Bob has asked me to carry this post, and I’m happy to do so. For those who want to criticize without contributing anything but criticism, I offer this insight: The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. ~John Powell
-Anthony
Revised Post – On Foster and Rahmstorf (2011)
Guest post by Bob Tisdale
ABOUT THE ERROR-LADEN FIRST VERSION OF THIS POST
I displayed my very limited understanding of statistics in my post On Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 – Global temperature evolution 1979–2010. This was pointed out to me a great number times by many different people in numerous comments received in the WattsUpWithThat cross post. My errors in that portion of the post were so many and so great that they detracted from the bulk of the post, which was about the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. For that reason, I have added a third update to my earlier post on Foster and Rahmstorf (2011), which asks readers to disregard that post and the cross post at WUWT. That update also includes a link that redirects readers here.
I learned a lot from my mistakes. Many of those who commented provided detailed explanations of the methods used by Foster and Rahmstorf (2011). Thanks go to them.
When an author of a blog post makes a major mistake, it needs to be acknowledged and/or corrected, and I have done this multiple times for that portion of my earlier post about Foster and Rahmstorf (2011). Now I’m reposting an expanded version of the discussion of ENSO. If you’d still like to discuss the errors I made in the earlier post, please comment on that thread, not this one.
OVERVIEW
This post discusses the assumption made in the paper Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) “Global Temperature Evolution 1979–2010”that the variations in the global temperature record due to El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) can be estimated from an ENSO index. This post excludes all discussions of the statistical methods used by Foster and Rahmstorf in their paper. Please limit the comments on this thread to ENSO and surface temperature responses to ENSO.
INTRODUCTION
Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) attempted to remove from 5 global temperature datasets the linear effects of 3 factors that are known to cause variations in global temperature. The paper covered the period of 1979 to 2010. The intent of their paper was to show that anthropogenic global warming continues unabated in all of those datasets. The independent variables listed in the abstract of Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) are El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), volcanic aerosols, and solar variations.
Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) used independent measures for these three factors. Total Solar Irradiance and aerosol optical depth data were used to estimate the effects of solar variability and volcanic aerosols on global surface temperatures. This post does not pertain to them. This post initially discusses the attempt by Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) to use an ENSO index as a measure of the effects of ENSO on global surface temperature. What will then be discussed and shown is that an ENSO index cannot account for the effects of ENSO on global surface temperatures.
Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) also makes two more assumptions that have little basis in reality. They assume the rise in surface temperatures since 1979 was linear and that it was due to anthropogenic factors. The sea surface temperature record of the global oceans since 1982 clearly disagrees with these assumptions.
ENSO IS NOT AN EXOGENOUS FACTOR
The following two papers discuss the problems with the assumption made by Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) about ENSO. One of the papers was cited by them in their paper.
Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) cited Trenberth et al (2002) Evolution of El Nino–Southern Oscillation and global atmospheric surface temperatures”as one of their ENSO references. But Trenberth et al (2002) include the following disclaimer in the second paragraph of their Conclusions, (their paragraph 52, my boldface):
The main tool used in this study is correlation and regression analysis that, through least squares fitting, tends to emphasize the larger events. This seems appropriate as it is in those events that the signal is clearly larger than the noise. Moreover, the method properly weights each event (unlike many composite analyses). Although it is possible to use regression to eliminate the linear portion of the global mean temperature signal associated with ENSO, the processes that contribute regionally to the global mean differ considerably, and the linear approach likely leaves an ENSO residual.
The ENSO “residuals” are a significant contributor to the rise in Global Sea Surface Temperatures during the satellite era, as will be shown later in this post. Did Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) consider these residuals in their analysis? No.
A more recent paper was overlooked by Foster and Rahmstorf (2011). Compo and Sardeshmukh (2010) “Removing ENSO-Related Variations from the Climate Record” seems to be a step in the right direction. They write (my boldface):
An important question in assessing twentieth-century climate is to what extent have ENSO-related variations contributed to the observed trends. Isolating such contributions is challenging for several reasons, including ambiguities arising from how ENSO is defined. In particular, defining ENSO in terms of a single index and ENSO-related variations in terms of regressions on that index, as done in many previous studies, can lead to wrong conclusions. This paper argues that ENSO is best viewed not as a number but as an evolving dynamical process for this purpose.
Note: While Compo and Sardeshmukh made a step in the right direction, they missed a very important aspect of ENSO. They overlooked the significance of the huge volume of warm water that is left over from certain El Niño events, and they failed to account for its contribution to the rise in global Sea Surface Temperature anomalies since about 1975/76.
ENSO IS A PROCESS NOT AN INDEX
I have discussed, illustrated, and animated the process of ENSO and its effects on global surface temperatures and lower troposphere temperatures for about three years. There are too many posts to list them all here. However, if the subject of ENSO is new to you, refer to the introduction post here. If you would prefer an introductory-level discussion about ENSO written by someone else, refer to the excellent answers to FAQ here by Bill Kessler of the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. For those who believe La Niña events are the opposite of El Niño events refer to the posts here, here and here. And for those who believe ENSO is represented by an index, refer to the post here. I will provide a relatively detailed overview of the process of ENSO in the following.
ENSO is a coupled ocean-atmosphere process that periodically discharges heat to the atmosphere during an El Niño. The phrase “coupled ocean-atmosphere process” refers to the fact that many ocean and atmospheric variables in the tropical Pacific interact with one another. For that reason, a number of tropical Pacific variables are impacted directly by ENSO, including sea surface temperature, sea level, ocean currents, ocean heat content, depth-averaged temperature, warm water volume, sea level pressure, cloud amount, precipitation, the strength and direction of the trade winds, etc. I have presented the effects of ENSO on each of those variables in past posts. And since cloud amount for the tropical Pacific impacts downward shortwave radiation (visible light) there, I’ve presented and discussed that relationship as well. In fact, the videos included in the post here presented ISCCP Total Cloud Amount data (with cautions about that dataset), CAMS-OPI precipitation data, NOAA’s Trade Wind Index (5S-5N, 135W-180) anomaly data, RSS MSU TLT anomaly data, CLS (AVISO) Sea Level anomaly data, NCEP/DOE Reanalysis-2 Surface Downward Shortwave Radiation Flux (dswrfsfc) anomaly data, and Reynolds OI.v2 SST anomaly data.
During an El Niño, warm water from the west Pacific Warm Pool can travel thousands of miles eastward across the equatorial Pacific. Keep in mind that the equatorial Pacific stretches almost halfway around the globe. So as the convection, cloud cover, and precipitation all accompany that warm water, their relocation causes changes in atmospheric circulation patterns worldwide. In turn, this causes temperatures outside of the eastern tropical Pacific to vary, some warming, some cooling, but in total, the areas that warm exceed those that cool and global surface temperatures rise in response to an El Niño. The spatial patterns of warming and cooling during a La Niña are similar to an El Niño, but of the opposite sign. And all that a paper such as Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) can only hope to account for are the changes in global temperature that respond linearly to the changes in the ENSO index used in the analysis. As confirmation, a paper cited by Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) acknowledged that there are ENSO-related factors that impact global temperatures that are overlooked by linear regression analysis. See Trenberth et al (2002) linked above.
Because global spatial patterns for El Niño and La Niña events are similar but opposite, many persons believe that all of the effects of El Niño and La Niña events oppose one another. This is far from reality. A La Niña event is basically an exaggeration of the “normal” (or ENSO-neutral) state of the tropical Pacific, while an El Niño event is an anomalous state.
An El Niño can carry huge volumes of warm water from the surface and below the surface of the west Pacific Warm Pool eastward to the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. That warm water is not consumed fully by the El Niño, so it returns to the west during the La Niña. One of the ways the La Niña accomplishes this return of warm water is through a phenomenon called a slow-moving Rossby wave, which forms in the northeast tropical Pacific at about 5N-10N. After the 1997/98 El Niño, the Rossby wave is plainly visible in ocean heat content anomaly animations, and better still in sea level residual animations from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
I’ve highlighted the Rossby wave in screen captures from the JPL video in Figure 1. The upper right-hand cell shows the formation of the Rossby wave and the lower left-hand cell captures the Rossby wave travelling from east to west at approximately 5N-10N, carrying leftover warm water back to the western Pacific during the transition from the 1997/98 El Niño to the multiyear La Niña that followed.
Figure 1
The Rossby wave can be seen in the first 10 to 15 seconds of Video 1. And as you will note, if you allow the video to play through, there are no comparably sized Rossby waves carrying cool waters back to the western tropical Pacific at 5N-10N after the La Niña.
Video 1
And to further confirm this basic difference between El Niño and La Niña events, there are also no comparably-sized Rossby waves carrying cool waters back to the western tropical Pacific at 5N-10N after any La Niña event seen in the full version of the JPL animation, Video 2, which runs from 1992 to 2002.
Video 2
There are no ENSO indices presently in use that can account for the return of the warm water to the West Pacific during a La Niña event that follows an El Niño.
As I’ve noted in numerous posts, ENSO is also a process that redistributes the warm water that was leftover from the El Niño itself and enhances the redistribution of the warm water that resulted from the El Niño in waters outside of the eastern tropical Pacific. The redistribution carries that warm water poleward and into adjoining ocean basins during the La Niña that follows an El Niño. The impacts of this redistribution depend on the strength of the El Niño and the amount of water that was “left over”. Lesser El Niño events that are not followed by La Niña events obviously would not have the same impacts. There are no ENSO indices that can account for this redistribution and these differences.
La Niña events also recharge part of the warm water that was released during the El Niño. They accomplish this through an increase in downward shortwave radiation (visible light), and that results from the reduction in tropical Pacific cloud amount caused by the stronger trade winds of a La Niña. Sometimes La Niña events “overcharge” the tropical Pacific, inasmuch as they recharge more ocean heat in the tropical Pacific than was discharged during the El Niño that came before it. That was the case during the 1973/74/75/76 La Niña. Refer to Figure 2. Tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content rose significantly during the 1973/94/75/76 La Niña, and that provided the initial “fuel” for the 1982/83 Super El Niño and the multi-year 1986/87/88 El Niño. The La Niña events that followed those El Niño only recharged a portion of the heat discharged by them. Tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content declined until 1995. Then the 1995/96 La Niña event “overcharged” the Tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content again and that provided the fuel for the 1997/98 “El Niño of the Century”.
Figure 2
Refer also to the introductory level discussion in the post ENSO Indices Do Not Represent The Process Of ENSO Or Its Impact On Global Temperature.
THE TREND OF THE EAST PACIFIC SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES HAS BEEN RELATIVELY FLAT FOR 30 YEARS
The East Pacific Sea Surface Temperature anomalies from pole to pole, Figure 3, are dominated by the variations in tropical Pacific caused by ENSO, and as a result, the variations in the East Pacific Sea Surface Temperature anomalies mimic ENSO, represented by the scaled NINO3.4 Sea Surface Temperature anomalies. The trend of the East Pacific Sea Surface Temperature anomalies is relatively flat at 0.011 deg C/Decade.
Figure 3
The reason the trend is so flat: warm water from the surface and below the surface of the west Pacific Warm Pool is carried eastward during an El Niño and spread across the surface of the eastern tropical Pacific, raising sea surface temperatures there. And during the La Niña events that follow El Niño events, the leftover warm water is returned to the western tropical Pacific. Due to the increased strength of the trade winds during the La Nina, there is an increase in upwelling of cool subsurface waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific, so the Sea Surface Temperatures there drop. In other words, the East Pacific is simply a temporary staging area for the warm water of an El Niño event. Warm water sloshes into this dataset from the western tropical Pacific and releases heat, and then the warm water sloshes back out.
WHAT EFFECT DOES THE WARM WATER HAVE WHEN IT RETURNS TO THE WESTERN TROPICAL PACIFIC DURING THE SUBSEQUENT LA NIÑA EVENT?
The warm waters released from below the surface of the West Pacific Warm Pool during a major El Niño are not done impacting Sea Surface Temperatures throughout the global oceans when that El Niño has ended, and they cannot be accounted for by an ENSO index. Keep in mind, during an El Niño like the 1997/98 event, a huge volume of water from below the surface of the west Pacific Warm Pool was spread across the surface of the eastern tropical Pacific. Consequently, warm water that had once been excluded from the surface temperature record, because it was below the surface, is now included in the surface temperature record. At the end of the El Niño, the trade winds push the warm water that’s now on the surface back to the western Pacific where it remains in the surface temperature record. The Sea Surface Temperature in the western Pacific rises as a result. Add to that the effects of the Rossby wave. As illustrated earlier, at approximately 5N-10N latitude, a slow-moving Rossby wave also carries leftover warm water from the eastern tropical Pacific back to the western Pacific during the La Niña. Ocean currents carry all of the leftover the warm water poleward to the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension (KOE) east of Japan and to the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) east of Australia, and the Indonesian Throughflow (an ocean current) carries the warm water into the tropical Indian Ocean. And as noted above, due to the increased strength of the trade winds during the La Nina, there is an increase in upwelling of cool subsurface waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific, so the Sea Surface Temperatures there drop. But that cooler-than-normal water is quickly warmed during the La Niña as it is carried west by the stronger-than-normal ocean currents that are caused by the stronger-than-normal trade winds. And the reason that water warms so quickly as it is carried west is because the stronger-than-normal trade winds reduce cloud cover, and this allows more downward shortwave radiation (visible sunlight) to warm the ocean to depths of 100 meters. This additional warm water helps to maintain the Sea Surface Temperatures in the West Pacific and East Indian Oceans at elevated levels during the La Niña and it also recharges the West Pacific Warm Pool for the next El Niño event. Refer again to Figure 2. (Keep in mind that the graph in Figure 2 is for the Ocean Heat Content for the entire tropical Pacific, not just the Pacific Warm Pool.)
And what happens when a major El Niño event is followed by a La Niña event? The Sea Surface Temperature anomalies for the Atlantic, Indian, and West Pacific Oceans (the Rest-Of-The-World outside of the East Pacific) first rise in response to the major El Niño; the 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Niño events for example. Then the Rest-Of-The-World Sea Surface Temperatures are maintained at elevated levels by the La Niña; the 1988/89 and 1998/99/00/01 La Niña events to complete the example. The results are the apparent upward shifts in the Sea Surface Temperature anomalies of the Atlantic, Indian, and West Pacific Oceans from pole to pole (90S-90N, 80W-180), as illustrated in Figure 14. Some have described it as a ratcheting effect, where the redistribution of warm waters during the major El Niño and La Niña events drive the surface temperatures up a notch.
Figure 4
In Figure 4, the dip and rebound starting in 1991 is caused by the volcanic aerosols emitted by the explosive volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo. And the reason the Rest-Of-The-World Sea Surface Temperature anomalies respond so little to the 1982/83 Super El Niño is because that El Niño was counteracted by the eruption of El Chichon in 1982.
To assure readers that the upward shifts in Rest-Of-The-World Sea Surface Temperature anomalies coincide with the 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Niño events, I’ve included an ENSO index, NINO3.4 Sea Surface Temperature anomalies, in Figure 5. The NINO3.4 Sea Surface Temperature anomalies have been scaled (multiplied by a factor of 0.12) to allow for a better visual comparison, and shifted back in time by 6 months to account for the time lag between the variations in NINO3.4 Sea Surface Temperature anomalies and the response of the Rest-Of-The-World data.
Figure 5
But the ENSO Index data is visually noisy and it detracts from the upward shifts, so I’ve removed it in Figure 6. But in it, I’ve isolated the data between the significant El Niño events. To accomplish this, I used the NOAA Oceanic Nino Index (ONI) to determine the official months of those El Niño events. There is a 6-month lag between NINO3.4 SST anomalies and the response of the Rest-Of-The-World SST anomalies during the evolution phase of the 1997/98 El Niño. So the ONI data was lagged by six months, and the Rest-Of-The-World SST data that corresponded to the 1982/83, 1986/87/88, 1998/98, and 2009/10 El Niño events was excluded and left as black dashed lines. All other months of data remain and are represented by the blue curves.
Figure 6
And to help further highlight the upward shifts, the average Sea Surface Temperature anomalies between the major El Niño events are added in Figure 7.
Figure 7
Based on past posts where I’ve presented the data the same way, some readers have suggested the period average temperatures are misleading and have requested that I illustrate the linear trends. Figure 8 shows how flat the trends are between the 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Niño events and between the 1997/98 and 2009/10 El Niño events.
Figure 8
Back to the East Pacific data: If we adjust the East Pacific Sea Surface Temperature anomalies for the effects of volcanic aerosols, Figure 9, the linear trend is slightly negative. In other words, for approximately 33% of the surface area of the global oceans, Sea Surface Temperature anomalies have not risen in 30 years.
Figure 9
Note: The method used to adjust for the volcanic eruptions is described in the post Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies – East Pacific Versus The Rest Of The World, under the heading of ACCOUNTING FOR THE IMPACTS OF VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS.
And if we adjust the Rest-Of-The-World Sea Surface Temperature anomalies for volcanic aerosols, Figure 10, we reduce the effects of the dip and rebound caused by the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. And the trend of the Rest-Of-The-World data between the 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Niño drops slightly compared to the unadjusted data (Figure 8), making it even flatter and slightly negative.
Figure 10
Note: In the second part of a two part series (here), I further subdivided the Rest-of-the-World (90S-90N, 80W-180) sea surface temperature data to isolate the North Atlantic, due to its additional mode of natural variability. The sea surface temperatures for the remaining South Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific data decay between the major El Niño events. In other words, the sea surface temperatures there drop; the linear trends are negative, just as one would expect.
In summary, ENSO is a coupled ocean-atmosphere process and its effects on Global Surface Temperatures cannot be accounted for with linear regression of an ENSO index as attempted by Foster and Rahmstorf (2011)–and others before them. We can simply add Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) to the list of numerous papers that make the same error. Examples:
Lean and Rind (2009) How Will Earth’s Surface Temperature Change in Future Decades?
And:
Lean and Rind (2008) How Natural and Anthropogenic Influences Alter Global and Regional Surface Temperatures: 1889 to 2006
And:
Santer et al (2001), Accounting for the effects of volcanoes and ENSO in comparisons of modeled and observed temperature trends
And:
Thompson et al (2008), Identifying signatures of natural climate variability in time series of global-mean surface temperature: Methodology and Insights
And:
Trenberth et al (2002) Evolution of El Nino–Southern Oscillation and global atmospheric surface temperatures
And:
Wigley, T. M. L. (2000), ENSO, volcanoes, and record-breaking temperatures
IS THERE A LINEAR “GLOBAL WARMING SIGNAL”?
Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) assumed that the global warming signal is linear and that it is caused by anthropogenic factors, but those assumptions are not supported by the satellite-era Sea Surface Temperature record as shown above. The El Niño events of 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 are shown to be the cause of the rise in sea surface temperatures since November 1981, not anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
CLOSING COMMENTS
This post illustrated and discussed the error in the assumption that regression analysis can be used to remove the impacts of ENSO on Global Surface Temperature. ENSO is a process that is not fully represented by ENSO Indices. In other words, the ENSO indices only represent a small portion of the impacts of ENSO on Global Surface Temperatures. Attempting to use an ENSO index as Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) have done is like trying to provide the play-by-play for a baseball game solely from an overhead view of home plate.
The assumption made by Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) that a linear trend provides an approximate “global warming” signal was shown to be wrong using Sea Surface Temperature data. When broken down into two logical subsets of the East Pacific and the Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific Oceans, satellite-era Sea Surface Temperature data shows no evidence of an anthropogenic global warming signal. It only shows upward shifts associated with strong ENSO events.
If Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) were to exclude ENSO from their analysis, it is likely their results would be significantly different.
A closing note: I have also been illustrating, discussing, and documenting the ENSO-related processes behind these upward shifts for three years, using the East Indian-West Pacific subset (60S-65N, 80E-180). I first posted about it on January 10, 2008 in a two-part series here and here. The WattsUpWithThat cross posts are here and here.
ABOUT: Bob Tisdale – Climate Observations
SOURCES
The NODC OHC data is available through the KNMI Climate Explorer, on their Monthly observationswebpage.
The Reynolds OI.v2 Sea Surface Temperature data used in the ENSO discussion is available through the NOAA NOMADS website here.
The Aerosol Optical Thickness data used in the volcano adjustments of the Sea Surface Temperature data in Figures 9 and 10 is available from the GISS Stratospheric Aerosol Optical Thickness webpage here.
Thanks Bob
“making it even flatter and slightly negative.”
Well go on then. Try and get this published in the scientific literature.
Seems a constant error in the expedition of climate science is the treatment of climatic variables as linear. Measurement of relationships in an atmosphere can only be a multivariate. They are all inter alia relationships.
The influence between climatic parameters cannot be measured and interpreted because those starting parameters suffer constant variations. Linear regression assumes the parameters retain their beginning characteristics. It’s like trying to understand a rock without flipping it over and having a look at it’s underside.
“”When a butterfly flaps its wings””
Latitude: Yeah, that sentence is awkward. I’ll strike the “even flatter and” at my website.
Thanks
Have You forgotten about ‘Climate-Gate’ so quickly?. Here are some links to refresh Your memory.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100011716/how-the-global-warming-industry-is-based-on-one-massive-lie/
Thanks for manning up when you make a mistake Bob.
I am hoping this is a general trend amongst all the dogmatism and the raging God Complexes.
Hats off to Bob for admitting and correcting a mistake. Unheard of behaviour in many circles of “climate science”, and not even universally practiced amongst guest posters here. Only one of the reasons why his contributions really add to the value of WUWT.
Of course ENSO isn’t an exogenous factor for sea surface temperature. ENSO is sea surface temperature. The heat that is tallied as an ENSO index event comes from somewhere, and ends up somewhere, and neither of those somewheres can be fully accounted for by playing numbers games with the ENSO index. Thanks Bob.
I don’t understand what you mean, Alan. Please clarify.
Why so much attention to sea surface temperature rather than sea level as a direct proxy for total ocean heat content? SST invokes a distributional uncertainty that seems unnecessary.
Alan Statham says:
January 14, 2012 at 6:03 pm
Well go on then. Try and get this published in the scientific literature.
I seem to remember someone saying that “it is easier to thread a camel through the eye of a needle….”
I think that it would only take a first grader to see that Bob Tisdale has a valid scientific point about the misuse of the ENSO index by Foster and Rahmstorf (2011). However, hell will probably freeze over before the so-called guardians of “consensus science” allow such a logical and water tight argument as that present by Bob through the hallowed gates of “I scratch your back, you scratch my back, your my buddy” peer-review.
Thank You, Bob!
Your integrity shines through!
A modest paraphrase seems appropriate: ‘It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid LazyTeennagers who know neither victory nor defeat.’
Thank You, for ‘being in the arena..’!!! We value your considerable contributions.
Superb work Bob! I think that you have done more to advance our understanding of global climate science than virtually all of the other climate scientists combined. The trouble is that you are supported by the I haven’t got a brass-razoo foundation and they have an “unlimited” funding source called the naive and gullible tax-payer’s association.
Alan Statham says:
Welll go on then. Try and get this published in the scientific literature.
================
It is scientific literature that has been published.
Let me show you how I know this:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scientific
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/literature
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/published
I think what you really meant to say was, “Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!””
Going through Rahmstorf’s climategate emails, I find several political statements to justify patroling the press and sceptic publications and writing responses.
He made a reply about speleothems, where he was not an expert and organized another reply about cosmic rays, where he was absolutely no expert. Then he is known for the Rahmstorf et al 2007 paper about sea levels, devastatingly discussed at climateaudit and elsewhere and perhaps a significant low in climate science.
Now he is a physicist and oceanographer and you would expect that at least this time he is an expert and should know about latest research about ocean currents. And then again he publishes this…
One useful aspect of posting on the web is the timeliness. Because of technology and geography my link was not broadband before September of 2008. Since that time I have read more than a few (30 +/- ?) posts by Bob T. (at WUWT and on his own ( http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/ ) site. I’ve also followed many links at his suggestion – some are mentioned (again) in this post. If I were still relying for subscriptions or the local university library for my science-reading I might – just now – be reading my first Bob T. ‘peer’ reviewed article. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration.
The main points of this posting seem to be that ENSO is a process not represented by the index used to identify it, and La Niña events are not the opposite of El Niño events. A third point, I guess, is that other researchers either do not understand, or do not wish to acknowledge these things.
Can anyone show these two concepts to be incorrect?
After 3.5 years of reading about this it seems to me, Bob T. just keeps making in cleaner and clearer.
Alan Wilkinson
1) The “ocean” is not a fixed size bucket.
2) Atmospheric pressure varies the sea level and is dynamic.
3) The affect of the moon makes accurate sea level measurement difficult as well.
Good job Bob others have said what I can only echo, honesty and integrity shine though in your admission and willingness to delve deeper. This is real science at work.
The assumption made by Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) that a linear trend provides an approximate “global warming” signal was shown to be wrong using Sea Surface Temperature data.
Its not really an assumption, Its the theoretical prediction of the Forcings Theory of climate change.
CO2 rises exponentially. The GH effect of CO2 is logarithmic. Resulting in a linear increase in temperatures.
Your criticism of F&R is valid.
Although the stepped increase of SSTs is consistent (a rather weasily word much loved by climate scientists) with GH warming from CO2 intermediated by the ENSO process.
However, it is also consistent with warming from declining tropospheric aerosol levels* intermediated by ENSO.
* There is essentially no relationship between tropospheric and stratospheric aerosol levels, and F&R’s (claimed) accounting for stratospheric aerosols says nothing about changes in tropospheric aerosols.
Thanks Bob. This is fine work that accounts for a good portion of what is going one. I have a very hard time when ever anyone builds assumptions into the front end of an analysis. You have clearly demonstrated the foolishness of that. It is also less then good science too.
Alan Stratham: It appears that Mr. T has recieved a more through ‘peer review’ here at the WUWT site than any of ‘The Team’ ever received as part of their pal review. BTW: Cool hiding behind a fictional character. Symtematic
As I said before Bob I think you are too hard on yourself. F&R proposed a linear regression model, fitted parameters with total abandon, reported confidence limits and made no effort to test (as far as we know) or report (we definitely know) that the assumptions underlying their model were accurate. The residues in their final model are autocorrelated according to durbin watson without even adjusting for all the degrees of freedom they ate estimating their lags. Without even starting to discuss the MEI index its rubbish statistically. One can only take the charitable view that it was probably produced with a political purpose in mind, and on that basis has probably achieved its ends.
Reading your discussion about the SOI what I would be interested in would be to see your hypothesis formulated as a simple approximate linear model (including dependence on previous states and lags i.e as an ARIMA model). It would be interesting to see how well that simplified physical model fitted to the data, and in particular if linear time added much in explaining the data after it was fitted.
I know I’ve be banging on about this a bit, but http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/people/brant.liebmann/papers/global_change/global.change-final.pdf is essential reading for anyone claiming significance for a time based trend in the global temp series. What it says is that if you do the stats properly the 30 year time series from 2009 (i.e 1979 – 2009) 3 standard deviations of the time coefficient in the regression is around 0.17 c/decade (figs 3b and 4c sd approx 0.057 – we’re reading of graphs here, and I hope I’m interpreting all this correctly), while F&R are telling us that adding in the extra variables 2 standard deviations of their time coef comes out at around 0.03 c/decade (fig 6 i.e. sd approx 0.015). On the face of it you’d have to think it was unlikely.
Perhaps they could report their results showing how they took account of the structure of the time series so we can all judge.
LazyTeenager says:
January 14, 2012 at 7:01 pm
“Thanks for manning up when you make a mistake Bob.”
Presenting one’s work in a truly scientific format is done precisely because a real scientist wants the work to be as mistake free and replicable as possible, not because it has been preordained as the “given truth”. In other words, if everyone and their mother, mustering all of their sceptical abilities, can’t find a mistake, then things are looking good…so far. On the other hand no true scientist really wants to make a mistake. But admitting having made one is part of what being a real scientist committed to the principles and practices of real science is, that is, if the scientist wants to keep on learning about their own subject matter, practicing real science, and furthering understanding – instead of crass manipulation.
“I am hoping this is a general trend amongst all the dogmatism and the raging God Complexes.”
Yes, so let the CO2 = CAGW Climate Scientists themselves start practicing real science statim! Lord knows they’ve already made enough mistakes to in effect put the whole of Humanity into a net state of imminent negative Karma value, not merely themselves and the people they’ve immediately affected so far.
trbixler January 14, 2012 at 8:59 pm, I don’t think your comments are show stoppers. Satellites measure average sea levels with as much accuracy as average temperatures and much greater consistency AFAIK. Atmospheric pressure changes are local, not global and tides average over time as well. The “bucket” may deform slightly but I doubt it is very significant in the time scales of interest. In comparison the uncertainties of heat distribution between the ocean surface, location and depths seem vastly greater.
My general impression is that fewer and fewer are interested in climate change these days. The only people interested are those at these sites and alarmist sites (which are even less). The subject is very rarely mentioned in mass media anymore. maybe without noticing it it has virtually died.
Philip Bradley says: “Its not really an assumption, Its the theoretical prediction of the Forcings Theory of climate change.”
It’s still an assumption that global surface temperatures have risen linearly in response to those forcings.
You continued, “Although the stepped increase of SSTs is consistent (a rather weasily word much loved by climate scientists) with GH warming from CO2 intermediated by the ENSO process.”
That argument doesn’t ring true. That is, it could be argued that the Rest-of-the-World (Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific) SST anomalies would likely decrease after the 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Nino events if it wasn’t for greenhouse gases—or—phrased another way, greenhouse gases prevent the Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific SST from declining after the El Nino events. The first problem is the East Pacific SST anomalies haven’t increased in 30 years, so the flat SST anomalies between the El Nino events in the Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific data are consistent with a world in which greenhouse gases have no impact on sea surface temperatures. The second problem is there is an additional factor called the AMO that’s included in the Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific data. Without the North Atlantic data, the South Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies have significant negative trends between the major El Nino events:
http://i55.tinypic.com/12524rb.jpg
It’s only the North Atlantic that shows a rise between those El Nino events and that is consistent with the additional mode of natural variability called the AMO:
http://i54.tinypic.com/35d3j1h.jpg
The second part was discussed in this post:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/supplement-to-enso-indices-do-not-represent-the-process-of-enso-or-its-impact-on-global-temperature/
Thanks very much. Clear and compelling to this lay reader. I was particularly struck by the animations of the Rossby waves and other transporters of heat through the system. As you say, it’s a process, not a number; the number (or even dozens of different indices) is just a partial arbitrary representation of the process. Given the inherent noise –the multiplicity of different interacting somewhat-cyclical factors on different time scales, and the wild cards of volcanic activity and solar behavior– it should not surprise that the real shape of the elephant is so hard to discern.
Alan Wilkinson says: “Why so much attention to sea surface temperature rather than sea level as a direct proxy for total ocean heat content? SST invokes a distributional uncertainty that seems unnecessary.”
First, sea surface temperatures are not being used as a proxy for ocean heat content. They’re entirely different datasets. In additional to the greater depth of the ocean heat content data, it also includes the impacts of variations in salinity.
Second, in addition to the thermal component of sea level, there is also a mass contribution from the melting of glaciers, pumping out ground water, etc., so sea level data that has not been adjusted for the mass contribution does not provide a good proxy for ocean heat content.
Third, satellite era sea level data has only been available since 1993, but you get another decade of satellite-based data using sea surface temperature.
And fourth, with respect to my post, Foster and Rahmstorf used the land+sea surface temperatures from 3 sources (GISS, Hadley Centre, and NCDC) in their paper. Sea surface temperature is a major component of those datasets because the oceans cover 70% of the surface area of the globe. Foster and Rahmstorf didn’t discuss sea level.
Regards
afiziquist says: “My general impression is that fewer and fewer are interested in climate change these days. The only people interested are those at these sites and alarmist sites (which are even less). The subject is very rarely mentioned in mass media anymore. maybe without noticing it it has virtually died.”
Every time there’s a change in the weather or major flooding event, some newscaster or reporter attributes it to global warming/climate change caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. It’s also so ingrained in people now due to the constant bombardment from the news for all those years that when they hear of the drought in Texas or flooding somewhere else in the world they think of manmade global warming.
“Bob Tisdale says:
January 15, 2012 at 2:26 am
It’s also so ingrained in people now due to the constant bombardment from the news for all those years that when they hear of the drought in Texas or flooding somewhere else in the world they think of manmade global warming.”
It is far worse then we thought. The ingrained rhetoric has entered our learning institutions, Their is no question of the theory’s legitimacy, effects or the realistic observations that hold up against the theory. What will become children’s relationship with authority when they discover there was no warming as hypothesized?
“It’s also so ingrained in people now due to the constant bombardment from the news for all those years that when they hear of the drought in Texas or flooding somewhere else in the world they think of manmade global warming.”
If you put enough extra energy into a system to heat up the whole by an average of around 1C, wouldn’t you expect that those (severe and catastrophic) events that rely on energy, thermodynamic processes and entropy for their existence to be enhanced and effected? To deny this is to deny science and logic. Attribution is very hard to quantify certainly But trying to imply and insinuate that this means there is no effect and also trying to misrepresents scientists by claiming they are citing AGW as sole or even primary cause is outright dishonest.
oMan says: “Thanks very much. Clear and compelling to this lay reader.”
As a lay reader, I’ve got a couple of questions for you, if I may. Regarding my discussion of ENSO and the upward shifts, what could I have made clearer? I understand a bunch of illustrations for the basic processes would help, along with more maps showing the locations of the Pacific Warm Pool, the Kuroshio-Oyashion Extension, the South Pacific Convergence Zone, the Indonesian Throughflow, etc. What about the descriptions themselves? I can use simpler language, while still trying to avoid pronouns since they can add confusion. What else?
I was thinking of writing a post that’s simply about this topic; that is, how I can change my discussion to make it easier for the lay person to read and understand.
El Nino loading of a La Nina via rosby waves is but one method that forms La Nina. The principal falls apart during neg PDO periods when we experience double La Nina. The basic method tells us we need warm water above New Guinea to begin the La Nina process which can also come from the PDO warm pool during the neg phase as we see today.
Why does Bob not discuss this important variation of ENSO?
The PDO is not hard to recognize but so far is not mentioned this thread.
“afiziquist says:
January 15, 2012 at 1:44 am
My general impression is that fewer and fewer are interested in climate change these days. The only people interested are those at these sites and alarmist sites (which are even less). The subject is very rarely mentioned in mass media anymore. maybe without noticing it it has virtually died.”
Try telling that to the ordinary people in EU Europe whose income is being drained to provide subsidies for vast and insane ‘renewable’ projects, channelling the profit to the already rich, both corporate and individual – oh, and that’s without all the taxes that go under the name of environmental concern but are just another way of bleeding the populace dry.
Bob
Then the 1995/96 La Niña event “overcharged” the Tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content again and that provided the fuel for the 1997/98 “El Niño of the Century”.
This doesn’t make sense. The 1995/96 La Niña was very weak (if at all qualifying), same with the 82 (not a Nina) and 85 events. If ‘fueled’ it all came from the huge OHC increase in 1977.
http://virakkraft.com/ENSO-OHC-0-24N.png
And that shift was not caused by the 74-76 Nina, then the 55 Nina should also have caused a shift.
