Warm water to persist all winter
Unless you've had your head in the sand for the past decade, you’d be aware of the changing climate. Human induced climate change is now almost noticeable year on year, with long standing heat records being smashed, more erratic weather patterns and - local to Sydney - warming inshore ocean temperatures. One look at this week's weather in Sydney and possible recording breaking temperatures this Sunday says as much.
Usually water temperatures take a bit of dive this time of year, with those cold crisp morning westerlies requiring a fair bit of rubber to keep you warm. What's been seen the last two winters is far from this, with water temperatures remaining a balmy 2-3 degrees above the long term average.
This warm water originates to our north, transported south by the East Australian Current (EAC) and as the world's oceans slowly warm, we can expect the EAC to push further south while lingering longer into winter and early spring.
This is the current situation off the southern NSW coast with the majority of coastal waters sitting at least 1 degree above normal for this time of year, while from Jervis Bay through to Sydney are seeing temperatures 2-3 degrees above normal.
The image below shows the current position of the EAC and what's visible is a warm tongue of 22 degree water feeding down the Hunter, Sydney and Illawarra coasts before wrapping around a large eddie (ocean gyre). These eddies usually pinch and break off but looking at the width of warm water feeding down and then back up around the broad eddie to our east, it appears we'll see warm ocean temperatures hanging around all winter.
While this is welcomed by the majority of the surfing community, one has to worry in the back of their mind how these delightful warm winter days in clear warm water sit in the grander scale of things.
One thing is for sure, with the warmer waters sitting off the coast, any trough or low that does form in the region will have a greater propensity to deepen into a far more significant storm than with cooler ocean temperatures.
Comments
Been running downhill all winter here.
Not good!! I heard in 2016, 29% of our great barrier reef died, Farrrrrrrk!! This was from increased water temperature .
One thing I've noticed is more tropical species of fish hanging around longer into winter. In Sydney I used to see reef species a few times a year during the summer months only. Then they would disappear, (probably into the food chain) as the water cooled into winter. The recent flat spells that we had in Sydney saw me do a fair bit of free-diving and I spotted a couple of these reef species still swimming around in early July...
Which species ?
Nice work Craig, yes very conscious of water temps and they have been very comfortable so far this winter and all last winter. My memory doesn't stretch much further back than that.
I do recall a winter, possibly around 10 years ago, where there was a spell of 13-15 degree water in Sydney for about 4 or 6 weeks. You might have records to check that. I certainly recall it as the coldest water we have got here in my lived memory.
With these temps you don't even feel the cold until a sharp blast grabs you as you're walking back to the carpark.
Jaysus, 6 different updated capctha verifications to get here. A bit much!?
Sorry mate, we have no control over the Captcha stuff. Haven't seen that behaviour before though - are you on a mobile and/or VPN connection?
I had two rounds to get through... from a laptop.
Na, just a desktop Ben. Fast connection, repeatedly required to identify signs and roads. Seems worse on this site than others, but that's just an impression, usually a couple of rounds are enough on other sites.
Thanks for your patience BF and SM. Not sure how we can tweak it but I'll look into it.
Does the converse apply to the northern hemi?
We should be in boardies now or at least a springy. The water atm is freezing and not just brisk, bloody cold. Barely comfortable in a 3/2 even though the air-temp is around 30 deg C. I can never remember a summer being so cold in the water.
Craig, you have the means, check the surface temps off Ibaraki, I reckon at this time of the year it should be around 20 deg C- feels like 15 or less.
Probably an upwelling from the trench zen. I have surfed G-Land at 17. Have the winds been a bit stronger or from an unusual direction?
You'd think so BB as we usually get the upwelling with the summer SE seabreezes but we've had a run of northerlies recently and the water is still icy. We had an extended flat spell here (almost three months with hardly a waist high wave) and thought that might be the culprit but this week it's been overhead to double every day, north winds and no change, still really cold.
Some meaty surf has been a welcome change though.
The northerlies might be driving the Kamchatka current further south zen, so yeh, what you said, the reverse of what is happening off Sydney.
Zen this is really course, but shows off the Japan coast and your region SST's are above average.
