Tisdale asks: Hey, Where’d The El Niño Go?

Ugh, I was actually hoping for an El Nino, so all this talk of horrific drought would cease.
Also, I like rain.

Bob-
Thanks for update. I saw the 3.4 temp drop the other day and wondered if the El Nino was over. You really didn’t venture an opinion, just stated the fact that the only other time there was a dip, it was probably caused by volcanic eruption. Would you care to guess? Is the El Nino over?
By the way, I am reading your book. I can’t praise it highly enough. Well written and illustrated. Being an old guy, I am still amazed by the technology that allows you to click on a reference and there it is. A real argument for an on-line book.

Er… “I meant 2009-10 would have done the same”

Reblogged this on Is it 2012 in Nevada County Yet? and commented:
This maybe bad news for those hoping for El Niño rains to give our dry California forest a big drink and fill our lakes and reservoirs. Stay Tuned, as Mother Nature is in charge of the results.

All the ninos in a cold PDO are short lived reactionary, mainly central pacific based. Jamstec on target again.. weak winter nino.. La Nina returns next years. Hasta la vista to las Warmingistas! Let me remind the super nino spikers, you admit the ocean, not co2 , controls the shooting match every time you scream global warming from the el nino. The cold PDO eats ninos and is why the average length of la nina in cold PDO is 21 months, nino 9 months, hence the global downturn in temps
http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d1/iod/e/seasonal/outlook.html
scroll down to enso 2 year outlook. Pretty good looking to me.

http://blogs.kqed.org/climatewatch/2012/07/10/after-two-years-of-la-nina-el-nino-may-be-on-the-way/

July 10, 2012 | 11:51 AM | By Climate Central
After Two Years of La Niña, El Niño May Be on the Way
…
El Niño events can also help boost global average surface temperatures. A strong El Niño event led to the record warm year of 1998, and some climate scientists, including NASA’s James Hansen, have pointed out that a new El Niño event would likely lead to another record warm year given the combination of El Niño and manmade global warming.
…
One of the key indicators that El Niño conditions are developing is a growing area of warmer-than-average equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures, and an increase in the oceanic heat content as well. “The observations . . . reflect a likely progression towards El Niño,” the Climate Prediction Center said.
Forecasters use computer models to help anticipate El Niño and La Niña events. Right now, most of the simulations of air and sea conditions show a developing El Niño.
…

The answer is obvious. The models showed El Niño. Hansen and cronies wanted a good strong El Niño for a “record breaking year of dangerous deadly Anthropogenic Climate Change!”
So reality and Nature itself have canceled the El Niño, to spite both the modelers and Hansen with his “known associates”.
They should have remembered the old Chiffon commercials, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” If they say it’s global warming, but it’s not…

I’m currently doing some research into the ENSO index. It is my thinking that the ENSO index tends to have a negative drift during the spring and autumn equinox. And that the tendency during mid winter and summer solstice is for a positive drift.
Is that so?
As we all know El Niño got is name because it starting to affect Peruvian fishermen mostly during Christmas time.

Drought in Africa over the past few centuries. Written before the warmist bandwagon really kicked in:
http://ccb.colorado.edu/ijas/ijasno2/georgis.html

Isn’t this exactly what we’d expect during a negative PDO? Fewer, shorter and weaker El Niños and more, longer and stronger La Niñas?
Here on the west coast La Niñas can be very wet or very dry as seen in the 2010/11 and 2011/12 winters unlike El Niños which tend to be wet only.

So, just let me see if I’ve got this straight.
El Nino just died.
Ice is now increasing at BOTH poles.
The earth’s atmosphere has shrunk to the smallest diameter NASA has ever recorded.
And we’re still all going to die from heat exhaustion.