Geoff Sharp says: “El Nino loading of a La Nina via rosby waves is but one method that forms La Nina. The principal falls apart during neg PDO periods when we experience double La Nina. The basic method tells us we need warm water above New Guinea to begin the La Nina process which can also come from the PDO warm pool during the neg phase as we see today.”
You and I have discussed the PDO before, and your continued insistence on the PDO’s importance and your discussion of it in your comment clearly indicate you still do not understand what it is. The PDO is an aftereffect of ENSO. The PDO only relates to the leading principal component of the detrended sea surface temperature anomalies for the NORTH PACIFIC north of 20N. The last time I checked, Geoff, New Guinea was south of the equator. Has it moved? If not, it does not enter into a conversation of the PDO.
Here’s a link to an introductory post about the PDO. I’ve provided a link to it for you in the past, but here it is again. Maybe this time you’ll read it:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/an-introduction-to-enso-amo-and-pdo-part-3/
With respect to your want to redirect this thread to double-dip La Nina events: This post was about specific El Nino events and the La Nina events that followed them, and about the observed upward shifts in the sea surface temperature anomalies of the Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific SST dataset caused by those El Nino events. Specifically, this post was about the 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Nino events and the 1989/90 and 1998/99/00/01 La Nina events. It was not about the double-dip La Nina events we have seen since 2007, so your claim the “principal falls apart” is nonsense. In fact, the more I read your comment, the more I’m convinced you’re simply acting as a troll, a troll who misundertands the topic of this post and the topic you want to discuss.
You continued, “Why does Bob not discuss this important variation of ENSO?”
Which “this”? Your use of a pronoun is confusing to readers. If your question relates to double-dip La Nina events, they are not relevant to this discussion. I’m not sure why you can’t see that, Geoff.
You continued, “The PDO is not hard to recognize but so far is not mentioned this thread.”
Since the PDO is an aftereffect of ENSO, there is no need to discuss it on this thread.
Geoff, the last time we had a similar discussion (about six months ago) I presented the following to you with hope you’d recognize one of your misunderstandings. The standardization of the PDO data greatly exaggerates its importance. I know I’ve illustrated this for you, Geoff, because I have a file of graphs with your name on it that includes this one:
http://i44.tinypic.com/24x0tj9.jpg
As you’ll note, if we don’t standardize the 1st principal component data, the PDO (represented by the blue North Pacific data) is dwarfed by the ENSO (represented by the purple NINO3.4 data). ENSO is clearly the dominant mode of natural variability in the Pacific, Geoff.
Not necessarily, if the earth has a natural thermostat, or several. for instance, if increased heat causes more tropical thunderstorms, which vent that heat by convection to the upper atmosphere, as willis has argued.
Exp says: “If you put enough extra energy into a system to heat up the whole by an average of around 1C…”
That’s as far as anyone needs to read your comment, Exp, but I did read the rest. Your initial phrase is an assumption on your part, and this post illustrated how big of an assumption it is. There is no evidence the additional increase in anthropogenic forcings from 1982 to present had any impact on sea surface temperatures. There is no evidence whatsoever.
Are you aware the trend of the forcings during the late warming period (1975-2000) is at least three times greater than the trend during the early warming period of the 20th century (1917-1944)? Are you aware that there is no difference in the rates at which global surface temperatures warmed during the early and late warming periods, using the IPCC’s dataset of choice, HadCRUT3? If anthropogenic forcings are what drives global surface temperatures, why are the observed rates of warming the same, when there’s been a three-fold increase in the rate at which they’re forced? The hypothesis you’re convinced of has tremendous holes in it, Exp.
Exp:
That’s an average 1C over more than 100 years, and that’s all that extra energy did – caused a slight increase in the statistical average – big deal.
But you ignore the orders of magnitude greater energy fluxes which happen on a daily basis,causing diurnal temperature changes of several degrees on average, as well as seasonal changes.
These are the real energy fluxes, which are truly huge, and not some trifling couple of W/m2 increase over a century in some statistical average.
lgl: You quoted the post, “Then the 1995/96 La Niña event ‘overcharged’ the Tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content again and that provided the fuel for the 1997/98 ‘El Niño of the Century’.”
Then you said, “This doesn’t make sense. The 1995/96 La Niña was very weak (if at all qualifying), same with the 82 (not a Nina) and 85 events. If ‘fueled’ it all came from the huge OHC increase in 1977.
http://virakkraft.com/ENSO-OHC-0-24N.png
And that shift was not caused by the 74-76 Nina, then the 55 Nina should also have caused a shift.”
lgl, the 1995/96 La Nina was weak but it did qualify:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
And sorry that I didn’t include the following link to McPhaden (1999)“Genesis and Evolution of the 1997-98 El Niño.
http://lightning.sbs.ohio-state.edu/geo622/paper_enso_McPhaden1999.pdf
McPhaden writes, “For at least a year before the onset of the 1997–98 El Niño, there was a buildup of heat content in the western equatorial Pacific due to stronger than normal trade winds associated with a weak La Niña in 1995–96.”
NINO3.4 SST anomalies and the MEI aren’t perfect proxies for the interplay between the many variables that are part of ENSO. Sometimes the ENSO indices simply tell us that an event took place at a specific time and we need to look further. (It took me a while to find that paper. I believe it’s the only one that discussed the source of warm water for the 1997/98 El Nino.) With respect to your comment about a 1955 La Nina, the multiyear 1954/55/56/57 La Nina sure does look at though it’s timed right for the rise in OHC in your graphs at that time, but it’s really tough to be sure since the data starts in 1955:
http://virakkraft.com/ENSO-OHC-0-24N.png
And we also have to keep in mind just how sparse the actual data was way back then.
Regards
Bob Tisdale says:
It’s still an assumption that global surface temperatures have risen linearly in response to those forcings.
My point was that they are trying to tease the theoretical prediction from the data. Use of the word assumption isn’t really that important. What’s important, is failure to find a linear trend is a serious problem for the CO2 GHG warming and Forcings theory.
As for stepped change of SSTs, I said it was consistent with CO2 GHG warming. Whether stepped changes in SSTs are occuring is a separate issue.
Although thinking about it. I’d expect plateauing of ex-tropical ocean SSTs as a consequence of ENSO. Successively higher plateaus is what is you would expect from increased GHGs, assuming they work as advertised.
Bob,
First of all, kudos to you for your admission of your limited understanding of the statistical methods used in FR2011, as displayed in your previous analysis. That admission alone tells me a great deal about your character, and this new analysis of yours is so much better. Even if I don’t agree with you on all points, I do admire you.
But to the points you make. I think in general you’ve done an excellent job, and in particular, your insights regarding the oceanicRossby waves carrying extra surface heat unspent during a formal El Nino back toward the western Pacific is very insightful, and the fact that this occurs outside of the formally measured El Nino period, means, as you’ve pointed ouit, that it would not be accounted for in filtering process used by Foster & Rahmstorf. This residual El Nino heat certainly shows up in the linear rise they’ve found and are attributing to the anthropogenic signal. In my estimation, they need to rexamine the assumptions in the FR2011 study, taking this Rossby wave “residual” El Nino sea surface heat into account. It could be that they’d still get very similar results, but I think the issue needs to be addressed by them. I understand their need to have some metric whereby the El Nino period begins and ends, and thus, on that basis their analysis is not wrong, but this “residual heat” issue should merit some response.
On a larger perspective, this residual heat issue, as you’ve identified so nicely in the Rossby waves, does raise the issue that I’ve brought up with you, and that’s that El Ninos have not been releasing as much heat as La Ninas have been storing over the past 30+ years. Now, even the fact that some of the residual heat from El Ninos continues to influence ocean SST’s after the formal El Nino period has ended, only highlights this point even more. All the heat stored during La Ninas is not getting released during El Ninos, nor even in the ensuing Rossby wave back toward the west, thus, at leat during the last 30+ years, one would expect overall ocean heat content to have gone up, and it has. Now it could be that this is all part of a natural, longer term cycle, and we are now getting to top of a cycle, and ocean heat content will begin to fall, as certainly over the longer time frames, short of external forcing such as from anthropogenic warming, ocean heat content must not go up nor down, but average out. Thus, the “step ups” you’ve identified must have a “step down” period, or something else is going on that your analysis is not accounting for.
Overall, very nice job, and it would be interesting to have Foster & Rahmstorf reply to your analysis.
Bob, while you make some reasonable criticisms of F&R 2011 you , as ever, see what you wish to see in the data. Your step change idea makes steps where you want to see them and ignores other equally large “steps” like 1993 that are present even in the “volcano adjusted” data.
“satellite-era Sea Surface Temperature data shows no evidence of an anthropogenic global warming signal. It only shows upward shifts associated with strong ENSO events.”
These oscillatory events are only about distribution of heat. You argue as if they were a source of energy by themselves. ENSO can not keep pumping up global temps indefinitely without a source for that energy.
Your “steps” are just the modulation of a longer term rise by an oscillation. That does not tell us anything about the source of the energy and that is what we need to determine.
Look for the source of that energy.
best regards.
afiziquist says: “My general impression is that fewer and fewer are interested in climate change these days. The only people interested are those at these sites and alarmist sites (which are even less). The subject is very rarely mentioned in mass media anymore. maybe without noticing it it has virtually died.”
Bob’s response was fine but may I add that here in the UK our government is committed to spending £18bn/pa on CO2 generated “green” policies that will cripple our econamy forever, that the MSM publish articles every day preaching the AGW religion and that great bastion of AGW religiosity, the High Priests Of The Green AGW Left, the BBC, not only reports every day on their religion but inserts references to AGW in almost every program it broadcasts whether relevant to the apparent material or not (there is at least one TV program scheduled tonight that will mention the “problem” of man made climate change & a couple of weeks ago there were 4 programs broadcast contiguously on its Radio 4 channel that, whilst ostensibly nothing to do with climate, carried their religious mantra).
The MSM, governments and the vast majority of the public ALL believe in the new religion: anybody who cannot see this had better wake up and smell the coffee. Whilst the pseudo science has been revealed and discredited, none of this has changed the religion a jot: so, what we and the real scientists need is a huge PR attack on The Cause. In this context (PR) blogs are the equivalent of the ant climbing an elephant’s hind leg with the intention of rape: they are emphatically not the answer, so what is?
B Tisdale etc.Re dying mainstream interest in climate chnage etc….. I would have agreed perhaps a year ago, but I think generally MSM is not reporting wild weather events as due to “AGW climate change etc”, as much anymore, well in any case I have not seen CNN, FOX or even the BBC reporting them as due to “climate change”. My impression is they are also giving up/getting out etc.. because in fact the climate has not changed and they can see and feel it. Even die hards are giving up, such as Annan “Well see in next 4 years etc if temps go up”, having lost the 4 year bet already) Also they are (mainstream) beginning to view the AGW’erss (+ climategate event), as a “fringe group”. It has been barely mentioned by any of the GOP candidates as an issue.
It is hard to drift far from the Truth when you simply observe the Truth. It is the fellows who play around too much with simulations and modles that get themselves in trouble.
What I notice is that mostly we are observing a series of “step-ups.” My guess is that the system is still responding, with a sort of “lag time,” to the injection of heat from the now-finished stronger solar cycles. What will be interesting is how the system responds to less heat being injected. Will there be some sort of “step down,” or just a gradual decline?
I suspect we still have much to observe. It may well be that everyone will be focused on ENSO, and the responce will appear somewhere else, perhaps as a shift to the south of an Arctic current.
In any case, thank you for bringing your keen and careful powers of observation to the subject, Bob.
In my Western Civ 1st yr. university class, the prof observed that a skipped diacritical mark in the original (Aramaic?) transforms the word “rope” into “camel”. Makes 10,000% more sense that way.
😉 Maybe he’s the real fictional character!!
Those squiggly red lines FF puts under words mean something! To make them more meaningful, each time a proper noun or name or acronym (e.g., WUWT) comes up and is underlined, right-click and select “Add to dictionary”. That way they won’t distract you from real misspellings. But be real careful — you misspelled “Statham”, too, and saving “Stratham” would prevent warnings when you do it again!!
P.S. The right click display offers guesses about what the right word/spelling is, too. Click the one you want to instantly replace the typed original.
Bob (and others), perhaps, since the word isn’t going to go away, it should be properly treated, as a spectrum. Degrees of consistency, and conditions for consistency, could then be specifically discussed. One interpretation could then be presented as “more consistent”, an entirely coherent concept. And violations of the “conditions” cited to dispute the consistency.
That may rout the weasels.
Edit: meant to highlight “are consistent with” in both quotes.
“afiziquist says:
January 15, 2012 at 1:44 am
My general impression is that fewer and fewer are interested in climate change these days. The only people interested are those at these sites and alarmist sites (which are even less). The subject is very rarely mentioned in mass media anymore. maybe without noticing it it has virtually died.”
It may be dying in the news but it is alive and well at the EPA and almost all democrats (and some republicans) in congress. It’s like giving enough pain medicine to a cancer patient to make the pain goes away then claiming you/ve cured the patient. This scam is far from dead yet, we still have years to go before we can declare victory that the world has been spared from this evil.
Catastrophic events, by definition, are driven and powered by steep contrasts and slopes. The consequences of “global warming” are first and most felt at high latitudes, where they result in a reduction of the contrast with the far more stable tropics. Therefore science and logic predict that adding energy to the (current, actual) system will reduce severe weather and associated catastrophes.
Coincidentally, it happens that this is what history records.
You were saying?
R. Gates says:
January 15, 2012 at 5:35 am
“Now it could be that this is all part of a natural, longer term cycle, and we are now getting to top of a cycle, and ocean heat content will begin to fall, as certainly over the longer time frames, short of external forcing such as from anthropogenic warming, ocean heat content must not go up nor down, but average out. Thus, the “step ups” you’ve identified must have a “step down” period, or something else is going on that your analysis is not accounting for.”
WOW! In order for it to ‘average out’ it MUST go up and down!
Exp says:
January 15, 2012 at 2:51 am
(Bob T said:)
“It’s also so ingrained in people now due to the constant bombardment from the news for all those years that when they hear of the drought in Texas or flooding somewhere else in the world they think of manmade global warming.”
If you put enough extra energy into a system to heat up the whole by an average of around 1C, wouldn’t you expect that those (severe and catastrophic) events that rely on energy, thermodynamic processes and entropy for their existence to be enhanced and effected? To deny this is to deny science and logic. Attribution is very hard to quantify certainly But trying to imply and insinuate that this means there is no effect and also trying to misrepresents scientists by claiming they are citing AGW as sole or even primary cause is outright dishonest.
___________
Exp – YOUR post seems to me to be dishonest (your words) and aggressive. Perhaps you should re-read Bob’s words and respond to what he actually said.
A few comments related Foster and Rahmstorf
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022
Abstract:
“We analyze five prominent time series of global temperature (over land and ocean) for their common time interval since 1979: three surface temperature records (from NASA/GISS, NOAA/NCDC and HadCRU) and two lower-troposphere (LT) temperature records based on satellite microwave sensors (from RSS and UAH). All five series show consistent global warming trends ranging from 0.014 to 0.018 K yr−1. When the data are adjusted to remove the estimated impact of known factors on short-term temperature variations (El Niño/southern oscillation, volcanic aerosols and solar variability), the global warming signal becomes even more evident as noise is reduced. Lower-troposphere temperature responds more strongly to El Niño/southern oscillation and to volcanic forcing than surface temperature data. The adjusted data show warming at very similar rates to the unadjusted data, with smaller probable errors, and the warming rate is steady over the whole time interval. In all adjusted series, the two hottest years are 2009 and 2010.”
Foster and Rahmstorf have analyzed a warming segment of clearly cyclical warming and cooling data, and then suggest that this “global warming signal” can be extrapolated into the future. This is just more global warming alarmist nonsense. There has been no significant global warming for a decade. Earth temperature is probably at the top of the cycle and is about to decline – aka “global cooling”. Such cooling last occurred from about 1945-1975. Bundle up.
The Climategate emails provide so much evidence of fraudulent behavior by acolytes of the global warming “Cause” that reading their papers is a waste of time.
Finally, while the media may be slowly moving away from global warming hysteria, the wasteful use of very expensive, inefficient and ineffective “alternative energy” schemes such as wind power and corn ethanol is still embraced by most of our lawmakers. We are still paying the price and will do so until these ridiculous energy scams and their huge subsidies and compulsory-use mandates are stopped.
“This post excludes all discussions of the statistical methods used by Foster and Rahmstorf in their paper.”
“This post illustrated and discussed the error in the assumption that regression analysis can be used to remove the impacts of ENSO on Global Surface Temperature. “
P. Solar says: “These oscillatory events are only about distribution of heat. You argue as if they were a source of energy by themselves. ENSO can not keep pumping up global temps indefinitely without a source for that energy.”
You must have zipped through the discussion of La Nina events. Look for the words and phrases recharge, overcharge, reduction in cloud cover, increase in downward shortwave radiation, that relate to Figure 2.
And thanks for the kind words.
Mardler says:
January 15, 2012 at 5:55 am
“Bob’s response was fine but may I add that here in the UK our government is committed to spending £18bn/pa on CO2 generated “green” policies that will cripple our econamy forever…”
Only capitalists will shut down an unprofitable industry.
Allan MacRae said:
“Foster and Rahmstorf have analyzed a warming segment of clearly cyclical warming and cooling data, and then suggest that this “global warming signal” can be extrapolated into the future. This is just more global warming alarmist nonsense.”
______
Actually, that is one of the best and most important parts of their entire paper. Skeptics are always asking for specifc, verifiable predictions…well, here you have one. If the statistical filtering methods used by Foster and Rahmstorf can be validated by other scientists, then there is a very specifc prediction for the linear background (one short-term noise is filtered out) rise in temperatures caused by anthropogenic forcing. If making specific and verifiable predictions is “alarmist nonsense” to AGW skeptics, then it seems skeptics are practicing a different kind of science.
