Blog: Is April the new June?

[windfind]

Hi Gang,

So as Mike S. said in a mail yesterday, "Is April the new June"

Here is a blog about this June Gloom in April:

http://blog.weatherflow.com/something-happening-here-what-it-is-aint-exactly-clear-buffalo-springfield/

Mike Godsey
iwindsurf.com

[chophop]

There is more to it than just that. April the new June wind.

Dry winters for 4 straight years. Sierra snowpack at 9% of average. It looks like June up there in the Sierra too.

Starving sea lion pups showing up in droves at the Marine Mammal Rescue Center. Millions of little jelly fish in the water in April in Nor Cal.

Is all this Climate change? I don't know, but my guess is yes.

[windfind]

Hi Chophop.

Actually the blog was just addressing the unusual deep June Gloom and SW flow in April. And you have to look at the whole blog link, just the one graphic, to see what I was talking about.

But you are right. Things are changing. California wind patterns, which were relatively stable for decades, have been changing dramatically in the last 20 years. Unless you study the patterns every day like I do you would barely notice it from year to year. But the change is very real.

Tying something like seasonal wind to Global Warming is problematic. But noticing the long term and dramatic changes in the seasonal positioning of the North Pacific High or the average depth of the marine layer is easy.

Mike

[rigatoni]

Mike,

Going back further than the start of windsurfing in California and the beginning of your forecasts around here, is there any hard data that you can look at to establish what the "wind pattern" has typically been? I have to imagine that the data and modeling tools at your fingertips today are light years ahead of what was available 30 years ago. Perhaps the last couple of decades were the aberration and what we have started to experience is more normal?

Rigatoni

[gerritt]

Rigatoni - I hope you are not a climate change denier. I just don't get those folks that refuse to acknowledge what is right outside their window.

As far as hard data to support a typical wind patter going back further than the last 20-30 years, there is plenty of brick, mortar, and steal at SFO to attest to typical wind patterns since the 1920's. They built it facing the San Bruno gap for a reason. The same reason peninsula windsurfers and kiters flock to Coyote and Third in the afternoons: average 20 knot winds from the NW.

And before I get called out by Iso, this is not a political issue. It is and will affect all living things on the planet regardless of politics.

[windfind]

Hi Rigatoni,

In a rush so just a short note.

You sure are not going to find accurate wind data that far back. But the two things that are critical to the Northern California winds are the marine layer depth and the average position of the North Pacific High.

The coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens, survival often depends upon summer fog penetrating up into the coastal valley the condensing creating water drip during Northern California yearly summer drought. The deeper the marine layer the 1. higher up in the coastal valleys the redwoods can grow, 2. the thicker their annual growth rings become and 3. the greater the distribution of seedlings. When the marine layer shrinks or is absent all of the above are diminished.

Given the longevity of redwood wood there is a good record of their growth rings and there is decent historical data on the distribution of redwoods and their seedlings. All suggest a marine layer that has become, on the average, shallower in historical times.

Historical shipping accounts constantly mention the deep and persistent Bay Area marine layer and the chilly summers. There are even this alive and on the water who remember that Bay Area heat waves used to occur mostly during "indian summer" but in recent decades much of the bay is mostly clear of fog and heatwaves now occur even in May.

If you look online you can find the old sailing ship routes. They did not take the most direct Great Circle route but rather took curving pathways using the winds of consistent high pressure wind machines like the NPH. If you look at those old sailing routes and plot them against the average location of the NPH in recent years you can see that old sailing routes often would no longer work.

I am not remotely a climatologist and none of the above is really "hard" science but it does suggest to me we are in a marine layer thinning pattern that probably spans more that a couple of decades.

Of course none of this matters now since we can burn oil for ships, build decks out of composites and go kiting rather than windsurf. As Alfred E. Neuman once said "What me worry"

Mike Godsey
iwindsurf.com

[dbrock]

"The coldest Winter I ever spent was a Summer in San Francisco."
- Mark Twain-

[rigatoni]

Gerritt-I am not a climate change denier but I genuinely don't just accept things as fact just because enough people keep parroting politically correct things over and over again and declare that sky is falling every time a weather pattern appears to be atypical. I also don't appreciate the condescending attitude of those who do.

There is reasonable data coming from people studying climate to indicate that the increased CO2 in the atmosphere caused by humans burning fossil fuels will increase global average temperatures. As far as how that will affect our wind pattern, that is pure speculation.

I do find it ironic living in the Bay Area, which probably contains an abnormally high percentage of environmentalists and global warming alarmists, that we tend to consume natural resources and generate CO2 at a rate far exceeding that of the average human on this planet. I also notice that even my most liberal friends don't seem all that interested in making any serious change in their lifestyle to address this coming calamity other than maybe buying a Prius. Most of us wind addicts have a huge carbon footprint driving around chasing wind both locally and on vacation. We have our gear fabricated in China and shipped over here year in and year out that has pretty large impact as well.

As far as the subject of this topic, my commentary is related to Mike's observation on the SUBTLE changes in our weather pattern. In the 20+ years I've been sailing here, it still continues to be windy enough to windsurf somewhere in the bay almost every day between March and October on either a primarily NPH driven NW coastal wind or a thermally driven SW wind. I think the wind in the last few years has been more SW and less NW. Seems like 20 years ago, the coast would get blasted by strong NW wind for weeks on end. Either way, SFO would be built the same today as it would have been a hundred years ago.

[chophop]

Rigatoni: "Gerritt-I am not a climate change denier but I genuinely don't just accept things as fact just because enough people keep parroting politically correct things over and over"

Global Climate change is not a political issue, it is a scientific fact. The 98% of scientists who study climate and warn us of the incoming data are not just people parroting. The disappearing polar ice packs and glaciers are facts. The markedly dry winters and the absence of a Sierra Snow pack and dropping aquifers in california are facts.

"environmentalists and global warming alarmists"... Calling people who are deeply concerned about these things "Alarmists" is propaganda dreamed deep in the the bowels of the Republican think tanks and their public organ; FOX. Those who repeat this propaganda are the ones "parroting" Why do the republicans deny Climate Change? Because they fear and loathe Government and Government regulation, so they let this political belief eclipse the facts before them. Global Climate change is a fact but addressing it does require political action Cap and Trade, like that enacted here is California, is the best hope but the flat earthers who now control congress have announced that such legislation is DOA in DC.
No one can say that any one weather pattern is the result of increased CO2 in the atmosphere but these events as they keep coming are reminders that we have changed the climate and we as a society need to do something about that:!: