Above: Sea Surface Temperature anomaly map from NOAA/NESDIS. Note the La Nina building in the Pacific.
By Dr. Roy Spencer
Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) measured by the AMSR-E instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite continue the fall which began several months ago.
The following plot, updated through July 29, 2010 shows that the cooling in the Nino34 region in the tropical east Pacific continue to be well ahead of the cooling in the global average SST, something we did not see during the 2007-08 La Nina event (click on it for the large, undistorted version; note the global SST values have been multiplied by 10):
There is some really cold water off the coast of Peru. At least -5C anomaly…
I’ve often seen graphics like this one and I wonder about the justification for the colour-coding. The scale doesn’t allow the possibility of “no anomaly”. Surely there should be a colour for at least a small range either side of zero meaning “no discernable anomaly”? Except for the icy areas and land the graphic shows everywhere is anomalous. That just can’t be.
Even with the help of gridded, interpolated, homogenized and UHI-corrupted surface data, it doesn’t look like 2010 is going to be the “hottest year ever” on record. The negative PDO, increased frequency of La Ninas and continued weakness in solar activity are going to eventually put the kibosh on global warming alarmism. Earth’s ever-changing climate is not subject to the fantasies of Playstation modelers.
Just curious — as the ocean temps drop might that also show up as a reduction in atmospheric CO2, assuming the cooler water sequesters more CO2?
I overlaid 2010 (turquoise/yellow) on top of 2007 (red/blue.) Both peaked later this year, and Nino 3.4 is falling much faster.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukQbJ1q0kE0]
Sorry, Dr Spencer, but you are clearly wrong. The UK Met Office says we’re warming even more now including the oceans as well as land surfaces, so too does NOAA in unison with them (the rehearsals must have been a jolly affair I’m sure). Of course they left out the bit about data on Antartica because there was no “clear trend” observed, psuedo-science speak meaning there is no warming:-)) I just love this unambiguous language they & the IPCC too. When there is cooling it is merely referred to as “consitent with a lack of warming” (AR4SPM)! Nice one Cyril! Rather as the Northern Hemishpere winter was consistent with a lack of warming, & so too now the Southern Hemisphere winter (still no word on the Beeb).
Is there a measurable reduction in atmospheric CO2 when the ocean “anomaly” drops by as much as 4C? The Mauna Loa values for CO2, over the last couple of El Ninos, seem to be rather impervious to ocean temps and that doesn’t seem right.
btw Compulsive gamblers are always willing to expect their run of bad luck to change with the next roll of the dice. Has anyone heard cries of “Baby needs a new pair of shoes!” coming from behind the closed doors of GISS? 😉
From the fourth paragreaph of:
http://www.ccb.ucar.edu/lanina/report/mantua.html
with the title “La Niña Impacts in the Pacific Northwest”:
“Generally speaking, periods with strong La Niña conditions have been associated with anomalously cool, wet climate conditions from October through March in the Pacific Northwest. Conversely, moderate La Niña conditions have not been associated with strong and consistent climate anomalies in the Pacific Northwest.”
Hi Anthony,
that’s cool! I wonder if we’ll get (in Europe) another hard winter 🙂
Unrelated but a great cartoon on global warming.
http://diversitylane.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/cold-day-in-hell/
The rate of decline for Nino 3.4 is particularly remarkable, at about 5 K/decade. This appears faster than all the declines since 2002.
Will Alexander finds a strong correlation between the 22 year solar cycle and river flows in the Southern African region. See:
The End of the Road
Note especially the Fig. on page 5 “Periodicity of sunspot activity with closely synchronous characteristics of the annual flows in the Vaal River.”
From his models, Alexander has been accurately predicting major droughts and floods.
Is there enough of a satellite record to check for a similar 22 year correlation?
Does this back up the implication that the “warmest half-year on record” was caused / helped / influenced by the residual effects of the 2009 to early 2010 El Nino?
Why do you think the lag is as much as it is this time?
Eyeballing the rate it seem much faster than the 2007/8 fall.
Is it just the size of the thing that is causing the drag?
Please help me!!!
1) Does GISS, etc. also adjust this raw temperature data??
2) SEA temperature are satellite based and accurate??
3) If the satellites are good for the SEA, why don’t we have accurate LAND based satellite measurements??
4) Why don’t we have “100,000s” of LAND based satellite temperature measurements??
5) Why do we need LAND and WATER based stations??
6) If LAND based measurements are so “inaccurate(need to be adjusted)”, why not just use “accurate” Satellite based SEA temperatures to measure AGW?? The planet is 70% water, we would at least be 70% accurate ;-).
WUWT???
Some advice, are Figures 2 & 4 in the following webpage on El Nino/La Nina useful as a broad introduction into the phenomenon – I haven’t seen a summarized map of the various effects anywhere else, and this is unsourced.
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/el-nino-and-la-nina-weathers-sibling-rivalry.html
Today, Bloomberg has an article titled “Argentina has colder winter than antartica, spurring record power imports”
Satellite records to not go back very far and are not directly comparable with land-based records?
This La Nina is showing all the hallmarks of being massive. The early stages of a cooling PDO now starting to impact the power of ENSO. The PDO was briefly dragged back into positive with the just finished strong El Nino and is now back to negative. The tide is turning…. this just might be the expected trend for the next 20 years?
http://www.landscheidt.info/images/pdo.png
Phil’s Dad says:
August 3, 2010 at 7:05 am
Why do you think the lag is as much as it is this time?
Eyeballing the rate it seem much faster than the 2007/8 fall.
Is it just the size of the thing that is causing the drag?
It’s waiting for the equinox to hit and start pumping all that warm water energy in the N. Hemisphere out to space.
The S. Hemisphere won’t heat as rapidly, and the N. Hemisphere will plunge.
With the Sun dragging it’s Cycle 24 feet, this might be AGW’s Last Ride in a very leaky boat… in the rapids of a great La Nina.
Dr. Jeff Masters, an acolyte of AGW, asserted yesterday on his hurricane blog at WeatherUnderground.com that Atlantic sea surface temperatures are at a record high. Is this true? it sure doesn’t seem to be to me. Any clarification on this statement would be greatly appreciated.
Always interesting to watch the natural ups and downs of the La Nina/ENSO cycles. I will be especially interested to see how low this La Nina goes, and even more interested to see how strong the next upward cycle is, as it will coincide with the higher solar irradiance of Solar Cycle 24, and when we get a El Nino occuring (as we did in 1998) on the upward side of a solar cycle, we get that little extra boost in temps on top of the general upward trend in temps from AGW.
NINO3.4 SST anomalies are now well below -1 deg C.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/08/no-preliminary-sst-data-for-july-2010.html
When will Dr. Roy release his July, 2010 UAH satellite temp anomoly?
Scott in VA says:
August 3, 2010 at 7:42 am
Dr. Jeff Masters, an acolyte of AGW, asserted yesterday on his hurricane blog at WeatherUnderground.com that Atlantic sea surface temperatures are at a record high. Is this true? it sure doesn’t seem to be to me. Any clarification on this statement would be greatly appreciated.
Scott,
The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) is in its warm phase, hence the higher sea surface temperatures. If both the PDO and AMO were in the negative phase, the coming cool-down would be even more widespread and severe.
The tropical Pacific Ocean has dumped a lot of heat into the Northern Hemisphere atmosphere. The NH is now losing that heat to space quite fast via the hot, dry places like Russia. Expect air temperatures to slump this fall/winter. Meanwhile the Pacific Ocean, being cold, is emitting less heat to space so it’s starting to warm up again. Simples.