Talk:Polar vortex

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 January 2019 and 9 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mieleveronica, Westbrookholly.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:49, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Large scale?
What does "large scale" mean? The size of a typical Kansas tornado, ten times as large, a hundred? --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 19:18, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Synoptic scale. A wikilink has been added so people can explore what that means.  Thegreatdr (talk) 01:05, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Ozone depletion references?
Since the role of CFCs and other factors is still uncertain, some references in this section would be useful. As would fair representation of research showing other factors influencing the ozone 'hole'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.61.210.61 (talk) 22:31, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Added references. Thegreatdr (talk) 01:03, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Early January 2014 Polar Vortex news frenzy
Technically Polar cyclones are the transitions of low pressure areas between Aleutian low and Icelandic low, as far as I can see. Some meteorologist may confirm this. Moved the Polar cylone in the template to the annual cyclones section as there is a clear annual rythm of changes with these. How they'll react to the disappearance of the arctic ice is still an unresolved question (ref to nasa image of the day (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=78808)

Disappointingly, recent (early January 2014) news reports have gotten the polar vortex exactly backwards, saying it's strengthened (and that's the cause of the brutal cold experienced in the US). This may produce some invalid edits of this article.drh (talk) 14:03, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Oy. It's merely migrated farther south than normal, temporarily.  Things will be back towards normal in a couple days.  Since it's being targeted by the media right now, I'll keep an eye on the article in case it is defaced.  Thegreatdr (talk) 18:11, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Headline: "Left Creates Polar Vortex to Make You Think Winter is Caused by Global Warming" This is a long discussion with an Earth map added, discussing a lot about the media frenzy. Rush Limbaugh, like others, say they remember cold winters and walking to school in massive snow, uphill, both ways. :-) Rush Limbaugh is a student of global weather and expects there may be a three-day gap in the cold for Superbowl Sunday. Roy Spencer (scientist) is the EIB climatologist. — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 04:19, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2014/01/06/left_creates_polar_vortex_to_make_you_think_winter_is_caused_by_global_warming

Ongoing studies
This part is based on a 2007 study which run 3 years and was published in 2011. Though the section should be updated, and contain current outline of research. Prokaryotes (talk) 03:59, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Updated. Prokaryotes (talk) 10:05, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Frigid twister?
I've reached the reversion limit for this item, but apparently the Philadelphia News is calling the polar vortex a frigid twister. Trying to correlate a system 500+ mi/900+ km wide to a tornado is comical, at best. I have not found any reasonable source that calls the polar vortex anything outside of the polar vortex or circumpolar whirl, other than this news item. Has anyone else? If it helps, the article has other information wrong, like the all-time record low maximum for Philadelphia (which is 5f set in Feb 10 1899). The high was only 6f at Philadelphia in January 1994. Thegreatdr (talk) 23:22, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The Philly.com article is the only reference of the term I could find. The comments on the edit mention that two other meteorologists referenced the term today. They did, but both were in a critical context (see: https://twitter.com/WxmanTony/status/420698015284736000 & https://twitter.com/SeverePlains/status/420702203192434689). The best expansion I can make of Cristaldi's "#YGBFKM" is "You've Got To be Fucking Kidding Me," which tells me that these two experts give no credence to the term. I'm a third, but take that for whatever it's worth. "Frigid twister" isn't included in the American Meteorological Society's Glossary of Meteorology description of the Polar Vortex, and shouldn't be listed as an alternate term here. If this isn't an example of Citogenesis, it's pretty doggone close. 71.76.61.95 (talk) 08:53, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I worked with Tony on CaPE, so many years ago. I placed it on my facebook page and he responded on twitter.  Such is life in the realm of social media.  If a consensus forms, we'll remove it.  I'm worried about conflict of interest on my end -- I use the term fairly frequently in my meteorological discussions (polar vortex or circumpolar whirl).  Thegreatdr (talk) 20:08, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Language
The general assumption.... I would have thought that wikipedia didn't work with assumptions, and had peer reviewed facts? 137.138.79.40 (talk) 12:25, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Explained here by scientists (or check the references of said section) http://climatestate.com/2014/01/08/yale-climate-jetstream-and-polar-vortex/ Prokaryotes (talk) 16:10, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh no! The only type of primary source lower than newspapers/media is a blog/vlog.  I don't think we can/should work with blog entries, even if it's in a video form (vlog), especially from a global climate change website.  We need a neutral point of view.  Peer review or book only, unless you want to risk people getting censured in the editing of this article due to some future edit war.  This is a climatological feature -- do we need the controversy that has surrounded climate change articles on wikipedia brought into this article?  Thegreatdr (talk) 20:14, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Scientist and Science Advisor to the White House, John Holdren "The Polar Vortex Explained in 2 Minutes" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eDTzV6a9F4 Prokaryotes (talk) 03:56, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Hatnote
It seems this article needs a hatnote to 2014 North American cold wave. I added one, but it was removed here. Regardless of the actual connection, people searching for "polar vortex" will almost certainly be trying to find out more about the current cold wave. It doesn't matter whether there is an actual connection - hatnotes are often used with totally unrelated topics; they are not the same as "see also" links - this will help the reader. StAnselm (talk) 20:56, 10 January 2014 (UTC)


