The polar vortex theory takes a beating: The claim a warm Arctic is behind the brutally cold winter conditions at the mid latitudes is shown by a Nature study to be scientifically baseless.
Hat-tip: Die kalte Sonne.
Now that Europe and North America are getting blasted by unusually severe winter weather, which climate alarmists predicted 20 years ago would be a thing of the past, the alarmists are desperate to find an explanation to escape embarrassment.
PIK science suggests warmth begets cold
They’ve come up with the polar vortex explanation: the bitter cold we are now experiencing at the middle latitudes is in fact due to the warmer Arctic, they say. And this wreaks havoc on the jet stream which in turn results in cold Arctic blasts dipping deep into the middle latitudes. Yes, cold winters are in fact exactly what we should expect in a rapidly warming world!
Levermann and Rahmstorf
For example the two media front men Anders Levermann and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Climate Institute (PIK) have been telling this to the ever gullible German media outlets, like Bild and Spiegel. Yet, many suspect it’s scientific fraud designed to fool the public and to hide the fact that their global warming predictions are in reality glaring failures.
Journal Nature refutes fantasy-rich PIK explanation
For example a recent paper appearing in Nature titled “Weakened evidence for mid-latitude impacts of Arctic warming“, authored by Blackport et al, refutes this highly fantasy-rich hypothesis pitched by the two PIK scientists.
The Nature article writes:
Jennifer Francis, whose seminal work proposed that Arctic warming was leading to a wavier jet stream, predicted in 2014 that “within a few years, as Arctic amplification continues, we will have enough data to know whether or not we’re right”6.
So, six years on, what has changed? Arctic amplification and sea-ice loss have indeed continued (Fig. 1). But predictions of a more negative Arctic Oscillation, wavier jet stream, colder winters in mid-latitudes or, more specifically, in Eurasia, and more frequent and/or widespread cold extremes have not become reality (Fig. 1).
Cold waves have been decreasing
Other experts have also noticed what PIK is doing here. Dr. Roy Spencer wrote at his blog in 2019 that U.S. cold waves have been decreasing, thus contradicting the PIK:
Source: Dr. Roy Spencer.
“The trend is markedly downward in the most recent 40 years (since 1979) which is the earliest we have reliable measurements of Arctic sea ice from satellite microwave radiometers (my specialty),” Spencer noted.
“Made to fit where they don’t fit”
Also on Rahmstorf’s claim Arctic warmth begets extreme cold, Swiss veteran meteorologist Jörg Kachelmann tweeted directly:
You never know which is more terrible and unscrupulous, all the right-wing nuts who see a winter weather situation as an argument against the climate crisis or the desperately unscientific @rahmstorf who now also attributes an ordinary winter weather situation to climate change,”
On the Rahmstorf’s approach, Kachelmann adds:
No, there’s hardly any science in the story.
Things are being made to fit where they don’t fit. As always.”
Der Spiegel’s “rubbish”
Unfortunately, the polar vortex tale has been effective at duping the gullible media journalists, like those at Der Spiegel. They too are trying to hide their embarrassment of having been suckered by the manmade global warming catastrophe hoax over the past 3 decades. Kachelmannwetter.com tweets further:
The polar vortex is doing very well.
But because hardly anyone will verify this, because no one knows what it is and what it should look like, @derspiegel throws
throws the principles of editorial control overboard and writes rubbish.”
But don’t expect the media to concede they’ve been duped any time soon. It’s like one famous scientist once said: “Science progresses one funeral at a time.”
It’s going to take awhile longer.