Babsy said:
“WOW! In order for it to ‘average out’ it MUST go up and down!”
____
A big insight for you apparently. It seems skeptics keep wanting to look for natural cycles that explain warming, and thus assume that things must go down eventually to counter the late 20th and early 21st century warmth. Or some of them are of the mindset that the climate is still pulling out of the LIA. Anything, absolutely anything, but anthropogenic influence. It would seem a middle course is more reasonable…recognizing shorter-term cycles (which becomes noise if you’re looking for a longer-term signal), but also see how humans are altering the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere on micro and macro ways, and that alteration has only increased with human population growth.
Bob:
I don’t believe it is your technical writing that makes all ENSO discussions difficult to grasp. You are doing a fine job but the subject itself which is difficult. Without a beginning, the story can be difficult to collate into a whole. Until the ENSO causative story can be told, as to initiators and actual mechanics involved (predicted), it is very difficult to assemble a satisfying mosaic. This is not your fault. You have done well clarifying a very fuzzy picture, but it is always going to remain fuzzy until the fundamentals are discovered and understood (predicted). Typical cutting edge science conundrum… I would say. Thanks for your labors, for what it is, as always. GK
There’s a very important distinction that has to be kept in mind, and the semantics of the discussion may well hide it.
Global temperatures almost certainly do not show a linear response with respect to the ENSO index. But that is a very different thing from claiming a linear trend from the ENSO. Those are two different items, albeit with similar wording. Confusing them would be misleading.
As an example of a non-linear response (artificial, but for illustration), assume that the response of a system to an input has a delay, and returns to normal slower than it responds to an input. If you put a square wave input into the system (input rises, holds for a bit, drops back to neutral), a delayed response with a tail will produce something like a soft decaying sawtooth response. This is non-linear, and will leave +/- residuals after regression, as a scaled or delayed square wave cannot match a sawtooth form. But – a very important point – this kind of non-linear response will, while swinging back and forth over time, have a zero average residual (no trend) – with small variations above and below neutral.
In other words – a non-linear response, which is certainly the case with ENSO and the multiple factors involved, does not necessarily indicate underlying trends in the response – it simply means that a linear regression will leave some residuals (+/-) from the non-linear response. Identifying and attributing linear trends is a completely separate discussion.
[ Side note – step changes: Tisdale in Fig. 7 shows step changes with linear sections of length 3, 9, and 11 years. Given the inherent variation (weather) and noise in the global temperature signal, the statistical requirement for a minimum of 17 years of global data to establish a linear trend (Santer 2011, http://muenchow.cms.udel.edu/classes/MAST811/Santer2011.pdf), and the restriction of temperatures to a much smaller and hence more variant section of the Pacific, this claim is simply not statistically meaningful. At all. ]
—
Tisdale claims that a series of La Niña’s “overcharged” the ocean heat content, and led to a 30 year warming. As support he points to the “step-changes” in the last 30 years (see previous side note). Some questions come to mind:
* Why has this not happened before? (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ – 135 year ENSO record)
* Ocean Heat Content, by any records (http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/), has increased hugely over the last 30 years. That’s completely inconsistent with an ocean driven positive SST change from ENSO variations – both OHC and air temperatures are rising.
* What is the SST observational difference for this limited set of data between (a) ENSO induced “step changes” that are not statistically meaningful given the data variance, and (b) ENSO variance around a linear trend separately caused by, oh, greenhouse gas changes? [ Answer – none. ] See http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/step-2/ and http://www.skepticalscience.com/its-a-climate-shift-step-function-caused-by-natural-cycles.htm for examples of overfitting a series of steps to what are actually linear trends with variations.
—
Summary: Non-linear responses from complex processes do not, by themselves, indicate underlying linear trends – that’s two completely different uses for the terminology.
Step changes are not statistically meaningful over such a short timeframe. You can really closely fit data with (for example) a high order polynomial – but if you don’t have the data to support that many parameters, you are overfitting, and getting deceptive results.
There is no observational difference for SST’s between ENSO plus a separate linear trend and ENSO step-changes – and those step changes are (a) not statistically supportable, and (b) lack a physical mechanism.
—
Bob Tisdale – It would be interesting to see your work extended with confidence intervals. I realize that’s a bit of statistical heavy lifting, but given the other issues with such claims (I’ve mentioned a few above) I don’t think you’re going to make much headway unless you can show how supportable your claims are.
Hats off to you Sir. This is what credible science is all about.
Bob,
I know this is a bit off topic but the decadel oscillations could very easily drive the “lag” between warming and cooling. I tend to think of these heat sinks as the buffer between times of solar heat uptick which keep the earth from warming fast to times of solar depression where heat is released to keep the planet warmer.
Maybe I’m to simplistic in this process but many of the lag times in gases and temp are explained in the time factor it takes for these to occur. Our time span in assessing these is so limited that simple observation may be a better predictor than the numbers.
Alan Statham says:
January 14, 2012 at 6:03 pm
Well go on then. Try and get this published in the scientific literature.
===========================================================
Alan, he just did. In case you haven’t noticed, the publications which often publish such tripe as F&R aren’t viewed as valid any longer by a large portion of the population. If the ideologues wish to continue to publish in these nonsensical periodicals, so be it. But, its has long since passed that what is published in them was viewed as a euphemism for science. We’ve known for a long time they were hi-jacked by ideologues, it has been proven repeatedly and the last several years. If you want to find real climate science, you need to look at the blogs.
If you constrain yourself as to believing only rubbished periodicals, you’ll be left with the impression that we’ve dead polly bears floating about, a non existent ice cap, clouds being of no import to temps, temps continuing unabated, the passing of the Amazon, upside-down proxies, no MWP or LIA, …….well, the list goes on and on. Yeh, those are the places I’d go for some science knowledge…..
@ Bob, well done. Keep hammering at the ENSO fallacies. The biggest problem in climate science is the belief that we know so much, when, clearly, we know so little. Thanks again.
R. Gates says:
January 15, 2012 at 10:17 am
“It seems skeptics keep wanting to look for natural cycles that explain warming, and thus assume that things must go down eventually to counter the late 20th and early 21st century warmth. ”
——————————————————————————–
One can only laugh at the short sighted warmers for their undying belief that man is the sole cause of everything… Even when the facts show that it has happened time and time again without mans help..
Science is the practice of good observation and documentation skills. Warmers have a problem with observation and documentation skills… Climate-gate anyone? When ones financing by BIG GOVERNMENT clouds their vision they become nothing more than a shill for those who crave power..
You belittle those who are observing and noticing things that warmers want silenced…. where sir did you learn science? it seems you may be practicing anything but… please remove the liberal blinders you have so firmly in place… the science is not settled like you would want us to believe.
R. Gates says:
January 15, 2012 at 10:17 am
Yeah! That struck a chord with ya, didn’t it?! I once read in a book “The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in tragedy and injustice”. Here’s how it works; one makes a measurement then formulates a hypotethsis to explain the observation. The hypothesis follows the facts and not the other way around. With you, the temperature of the atmosphere is increasing (never mind there are data that indicate otherwise [Hide the decline!]) and for you the *ONLY* possible explanation of the observation is because ‘man’ is dumping CO2 in the atmosphere! If you, and ‘The Team’, can’t formulate a theory that accurately predicts future observations using identical parameters, then your theory is *WRONG*.
“R Gates says;
On a larger perspective, this residual heat issue, as you’ve identified so nicely in the Rossby waves, does raise the issue that I’ve brought up with you, and that’s that El Ninos have not been releasing as much heat as La Ninas have been storing over the past 30+ years. Now, even the fact that some of the residual heat from El Ninos continues to influence ocean SST’s after the formal El Nino period has ended, only highlights this point even more.”
When I see your name I am going to discipline myself not to read your nonsensical posts.
El Nino’s, La Nina’s don’t store anything. They are dynamic process that distribute OHC. La Nina’s don’t stop when La Nina starts and vise versa, at times one is more dominate. Bubbles in a boiling pot will have different attractors as it is thermodynamically mixed into the Heat Content of the whole pot.
R.Gates, although this site is open to both those that know and those ignorant like you and me, it is still a requirement to have some basic cognitive ability. You, on the other hand, either have none, or are just another warmist troll.
Markus said:
“El Nino’s, La Nina’s don’t store anything.”
______
In general, more SW solar radiation enters the ocean during La Ninas that during El Ninos. This fact, leads to the general observation that ocean heat content tends to increase during La Ninas and of course decrease during an El Nino. Of course, the El Ninos have not been as good at releasing the heat during the past 30+ years as the La Ninas have been at storing it, and so ocean heat content has increased. Some say this imbalance is due to anthropogenic factors, and some say it is a “natural cycle”, but regardless, the imbalance exists, and right up to the latest reporting period for OHC, with it being a La Nina, OHC has gone up and is at its highest levels in the 30+ year period.
markus says:
January 15, 2012 at 11:25 am
Your reference to bubbles in a boiling pot reminds me of flying in clouds. Inside a cloud is different than outside a cloud with respect to both temperature and dew point. I think the R Gates crowd would wish us to believe that such variation isn’t possible and that we should think of the atmosphere and the oceans as static entities. They ain’t!
Bill H says:
January 15, 2012 at 10:46 am
R. Gates says:
January 15, 2012 at 10:17 am
“It seems skeptics keep wanting to look for natural cycles that explain warming, and thus assume that things must go down eventually to counter the late 20th and early 21st century warmth. ”
——————————————————————————–
One can only laugh at the short sighted warmers for their undying belief that man is the sole cause of everything… Even when the facts show that it has happened time and time again without mans help..
__________
There is a big gray area between the extreme of saying, “It is all natural cycles” to “Man is the sole cause of everything”. The truth is most likely somewhere in that gray area, and the difficulty is in finding out where. Added to this difficulty is the fact that the mixture of the two, “natural cycle” versus “anthropogenic” is likely changing as humans have increased their footprint on the planet…i.e. what the ratio of natural versus anthopogenic was during the 1940’s may be far different now as the impacts from human activity has increased greatly.
Looked at Foster and Rahmstorf. Pretty worthless paper. They are chasing ghosts with MEI, AOD, and TSI, and they have no idea what ENSO is. They could have found out by reading my book but instead they have six blind men in a room trying to learn about an elephant. They also have no idea what information is carried by the satellite record and imagine that using a linear trend will get rid exogenous influences that only they can detect. All-in-all a true IPCC-quality monster.
R. Gates says:
January 15, 2012 at 11:47 am
“i.e. what the ratio of natural versus anthopogenic was during the 1940′s may be far different now as the impacts from human activity has increased greatly.”
Until your ‘Team’ can demonstrate the mechanism of ‘anthropogenic’, and it be independently confirmed, it doesn’t exist!
There are a variety of confounding influences to sea height data that make untangling the sea temperature signal difficult. 1) temperature 2) salinity 3)winds, including trade winds 4)ocean current dynamics, 5) tides, 6) other long period waves, 7) eustatic changes from increases and decreases in ocean mass, 8) tectonic changes in sea floor configuration, although this is a very long period change. Not all of these would be involved in an ElNino index based on sea height, but you asked for reasons why SST is used.
I think Brian H also mentioned this, but weather is driven by contrasts in temperature (and water vapor content) and since AGW increases the polar temperatures and humidity more than it does in the tropics, then this ought to, logically, reduce extreme weather? You could argue that Hurricanes would be another matter completely, but there isn’t clear evidence of an increase there either.
Couldn’t help myself
“R. Gates says:
January 15, 2012 at 11:40 am In general, more SW solar radiation enters the ocean during La Ninas that during El Ninos”
The fanciful world of a warmist. Hard to see though that warm mist isn’t it. “The Sun knows when a El Nino has formed as switches off.” Really, R.Gates. Both La Ninas and El Ninos are local phenomenon resultant from external forcing, on the other hand the oceans have global aspects, just like the Sun.
Mate, you’re illogical. You’re calling cause before you know the effects.
R. Gates says:
January 15, 2012 at 11:47 am
“The truth is most likely somewhere in that gray area, and the difficulty is in finding out where.”
In your case it’s the difficulty in finding the gray matter.
markus says:
January 15, 2012 at 11:59 am
Couldn’t help myself
“R. Gates says:
January 15, 2012 at 11:40 am In general, more SW solar radiation enters the ocean during La Ninas that during El Ninos”
The fanciful world of a warmist. Hard to see though that warm mist isn’t it. “The Sun knows when a El Nino has formed as switches off.” Really, R.Gates. Both La Ninas and El Ninos are local phenomenon resultant from external forcing, on the other hand the oceans have global aspects, just like the Sun.
Mate, you’re illogical. You’re calling cause before you know the effects.
__________
You obviously know nothing of the role of clouds in blocking SW radiation from entering the ocean, nor how clouds vary between El Nino and La Nina, such that more SW enters the ocean on average during La Nina (because of the role of clouds), and thus OHC increases. In fact, it is apparent that you know nothing about the ENSO cycle at all, but are quite proficient in ad homs, such that responding to you in the future will of course be impossible.
Babsy says:
January 15, 2012 at 11:56 am
R. Gates says:
January 15, 2012 at 11:47 am
“i.e. what the ratio of natural versus anthopogenic was during the 1940′s may be far different now as the impacts from human activity has increased greatly.”
Until your ‘Team’ can demonstrate the mechanism of ‘anthropogenic’, and it be independently confirmed, it doesn’t exist!
_______
I don’t have a “team”, but the basic mechanisms behind anthropogenic influences on the climate are well explained, even if the total range of feedbacks are not known. For a nice comprehensive summary, might I suggest you read:
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405196165.html
Gates, if u contend that heat loss has been hampered by CO2, what other metric can u link to that would demonstrate this? For example, I would look at OLR data to see if there is a mechanistic match.
R. Gates says:
January 15, 2012 at 12:20 pm
“I don’t have a “team”, but the basic mechanisms behind anthropogenic influences on the climate are well explained, even if the total range of feedbacks are not known.”
Are you daft? The basic mechanisms of anthropogenic influences are USELESS if they don’t explain the ‘total range of feedbacks’ and make verifiable predictions about future events! Until they can make verifiable predictions, they remain CONJECTURE! Of course, conjecture is at the heart of ‘the scientific consensus’ that the Algore worships.
“R. Gates says:
January 15, 2012 at 12:13 pm
You obviously know nothing of the role of clouds in blocking SW radiation from entering the ocean, nor how clouds vary between El Nino and La Nina, such that more SW enters the ocean on average during La Nina (because of the role of clouds), and thus OHC increases.”
I live on the East Coast of Australia, and fully appreciate the effect of clouds during La Nina. Those clouds caused deaths here in Australia 2010.
However, you know nothing about the discipline of discourse. Arguing global OHC is elevated during local La Nina is fundamentally flawed. At the same time those clouds are are hovering over the Eastern Pacific, they are not hanging over the North West Pacific.
You are right about changing local OHC during La Nina & El Nino, but to further suggest that these changes go only one way is wrong.
The argument by F&R 2011 is that the variations in the global temperature record due to El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) can be estimated from an ENSO index, this is illogical, as it argues a particular effect can be uniformly applied. It can’t, as Bob Tisdale demonstrated.
Enough of dogma, I want proof.
There is an interesting article on The Blackboard concerning Bastardi’s 20 year bet.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/checking-in-on-bastartis-wager/
No one won the bet this year, but one thing’s for certain: 2011 was NOT the hottest year ever!
Pamela Gray says:
January 15, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Gates, if u contend that heat loss has been hampered by CO2, what other metric can u link to that would demonstrate this? For example, I would look at OLR data to see if there is a mechanistic match.
_____
I make no such contention. My point was about the overall effect of El Ninos not releasing as much heat as La Ninas (and ENSO neutral periods) have been storing over the period of time that the Foster & Rahmstorf paper covered (1979-2010). leading to a net gain in ocean heat content. As fort the cause of this, it certainly might be that additional forcing from the added CO2, CH4, and N2O, over preindustrial levels might be involved, but there could be other natural factors working in combination as well. If we had reliable OLR that covered the entire earth for the period in question, we might be able to see some match or correlation between incrasing OHC and decreasing OLR, but to my knowledge, this data does not exist. Certainly if more energy is going into the heat sink of the ocean, you’d think less must be be going into space.
markus says:
January 15, 2012 at 12:50 pm
“Enough of dogma, I want proof.”
They don’t have any proof. And they know it. And they know that we know that, too.
Bob Tisdale says:
January 15, 2012 at 4:40 am
With respect to your want to redirect this thread to double-dip La Nina events:
I am not trying to redirect this thread. You have made great pains in your article to explain the rosby wave method of loading the La Nina phase of ENSO, but you have not considered the PDO loading of La Nina as witnessed during 2011. There is more than one method that you seem to be ignoring and you have not answered how a double dip La Nina can occur if only the rosby method is to be employed.
In 2011 the warm water in the North Pacific adjacent to Japan (which basically is the neg PDO) was transported to the equatorial water above New Guinea which took us from a neutral ENSO to La Nina. In 2011 the PDO index led the ENSO 3.4 index.
R. Gates says:
January 15, 2012 at 10:07 am
Allan MacRae said:
“Foster and Rahmstorf have analyzed a warming segment of clearly cyclical warming and cooling data, and then suggest that this “global warming signal” can be extrapolated into the future. This is just more global warming alarmist nonsense.”
_____
Gates said:
“Actually, that is one of the best and most important parts of their entire paper. Skeptics are always asking for specific, verifiable predictions…well, here you have one. If the statistical filtering methods used by Foster and Rahmstorf can be validated by other scientists, then there is a very specific prediction for the linear background (one short-term noise is filtered out) rise in temperatures caused by anthropogenic forcing. If making specific and verifiable predictions is “alarmist nonsense” to AGW skeptics, then it seems skeptics are practicing a different kind of science.”
