Brrrrr! Surface temperature -57 C in Siberia, the Cold Temperature North Pole Vortice of the hour, but its warmer everywhere else

 ~Siberia CTNP dominates winter 2020-21 in Northern Hemisphere 

~New Refraction method helps identify the likeliest protogenesis system causing cold air buildups. Massive cooling areas can stem by very complex geophysical factors,  luckily rendered simple by interface observations.  

~  In one feedback loop,  more snow comes from more clouds, in another loop the deep snow insulated ground cover saves the permafrost from rapidly rising reaching air in Arctic darkness, slowing the ground cooling process.    In other words,  darkness combined with lack of snow cover favors thermal radiation  escaping to space,  especially in areas far away from cyclones bringing warm air advection. 

   How does a winter area reach -57 C when it just was warmest year in history?  CMC January 22 1800 UTC surface map.  Note near sea ice shore its 20 to 25 C warmer,  

     

  The closest readily available Polarview SAR image to CTNP cold center,  suggests not so deep snow cover furtherest away from sea shore.   The surface temperature CTNP is North of lake Baikal,  a feature well above top of picture.   Here we see and realize that heat from the Arctic Ocean is tempered mostly by first year sea ice, undeniably a great warming source many times greater than by greenhouse gases.  

Extraordinary Refraction optical method directly immediately identifies when cold air is created, has confirmed 2021 winter far lesser capable in creating a very cold vortice on the Canadian side of the North Pole. 

        There are so many air freezing factors:  differing snow layers,  the shape of  ice crystals and snow flakes, snow density, sea ice thickness, heat from covered sea water, cloud cover, sublimation rates, winds, precipitation columns.... These factors spaced over thousands of varying in nature square Kilometers,  gives super computers a prediction deficit which most of us are familiar with.  But optical refraction observations at Canadian side Arctic subsisting over thicker snow cover, has confirmed interface warmth being greatly favored,   completely diminishing Northern Ellesmere and Greenland CTNP vortice to yield to Siberian freezing dominance.  

  Unfortunately,  we lack specific snow density data,  but Canadian Cryosphere Watch  snow cover thickness gives us some clues.  Lake Baikal area,  the current super cold spot  (grey and red) has a deficit in snow as opposed to near the East Siberian sea.   But look at Ellesmere 

swamped with snow,  in fact this Canadian  Island, usually the home of the coldest Vortice of the Northern Hemisphere,  currently has an excess of snow, a  + 100 cm  departure (purple).   The surface temperatures there are 32 C warmer than Siberian Minimum.  A more seasonal snow cover, less than 20 cm,  has dense cement like snow, leaving hardly a footprint,  making a person not sink in by a sublimation rendered  thick upper crust .   But a thicker snow layer stops the permafrost from teaming up with colder air from rapidly freezing the active ground layer, soil or rocks just below the surface.  At present this thicker snow column is sheltering a significant sugar like layer just below top thinner sublimation induced hard crust.  This granular snow,  far less dense than top crust,  prevented deep air cooling from appearing early during this long Arctic night.

     Without mid winter deep snow,  the Arctic becomes its perineal image,  very cold,  the engine of winter itself.  Must keep in mind 2020 record low polar sea ice extent and thinnest as well, along with much longer wider areas of open sea water leading up to December,  giving abnormal total precipitation columns.   Southern Siberia,  a vast area of land away from moisture sources,  is a favorably dry place.  However, as the end of long night approaches,  the role of deeper snow will flip temperature effects.   The permafrost active layer eventually will cool as much as earlier snow free grounds,  causing its thick

snow carpet density to increase in later winter,  guaranteeing a cold spring even during the gradual longer transitional sunny days,  even well after the shinning midnight sun.   

    The dye is set,  for now the CTNP will be Siberian until sun rays will rapidly warm its snowier free grounds, then so,  Ellesmere will have a bitter cold spring under the coldest vortice in the world. 

