Aussies face climate apocalypse due to a sudden stratospheric heating event above Antarctica.

Large swathes of New South Wales and southern Queensland will face catastrophic weather events over the next few months. The reason is Antarctica's westerly winds, which control the Australian climate, are impacted by 'sudden stratospheric warming.'

As a result, the direst prediction is a change in Australia's rainfall patterns. The likely outcome is drought, desertification, mass deaths of livestock, plants, fish and other wildlife, out of control fires and unbearable heat.

Excerpt from The Conversation:

Every winter, westerly winds – often up to 200km per hour – develop in the stratosphere high above the South Pole and circle the polar region. The winds develop as a result of the difference in temperature over the pole (where there is no sunlight) and the Southern Ocean (where the sun still shines).

As the sun shifts southward during spring, the polar region starts to warm. This warming causes the stratospheric vortex and associated westerly winds to gradually weaken over the period of a few months.

However, in some years this breakdown can happen faster than usual. Waves of air from the lower atmosphere (from large weather systems or flow over mountains)  warm the stratosphere above the South Pole, and weaken or “mix” the high-speed westerly winds.

Very rarely, if the waves are strong enough they can rapidly break down the polar vortex, actually reversing the direction of the winds so they become easterly. This is the technical definition of “sudden stratospheric warming.”

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Unusual hot spots in the stratosphere, up to 30 kilometres above #Antarctica, could significantly influence Australia’s #spring#weather. Atmospheric research @AusAntarctic stations provides key insights for our future. @BOM_auhttps://t.co/VbPcw05iRS📷 T. Iolovski pic.twitter.com/SEZ13tDCzN

— antarctica.gov.au (@AusAntarctic) September 11, 2019

Jamie Sidell of the Daily Mercury writes:

Impacts from this stratospheric warming are likely to reach Earth's surface in the next month and possibly extend through to January.

Apart from warming the Antarctic region, the most notable effect will be a shift of the Southern Ocean westerly winds towards the Equator.

For regions directly in the path of the strongest westerlies, which includes western Tasmania, New Zealand's South Island, and Patagonia in South America, this generally results in more storminess and rainfall, and colder temperatures.

But for subtropical Australia, which largely sits north of the main belt of westerlies, the shift results in reduced rainfall, clearer skies, and warmer temperatures.

x xVimeo Video Destruction of Gondwanan refugia by wildfire ignited by lightning storms in 2016. The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia are the most extensive area of subtropical rainforest in the world

Ecosystems across Australia are collapsing under climate change

We identified ecosystems across Australia that have recently experienced catastrophic changes, including:

kelp forests shifting to seaweed turfs following a single marine heatwave in 2011; the destruction of Gondwanan refugia by wildfire ignited by lightning storms in 2016; dieback of floodplain forests along the Murray River following the millennial drought in 2001–2009; large-scale conversion of alpine forest to shrubland due to repeated fires from 2003–2014; community-level boom and bust in the arid zone following extreme rainfall in 2011–2012, and mangrove dieback across a 1,000km stretch of the Gulf of Carpentaria after a weak monsoon in 2015-2016.

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Oh sure, this'll work a treat. Who the feck thinks this stuff up. Scott Morrison, the 'scientist'? "Hey Gladys, Adam, god spoke to me again this morning. I have a plan!" #auspol#nswpol#fishkillshttps://t.co/XUPZOS7x2z

— 💧🌏🏳️‍🌈Jenny Frecklington-Jones; #NotMyPM (@Triplejay58) September 9, 2019

Of these six case studies, only the Murray River forest had previously experienced substantial human disturbance. The others have had negligible exposure to stressors, highlighting that undisturbed systems are not necessarily more resilient to climate change.

The case studies provide a range of examples of how presses and pulses can interact to push an ecosystem to a “tipping point”. In some cases, a single extreme event may be sufficient to cause an irreversible regime shift.

Scott Morrison sits in parliament with a lump of coal during Question Time in February 2017. 1

In a devastating opinion piece, Richard Flanagan obliterates the vile climate criminal, Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Two years ago the then treasurer Scott Morrison picked up a large lump of coal. Perhaps he thought it was a great joke for Australia at the expense of a few weird outliers like the Greens and the global scientific community. Or perhaps Morrison wasn’t really thinking anything. Perhaps the greatest error of journalists is thinking people at the centre are more than they seem. The problem with people like Morrison, the true terror, is that they may be so much less.

snip

He waved the piece of coal around like it was the sacred Host itself, he swung it high and he brought it so low that for a moment it was as if a wildly guffawing Barnaby Joyce seated next to him might lick it. How they laughed! The ranks of the Liberal party assembled around and behind, how they all laughed and laughed that day.

Those faces contorted in weird mirth are the grotesque masks of a great and historic crime, deriding not just their political opponents but mocking the future with that pure contempt of power, daring us to remember beyond the next news cycle, to care beyond the next confected outrage, to see past the next lie. It is the image of our age: power laughing at us.

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If you had any confusion about who is responsible for global CO2 emissions, this figure should help. pic.twitter.com/DsjyKKmnpT

— Coulson (@Coulson_Lantz) September 9, 2019

When Scott Morrison visited Tasmania yesterday he wasn’t photographed holding a lump of coal up in Geeveston. In the evacuation centre at Huonville. In the sacred King Billy pine groves of Mt Bobs or the exquisite cushion plant gardens of the Walls of Jerusalem. I doubt he had the folly to tell people don’t be scared. I am sure that he looked concerned and perhaps occasionally he smiled, the smile of the weak man, the smile of all the empty men.

And tomorrow there will be another welcome photo opportunity at another unprecedented “natural” disaster, another fire, another flood. And when he retires back into his prime ministerial limo I wonder if he laughs. He should. Laugh at us all, Scott Morrison, you and the others who sit with you, grinning fools at the entrance to hell. Laugh and laugh as the ash falls soft as silent despair.

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Post courtesy of Bush Heritage Australia. "Australia has recorded the highest rate of mammal extinction of any country over the past 200 years. Over 400 species of threatened Australian birds, mammals,... https://t.co/F7N6eRM3H7

— GreatMysteryPublish (@GreatMysteryP) December 30, 2018

Friday, Sep 13, 2019 · 8:05:27 PM +00:00 · Pakalolo

From the comments:

FishOutofWater Sep 13, 2019 at 11:24:19 AM

Phys.org piece quotes a guy who says the sudden stratospheric warming is not thought to be related to climate change/global warming. In fact, I think that it is, but the atmospheric physics community is doing active research on the stratosphere to understand what’s happening. It is not “settled science”.

Coupling of the subtropical jet stream, through intensified wave activity, with the stratosphere, is a predicted consequence of tropical warming. This late Austral winter and early spring planetary wave number 1 activity has been exceptionally intense in the southern hemisphere. That wave activity caused the sudden stratospheric warming.

Southern hemisphere planetary 1 wave activity in 2019. Extraordinarily intense wave number 1 activity has caused a rare southern hemispheric sudden stratospheric warming.