2018 annual spring summer projection by mainly unorthodox underutilized optical methods PART 2

~  Past winter prognosis ,  remarkable contradictions.


The great Cold Temperature North Pole  vortex of Western Canadian Arctic Archipelago.  

  We start at winter end,  when contrary to present time most of the dark season Arctic was warmer and cloudy.  Somehow the heat influence grasp of North Atlantic cyclones nearly constantly circumnavigating North Greenland from the East fell short of South of the 70th parallel,   somehow the upper air got colder in an important sector of the Arctic,  this cold air aggregate sprung out in force in March,  it had multiple density layers causing amazing sunsets :

I have filmed a few Wegener blank strips over the years,  this one was entirely complicated.    This kiss of the mirror sun type,  had amazing gravity waves in the lower frame, shown here ascending with the inverse lower sun disk limb.  Up to 4 gravity waves mystically appeared bright adjoining the deep dark,  blank zone, implying ducted light which got scattered out to extinction by the very long distance travelled, up to or in excess of 2000 kilometers. 

   Stacked Green flashes vanish as fast as they were created.  Sunsets were for the most part shifted Northwards in March compared to previous 10 years,  with one setting at -2.3 degrees below the horizon,  a very rare recent 8 year occasion, much more common in 2002-2005 period,  the last time this happened was once in 2014 and once in 2010 .   April sunsets disappeared slightly Southwards than average.   The near surface air in April was prominently adiabatic.

  An apparent contradiction,  this March 31 2018 sun disk vertical diameter is large, 24.90 arc minutes,  at an altitude close to the horizon,  2018 horizon sun disks tended to be vertically thicker near the horizon,  much diminished than average well above.  This described the structure of the atmosphere,  warmer very near the ground, much much colder in the upper atmosphere,  in fact sun disk data was astounding:

   What is the score?  

                                                     Levels @ #1  Year   Ranking   

                                          19   2016 First Place

14 2015 2

11 2006 3

9 2005 4

9 2009 4

9 2010 4

9 2011 4

9 2013 4

8 2012 5

5 2017 6

4 2004 7

4 2007 8

4 2008 9

4 2014 10

2 2002 11

1 2003 12

                    0 2018 ? 13 dead last

            With more than 500 vertical sun disk  measurements within 120 decimal levels,  taken by high resolution telescope photos from -0.9 to 10.9 degrees astronomical elevations.   Mostly with March and April data,  February was cloudy.  This 2018 '0' result is amazing,  it implies a very cold Upper Atmosphere,  in fact the coldest since the start of vertical sun disk measurements, mainly to the West of central Canadian Arctic Archipelago ,  a location not measured by soundings.  Not one of 120 possible decimal elevation levels average sun disk diameters was all time highest.   This forced me to look at the bottom of rankings vertical dimensions results for the first time ever,  there is something peculiar about them,  many occurred during La-Nina trending periods but mostly with neutral or neutral trending  end of winters:  

2002 -0.1 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.4 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.2 1.3 1.1 2003 0.9 0.6 0.4 0.0 -0.3 -0.2 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.4 2004 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.7 0.7 0.7 2005 0.6 0.6 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.1 -0.1 -0.1 -0.1 -0.3 -0.6 -0.8 2006 -0.8 -0.7 -0.5 -0.3 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.7 0.9 0.9 2007 0.7 0.3 0.0 -0.2 -0.3 -0.4 -0.5 -0.8 -1.1 -1.4 -1.5 -1.6 2008 -1.6 -1.4 -1.2 -0.9 -0.8 -0.5 -0.4 -0.3 -0.3 -0.4 -0.6 -0.7 2009 -0.8 -0.7 -0.5 -0.2 0.1 0.4 0.5 0.5 0.7 1.0 1.3 1.6 Year DJF JFM FMA MAM AMJ MJJ JJA JAS ASO SON OND NDJ 2010 1.5 1.3 0.9 0.4 -0.1 -0.6 -1.0 -1.4 -1.6 -1.7 -1.7 -1.6 2011 -1.4 -1.1 -0.8 -0.6 -0.5 -0.4 -0.5 -0.7 -0.9 -1.1 -1.1 -1.0 2012 -0.8 -0.6 -0.5 -0.4 -0.2 0.1 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.0 -0.2 2013 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.2 -0.3 -0.3 -0.4 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.2 -0.3 2014 -0.4 -0.4 -0.2 0.1 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.7 2015 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.5 1.8 2.1 2.4 2.5 2.6 2016 2.5 2.2 1.7 1.0 0.5 0.0 -0.3 -0.6 -0.7 -0.7 -0.7 -0.6 2017 -0.3 -0.1 0.1 0.3 0.4 0.4 0.2 -0.1 -0.4 -0.7 -0.9 -1.0 2018 -0.9 -0.8