MacRae also said, which Gates deleted:
“There has been no significant global warming for a decade. Earth temperature is probably at the top of the cycle and is about to decline – aka “global cooling”. Such cooling last occurred from about 1945-1975. Bundle up.
The Climategate emails provide so much evidence of fraudulent behavior by acolytes of the global warming “Cause” that reading their papers is a waste of time….”
______
Gates commented above:
“… If making specific and verifiable predictions is “alarmist nonsense” to AGW skeptics, then it seems skeptics are practicing a different kind of science.”
MacRae now says:
Gates, you speak of “practicing a different kind of science”:
After more than a decade, NONE of the scary predictions of the global warming alarmists have materialized. The warmists’ predictive track record is one of absolute failure. Based on the warmists’ dismal track record, one can safely assume that EVERYTHING they predict is highly likely to be false.
Babsy,
I may well be daft, but you apparently are unfamiliar with the nature of chaotic systems and how impossible it is to fully model or predict the nature and magnitude of all feedbacks, let alone account for natural variations such as ENSO, solar, volcanoes. But even with this difficult, if Foster & Rahmstorf’s 2011 paper stands up, it is a good start to making some quantifative and measureable predictions for the underlying warming signal. Due to your rather rude posts, all future dialog with you terminated.
Geoff Sharp said:
“n 2011 the warm water in the North Pacific adjacent to Japan (which basically is the neg PDO) was transported to the equatorial water above New Guinea which took us from a neutral ENSO to La Nina.”
____
I’m not certain that the currents run that direction, and that water near Japan would go south to the equatorial water above New Guinea. I believe that equatorial water is part of the normal Pacific Warm Pool, which may move toward the east during an El Nino, but don’t ever think if comes down south from near Japan.
Rather rude? I’m sorry! To whom shall I address my check to further their study of this incredibly complex and important phenomena? I’m just a poor, dum country boy frum Texas that don’t know no better than to think if the world is gettin’ colder then we must need more of that nasty CO2 gunk in the ar to keep frum freezin’ to deaf!
Until someone produces verifiable data, AGW is nothing more than a scam.
Geoff Sharp says: “I am not trying to redirect this thread. You have made great pains in your article to explain the rosby wave method of loading the La Nina phase of ENSO, but you have not considered the PDO loading of La Nina as witnessed during 2011. There is more than one method that you seem to be ignoring and you have not answered how a double dip La Nina can occur if only the rosby method is to be employed.”
First, Rossby is capitalized because it is Carl-Gustaf Rossby’s last name, and his last name is spelled with a double “s”.
Did you read my earlier reply to you in its entirety, Geoff? Apparently not. Does this post have anything to do with the 2011 La Nina, Geoff? Why, no it doesn’t! Why can’t you understand the topic being discussed on this thread, Geoff? And by your comment you still have no idea what the PDO is or what it represents. Not a clue.
Tell me the exact sentence and paragraph where I wrote, inferred, or implied in the above post that there was something called a “rosby [sic] method”. You can’t, because I did not. My post included a discussion about Rossby waves forming during the transition from specific El Nino events to specific La Nina events, Geoff. There’s nothing in my post about a so-called “rosby [sic] method”. You’re fabricating things again, Geoff. I’m not sure why you do it, but it’s a reoccurring thing with you.
If you’ll recall, Geoff, back in July, Anthony Watts asked you to stop posting comments on topics other than the solar cycle. Remember that? If not, scroll down to the end of my July 4, 2011 at 7:09 am reply to you:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/30/yet-even-more-discussions-about-the-pacific-decadal-oscillation-pdo/#comment-693877
Good-bye, Geoff.
Exp says:
January 15, 2012 at 2:51 am
“If you put enough extra energy into a system to heat up the whole by an average of around 1C, wouldn’t you expect that those (severe and catastrophic) events that rely on energy, thermodynamic processes and entropy for their existence to be enhanced and effected?”
Well, if you did expect these results, Exp, then why hasn’t there been an increase in “severe and catastrophic” events since ~1880 – that is, as proven by numbers, not merely asserted and later found to be only false ad hoc fabrications; and likewise why has there been no correlated increase in ACE and Cat 4-5 hurricanes over the past 30+ yr. of warming since the ACE measurement began, and probably longer; and why has there instead been even the opposite empirical phenomenon, a decrease in ACE and Cat 4-5 numbers to historic lows during the allegedly “gradual” but “continuous” increase in GMT?
Therefore, why do you not conclude instead that increased GMT, whatever it physically represents, or CO2 levels or fossil fuel CO2 production correlates with better earthly conditions in the respects you name, and even that “mainstream” Climate Science’s physics, science and logic, as you stated it above, is wrong?
That, instead of you merely asserting that “To deny this is to deny science and logic”, thereby using the same old rhetorical, anti-scientific method characterizing mainstream Climate Scientists’ practice of their “science” – in other words, when you again simply repeat another empirically unhinged meme as though it is empirically, scientifically, and logically based, when it is certainly not?
Then you say, “Attribution is very hard to quantify certainly But trying to imply and insinuate that this means there is no effect and also trying to misrepresents scientists by claiming they are citing AGW as sole or even primary cause is outright dishonest.”.
Point of order, Exp! The allegations of attribution appearing to derive from the CO2 = CAGW “hypotheses” are the problem of the “mainstream” Climate Scientists alone and solely of their own making. Or are they now denying their own “tenets” and mantras directly stating far and wide that CO2 = CAGW? That’s even become what they’ve intentionally morphed the term “climate change” itself to mean.
No, the dishonesty comes from them, when they show no concern on their part that they haven’t got even one relevant prediction correct yet; and when they also show to the world that they apparently don’t care about the fact that they can’t explain much of anything in the past from their CO2 = CAGW mechanisms, to boot.
The dishonesty continues when they start saying everything they can on a completelyad hoc basis, to try to rhetorically back off their apparent claims from the fact that their CO2 = CAGW “theory” simply doesn’t work in the real world. They’ve even proven it themselves, that is, insofar as their anti-scientific “begging the question” GCM methods and grant directed “science” allows them to actually prove anything.
Therefore, amidst all of their monotonous recurrent handwaving, etc., what are the mainstream Climate Scientists saying about reality? The answer is that they are in effect not proposing anything of a truly scientific or empirical nature, even though it looks like they are – at least if you instead wrongly take what their words say at face value as genuinely intended hypotheses about reality.
In other words, according to the way that the mainstream Climate Scientists practice their own “science”, their “hypotheses” are not statements about scientific or objective reality at all.
And that’s why Climate Science’s objective failure as real science doesn’t bother the mainstream “Scientists” and why their method involves the fact that they simply won’t let reality and the objective failings of their “science” dispute and even falsify their own “hypotheses”. Their “science” turns out to be thoroughly meaningless compared to real science and the real world. And that’s apparently the way they want it, because they just keep pushing on anyway with their same old boring unhinged/sub-rational rhetorical methods, of course coupled with their more focused Alinskian and Gramscian methods, while apparently attempting in effect to bring about a Totalitarian Hegemony of thought, despite and in confrontation with objective reality and real Humanitarian ethics.
Likewise, Exp, why aren’t you worried about what mainstream Climate Science says and does compared to reality and the practice of real science, instead of similarly putting all your efforts toward trying build up Climate Science illogically by your own misrepresentation or alteration of what the Climate Scientists’ own “scientific” words say, just as they do, and by trying to put words in the mouths of sceptics who are merely engaging in the practice of real science’s principles and methods, which are based almost entirely upon scepticism?
What is in it for you, Exp, that outweighs your own mind’s potential allegiance toward having a valid connection with reality? Why can’t you bare to spare the rest of us from hearing your unhinged Mantras and from having to deal with their quite adverse real world consequences – which by now are demonstrably acting against the whole of Humanity, including yourself?
All you have to do is stop it yourself, but I’ll bet that you can’t.
R. Gates says:
January 15, 2012 at 1:31 pm
Geoff Sharp said:
“n 2011 the warm water in the North Pacific adjacent to Japan (which basically is the neg PDO) was transported to the equatorial water above New Guinea which took us from a neutral ENSO to La Nina.”
____
I’m not certain that the currents run that direction, and that water near Japan would go south to the equatorial water above New Guinea. I believe that equatorial water is part of the normal Pacific Warm Pool, which may move toward the east during an El Nino, but don’t ever think if comes down south from near Japan.
The prevailing winds last year and perhaps the returning shallow water current looked to redistribute the heat from the Neg PDO warm pool to above New Guinea (we were watching this daily on my blog). There was no warm water moving west along the pacific equatorial region last year, the previous year (2010) was in solid La Nina mode.
http://forces.si.edu/arctic/02_02_04.html
This is a real world observation that Bob seems to ignore. The PDO can be an important driver of La Nina.
Bob Tisdale says:
January 15, 2012 at 2:14 pm
Tell me the exact sentence and paragraph where I wrote, inferred, or implied in the above post that there was something called a “rosby [sic] method”. You can’t,
I was referring to the majority of the text in your article. I can see you are too agitated to form a reasonable response. Why do you get so aggressive when I am only producing some evidence of a PDO led La Nina?
“If Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) were to exclude ENSO from their analysis, it is likely their results would be significantly different.”
Likely? Of course they’d be different, but what would that prove? The point of trying to estimate ENSO is that ENSO adds variations to the temperature record, Remove the variability and we can see if a trend exists; linear or otherwise, warming or otherwise.
If you’re right, then *YOU* should be able to show how to correctly account for the variability that ENSO adds to the temperature record.
Bob Tisdale says: “If Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) were to exclude ENSO from their analysis, it is likely their results would be significantly different.”
Kevin O’Neill says: :”Likely? Of course they’d be different, but what would that prove? The point of trying to estimate ENSO is that ENSO adds variations to the temperature record, Remove the variability and we can see if a trend exists; linear or otherwise, warming or otherwise.”
_____
As ENSO made up the majority of the difference they found and removed when identifying their linear trend, it is without question that their results would be different, but I thnk this would miss the point. It seems rather than exclude ENSO, they ought to include even more El Nino activity (i.e. the residual SST that Bob identified in his oceanic westward moving Rossby wave) for filtering. By including this westward Rossby wave activity (and it is possible that they already did, as they used a range of best fit lag times after an El Nino,, from 0 to 24 months), the leftover linear trend they found and identified as anthropogenic, might be reduced considerably, or it might not, I really don’t know. Was it included in the “best fit” lag time process or not? I’ve directed a blog post toward this end on Tamino’s web site. I’ll be interested on the response.
JPeden responded very well to Exp – WELL SAID!
January 15, 2012 at 2:50 pm
“If Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) were to exclude ENSO from their analysis, it is likely their results would be significantly different.”
Not really, putting aside all the issues of using a linear model if you drop out MEI lagged 4 mths the following are the changes in parameters estimated by linear regression (ignoring the trig functions):
Time: 0.0171 with, 0.0166 without
TSI: 0.0613 with, 0.0586 without
AOD lagged 7m -2.37 with, -1.40 without
Intercept -117.5 with, -112.9 without
MEI lagged 4m 0.079 with
R2 .69 with, .60 without
Not surprising really since MEI and AOD are the most highly correlated of the independent vbles. They’re squabbling over which bit of variance they get.
Bob Tisdale says:
January 15, 2012 at 4:40 am
Geoff Sharp says: “El Nino loading of a La Nina via rosby waves is but one method that forms La Nina. The principal falls apart during neg PDO periods when we experience double La Nina. The basic method tells us we need warm water above New Guinea to begin the La Nina process which can also come from the PDO warm pool during the neg phase as we see today.”
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You and I have discussed the PDO before, and your continued insistence on the PDO’s importance and your discussion of it in your comment clearly indicate you still do not understand what it is. The PDO is an aftereffect of ENSO. The PDO only relates to the leading principal component of the detrended sea surface temperature anomalies for the NORTH PACIFIC north of 20N. The last time I checked, Geoff, New Guinea was south of the equator. Has it moved? If not, it does not enter into a conversation of the PDO.
The “PDO is an after effect of ENSO” statement is where I take issue with self perceived total knowledge on this topic, you are right only some of the time on this issue. Last time we discussed this issue was before the back to back La NIna formed, I was stating how a PDO warm pool could trigger a La Nina event and in fact must do to induce back to back La Nina, which almost always occur during neg phases of the PDO. Both you and Anthony tried to silence me, but observations during 2011 have proved me correct.
You are selling to the world that the PDO can have no effect on ENSO. I disagree with you and 2011 is just one example of your limited understanding on the topic. You still haven’t answered how we achieved the back to back La Nina or why the very strong La Nina of 2010 did not “charge” an El Nino event the following year.
KR: Thanks for linking Santer et al (2011). That’s a very odd paper to link in a discussion of the effects of ENSO on sea surface temperature as I’ve presented in this post. Santer et al analyzed CMIP3 models which model ENSO very poorly. I don’t believe I’ve ever found a paper that says that any CMIP3 model simulates ENSO well. Those models that try (Not all do) might get a component or two right, but they miss the rest. Also, CMIP3 models can’t model the sea surface temperature anomalies during the period discussed in this post in any ocean basin, on time series and zonal mean bases. Those failures of the CMIP3 models were discussed and illustrated here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/part-1-%e2%80%93-satellite-era-sea-surface-temperature-versus-ipcc-hindcastprojections/
And here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/492/
You wrote: “Why has this not happened before? (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ – 135 year ENSO record)”
You provided a link to the extended MEI data. Why? How would it show whether these upward shifts have or haven’t happened in the past? Do you know for a fact that ENSO was or wasn’t responsible for the rise in SST anomalies from the early 1910s to the early 1940S? If so, you provided the wrong link.
The extended MEI is a nice dataset, though. Don’t take me wrong. But for a long-term ENSO index, I prefer the NINO3.4 SST anomalies based on HADISST data. In fact, that’s one of the few things Trenberth and I agree on. He uses HADISST for his long-term NINO3.4 SST anomaly data:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/catalog/climind/TNI_N34/index.html
That dataset is actually a combination of HADISST and Reynolds OI.v2 data, because the Hadley Centre is a little sluggish with their monthly updates.
You wrote, “Ocean Heat Content, by any records (http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/), has increased hugely over the last 30 years. That’s completely inconsistent with an ocean driven positive SST change from ENSO variations – both OHC and air temperatures are rising.”
Based on your comment, you don’t understand ENSO, and you surely have never investigated what caused the rise in OHC over the term of that dataset. Here’s a link to the KNMI Climate Explorer.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere
They have the NODC OHC data there. It’s presented in gigajoules/m^2 which makes comparisons lots easier. Divide each ocean basin into tropical and extratropical subsets and study the long-term data. Start with the North Pacific, north of 20N. You’ll see that OHC in the North Pacific north of 20N dropped steadily until the late 1980s and then made a sudden upward shift. If you investigate that, you’ll find the answer to what caused it. Granted, it’s not ENSO, but it is a natural factor. Then compare the North Atlantic OHC to the OHC of the rest of the ocean basins. The trend of the North Atlantic OHC on a GJ/m^2 basis is more than 4 times greater than the trend for Global Oceans without the North Atlantic. Have you ever investigated why? North Atlantic OHC has also been falling fastest during the ARGO era.
Then take a look at the OHC for the Southern Hemisphere oceans (extratropical), starting with the South Pacific, and try to determine why that dataset rises as it does. Consider that you’re adjacent to the tropical Pacific and ENSO distributes waters as discussed in this post. Then try the tropical Indian Ocean, etc.
I’ve investigated the OHC in that way, but you wouldn’t study the links if I provided them . So it would be wasted effort on my part. Best that you learn through doing anyway.
You wrote, “What is the SST observational difference for this limited set of data between (a) ENSO induced “step changes” that are not statistically meaningful given the data variance, and (b) ENSO variance around a linear trend separately caused by, oh, greenhouse gas changes?”
I had thought you might have read my post up until that portion of your comment. Now I’m not too sure. You provided links to posts at Tamino’s and Skeptical Science. I’m not sure why, because they aren’t relevant to this discussion. In fact, much of this post addressed the fact that statistical analyses couldn’t be used to address the process of ENSO and its aftereffects. And then you provide a link to a statistical analysis by Tamino that doesn’t address what was presented in this post.
I have discussed a multi-facetted process in the post above. Do either of the posts you linked at Tamino’s and SkepticalScience address that process and the interrelationships between the variables? Nope. Do they address why the SST anomalies for the East Pacific (33% of the surface area of the global oceans) have been flat for 30 years? Nope. I’ve provided numerous links to support what was written. Do Tamino’s and the SkepticalScience posts address what’s presented in them? Nope. Do they discuss the animations included in some of those links that allow readers to see the upward shifts actually taking place? Nope. Do they address the side-by-side animations between different variables so the reader can see the interrelationships between the variables? Nope.
It was nice that you provided a summary of your beliefs. Few people do that. But since you’ve missed what’s presented in this post and used irrelevant links to attempt to support your comments, the summary falls flat. Some persons reading this thread will probably come to the conclusion that your comment, in total, was a classic attempt at misdirection. I know I have.
Regards
Kevin O’Neill says: “Likely? Of course they’d be different, but what would that prove? The point of trying to estimate ENSO is that ENSO adds variations to the temperature record, Remove the variability and we can see if a trend exists; linear or otherwise, warming or otherwise.”
And you continued, “If you’re right, then *YOU* should be able to show how to correctly account for the variability that ENSO adds to the temperature record.”
Apparently you did not read the post. My guess is you looked at the graphs on your way to the summary, because you would not have written what you’d written if you had read the post in its entirety.
Geoff Sharp says: “I was referring to the majority of the text in your article. I can see you are too agitated to form a reasonable response. Why do you get so aggressive when I am only producing some evidence of a PDO led La Nina?”
The majority of the text in my post is not about a “rosby [sic] method” as you ealier described so your reply does not ring true. And you provided no evidence of a PDO led La Nina? You continue to misunderstand the PDO.