I remember the water in Indo being cold around 2005. Or was that just the post Padang party come down? It knows I aint no robot.
Craig is this working its way around the corner into Victoria as it does in summer? Without the wind it hasn't been too bad for Vic although the last couple of weeks it seems to be rock bottom at probably around 13.
Looks like it's not really getting into Bass Strait, and as you said it's bottomed out at about 13 which is around normal.
Been commercially fishing/diving for decades and sea temperature fluctuations have varied dramatically over all those years. Part of the job is to know this shit , and its effects on all levels of the water column .Surface temperatures and currents are quite often different to whats going on beneath the surface and is far from all encompassing regarding the state of the ocean or the climate as a whole.
Where abouts do you fish , Tubeshooter ?
Also, as a matter of interest, to what depth is considered surface temperature?
My main commercial fisheries were between Evans Head and Point Lookout, But also have some experience between Bermagui and Gladstone. I,m semi retired now and do mainly relief work. As for where I fish in my time off, good luck with that one, do you want my PIN number too?
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/thermocline.html
Tubeshooter - yeah , sorry if that question was intrusive.
Thanks for your answer.
Won't require your PIN number.
I think my account is overdrawn anyway Blowin. Been smashing some squid lately , and my competitors are already onto the the ink stained rocks I frequent .
People reckon surfers are territorial....they've got nothing on fishermen.
Tight lines mate.
I don;t even leave a scale on the rocks.
I had to lie to my own mother when she asked me where I caught that jewfish.
There's a few around lately round here.
Watched a lone fisho pull a decent Jew off the rocks from the gutter I was surfing next to on the run up to the high tide today.
He looked stoked.
Did you get yours on plastics ?
It is God pissing on us, in a metaphorical sense. I hope that as a metaphor, is coherent, I have heard some sorry metaphors tonight.
Wonder if anyone has looked at Noah numbers related to temps on the east coast..
The CSIRO is onto that one sirboonie , and I just hope your mother doesn't read swellnet forums freeride76, .But its that sort of attitude that I based decisions on when employing deckhands. and you just went up a notch.
I've worked for some very cagey skippers tubeshooter. Cunts whose marks were more precious to them than their own kids I'm sure of it.
ENSO is in transition .
Last year was supposed to be La Niña on the back of the previous El Niño .
But the readings were so high that it peaked early as overcooked and became a negative feedback in itself . Early this year and up until early Winter El Niño looked to be making a resurgence from the failed La Niña .
Basicly there was too much warm water in the system , and the swing back encountered a Rossby wave which triggered a failing in the Atmospeheric coupling to oceanic reflection .
This reset the system , and I would expect from now on we will be looking at the La Niña we were supposed to get last Summer .
It has been very dry the last 6 mths , but that trend will be stalled and reversed by mid Spring . So atleast Cool negative Territory and at most full fledged late oneset La Niña . Due to still so much extra warmth in the entire Pacific system , Austrailias component of the SOI makeup of ENSO , should see it build faster .
To cut it short , looks like a good 18 mths of weaves ahead for the EC of Aust . Plus warm water to boot .
ENSO is in transition .
Last year was supposed to be La Niña on the back of the previous El Niño .
But the readings were so high that it peaked early as overcooked and became a negative feedback in itself . Early this year and up until early Winter El Niño looked to be making a resurgence from the failed La Niña .
Basicly there was too much warm water in the system , and the swing back encountered a Rossby wave which triggered a failing in the Atmospeheric coupling to oceanic reflection .
This reset the system , and I would expect from now on we will be looking at the La Niña we were supposed to get last Summer .
It has been very dry the last 6 mths , but that trend will be stalled and reversed by mid Spring . So atleast Cool negative Territory and at most full fledged late oneset La Niña . Due to still so much extra warmth in the entire Pacific system , Austrailias component of the SOI makeup of ENSO , should see it build faster .
To cut it short , looks like a good 18 mths of weaves ahead for the EC of Aust . Plus warm water to boot .
I hope you are right southey. The next strong El Niño could be catastrophic in Australia.