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     El-Nino  or El-Nino trending periods tend to expand vertical sun disks ,  this leads me to conclude that there is a strong causality between vertical sun disk dimensions and ENSO variations.    Brings attention to 2018 ENSO direction?  It seems that it will be a neutral ENSO summer.   The larger question would be whether Arctic sun disks can infer the temperature of a large part of Pacific equator,  it appears so.   

   First Melt 2018 

           As reported before, First Melt 2018 was earliest in history,  but with the most frequent resumption of sea ice horizons to astronomical 0 degrees elevation afterwards.  This directly implies all time lowest sea ice thickness,  actually close to it with actual auger measurements,  this was largely achieved by extra snow precipitation as mentioned above,  it snowed during most of the dark season due in large part to Southern cyclones directly hitting the Archipelago from the continent (mainly Pacific Ocean in origin,  with one long lasting quasi-stationary Hudson Bay event) , or by  North Atlantic Lows circumnavigating Northern Greenland  .     When Astronomical Horizon is attained the sea ice bottom may melt due to the thermally neutral balance at sea ice to air interface,  in other words no loss of heat towards space due to top of sea ice temperature being equal to surface air.  The more frequent and longer  Astronomical Horizon occurs above the sea ice horizon the less likely a great sea ice accretion will occur.  

  Near Refraction Observations

     Amazing results again with the near refraction areas,  almost all winter with very weak refraction heights, hardly having significant variations,  in darkness just as much as during sunlight periods,   this has been a continuing increasing trend going back to 2010,  implying a change in temperature structure of the lower atmosphere towards a more unstable one.

  Structure of a very cold stable Upper Arctic Atmosphere

     Data gathered by the usual means added to optical refraction techniques revealed a peculiar structure of a very cold Upper Atmosphere late winter 2018.  It has mainly an adiabatic surface to air interface spanning up to 100 meters or so,  then has a stable sometimes strong inversion,   increasing the temperature profile to a warm maxima usually below 850 mb,  or 1000 meters in altitude, after maxima peak adiabatic profile resumes till the tropopause.  Refraction sun disk observations suggest a deep cooling above the profile maxima,  not often measured by traditional means due to scarcity of Arctic stations.  End of winter 2018 vertical sun disk diameters  above 2 degrees elevation have been exceptionally consistently smaller than 2002-2017 average.   Especially at higher than 10 degrees elevation,  a very rare event,  not seen since 2002,  following a prolonged very cold La-Nina which ensued after 1998 then strongest in history El-Nino.    1998 -2001 La-Nina was so cold 2003  disk observations did not recover in expanded sun diameters even during 2002-2003 mild El-Nino.   Near surface deep inversions reduce vertical sun disk diameters below especially 2 degrees elevation having at least 19.4  atmospheric thickness and more,  this means that at the number of density layers bending sun rays upwards increase 19 fold,  a prominent near surface inversion would give the impression of a very cold atmosphere,  but that is not necessarily so at higher elevations.  Above 10 degrees elevation the number of increased density layers are only 6 fold more,   above that altitude surface inversions don't affect sun disk diameters very much.  Shorter vertical diameters above 10 degrees gives a very significant cold atmosphere signal.  Reverse wise,  closer to near the horizon,  expanded sun disks imply a warmer adiabatic or isothermal temperature profile.   The often observed adiabatic surface interface may only be from thinner sea ice radiating more heat towards space.  WD April 28 2018