature ever recorded (and 5.5 weeks before the previously recorded high). Still climbing. Not only is this unprecedented, but there's no model to predict the effect upon weather and current circulation.

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

@EliotJacobson It happened... of course. 5 and a 1/2 weeks before the prior peak SST temp. (p.s. I and others convinced Climate Reanalyzer to re-set the anomaly scale by 3 degrees... so things may "look" cooler but they show better the almost 9°C anomalies off Labrador, Alaska and elsewhere.)

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

@EliotJacobson I didn't mention that in addition to hazard mitigation I'm Emergency Management Director for the town of Plainfield VT. So, yeah. I've been in full adaptation mode... for years. Methane played a big role in the 8200 BP warming/cooling event. AMOC shut down for 110 years.

[Michael Billingsley @redactyl]

@EliotJacobson Eliot, new big change in N. Atlantic (no explanation as yet). Despite increased ice sheet melting in the Greenland interior, the huge outflux of cold surface fresh water which had been acting as a "block" to the Gulf Stream suddenly shut down 2 days ago. Check out Labrador SSTs.