 * This is the beauty of the Internet vs. a row of bound encyclopedia on your bookshelf - instant cross-linking through space instead of being stuck consulting indexes and then flipping through volumes, page by page. Links and hatnotes are good things. They are helpful in getting us into an overview of an entire topic quickly and in leading us to find an aspect of a topic when we don't quite know how to phrase our initial query. They are also enriching in sending us to a related topic aspect that may be new to us. Links are powerful helpers, but so often they are underutilized on Wikipedia articles. Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 16:30, 11 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Please don't use jargon like "hatnote" without an explanation / definition. Most people who don't live on the internet have no idea what this term means. It's WikiJargon. 98.194.39.86 (talk) 20:49, 9 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I don't see a hatnote. But we need more of them. The term "polar vortex" has been used on the news yet again.— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  21:30, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

The polar vortex is not a midlatitude weather system
There seems to be some confusion in this article as to the distinction between the polar vortex, a wintertime feature of the stratosphere, and transient wintertime extratropical low-pressure systems. The polar vortex is a cold, dense mass of air that typically situated over the polar region in the winter hemisphere and is bounded by the polar night jet. From a terminology standpoint, the events of early January 2014 were a displacement of the polar vortex rather than the spontaneous formation of a polar vortex. The first sentence of this article "a" polar vortex, is thus misleading as it implies the polar vortex is a transient feature like a midlatitude storm, which it is not. This entire section of the introduction, for instance, is a description of a low-pressure system and not of the polar vortex and thus needs to be removed:


 * These cold-core low-pressure areas strengthen in the winter and weaken in the summer due to their reliance upon the temperature differential between the equator and the poles.[2] They usually span less than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) in which the air is circulating in a counter-clockwise fashion (in the Northern Hemisphere). As with other cyclones, their rotation is caused by the Coriolis effect.

Can this distinction be made clear in this article? Both here and in the media the term "polar vortex" has been misused and has resulted in the sensationalization of the very specific scientific phrase. WavenumberThree (talk) 20:28, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I believe the editor that changed "the" to "a" polar vortex made the change as they exist at both poles...therefore there is not just one. A polar vortex is not simply a mass of cold air at the surface, even if they can lead to surface arctic air outbreaks -- it is a circulation aloft.  Mid-latitude cyclones can strengthen the vortex as they move within its proximity, so there is a gray area.  They are a constant climatological feature -- not just a wintertime feature -- and as you mention it can morph/split into different pieces.  Thegreatdr (talk) 23:25, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

The new normal
In November, 100 people were visiting this page per day. In January, the page reached an insane peak of viewership, which has not faded. Even during the past month, we're still getting about 500 views a day. I thank everyone that has worked to improve this article since January -- it's been quite the transformation. I don't think its very far from a GAN run. Thegreatdr (talk) 06:32, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

do you really mean this?
Your article starts....A polar vortex is a persistent, large-scale cyclone that circles either of the planet's geographical poles.