    There are so many variables causing extremely cold vortices within the Polar Vortex,  one can get lost in their causations.  But it comes down to 2 features;   the night,   over suitable favorable surface freezing conditions.  How deeply surface air cools depends on whether the interface between land/sea and atmosphere allows available surface heat to flee or to be caught in numerous feedback loops.  WD January 22,2021

       

Complex temperature role reversal. Siberia, from hottest summer to coldest thus far winter

 ~The reign of Ellesmere and North Greenland Cold temperature North Pole has been seriously challenged

~Rather changed,  the CTNP of winter 20-21 was often found in Central to Eastern Siberia.

~Is rather an indication of a moderate La-Nina,  and something as simple as the nature of surface snow. 

    2020 will be likely #1 shared  with 2016 Global warmest year in history,  as predicted in April here,  from the same EH2r projection page a small El-Nino,  or trending El-Nino happened April-May (the sun disk refraction method expected so) then a modest La-Nina gradually came about (very difficult to predict because of this blob,  ENSO trends were strongly masked by the North Pacific warm temperature blob. One of the greatest factors of 2020 making the warmest Global temperature as was in 2016 (the year of super strong El-Nino) ,  was the worldwide diminution of pollution activities due to Covid-19.   Summer came to be hot because of this, with dire consequences including USA West coast very damaging Armageddon wild fires,  along with Siberia temperatures at +30 C.   

    Arctic sea ice extent at September minima came very close to beat 2012,  just off prediction by 1 step , #2 least expansive sea ice at minima,  this still has serious consequences though,  which brings us to the topic at hand.  Since onset of winter the prime CTNP,  was mostly centered in Siberia, a strange turn of events, the hottest Siberian summer heat wave in history, preceded the coldest spot in current winter at about the same region. It may be a matter of snow,  largely how compact it is,   in the Canadian Arctic, with snow covering the permafrost was/is strangely  less compacted (due to extensive cloud cover and record warm temperatures),    having greater insulation properties,  this should have reinforced cooling especially in total Darkness:

SAR image 10-01-21 ,  Ellesmere Island, likely warmed by thinner sea ice (black) everywhere surrounding, except its Northern most point.  A strong CTNP often hovers over this Island year round.   The dark Fjords are all with fast ice (new and thin), except for a few multi year floes.  There is apparently a great deal of snow over Ellesmere,  not having any effect on  pronounced cooling,  as one would expect.  

    While Siberia seems to have less cement snow cover:

East Siberian sea shore,  likely with a lesser snow carpet than Ellesmere,  the recently frozen sea ice (dark area), has white layers in it,  meaning different age of sea ice or ridging due to movement.  SAR satellite picture acquires some snow on land on this band,  not so for sea ice.   

    Given that sea ice was second all time lowest extent at minima,  on both Arctic continents,  why is Siberia CTNP dominating at present? 

One good reason is the lower latitude snow line on the Eurasian side, but how does Siberia super hot summer morph into the coldest neighborhood of winter?  

The other reason was explained in April 2020 as linked on the URL above,  2020 summer CTNP was largely at the North Pole,

continuing all the way to autumn,  the Eurasian flow of air was from Ural's Eastwards,  a drier atmosphere, making the sudden onset of radiative cooling with lowering sun more impactful in Russia.   There is another plausible explanation,  La-Nina and the said Pacific warm temperature blob.  La-Nina effects were largely nullified over much of North America,  because of this Temp. blob.  However, the very warm North Pacific made it warmer for North America,  certainly not giving perfect weather, because of expansive prolonged periods of cloudiness.  La-Nina however modest,  is still about,  this reduced cloud cover all over the world except East of the North Pacific.  In the Arctic,  the upper atmosphere was indeed largely dry except for the very lowest altitudes,  all that open water from 2nd lowest historical Arctic sea ice extent has certainly made the Arctic warmer and snowier,  but the Polar  upper atmosphere was consistently devoid of moisture above about 1000 meters or so.  The Canadian vortice,  usually one of two vortices forming the Polar Vortex,  got less dominant and shrunken,  while Siberia with a dryer sky cover,  with lesser clouds.  acquiring snow faster and earlier,  was sufficient to shift the location of the coldest vortice of the Polar Vortex,  to reside East of Northern Russia.  WD January 10, 2021