Winter's coldest thermal machine, almost bare ground in darkness

~When a thick snow layer becomes a thermal insulator roof for ground heat

~We explore the 2 current Cold Temperature North Poles of the Northern Hemisphere


   Presently there are 2 CTNP's in the Northern Hemisphere both rated almost as cold as each other:

     The nearly pervasive CTNP's of this cold season,  the CAA (Canadian Arctic Archipelago) and Northeast Siberia.  Taken from CMC 700 mb map 22/0000 UTC this winter solstice day.  Have had an early winter link with extensive snow layerings ,  now in darkness this link is broken,   Arctic locations with less of a snow have become the spawners of extreme cold temperatures:

  We know from a previous article (here),  that snow cover may not exactly be pin pointed correctly,  however the Baker Lake Kiwatin area  has a neat center of more bare land,  source Eisbedeckung und Schneehoehe from Wetterzentrale Dec 22 2017 0600 UTC.   Alaska seems to have a lot of snow, a likely reason for why winter is not becoming one massive Arctic block.  We note with interest Alberta which should be prone to massive cooling given that it is a corridor of no snow.  But here just West of the sea of Okhotsk East Siberia Russia has a similar land based snow lacuna.  Both relatively left unperturbed by weather events are great areas to cool the Northern world further in these highly localized geographies with hardly a sun to warm them.  As we have learned, the cooler the CTNP the more "attractive" it becomes to Cyclones.   They become unstable by their strength,  but come back once perturbed by weather  bondings which can't last due to the very nature of dark rapid cooling in these polar zones. WD Dec 22,2017