To me this means the polar vortex circulates around the north pole on Mondays Wednesdays  and Fridays  while on Tuesdays and Thursdays it circulates  around the south pole. Sort of like the NYC parking bans. Do I have it right????? Arydberg (talk) 17:08, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Warmer in the Western United States?
This news article says that the same weather changes that bring frigid temperatures from the polar vortex into the Midwest and East Coast bring warmer temperatures to the West.

Is that correct? Worth adding to this topic?

http://kjzz.org/content/103485/cold-weather-back-east-causing-valleys-temperature-spike

68.3.67.38 (talk) 13:46, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Polar vortex vs Polar cell
I'm not into this topic, so I wonder if polar cell and polar vortex are the same thing, or just related terms? Can anyone elaborate on this?--RoadTrain (talk) 19:29, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

They refer to 2 different but sometimes related things. The Polar cell refers to a meridional circulation, (i,e north/south), while the polar vortex is a mass of cold air that hovers over the pole and is kept there by the strong a zonal circulation (east/west) which goes around it. The link between them is that the polar jet is located at the boundary between the polar and Ferrel cells, and this is the major source of zonal momentum that helps create the cyclonic circulation around the polar vortex. Rfajber (talk) 01:14, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

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Intro
The discussion of rotation direction is ambiguous. Perhaps: "Consider an observer in outer space who is moving with the earth but not rotating. To him or her, both polar vortices rotate in the same direction as the earth's rotation.  For such an observer over the north pole, the northern polar vortex rotates counterclockwise (a cyclone).  For such an observer over the south pole, the southern polar vortex rotates clockwise."

This may be untrue, but I can't tell the true state of affairs from the description in the introduction. If you are looking at the face of an analogue clock, the hands move clockwise, but if the clock is transparent and you look from the back of the clock, the hands move counterclockwise. So whether something appears clockwise or counterclockwise depends on from where you view the motion. In addition whether or not the observer is co-rotating with the earth (as a ground-based observer would be) can affect the perception of the rotation. If there is super-rotation, a ground-based observer would still see the rotation as being in the same sense; but if the winds do not keep up with the earth's rotation, a ground-based observer would consider the winds to rotate in the opposite sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.66.189.2 (talk) 19:28, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
 * You are right, that [counter]clock-wise is not very intuitive, even if it IS the traditional term describing this. I'll add a short sentence explaining that this means both vortexes blow east-ward around the poles. We could add a link to the coriolis force to explain why? The reason is that the whole earth rotates east-wards, and as the wind blow towards the low-pressure areas of the poles, they are turned east-wards by the coriolis force (the physics is, that initially the air is rotating along with the earth, but as it moves towards the pole, it moves with the curvature of the earth to a smaller distance from the earth axis - which means that it angular momentum would be reduced. So to obey conservation of angular momentum, the air has to rotate faster than the earth, as it approaches the pole / earth axis. Just as a spinning ice-skater will can accelerate their rotation by pulling their arms closer to the body Tøpholm (talk) 18:51, 31 January 2018 (UTC)


 * The easier description is that the masses of cold air over the polar regions keep their position in space (or tries to), but the planet Earth is rotating underneath then. To those on the Earth surface, this appears as if the air is moving. But the air is rather stationary in space, or tries to, but the Earth is moving; it is rotating with an axis thru the North and South poles. Well, the friction between air and earth causes the air being dragged by the Earth rotation. Looking at the Polar Vortexes from space in the way presented here by me simplifies the explanation much simpler. --L.Willms (talk) 14:15, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

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TWO polar vortices
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00212.1 Acccording to this article, there are TWO polar vortices, a Tropospheric and a Stratospheric. Maybe this article unifies them? This is confusing as I've seen in many places that there's two.

oops! This article also says that there's two: North Pole and South Pole. Given that almost half of americans believe in creationism, how to explain this?

