http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/arctic-meteo...
The idea is that warming the arctic lowers the pressure differential, leading to a "looser noose" so there are larger Rossby waves. These allow arctic air to penetrate farther south. Note that the website above only has data through 2008 so it missed the negative AO index last winter.
edit: Mike was right. The skeptic website had ripped off the graphic without attribution (funny thing that, a skeptic being intellectually dishonest). The substituted link has the correct citation for the source and a better description of the physics. I should have been more careful, but I didn't want to invest a lot of effort into responding. I mean, what's the point really.
The IP CC has stated this in most all of their reports. It's a "non-linear chaotic system". The very idea that climate scientists can connect the extended melting of ice in the Arctic with CO2 emissions just goes to show how they ignore their own findings. This is exactly why their computerized climate models do not accurately depict future climate states. Their studies are 'work-in-progress' and can show no absolutes about climate changes being attributed by additional human emitted CO2.
Human induced "Climate Change/Global Warming" is based on biased assumptions.
Mike's Pale Lame Imitation of Wattsup, Part 2.: There are aspects of weather that scientists don't understand, therefore a century of climate science is hoax perpetrated by the Pig-Bear-Gore-Monster hiding under Mike's bed.
It's kinda confusing.
I just read an interesting article on this subject. Here are some excerpts which I've got to say caught me by surprise:
"...the AO really isn't a mechanism that brings us these weird weather patterns. It's a symptom of them. Common wisdom has latched on to the idea that the AO is a dynamical structure- one that moves around the world and occasionally creates meteorological havoc by producing lengthy spells of uncommon weather. It is not.
Rather, the AO is a response to, or a byproduct of, the interaction among a group of fundamental atmospheric mechanisms." http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2011/02/dont_blame_the_arctic_oscillat.html
Thus, the claim in the article (don't know the author) is that the AO is an effect with some cause of which we are not certain. I had always thought circulations drive weather but this article seems to imply that weather might be driving circulations (like the AO).
This really complicates my understanding (trying anyways) of a negative AO driving cold winters. Does anybody know of any science supporting this article? Or as always, add your own thoughts.