You wrote, “Last time we discussed this issue was before the back to back La NIna formed, I was stating how a PDO warm pool could trigger a La Nina event and in fact must do to induce back to back La Nina,,,”
Please point me to the exact thread and comment in which you wrote something to the effect of, “how a PDO warm pool could trigger a La Nina event and in fact must do to induce back to back La Nina.”
Please also point me to a paper that discusses a “PDO warm pool.” I’ve never seen this term written before. In fact, that sounds like something you’ve created. Are you talking about the positive SST anomalies east of Japan along the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension (KOE)? That warm water gets spun north as a result of a La Nina. It’s also impacted by the North Pacific sea level pressure, which is why it can have different timing. And that’s all the PDO is. It’s an aftereffect of ENSO that’s also impacted by sea level pressure.
Bob Tisdale says: “KR: Thanks for linking Santer et al (2011). That’s a very odd paper to link in a discussion of the effects of ENSO on sea surface temperature as I’ve presented in this post.”
Then you do not seem to understand why I mentioned it – Santer 2011 points out that 3, 9, and 11 year time data (as you have used in your “step-change” arguments, Fig. 7) are too short a time period for statistical significance. It’s easy to “eye-ball” apparent trend lines in noisy data, but unless you test for whether it’s significant in the presence of said noise, you may easily be led astray.
Why did I mention the MEI? Because (a) that’s what F&R 2011 used as an ENSO index, and correlated it against global temperatures, and (b) whether there are non-linear effects or not (and as I pointed out, there certainly are), the MEI certainly indicates relative El Nino/La Nina strengths and timing. It would probably be worth running the regression with NINO3.4 SST anomalies in place of MEI or the SOI (which F&R 2011 experimented with – no significant difference), but unless you have done so there’s little to back up such an assertion. I will note, however, that NINO3.4 only covers 5°N-5°S, 120-170°W – a rather limited area.
Related: There is a considerable, pervasive disconnect in your article, and in your above reply. Namely, you are discussing regional SST temperatures, regional basin OHC, vs. ENSO indexes, when Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 concerns regression of ENSO, volcanic aerosols, TSI, and a linear trend against global temperatures. The effects of the ENSO on temperatures is well understood to be global in nature, whereas regional measures involve the possibility (likelyhood, even) of effects extending out the borders of the regions, and hence not been accounted for. You should at least be discussing the same topic.
As to the Tamino/SkS links – you are still arguing for multiple step changes (again, Fig. 7). Both of those links demonstrate why the data simply doesn’t support such a claim. But apparently you have not read them.
Using regional data to argue against a paper that examined global data, and invoking step changes that are not supportable by the data – oh well. I’ll look to see if you publish anything, with confidence intervals and evaluations of statistical significance, as have F&R, and Lean and Rind. Until then, you are (IMO) just waving your hands…
Kevin O’Neill and R. Gates and HAS: Sorry. My error. The sentence you quoted from the post wasn’t clear. I’ll add to it.
If Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) were to exclude ENSO from their analysis, it is likely their results would be significantly different, inasmuch as the adjusted data would still retain the ENSO variations, and, for example, while 2010 might become the new record year for the RSS TLT data after the adjustments, 1998 would still be a close second, not 2009.
That’s really the point I was trying to make.
Bob,
Thanks for another illuminating post. As a sailor (with too little time to sail) and skeptic, I’ve been fascinated by the research you and Willis have done on the effects of tropical weather and currents on each other and global climate.
But one point about the PDO:
There seem to be two positions (among sane researchers) on the subject —
a) The PDO oscillation determines the dominance of El Niño / La Niña events and constitutes a poorly-understood phenomenon that we need to investigate and explain; or
b) The PDO oscillation is a cumulative multiyear lag effect of the dominance of El Niño / La Niña events and constitutes a poorly-understood phenomenon that we need to investigate and explain.
I’ve read papers from both points of view, and my takeaway is: The PDO question is why we have this 60-year periodicity in ENSO. Once that’s answered, we’ll have a start on the answer to whether ENSO is a cause or an effect in the (probably long and complex) causal chain resulting in the PDO. But of course such dogged research as yours is a prerequisite to finding an answer to this question.
Thanks again.
Admitting your mistakes and correcting them, learning from them and proceeding to redo the analysis. Respect is what that gets you in my world! We can only hope you start a trend in climate science 🙂
R. Gates:
R. Gates says:
January 15, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Pamela Gray says:
January 15, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Gates, if u contend that heat loss has been hampered by CO2, what other metric can u link to that would demonstrate this? For example, I would look at OLR data to see if there is a mechanistic match.
_____
I make no such contention. My point was about the overall effect of El Ninos not releasing as much heat as La Ninas (and ENSO neutral periods) have been storing over the period of time that the Foster & Rahmstorf paper covered (1979-2010). leading to a net gain in ocean heat content. As fort the cause of this, it certainly might be that additional forcing from the added CO2, CH4, and N2O, over preindustrial levels might be involved, but there could be other natural factors working in combination as well. If we had reliable OLR that covered the entire earth for the period in question, we might be able to see some match or correlation between incrasing OHC
and decreasing OLR, but to my knowledge, this data does not exist. Certainly if more energy is going into the heat sink of the ocean, you’d think less must be be going into space.
Mr. Gates:
You are making an assumption that incoming energy reaching the surface is constant…..am I correct?
Mr. Tisdale:
Thank you for your integrity, and the sharing of your knowledge and thoughts.
KR January 15, 2012 at 10:30 am believes in a “… statistical requirement for a minimum of 17 years of global data to establish a linear trend (Santer 2011…)” supposedly because of noise. This is abject nonsense. Leaving aside Tisdale’s interpretation of data, he is fully justified in assuming the reality of these step changes. Santer et al. simply don’t know what they are talking about. They have no actual observations of nature and they don’t understand temperature curves. They rely upon model-making and there is no reason to think that their models are any better than Hansen’s were in 1988 when he predicted dangerous global warming by 2019. There is a simple way to demonstrate that real temperature data with a resolution a lot better than a year is contained in virtually all existent temperature curves, and for satellites it is better than a couple of months. What makes this possible is the ENSO oscillation. These oscillations are real and can be lined up accurately in all existing temperature curves. What is more, they have existed since the Isthmus of Panama rose from the sea and are guaranteed to exist in the foreseeable future. Sometimes even a bimonthly resolution can be obtained, with El Nino peaks defined accurately within this limit. The HadCRUT3 temperature curve, figure 23 in my book, is an example. It covers dates from 1850 to 2008. And this leaves no room for imaginary noise that can hide real features 17 years long.
Mr. Gates:
Without the large step change in OHC when XBT was replaced by ARGO, the statistical change in OHC over the past 30 years would not be statistically relevant.
What literature are you using to state that there are fewer clouds during a La Nina than during an El Nino? I am talking worldwide here, as a regional variation, while important over centuries, would not appear to be that important over a short time span such as 30 years.
Arno Arrak says:
January 15, 2012 at 7:24 pm
I agree in total with your analysis of Santer 2011. It was another poorly supported paper by Mr. Santer. He really needs to crack to books a bit more before he publishes again.
Bob Tisdale says:
January 15, 2012 at 6:12 pm
And you provided no evidence of a PDO led La Nina? You continue to misunderstand the PDO.
2011 is all the evidence you need, but let us look deeper:
1. The PDO index in 2011 led the ENSO 3.4 index. This should not happen if the PDO is an after effect of ENSO.
http://stateoftheocean.osmc.noaa.gov/atm/images/pdo_short.gif
http://stateoftheocean.osmc.noaa.gov/sur/images/nino34_short.gif
2.Prevailing winds were directing warm water towards the area above New Guinea prior to the building of the La Nina warm pool over New Guinea.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/images/bom_pred1.png
3. Anyone watching the daily building of the warm pool at http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif would have seen the build up of the La Nina warm pool (over New Guinea). I will be building an animation soon.
And you have not answered my previous questions which also address the logic of your single only type of requirement necessary for La Nina.
“You are selling to the world that the PDO can have no effect on ENSO. I disagree with you and 2011 is just one example of your limited understanding on the topic. You still haven’t answered how we achieved the back to back La Nina or why the very strong La Nina of 2010 did not “charge” an El Nino event the following year.”
As Craig says above, this area of science is far from settled. We have not had a neg PDO since the 70’s, so little recent research is possible. A neg PDO will simply give more options for La Nina type events as well as giving boost to La Nina events with the extra supply of warm water.
markus says:
It is far worse then we thought. The ingrained rhetoric has entered our learning institutions, Their is no question of the theory’s legitimacy, effects or the realistic observations that hold up against the theory. What will become children’s relationship with authority when they discover there was no warming as hypothesized?
The children are fine. No child believes a teacher implicitly anymore. OK, I suppose my Maths class might believe me when I teach them Pythagoras or Algebra but only because they can’t really argue the toss. They would if they could, believe me.
The danger is at university, where people are fall into the trap of assuming that now they are getting the real stuff.
Most kids come out of school without believing they are world experts because they qualified from High School. A significant number of university graduates like to think that they are not only experts on some small topic, but are experts on everything. Which is why too many climate scientists think they should be listened to about public policy, let alone climate.
I think I’ve understood you Bob! A decade of El Ninos = 0.2 C global warming. The Earth is about 288 K on average so the Earth can’t possbily be older than (288/0.2) * 10 = 14,440 years.
Your work doesn’t just debunk the junk science peddled by climate alarmists, but also demolishes the work of those God-haters that say the Earth is billions of years old. Great job!
KR says: “Then you do not seem to understand why I mentioned it – Santer 2011 points out that 3, 9, and 11 year time data (as you have used in your “step-change” arguments, Fig. 7) are too short a time period for statistical significance.”
I understood why you mentioned it, and I also understand and presented to you that the CMIP3 models used in the Santer et al (2011) have no basis in reality, which is why I linked the earlier posts. Additionally, in the real world, the largest cause of year-to-year variability is ENSO. Santer et al (2011) never addressed the greatest cause of year-to-year variability in the models. Is it ENSO in the models? It can’t be for some, because some of the models do not attempt to simulate ENSO. Modelers rely on the ensemble mean due to the noise inherent in the models, noise that does not exist in the real world. My point is that the noise generated by the models, and used in the Santer et al (2011) signal to noise analysis, is noise that does not exist in the real world and any analysis of it has no bearing on the analysis of real world data.
You said, “Why did I mention the MEI? Because (a) that’s what F&R 2011 used as an ENSO index, and correlated it against global temperatures…”
Seems as though you’ve changed tacks, KR.
First, the link you provided in your earlier comment was to the short-term version of the MEI, not the long-term version “135 year ENSO record” you referred to. They are different, primarily in the number of variables used in the production of the data. The long-term version is discussed here:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei.ext/
F&R cited Wolter and Timlin 1993, 1998, but the long-term version that you mentioned was not introduced until 2011. Also, F&R could not have used the extended MEI because it ends in 2005.
Second, when you linked it, you wrote: “Why has this not happened before? (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ – 135 year ENSO record)” So your new reasoning for linking it sounds like an attempt to redirect the discussion. My earlier questions to you still stand unanswered. How would it [the extended MEI] show whether these upward shifts have or haven’t happened in the past? Do you know for a fact that ENSO was or wasn’t responsible for the rise in SST anomalies from the early 1910s to the early 1940S?
You continued, “It would probably be worth running the regression with NINO3.4 SST anomalies in place of MEI or the SOI (which F&R 2011 experimented with – no significant difference), but unless you have done so there’s little to back up such an assertion. I will note, however, that NINO3.4 only covers 5°N-5°S, 120-170°W – a rather limited area.”
I never made an assertion, but it was a valient attempt on your part to spin what I had written. I simply said that I prefer the HADISST as a long-term ENSO index over the long-term MEI, and I did that because you had referred to the extended MEI “135 year ENSO record” (which was not used in F&R.) You introduced it to the discussion out of the blue. NINO3.4 SST anomalies are also available through the current month, while the extended MEI ends in 2005, another reason for my preference.
Your last sentence about the limited area of the NINO3.4 region is odd. Granted the MEI uses a number of different variables from across tropical Pacific including NINO3 SST anomalies, but the MEI, like NINO3.4 SST anomalies, is simply an index to mark the frequency, magnitude, and duration of ENSO events. Both fail to capture the process. The MEI was created during a time when researchers were looking for an index they could use in linear regression and correlation analyses to determine the linear effects of ENSO on global surface temperatures, precipitation, etc., and to use in the analysis of the portrayal of ENSO in climate models. NOAA selected NINO3.4 SST anomalies for its primary ENSO index, and they place a disclaimer on the MEI webpage (“The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of NOAA”). So your noting that the NINO3.4 region is “a rather limited area” is rather pointless. Regardless, the minor differences in the frequency, magnitude, and duration of ENSO events in the MEI and NINO3.4 data would have little impact on a paper like F&R. The point of my post was, ENSO indices do not capture the process of ENSO.
You wrote, “Related: There is a considerable, pervasive disconnect in your article, and in your above reply. Namely, you are discussing regional SST temperatures, regional basin OHC, vs. ENSO indexes, when Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 concerns regression of ENSO, volcanic aerosols, TSI, and a linear trend against global temperatures.”
I’m not sure how anyone could write that there is a “considerable, pervasive disconnect in your article, and in your above reply.” It could be that you simply fail to grasp the obvious. I divided the sea surface temperature anomalies of global oceans into two subsets to show very simply that their responses to ENSO are significantly different, which reinforced the disclaimer by Trenberth et al (2002) that I quoted toward the beginning of my post. More obviously, I divided the SST data into those two subsets to illustrate how the regression of an ENSO index against global temperatures would fail to capture that difference. I included the tropical Pacific OHC data in the post to help illustrate the discharge, recharge and “overcharge” modes of ENSO. The latter discussion of OHC in my reply to you was in response to your comment.
You wrote, “As to the Tamino/SkS links – you are still arguing for multiple step changes (again, Fig. 7). Both of those links demonstrate why the data simply doesn’t support such a claim. But apparently you have not read them.”
Of course I read them. If I had not read them, I would not have been able to present to you the long list of aspects I have discussed, illustrated and animated in my post and in the posts attached to it.
You wrote, “Using regional data to argue against a paper that examined global data, and invoking step changes that are not supportable by the data – oh well.”
Thanks, your statement made me laugh aloud. This post did not invoke step changes. It discussed the process of ENSO that caused those upward steps, a distinction that still eludes you for some reason.
I believe if we continue this discussion we’ll simply go around in circles.
Regards
Geoff Sharp: Regarding your January 15, 2012 at 7:50 pm reply, again, this post does not include a discussion of the 2011/12 La Niña. Why do you insist on discussing it? Since it interests you so, why don’t you write a post about it at your blog and then ask Anthony to cross post it here at WUWT.
I’d like to make a couple of suggestions before you do that. Use the correct names for variables and locations. The “prevailing winds” are called the trade winds in these discussions. The “La Nina warm pool over New Guinea” is commonly referred to as the west Pacific Warm Pool, and while there are a few variations of the name, I do not believe I’ve ever seen it referred to as the “La Nina warm pool over New Guinea”. The interrelationship between the trade winds and the Pacific Warm Pool is discussed in the NOAA FAQ webpage. It’s nice and simple and easy to read:
http://faculty.washington.edu/kessler/occasionally-asked-questions.html
Much of what you discussed in the rest of your comment are commonly know aspects of ENSO, which you will discover in the link.
You wrote, “You are selling to the world that the PDO can have no effect on ENSO. I disagree with you and 2011 is just one example of your limited understanding on the topic. You still haven’t answered how we achieved the back to back La Nina or why the very strong La Nina of 2010 did not “charge” an El Nino event the following year.”
It’s nice that you disagree with me, Geoff, but your understanding of the PDO is so flawed that your disagreement really does not surprise me. Regarding my “limited understanding on the topic” as you write, I have documented what the PDO is and what it isn’t in a series of posts, many of them cross posted here at WUWT. The data I have used to discuss what the PDO represents and what it does not represent is available to the public and it confirms my understandings. Your understanding of the PDO contradicts the data. My understandings of ENSO are also confirmed by data and a multitude of papers. The fact that this event is acting a little differently does not indicate that my basic understandings are flawed; it simply indicates that this one is different. But your insistence that this double-dip La Niña is caused by some magical switch in the PDO continues to broadcast your limited grasps of ENSO and the PDO.
And with respect to my selling the world something, I have never written that the sea surface temperatures of the North Pacific did not impact ENSO. The North Pacific Gyre dictates that it does. My argument with you is based on your misunderstandings of the PDO and what it represents. The PDO does not represent Sea Surface Temperatures of the North Pacific, north of 20N. The PDO represents the spatial patterns of those sea surface temperatures, which are a byproduct of ENSO and North Pacific Sea Level Pressure, and the SLP component is why the PDO can appear to lead NINO3.4 SST anomalies at times. It would all be so simple for you once you stop insisting that the PDO is something that it is not.
I answered your question, but you have responded to my request. It was: Please point me to the exact thread and comment in which you wrote something to the effect of, “how a PDO warm pool could trigger a La Nina event and in fact must do to induce back to back La Nina.”
The fact that you have not responded to it indicates that your earlier comment was also a fabrication on your part, Geoff.
Please write a post about the 2011/12 double dip La Niña. We can then discuss this further.
To end my replies to you on this thread, while you may not have hijacked the thread, I am still replying to your continued comments, so your insistence on discussing this has hijacked my time.
Geoff
Thank you for reminding me of the importance of the PDO, or rather the NPI. I was struggling with this for a few days: http://virakkraft.com/ENSO-OHC-Tropics.png. Nino3.4 and tropical OHC correlating (and anti-correlating in the other hemisphere), fine. Step change 2002/3 probably false and due to ARGO, fine, but what the h… happened around 1977?
