Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

71%
+3 −0
Q&A Arctic polar vortex collapse

The polar vortex nearly dies every year around springtime in the hemisphere you are concerned with. This failure is what brings those spring frosts in February, March. It's not really possible to ...

posted 2mo ago by James McLellan‭

Answer
#1: Initial revision by user avatar James McLellan‭ · 2024-09-26T15:16:57Z (2 months ago)
The polar vortex nearly dies every year around springtime in the hemisphere you are concerned with. This failure is what brings those spring frosts in February, March.

It's not really possible to break the vortex by adjusting mean tenperature.

What creates the vortex in the first place is temperature gradients. 

Starting in fall, the pole you care about, and everything above the arctic circle, doesn't see sunlight for six months. Temperatures drop (relative to parts of the Earth that are enjoyinv solar heating). The temperature drop causes a pressure drop (PV = rho R T) (again, pressure relative to the rest of the  and you get a forming and strengthening cyclone holding the coldest air within.

When the sun rises in local spring, the rising temperature at the pole breaks that low pressure grip, and that very cold air breaks out towards the temperate and tropic regions.

Change to the average temperature of all these events, don't change the dynamics: cooling will happen at the poles, it will drop the temperature, which will create a cyclone.

But let's say something breaks it forever. The cold air will empty out as it does every spring season, but it will be exceptionally severe as in 1935 or 1949. Maybe lasting a few weeks, instead of a few days. 

But then, the reservoir of super cold air will be empty, and unless something allows a cyclone to form seasonally trapping the cold air geographically, then future winters will be milder as the cold air is allowed to mix with tropical and temperate air during winter.