I agree with BB Southey, I hope you're right about the La nina.
East coast, well most of the country needs a bit of a drink. We're about to break a 27 year old record today for a July temp in Sydney and up here on the Central Coast! Was heaps warmer than normal this morning at 5am. Actually scary warm for this time of year...
I was going to say they they screwed that forecast up but I edit my post and stand corrected,
Was it warm in Sydney today ? wasnt there?
Reached bang on 27.0 at Sydney Airport at 01:54pm, and was still 26.2 at 4pm. Penrith reached 28.2.
yeah, sorry about jumping the gun on that one,, I was going off a phone call to a mate in Newy , shouldve done my due diligence, my bad
Distinct lack of Tasman lows this winter, suprising cause how warm the water is, however the cold troughs forming over the warm water haven't been there I guess.... can't remember what the weather was like in 1990 when we got 26 degrees in July, I was in my early teens and more of a footy head but I wonder if it was similar to this year?
After some checking Gosford maxed at 24 at 3.30pm, Newcastle only seems to have maxed out at 21.6 at 4pm today .
I remember looking forward to what the media hyped up as being possibly the hottest winter day on record for winter. Needless to say anyone living on the Hunter would have been pretty disappointed. I remember checking the satellite and noticed how the hunter valley was in line with a thin band of mid and high level cloud that stretched from the SE edge of central Australia right across to the east , with Sydney remaining mostly south of the cloud band. I reckon the sun would have to add another 3-5 degrees of daytime temp when it's shining and not hiding behind clouds. This might explain why Sydney was basking in 27 and Newy was a lot milder around 22.
Yeah I was up further north and under the cloud it was much cooler, but as soon as I headed back home to Sydney in the sun, the temp jumped right up.
Damn warm down here today. The gelato bar was open and had a queue down the street - that's about as scientific as my reporting gets.
Illawarra was def warmer.. Albion Park and Kiama reached 28 degrees. Was cooler in the Hunter though.
"Today was the hottest July day on record" (according to ABC weather, just came on then).
Wow and I just thought it was media hype!
Jet stream in the atmosphere plays a large part on what goes on with local weather ,especially in winter , ask any pilot.., Instead of looking at the ocean for these causes perhaps we should be looking skyward and further inland. A snaking highway of hot and cold air .
How are these poor Dugongs on the Mid North Coast NSW.
http://www.portnews.com.au/story/4821604/dugong-dead-and-another-under-o...
Could also be associated with a strong EAC. I think there are still a couple in Moreton Bay but thats a long way north.
If you go to nullschool and bring up the 10HPA chart (stratospheric winds), position your view directly above antarctica you will see the winter polar vortex, but also a kind of 'anticyclone' vortex over most of Australia. This is compressing and intensifying the polar vortex windstream to the south of our continent - and my layman's understanding of the weather is that the cold fronts as well. This might explain why less ECLs? And lots of groundswell days with offshore winds here?
The northern hemi polar vortex was mad over their winter - it split into two (which I presume is not normal) and cold events penetrated way further south; with heat events in far northern areas.
Craig & Ben, correct me if anything wrong here, but is there anything out of place with the stratospheric 'anticyclone' over Australia?
Hey VJ, it may be the fact the the anticyclone is stuck in place that makes it out of place. I don't know the science of it, but that high pressure system just keeps on keeping on. Low pressure systems just don't seem to be pushing themselves north because the persistent high pressure wont let them. I remember from geography at high school the general northward trend in winter of lows traveling from west to east across the bottom of Oz. This current high pressure seems to be stuck. Perhaps you could even say, meteorogically speaking, 'Australia is consistently High'.
Why the high 'anticyclone' persists, I have no idea, but I am sure it's part of a bigger picture.
One of the predictions that keeps emerging from climate change models is that weather becomes less variable over the short term. Pressure systems stall so that the same weather persists over a region for longer than previously. This has potentially serious impacts when the position of the systems is generating heavy rain, intense heat or other extremes. The present situation is fine for those of us east of the mountains. Out west is getting pretty dry though.
I didn't know about the short term predictions/trends, but it makes perfect sense, unfortunately.