Replacing Nino3.4 with PDO (PDO~-NPI) http://virakkraft.com/PDO-tropical-OHC.png and the puzzle was complete.
The NPI added lots of heat to eastern pacific around 1977, leading to imbalance between ocean and air temperature. The excess heat was released during the following strong ENSO events, my version of Bobs stairs using Nino3.4 and tropical: http://virakkraft.com/trop-temp-nino.png By 1998 balance was restored and the tropics has not warmed last 15 years.
http://virakkraft.com/excess-heat-tropics.png
lgl says:
January 16, 2012 at 8:51 am
Geoff
Thank you for reminding me of the importance of the PDO
The north western Pacific warm pool is the important factor of the PDO, and we are finally seeing Bob give ground on this. He may think nobody understands the PDO but perhaps some of us understand the process at lot more than him. It is not rocket science, the Walker Circulation pump needs low pressure and warm water above New Guinea to trigger a La Nina. If there is a large body of water above this region that has the capability of injecting heat, then we have one driver of La NIna and also another mechanism to reduce the power of El Nino. The PDO that controls this heat reservoir in the right region when in neg phase is a fundamental part of Earths climate system and it should be recognized and not pushed to the background.
I am currently preparing a paper with a well known author that may shed some insight into what controls the spatial patterns in the north Pacific, the 60 year PDO cycle is a fascinating subject and is actually the topic that started my interest in climate and solar research 4 years ago. I am glad to have helped out.
Geoff Sharp says: “The north western Pacific warm pool is the important factor of the PDO, and we are finally seeing Bob give ground on this. He may think nobody understands the PDO but perhaps some of us understand the process at lot more than him.”
Thanks, Geoff. Your comment made me laugh. “Give ground?” That’s funny. You wrote that as though your self-serving comments have influenced my research. That’s very funny. If you had any basic understanding of the topics you discussed, your comment would be sad. But your underhanded goal in all this is very obvious. We’ll put that aside till later.
Your failure to use commonly used names for locations and components is indicative of at least two things. One is sloppy research on your part. It indicates you haven’t taken the initiative to do basic research into the topics you’re attempting to discuss. The other is you’re being intentionally vague to allow yourself an escape route when others point out the failings in your writings.
Your phrase “north western Pacific warm pool” is a prime example. The first two questions that would pop into anyone’s mind are, What “north western Pacific warm pool”? and Where is this “north western Pacific warm pool” located? So they would Google it. I Googled “north western Pacific warm pool” in quotes. And Google replied, “No results found for ‘north western Pacific warm pool’”. And having tried Googling it, someone trying to understand your comment would still be unsure where you’re talking about. Can the rest of us assume the “north western Pacific warm pool” is the area east of Japan that shows up warm in a map of the “cool phase” of the PDO, the right-hand cell in the following link?
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/pdo_warm_cool3.jpg
Had you done your basic research, Geoff, you would have discovered the area you call “north western Pacific warm pool” is known as the Kuroshio Extension or the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension, simplified as the KOE. Imagine that, Geoff! People before you found the area so important they even gave it a name, and since it’s discussed so often they use an acronym. The Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension is actually a current. It’s the name of the western boundary current extension in the North Pacific. It’s the coupling of two current extensions, actually, but don’t let reality get in the way of your failures to do basic research. The KOE is even discussed in the Wikipedia page on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_decadal_oscillation
There, under the heading of Ocean Dynamics, Wikipedia writes, “Several dynamic oceanic mechanisms and SST-air feedback may contribute to the observed decadal variability in the North Pacific Ocean. SST variability is stronger in the Kuroshio Oyashio extension (KOE) region and is associated with changes in the KOE axis and strength…”
“SST variability is stronger in the Kuroshio Oyashio extension (KOE) region,” is the key phrase there for our discussion, Geoff. SST variability in the KOE is stronger than elsewhere in the North Pacific. The last sentence under that heading reads, “Remote reemergence occurs in regions of strong current such as the Kuroshio extension and the anomalies created near the Japan may reemerge the next winter in the central pacific.” Imagine that, Geoff, there’s a process called reemergence that allows SST anomalies formed in one season to reemerge the next winter.
Back to your comment, I had found the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension and the process of reemergence so important that I wrote posts about them. So that part of your comment is correct. But I did not “give ground” to your comments, Geoff. Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension first appears in an April 29, 2008 post at my blog. Since then, the Kuroshio Extension or Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension has been discussed in 20 of my blog posts, including this post.
I found the KOE so important to the discussion of the rise in surface temperature and TLT that I wrote a December 8, 2010 post titled “The ENSO-Related Variations In Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension (KOE) SST Anomalies And Their Impact On Northern Hemisphere Temperatures”:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/the-enso-related-variations-in-kuroshio-oyashio-extension-koe-sst-anomalies-and-their-impact-on-northern-hemisphere-temperatures/
That post also ran here at WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/12/tisdale-k-o-es-gisss-latest-warmest-year-nonsense/
I also discussed the process that causes the warming of the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension in my post from September 2010. Read the paragraph under Figure 3:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/an-inverse-relationship-between-the-pdo-and-north-pacific-sst-anomaly-residuals/
I’ve also written posts about the re-emergence mechanism, Geoff. It was first mentioned in an April 29, 2009 post about the PDO. And here’s a link to my June 11, 2009 post with the title “The Reemergence Mechanism”:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/the-reemergence-mechanism/
If you’ll look at the dates of those posts, some in 2008 and 2009, you’ll see why I found your attempt to imply that your comments had forced me to “give ground” was laughable. There’s a very basic difference between you and me, Geoff. I document; you fabricate.
BTW: The rest of your recent comment is also filled with inaccuracies, so all you’ve done is broadcast your misunderstandings to those reading this thread.
The very obvious intent of your comments on this thread, Geoff, has been to cast doubt on my post. But, in reality, all you’ve done is force the loss of your own credibility with those who might have thought you had any left.
Have a nice day, Geoff.
Thanks, Anthony, especially for the introduction.
Bob,
I’ve been looking into one of the points you made in a previous thread regarding the lagged effects in F&R’s model. As I see it, their lagged effects have at least two issues:
1. Their data is monthly, so lags are in whole months. What if an effect takes 6-7 weeks? How does the averaging of monthly data smear or eliminate lagged effects that are less than monthly or are fractions of months long?
2. A lag assumes a one-time effect t months later. But what if it’s cumulative? Would, say, two months of extra-sunny days have a different effect t+1 months later than if there were only one month of extra-sunny days? I’ve found a package for doing Distributed Lag Linear Models (DLLM) and Distributed Lag Nonlinear Models (DLNM) in R and have been experimenting with it. Good news and bad news… Good news is I’ve been able to take F&R’s data without tau and create a reasonable model for GISS, numbers-wise, about as good as their straight linear model with tau. Bad news is that the resulting coefficients don’t seem to make sense physically.
Anyhow, I wanted to mention DLLM (also known as DLM, but I hate to use that abbreviation, since that’s also the abbreviation for Dynamic Linear Models, which are much more widely known), as it may help to deal with lags that are cumulative/distributed over time.
Of course, the data still includes MEI, which you argue against here. I wonder if distributed/cumulative models might make MEI more palatable, though. Any thoughts? Also, any thoughts on what kind of constraints would be physically reasonable on their variables MEI, SOLAR, and VOLC, across the variable’s range and over time? (That is, would the effect of SOLAR across its range be linear, or quadratic, or something else? Would the cumulative effect of VOLC be linear over time, or quadratic? Etc.)
lgl says: “Step change 2002/3 probably false and due to ARGO, fine, but what the h… happened around 1977?”
Is the step in 1977 or 1976, lgl?
Bob Tisdale says:
January 17, 2012 at 4:26 am
It seems you are made of the same stuff as Willis. You rant and carry on in an attempt to cover the real issues. Maybe you could learn from some of his mistakes, one lesson would be to keep it short and sweet.
You have continually attempted to dismiss the recognized PDO index as a possible driver of world climate, even though science is far from settled on this issue. Your arguments are full of holes that you have not addressed, and instead of taking my evidence of PDO involvement in ENSO in a scientific manner, you attack the man AGAIN.
Shame on you, you deserve the same treatment as Willis.
I will repeat my question for the third time. A short precise answer lacking Ad Hom would be appreciated.
“You are selling to the world that the PDO can have no effect on ENSO. I disagree with you and 2011 is just one example of your limited understanding on the topic. You still haven’t answered how we achieved the back to back La Nina or why the very strong La Nina of 2010 did not “charge” an El Nino event the following year.”
One can just replicate Foster and Rahmstorf’s methodology and then compare it to the actual temperatures to see it is a joke. It is not even close to the actual temperatures. They left out everything that actually explains temperature and that is why their paper does not have a chart in it comparing their reconstruction to the actual temperatures.
———-
to R. Gates on La Ninas causing the oceans to accumulate solar energy, you forgot the other side of the equation; outgoing long-wave radiation. During a La Nina, the long-wave radiation escapes much easier because there is less cloud cover overall.
So SW solar goes up but OLR goes up by way, way more in a La Nina. The equatorial Pacific can have OLR anomalies of +50 watts/m2 (which should be a shockingly high humber to anyone who is in the climate numbers business). That is why global and tropical temperatures decline in a La Nina and why the Ocean is NOT absorbing more heat energy in a La Nina. Of course, I have about a dozen charts showing this.
Geoff Sharp says: “I will repeat my question for the third time. A short precise answer lacking Ad Hom would be appreciated.
“You are selling to the world that the PDO can have no effect on ENSO. I disagree with you and 2011 is just one example of your limited understanding on the topic. You still haven’t answered how we achieved the back to back La Nina or why the very strong La Nina of 2010 did not “charge” an El Nino event the following year.”
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Just as I suspected, Geoff. You don’t read my replies to you. Or if you had, you’re attempting to redirect the topic of conversation from your failings by falsely accusing me of something nonsensical. I’ve already replied to this. Do you need me to point out which comment? Scroll up through the thread and reread all of my replies to you. It’s there. I can see it, and so can everyone else who has followed this conversation.
Also, you, for some unknown reason, believe my comment above was an ad hom. Sorry, by definition, for my comment to be argumentum ad hominem, you would need to be telling the truth. And since your understandings of ENSO and PDO are so poor and you fabricate at every opportunity, your comments are far from it.
Anyone who reads this thread understands the motive behind your comments, and they can readily see though the debate tactics you employ; misdirection, redirection, fabrication; but those readers, like me, do not understand your incessant need to pettily attack my work. Especially when you are incapable of responding in kind. When you find yourself on the short end of the argument, you attack me, somehow believing you’re doing it on the sly in a public forum—and then quite humorously call foul when I expose the failings of your blatantly false innuendos.
Maybe you should have taken Anthony’s advice to you last July, and kept your comments to the topic of the solar cycle. Remember the link I provided for you up-thread? Just in case you failed to read that reply from me as well, here’s the link again. Scroll down to my July 4, 2011 at 7:09 am reply to you. Anthony’s suggestion is at the end of it:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/30/yet-even-more-discussions-about-the-pacific-decadal-oscillation-pdo/#comment-693877
Adios, Geoff. It has not been a pleasure. Like all trolls, your goal is to distract, and you’ve done a fine job of it on this thread.
Bob Tisdale says:
January 17, 2012 at 6:48 pm
As predicted more diatribe and no substance, and you try to hide behind Anthony and suggest further censorship that challenges your platform. The questions have been asked that challenge your “theory” that makes up the majority of this post, which you have not answered adequately. I have provided evidence that the PDO index is not an “after effect of ENSO” but can actually be a driver of ENSO, but still you refuse to debate the topic in a reasonable scientific fashion. Your performance is similar to the other two sophists who like to dominate this site.
Those that read this thread will form their own opinions.
Scientific discourse with you is obviously impossible, but I am prepared to take you head on in a separate forum which is chaired by a reasonable moderator if you like?
Topic “is the PDO an after effect of ENSO”
Are you up for it?
Right here and now, Geoff.
Let’s start with basics. All you have to do is agree or disagree. If you disagree, you need to explain why.
By definition, “The ‘Pacific Decadal Oscillation’ (PDO) is a long-lived El Niño-like pattern of Pacific climate variability.” Source:
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/
And that means the spatial pattern in the North Pacific, north of 20N, which is also called a PDO pattern, is caused by El Niño and La Niña events when those events are taking place. Do you agree with that or disagree, Geoff?
By definition, “While the two climate oscillations have similar spatial climate fingerprints, they have very different behavior in time.” Source is same as above.
And that means that the spatial patterns (cold in the east and warm in the central and western North Pacific similar to a La Niña pattern, and likewise, warm in the east and cool in the central and western North Pacific similar to an El Niño pattern) have different time periods. In other words, sometimes the spatial pattern associated with ENSO events in the North Pacific has a different schedule than the ENSO events themselves. The spatial pattern in the North Pacific can lead the ENSO event and sometimes it can lag the ENSO event, maintaining the ENSO-like pattern longer than the ENSO event itself. Do you agree with that or disagree, Geoff?
Part 2 of PDO basics, Geoff.
By definition, the PDO is “derived as the leading PC [Principal Component] of monthly SST anomalies in the North Pacific Ocean, poleward of 20N. The monthly mean global average SST anomalies are removed to separate this pattern of variability from any “global warming” signal that may be present in the data.”
And that means the PDO is a statistically manufactured dataset, and that it does not represent the sea surface temperature of the North Pacific, north of 20N, but is a statistical function of the detrended sea surface temperature anomalies of that location. Do you agree with that or disagree, Geoff?
Further to that is the typical image of the PDO we often see presented:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mantua/REPORTS/PDO/Figures/fig2.gif
The image in Figure 2a above is manufactured, “By regressing the records of wintertime SST and SLP upon the PDO index, the spatial patterns typically associated with a positive unit standard deviation of the PDO are generated (Fig. 2a).” Source:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mantua/REPORTS/PDO/pdo_paper.html
Do you agree with that or disagree, Geoff?
The PDO is said to be, “dominant pattern of North Pacific sea surface temperature variability.” Source:
http://www.treesearch.fs.fed.us/pubs/34963
Do you agree with that or disagree, Geoff?
Bob Tisdale says:
January 17, 2012 at 8:37 pm
Right here and now, Geoff.
I am dubious you will maintain a professional non personal persona in this debate and would prefer a moderated public forum, but we will see how you go.
And that means the spatial pattern in the North Pacific, north of 20N, which is also called a PDO pattern, is caused by El Niño and La Niña events when those events are taking place. Do you agree with that or disagree, Geoff?
Disagree. This is probably the core of the debate. Your proposition of an El Nino led Rossby wave charging the next La Nina no doubt has merit, although I would like to see the Rossby wave in action after every El Nino, are you sure this happens during every El Nino? The ENSO process is not necessarily loading the neg PDO warm pool (NPWP…spatial area east of Japan). What drives the formation of the NPWP is an area of science not confirmed but there is no evidence that the 2010 El Nino provided the input to the NPWP that has lasted two years. If your logic is correct, dominate periods of El Nino during a pos PDO would load this area with warm water, which is actually observed in reverse, the pos PDO cold pool is formed in the same location. You need to answer this point.
And that means that the spatial patterns (cold in the east and warm in the central and western North Pacific similar to a La Niña pattern, and likewise, warm in the east and cool in the central and western North Pacific similar to an El Niño pattern) have different time periods. In other words, sometimes the spatial pattern associated with ENSO events in the North Pacific has a different schedule than the ENSO events themselves. The spatial pattern in the North Pacific can lead the ENSO event and sometimes it can lag the ENSO event, maintaining the ENSO-like pattern longer than the ENSO event itself. Do you agree with that or disagree,
Disagree, for the same reasons above, but agree the schedules can be non aligned, this describes the phase of the PDO. You have described a direct mechanism via a Rossby wave during El Nino, it either is there or is not. The double dip La Nina is a sober realization that other factors are involved. You also contend that the La Nina phase warms or charges the equatorial Pacific via reduced cloud cover for next El Nino. This did not occur during 2010/11 after a strong La Nina in 2010. If you are invoking another mechanism like a fluctuating Kuroshio Current or something similar this would be a different argument. I cannot see a direct relationship between ENSO and the NPWP.
A question for you.
Why did the double dip 2010/11 La Nina occur?
Bob Tisdale says:
January 17, 2012 at 9:04 pm
Part 2 of PDO basics, Geoff.
We can wait until part 1 is complete. You are not running the agenda here.
Geoff Sharpe: In response to a PDO basic question, you disagreed with what the PDO represented. You loose. You have no fundimental knowledge of what the PDO represents.
Good bye
Geoff Sharpe writes: “This is probably the core of the debate. Your proposition of an El Nino led Rossby wave charging the next La Nina no doubt has merit, although I would like to see the Rossby wave in action after every El Nino, are you sure this happens during every El Nino?”
Read what I wrote in the post and read what I wrote in reply to your earlier comments, Geoff. I never wrote anything that resembles “an El Nino led Rossby wave charging the next La Niña.” Please quote where I wrote anything to that effect. I also never said in this post or in any other post that a Rossby wave comparable to the one that formed after the 1997/98 El was formed after every El Niño event. In fact, in the post, I noted that the JPL animation showed that it had not happened in the rest of that video. You made an assumption that is not correct.
