Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Everything is Atmospheric Rivers these days

 The Canadian weather people have just discovered atmospheric rivers, which I call tropical plumes.


The only way to see them is with the MIMIC-2 plot.


They are true convection plumes of warm, moist air.

If you look at them like a weather person without physics, then you just see swirls, or classic storms.


So, it is a big deal they went to 'rivers', except they don't explain them in terms of physics.  Those guys want to keep their jobs, and use obscure jargon.

The term 'river' was developed in California.  It's more for a very long storm with a lot of rain.  That's when the plume makes a direct hit, and a given area is subjected to the whole length, like it is in a river. With this pattern, BC is now just getting with a slide-slash of the plume.  It was getting hit for months of perpendicular rivers.  Nobody mentioned that.

I just had a very polite discussion with warmies, on the definition of 'climate'.  It seems that the term 'climate change' is recursive, since it is changing the meaning of climate, and they all agree.  Instead of just an average, they want to add 'extremes', such as 'The climate of UK is cool and wet, and now it is more extreme'.  This does not fit into math, but it could be the 'standard deviation'.  


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