Judah Cohen

We created a new animation that shows the observed evolution of temperature anomalies throughout the Northern Hemisphere landmasses based on snow cover alone. We composited daily temperatures (using a five day filter) of years with observed high Eurasian October snow cover minus low Eurasian October snow cover. The animation runs from September 1 through February 28. You can view it on the Arctic Oscillation blog toward the bottom of the page.

Drs.

Justin Jones and I spoke at the AMS annual conference in Austin Texas, as well as many others from AER. Justin presented on tropospheric precursors and stratospheric warmings while I argued that predictability of the winter forecast based on the scientific current state of knowledge is limited to October.

I was not planning on attending AGU this fall in San Francisco but then received two invited talks; one on climate prediction and the other on how warming of the Arctic is impacting weather in the midlatitudes. Talks are very hard to come by at AGU, with 22,000 participants, so two invited talks seemed like an opportunity not to be squandered.

A hot topic of conversation this past winter was how mild and snowless this winter has been, especially compared to the past two winters along the Eastern Seaboard. And the mild winter certainly had people asking: is this what we can now expect from global warming?

Five meteorology talks in 4 countries in 2.5 weeks. Dr. Cohen’s “great capitals of the world” tour.

Snow Advance Index: A New Tool for Predicting Winter’s Severity Researchers at AER have developed a new Snow Advance Index that could greatly improve the accuracy of winter seasonal forecasts. Based on research and testing, this index for the first time can accurately predict the severity of the upcoming winter. What makes this discovery so significant is that advances in seasonal forecasting have remained elusive, and for much of the United States seasonal forecasts are no more accurate today then they were decades ago.