Also, is the tropo PV the same as the Jet Stream? I've heard it said that the lower one IS the jet stream, my guess is that it's not. But, basically, they look exactly the same: meandering line circling the north pole... same direction, right? How high, how wide, how thick are the two? Do they overlap? I'm trying to get a 3D picture of what it looks like up there, and this is a big source of confusion. A diagram would be extremely helpful. OsamaBinLogin (talk) 18:21, 2 February 2019 (UTC)


 * This is an excellent article you've linked to. There are indeed two distinct (but related!) polar vortices at each pole, one in the troposphere and one in the stratopshere. I think this polar vortex article needs quite a bit of work to clarify the difference, as it currently switches them interchangeably. I plan to start work on clarifying the difference in the article. Ismoholtto (talk) 11:44, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Too restrictive article
The article starts with the sentence "A polar vortex is an upper-level low-pressure area lying near one of the Earth's poles." However, we can read in the article about Saturn that the "Thermography has shown that Saturn's south pole has a warm polar vortex, the only known example of such a phenomenon in the Solar System". Therefore, this phenomen is not restricted to Earth.--81.217.18.39 (talk) 19:37, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Stratospheric and tropospheric polar vortices are different
The polar vortex that exists in the stratosphere and troposphere at each pole are actually very different in structure, dynamics, seasonality, etc, I think this article needs to make clear distinctions between them. There's also a lot of confusion in the media about the difference between them so I think it's important. I am going to start by re-writing the introduction (currently working on it in my "sandbox"), and then clarify it throughout the article. I'm a bit new to wikipedia and it will be a big change so I hope I'm doing the right thing. Please note that currently (Feb 2020) the stratospheric polar vortex and the Arctic Oscillation is near-record strength, so there might be some current interest in this. I'd be keen for any advice for making major changes to a page, or criticism of any new stuff I add.

Ismoholtto (talk) 20:24, 19 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I have begun editing the page to specify the two different vortices (at each pole, there's actually 4). I've reworked the introduction. Currently the rest of the text talks about the two interhangably, so I will go through and specify which one is being talked about. Perhaps a new section about the differences would be good too. Ismoholtto (talk) 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Tclack88 (talk) 01:57, 11 April 2021 (UTC) To emphasize and stress the initial comment -- I have not found a source that mentions the tropospheric polar vortex rotates in the same direction as the stratospheric polar vortex. Wind near the surface moves toward the equator and from the coriolis force turns to the west, thus the polar easterlies. If you can clarify whether these are different and how, it would clear up both my confusion and that of the general reader.Tclack88 (talk) 01:57, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Connections to climate change
This page could use some further recognition of the scientific controversy surrounding potential connections between the polar vortex and climate change. Some work such as propose a connection between climate change and a weakened polar vortex and have garnered a lot of media attention. However, some more recent studies such as do not support these connections. It would be helpful to find a review paper which summarizes the state of the current debate as a reference. The climate change section that exists could do a better job of summarizing the evidence against the connections, as well as better citing of literature while explaining the potential mechanisms. I hope to contribute to fleshing out this section in the coming weeks

Sjsmith757 (talk) 22:29, 22 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I think this is a great idea, I can contribute and help with references. It's probably good to specify that much of the high profile controversy is about the tropospheric vortex, and maybe also point out that most of the references won't actually mention the "vortex" (since a lot of the interesting controversy is about the arctic's effect on the jet stream, which is often referred to as the polar vortex in the media). I can also add some information about the expected changes to the stratospheric vortex with climate change, although that's even less well understood. Ismoholtto (talk) 13:51, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Unable to fix vandalism of an article preview
If you hover over the link for "ozone hole"[85] in the end of the paragraph that talks about ozone depletion, itll say "global warming is fake (which obviously its not considering the years of research done on global warming)," followed by the normal article preview. I do not know how to fix this so I will raise awareness of it here. 192.58.125.30 (talk) 16:01, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for reporting. That was some vandalism at Ozone depletion that was quickly reverted. Johnuniq (talk) 03:54, 1 February 2023 (UTC)