However, there was a Rossby wave after the 2009/10 El Niño, Geoff. It is visible in the following gif animation from the end of the 2009/10 El Niño. And as you’ll notice, one formed in the Southern tropics too. So there were Rossby waves in the North and South tropical Pacific after the 2009/10 El Niño.
http://i43.tinypic.com/mbu1ah.jpg
And here’s an animation of the NOAA GODAS x-z plots that show the recharge of the west Pacific Warm Pool during that time period:
http://i42.tinypic.com/zlt2wx.jpg
And here’s a graph that shows the Pacific Warm Pool OHC anomalies recharging after the 2009/10 El Niño. Keep in mind the NINO3.4 data in the graph is inverted:
http://i54.tinypic.com/23k7r5u.jpg
The graph is from the following post, which was linked in the post above:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/enso-indices-do-not-represent-the-process-of-enso-or-its-impact-on-global-temperature/
Do you agree with the data so far, Geoff, or do you disagree? The data doesn’t lie.
You wrote, “The ENSO process is not necessarily loading the neg PDO warm pool (NPWP…spatial area east of Japan). What drives the formation of the NPWP is an area of science not confirmed…”
It isn’t? Maybe the reason you can’t find any research about that area is because you insist on calling the area by the wrong name. I suggest you start researching the hundreds of papers that discuss the Kuroshio Extension and Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension.
You continued, “…but there is no evidence that the 2010 El Nino provided the input to the NPWP that has lasted two years.”
The data contradicts your statement. Maybe you should research before you write. The following is a comparison graph of NINO3.4 SST anomalies versus KOE (30N-45N, 150W-150E) SST anomalies. Both datasets are smoothed with a 13-month running average filter. The KOE begins to warm one month after the peak of the 2009/10 El Niño.
http://i40.tinypic.com/2u43803.jpg
Do you agree or disagree with the data, Geoff.
And your entire comment fixates on Rossby waves. If you were to read the post and those linked, I have explained very clearly the parts of the ENSO process that contribute to the warming of the West Pacific, including the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension. These include:
1. The changes in atmospheric circulation caused by an El Niño working their way eastward until they reach the West Pacific.
2. As the trade winds resume their normal direction and strength during the transition from an El Niño to a La Niña, the trade winds “sweep” the warm water left over from the El Niño to the west.
3. During the transition from an El Niño to a La Niña, a Rossby wave can form and carry warm water left over from the El Niño back to the western tropical Pacific.
4. During the La Niña, due to the increased strength of the trade winds, North and South Pacific gyres spin up and carry the warm water poleward.
5. Also as a result of the increased strength of the trade winds, tropical Pacific cloud cover decreases. This causes an increase in downward shortwave radiation which warms the tropical Pacific. The trade winds carry the warm water westward and the North and South Pacific gyres carry it poleward. This helps to maintain the SST in the west Pacific at elevated levels, especially in the KOE and SPCZ.
I’ve illustrated, discussed and animated the interrelationships of the above and their impacts on the Western Pacific, including the KOE. The links are there. If you fail to use those links and fail to read and learn from what is presented in those posts, that is your fault, not mine.
Have a nice day. I have other things to do today than to tutor you in ENSO basics.
Bob Tisdale says:
January 18, 2012 at 12:35 am
Geoff Sharpe: In response to a PDO basic question, you disagreed with what the PDO represented. You loose. You have no fundimental knowledge of what the PDO represents.
Good bye
So the spelling Nazi can’t spell my name correctly? You also had a drama with “fundamental”
I am fully aware of what constitutes the PDO index. There are many factors that make up the index, but at the end of the day the sea surface temps of the Pacific north west are the main outcome.
I am not surprised you have wimped it. You cannot answer the big questions that undermine your platform.
This is a science forum, you are incapable of dealing with confrontation of your theory. Good luck, you will need it.
Geoff Sharp says: “I am not surprised you have wimped it. You cannot answer the big questions that undermine your platform.
“This is a science forum, you are incapable of dealing with confrontation of your theory. Good luck, you will need it.”
Hmm. Look at the comment above yours. You must not have scrolled down far enough–or maybe there was a delay in the moderation. I’m sure you’ll choose the latter.
Geoff Sharp says: “I am fully aware of what constitutes the PDO index.”
Apparently you’re not since you disagreed with the basics.
You continued, “There are many factors that make up the index, but at the end of the day the sea surface temps of the Pacific north west are the main outcome.”
The PDO does not represent the sea surface temperatures of the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension. The PDO is inversely related to the sea surface temperatures of the KOE. But don’t let reality get in the way of your troll-like comments on this thread.The data is available for you to research and prove that I’m right or wrong. I’m tired of creating graphs and gif animations for you that contradict your nonsense.
Geoff Sharp says: “This is a science forum, you are incapable of dealing with confrontation of your theory.”
While I’ve already responded to your comments, I just wanted to reply to you one last time. I do not present theories at my blog or on the cross posts that Anthony is kind enough to include here at WUWT. I present processes that have been known for decades and documented in numerous scientific studies. I present the results of those processes, their impacts, on surface temperatures using data. If and when you can document your understandings to the same depth that I have, I will welcome your comments. Until that time, I will continue to reply to your troll-like comments as I see fit.
Bob Tisdale says:
January 18, 2012 at 5:48 am
You can see why I wanted an open forum with a moderator. It did not take you long to revert to your childish ways. Persistent use of the word “troll” only weakens your position.
But let’s cut through the crap. The PDO is made up of several components, most of which are important to how ENSO can be affected. SST spatial patterns, SLP, wind direction all play an important role. I have been watching the daily global SST anomalies for 2 years (everyday), I also plot every month the JISAO raw PDO values. I have also looked back through the weekly achieves of global SST anomalies. I have a good understanding through first hand experience how the SST patterns play out in comparison to the PDO index. I understand it was originally set up to monitor fish stocks and comes with some inherent weaknesses like seen during Jan 2003 where unusual west coast of North America SST values can skew the record. But overall the area in the north west Pacific is an important part of the overall index as shown by the keepers of the record and authors like Easterbrook and Spencer.
Right now we are seeing a typical SST pattern when the PDO is highly neg. On average the lower the PDO value the more likely we are to see warm water moving from the North West Pacific down to the area above New Guinea. This was observed in 2011.
With that out of the way, can we get back to part 1 or do you wish to employ further sophist type tactics?
note; I will be away today and yes a lot of my comments tend to go in the sin bin and get stuck in the moderator queue.
Geoff Sharp says: “But let’s cut through the crap.”
Curiously, I have been doing that, but you keep adding to it.
Geoff Sharp says: “The PDO is made up of several components, most of which are important to how ENSO can be affected.”
Wrong! Once again, you expose your misunderstanding of the PDO. On the JISAO webpage I linked for you earlier and in the papers they’ve linked to it, JISAO explains how the PDO is calculated. There is only one component, and that component is SST. First they divide the North Pacific north of 20N into 5×5 grids. The SST for each grid is detrended. Then the leading Principal Component is determined. Then those results are standardized. The PDO is not made up of several components.
Geoff Sharp says: “SST spatial patterns, SLP, wind direction all play an important role.”
ENSO, SLP, wind direction and strength (don’t forget strength) all play a role on the spatial patterns in the North Pacific, which all cause variations in the numerical value of the PDO.
Geoff Sharp says: “I have been watching the daily global SST anomalies for 2 years (everyday), I also plot every month the JISAO raw PDO values.”
So you’ve looked at the maps of the decay phase of the 2009/10 El Nino and the two La Nina events that followed it. Did you make copies of the maps so that you can animate them? Did you animate them?
Did you also graph the Sea Surface Temperatures of the areas of the North Pacific that interest you? Since you’ve noted that SLP and wind direction can impact the PDO, did you also plot the monthly values of these variables? And of course there’s ENSO. Since the PDO pattern by definition is an “El Nino-like pattern” one would think you would also plot that data as well.
Please provide links to the comparison graphs of the North Pacific SST anomalies, ENSO index, PDO, SLP and wind direction data you use in your research.
Geoff Sharp says: “I have also looked back through the weekly achieves of global SST anomalies. I have a good understanding through first hand experience how the SST patterns play out in comparison to the PDO index.”
Have your written a blog post? Sorry if I’ve missed it. If not, we await your documentation, with data, of your “first hand experience”.
Geoff Sharp says: “But overall the area in the north west Pacific is an important part of the overall index as shown by the keepers of the record and authors like Easterbrook and Spencer.”
What “record” would that be, Geoff? Please clarify which “record” you’re discussing. The PDO? I’ve already provided a Wikipedia link on this thread that discussed the importance of the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension on North Pacific SST.
Also, please provide links to papers by Easterbrook and Spencer in which they discuss the “the north west Pacific is an important part of the overall index”. I’ve done a quick review of their papers and I can’t find one in which they discuss the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension. Please advise.
Geoff Sharp says: “Right now we are seeing a typical SST pattern when the PDO is highly neg. On average the lower the PDO value the more likely we are to see warm water moving from the North West Pacific down to the area above New Guinea. This was observed in 2011.”
The primary ocean current in the west Pacific, the Kuroshio Current (not the Kuroshio Extension), runs south to north. It is a western boundary current. It strengthens during a La Nina. This happens because the trade winds strengthen during a La Nina, which in turn increases the strength of the Equatorial Current of the North Pacific. In the northern hemisphere, all of that water needs to go somewhere when it gets to the western tropical Pacific, Geoff, so what doesn’t get picked up by the Indonesian Throughflow, goes northward.
There is eddying in the area of the western tropical Pacific south of Japan and as a result, there is a current called the Kuroshio Countercurrent, which circulates a small portion of the water southward again. But you have to keep in mind it’s re-circulating warm water that had once been in the tropics back down toward the tropics again.
Basically, water is driven west across the northern tropical Pacific by the Coriolis effect- and trade wind-driven Equatorial Current. During a La Nina, that water is warmed by the increased downward shortwave radiation caused by the decrease in cloud cover associated with the La Nina. That La Nina-warmed water is carried north toward Japan by the Kuroshio Current, and then eastward by the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension, where shows up as a positive SST anomaly east of Japan. And, what it sounds like you’re describing, the Kuroshio Countercurrent carries a small portion of that warm water back to the south.
When I researched the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension a couple of years ago, I looked for scientific papers that attempted to quantify any additional contribution the Kuroshio Countercurrent might have on the warm water volume of the west Pacific Warm Pool. While there are approximately 100 or so papers that discuss the Kuroshio Countercurrent, meaning it is a much-studied current, I could find none that documented its contribution. Do you have links to papers that document its contribution to the warm water volume and/or OHC of the PWP? All papers that describe the recharging of the PWP (for example, Trenberth et al [2002] linked in the post) discuss the process I have presented. They do not discuss the additional minor feedback contribution of the Kuroshio Countercurrent.
If YOU, Geoff, want to claim there is a significant additional contribution by the Kuroshio Countercurrent to the warm water volume and OHC of the Pacific Warm Pool, YOU need to document it with ocean current volumes, warm water storage volumes, heat content of those waters, etc. YOU might try to claim there’s a significant contribution, but YOU need to document it with data to prove it. You can’t just say, hey, look at what I’ve seen. But that’s all YOU have been doing. I understood this and so did everyone else reading this thread.
Have a nice day.
Bob Tisdale says:
January 18, 2012 at 2:52 am
Read what I wrote in the post and read what I wrote in reply to your earlier comments, Geoff. I never wrote anything that resembles “an El Nino led Rossby wave charging the next La Niña.”
I am afraid you did, but happy to see you now make this point clear. The El Nino Rossby wave is not a regular occurrence during El Nino which doesn’t surprise me. You need to be more careful in your choice of words.
You said:
An El Niño can carry huge volumes of warm water from the surface and below the surface of the west Pacific Warm Pool eastward to the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. That warm water is not consumed fully by the El Niño, so it returns to the west during the La Niña. One of the ways the La Niña accomplishes this return of warm water is through a phenomenon called a slow-moving Rossby wave, which forms in the northeast tropical Pacific at about 5N-10N. After the 1997/98 El Niño, the Rossby wave is plainly visible in ocean heat content anomaly animations, and better still in sea level residual animations from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“One of the ways” could mean every El Nino has a Rossby wave AND other methods of moving warm water to the west (other methods are outlined by you), or it could mean it happens occasionally. By inference any moving warm water to the west Pacific warm pool is going to setup the conditions for a La Nina. Then a little further on after many animations of the Rossby wave you state:
Add to that the effects of the Rossby wave. As illustrated earlier, at approximately 5N-10N latitude, a slow-moving Rossby wave also carries leftover warm water from the eastern tropical Pacific back to the western Pacific during the La Niña. Ocean currents carry all of the leftover the warm water poleward to the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension (KOE) east of Japan and to the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) east of Australia
</There is no mention of the Rossby wave being an occasional phenomenon. The reader is led to believe it is a normal occurrence. You have either written it poorly or misled us
I think you need to amend your articles here and and your own blog to make this point very clear.
The data contradicts your statement. Maybe you should research before you write. The following is a comparison graph of NINO3.4 SST anomalies versus KOE (30N-45N, 150W-150E) SST anomalies. Both datasets are smoothed with a 13-month running average filter. The KOE begins to warm one month after the peak of the 2009/10 El Niño.
http://i40.tinypic.com/2u43803.jpg
If you mean looking at your research I dont buy it. The correlations in you graph look extremely poor. Look at 1983 after the big El NIno, the KOE is hardly affected as you might expect during a pos PDO. You and others might like to call this region the KOE but I think it places too much emphasis on the current. The loading of this area for PDO purposes is definitely not an area of settled science.
The PDO does not represent the sea surface temperatures of the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension. The PDO is inversely related to the sea surface temperatures of the KOE.
This is a pure example of a sophist at work. You know full well that the NPWP (KOE) needs to be inverted to match the PDO index and is direct proof of the solid link between the two datasets. Basically the NPWP (KOE) IS the PDO index which both you and I have shown.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/images/pdo_nwpac.png
To summarize:
1. The El Nino Rossby wave is not a normal phenomenon during each El Nino. (you need to make a public statement here and at your blog)
2. The north west Pacific SST’s are a very close fit (once inverted) to the PDO index.
Do you agree Bob? If not you will need to provide evidence.
Which brings us back to the main issue. Can the PDO (NPWP/KOE/ north west Pacific warm pool) influence ENSO? I have shown it can, which you are still yet to respond to. The main issue is still outstanding.
Bob Tisdale says:
January 19, 2012 at 3:23 am
There is nothing relevant to the discussion in this long winded rambling reply dated above.
Agree or disagree to my summary points in the previous post so we can move on. The summary points cover most of the last two days discussions. If not you are only creating smoke screens trying to avoid the real issue that is still not dealt with. “Is the PDO an after effect of ENSO”
Bob
Sorry about the late reply. The step is in 1976. Why do you ask?
http://virakkraft.com/76-shift.png
lgl says: “The step is in 1976. Why do you ask?”
Thanks for the confirmation. The Pacific Climate Shift is in 1976.
The end of the 1973/74/75/76 La Nina was in 1976 and ENSO is the dominant source of variability in the Pacific.
Regards
Geoff Sharp says: “Agree or disagree to my summary points in the previous post so we can move on.”
I replied to your comments one by one. The fact that you cannot understand whether they agree or disagree with your comment reflects on your lack of understanding on the subject matter. There is no reason to continue this discussion. I have been more than fair to you on this thread.
Good bye, Geoff.Sharp. [while I understand you are upset, that’s not in your jurisdiction – snip – Anthony]
Anthony: I understand your snip. My underlying thought was based on his comment on the Bastardi thread. I now have to search for his name on every thread to assure that he’s not throwing in off-topic comments directed at me.
Bob
The end of the 1973/74/75/76 La Nina was in 1976 and ENSO is the dominant source of variability in the Pacific.
Yes it is on the interannual scale, but on a decadal scale we need the NPI (or it’s driver)
The OHC increase in the tropics in the 70s is much larger than the ENSO variability.
http://virakkraft.com/ENSO-OHC-Tropics.png
http://virakkraft.com/PDO-tropical-OHC.png
lgl says: “Yes it is on the interannual scale, but on a decadal scale we need the NPI (or it’s driver)
The OHC increase in the tropics in the 70s is much larger than the ENSO variability.
http://virakkraft.com/ENSO-OHC-Tropics.png
http://virakkraft.com/PDO-tropical-OHC.png”
Or maybe the SOI as opposed to NINO3.4 SST anomalies would be better for discussions of OHC since the SOI would be a proxy for trade wind strength, which influences cloud cover, which dictates the DSR reaching the ocean. Regardlless, if a La Nina lasted for three full years, wouldn’t you expect the tropical Pacific OHC to rise over the entire La Nina due to the increase in DSR?
Bob
I can’t see using SOI makes much difference. http://virakkraft.com/SOI-OHC-Tropics-WH.png Still a step in the 70s.
A three year La Nina would cool the surface and since the ocean is heated/cooled from the top I would expect OHC to decrease. And according to Bill Illis the upward LW increases more than DSR.
lgl: Refer to Pavlakis et al (2008) regarding DSR:
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/6697/2008/acpd-8-6697-2008.pdf
And Pavlakis et al (2007) regarding DLR:
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/6/12895/2006/acpd-6-12895-2006.pdf
And now for my basic question: What coordinates are you using for your OHC graphs? It’s tough to read with the overlay. From what I can read, they’re 23.5S-23.5N, 180-360, or written another way 23.5S-23.5N, 180W-0, but that would be the eastern tropical Pacific and tropical Atlantic? Are those the coordinates you’re using? If so, why are you including the Atlantic? Why not the western tropical Pacific instead? Usng your latitudes of 23.5S-23.5N, the longitudes for the tropical Pacific would be 120E-80W, or 120E-280E.
Regards
Bob
Thank you for the links. I can’t find any conclusive regarding ULR, just a lot on DLR.
Yes, I do use 180W-0. It started with this http://virakkraft.com/ENSO-OHC-Tropics.png where I noticed the nice correlation/anti-corr. except the very odd step in the 70s without any similar step down in the other hemisphere, and I found it useful to include all tropics in the search of where did the heat come from. Besides, 120E is no natural boundary, Pacific is well connected with Indian.