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A series of opinion pieces on, mostly climate change and related subjects to do with New Zealand.

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El Nino verses Jet stream

5/4/2014

2 Comments

 
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The probability of an El Nino event in late northern summer has recently increased substantially and although this can bring drought to many critical regions it could deliver rain to California and break their drought. This poses and interesting question, California has had a persistent ridge of high pressure sitting over the Pacific, just off the coast, which has diverted rain clouds north to Alaska and high pressure systems are notoriously difficult to shift. This high pressure ridge, the cause of the drought, could be linked to the jet stream changes brought about by the diminishing Arctic sea ice.

If the El Nino develops it would normally send rain bearing low pressure systems to California which would be very welcome even if it also delivers a few floods.

Which one is going to win? Will the ridge of high pressure persist and divert the rain bearing systems north or will these systems overwhelm the high pressure and break the drought?

 Like most climate events it takes time for it to happen but the next year should be quite interesting.


2 Comments
Robert Bristow
19/4/2014 10:30:29 am

NOAA predict that the drought will persist and even get worse in California for spring and summer 2014, and it seems the flavour of the predicted El Nino maybe a Modoki which does not not tend to bring much rain to California. They better keep building those desalination plants, Carlsbad is the biggest. The Modoki El Nino seem to favour more hurricanes making landfall in the Atlantic and some scientists link it with global warming. I agree it will be an interesting time from the scientific view,

Reply
Bo Bingham
22/4/2014 02:46:52 pm

Thanks for that Rob. The Pine island glacier is the big one to watch in Antarctica. There is a lot going on even if it is a slow motion train wreck.

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    Bob Bingham 

    Occasional blog posts on topical news items concerning the climate.  Please click the RSS feed to receive updates.

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