Well if one takes a good look at Figure 2 and watch the grey line (1994/95 El Niño) you will notice that it is impossible to conclude anything about the strength of this coming El Niño.
Now also take a look what kind of effect that 1994/95 El Niño had on temperatures in those years:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Aug_2012.png
Sure doesn’t look a weak El Niño to me.
It all depends on where the temperature ends in week 50 and beyond. Mr. Tisdale should know that by now, but he already draws conclusions “Personally, I don’t believe it’s over. But I don’t expect it to be very strong.” on September 24, 2012 at 9:01 am.
1982/83 ( http://www.atmos.washington.edu/gcg/RTN/rtnt.html#part3 ) was by far the strongest El Niño. One can see that in Figure 2. The 1982/83 line stays well beneath the 1997/98 line and only goes beyond it in week 52.

Let’s think about something unusual going on elsewhere, maybe there’s a correlation or even causation. Oh, how about them sun spots?

There are no indicators pointing to a resumption of an El Nino now. All of them are in neutral/La Nina mode.

Equatorial Pacific Upper Ocean Temperature Anomaly as at last week. This measure is the most reliable short-term indicator and leads the Nino 3.4 Index by about 1 month on average. Big drop in the last few weeks.
http://s19.postimage.org/re9odeavn/EPUOTA_Sept242012.png

Pressure in Darwin dropping rapidly last week too, indicating an early season build up as I forecast in July. Trades are also strong along the QLD coast, so with these factors taken into consideration one wonders why the BOM on their seasonal outlook 5 days ago made mention to EL Niño patterns when nothing of the sort is happening?

There is one ENSO indicator that is tracking 2009 very closely and 2009 ended with a transition into El Nino:-
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/mjo/graphics/region.ts.dateline.gif
“Cloudiness along the equator, near the Date Line, is an important indicator of ENSO conditions, as it typically increases (negative OLR anomalies) near and to the east of the Date Line during an El Niño event and decreases (positive OLR anomalies) during a La Niña event.”
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
Next few months will be interesting.

Cool PDO means weaker & less frequent El Ninos and stronger and more frequent La Ninas. Isnt this the new pattern that we are seeing from the weather?

This is not good. Soil moisture is exhausted. Without LOTS of snow this winter and a wet spring and summer, the drought will get -worse.

Here’s what I said on Weather Advance.com, on what I think could be the cause of this weakening el nino, “I also noticed that the SOI is slowly coming back from being negative and is headed towards 0 for the present moment. SOI is usually a good indicator of how strong or weak and el nino or la nina is, however, I think the MJO is playing a significant part in this. One thing I’ve taken note of is that over the last several weeks, actually since about mid-August the upward pulse of the MJO has been hanging around the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific. The upward pulse of the MJO helps to induce more thunderstorm activity over the tropics and the enhanced thunderstorm activity releases latent heat into the atmosphere and lowers the pressures over the area of the tropics it is at. Now the SOI is a measure of the pressure difference between Tahiti and Darwin, Australia, and when it is positive, the air pressure at Tahiti is higher than at Darwin, and when it is negative it is vis versa. Now, with the upward MJO pulse generally sitting closer to Darwin, Australia since Mid-August, what that has essentially done is it has favored a positive SOI there, because with an upward MJO pulse in place that favors lower pressures closer to Darwin, Australia, and when pressures are lower towards Darwin as opposed to Tahiti that favors a positive SOI. A positive SOI is associated with la nina conditions, or cooling waters over the eastern pacific not an el nino. With the SOI becoming less negative, that is not favoring warm waters over the eastern Pacific, which is exactly what is occurring, however, the less negative SOI doesn’t as greatly affect the waters over the central pacific and towards the International date line, which remain above normal, and in some cases those waters are warming. Combine this with the fact that is you look at ENSO events since 1950, the el ninos and la ninas really don’t strengthen until later in the fall, anyway, and are prone to large fluctuations in the spring, summer, and the early fall. This why I’m not too concerned for the moment that the el nino is weakening, however, if the el nino continues to behave in this way for another month or so, then I’ll be more open to the possibility of a warm ENSO neutral for the winter.
As far as dramatically changing the forecast, I would have to disagree to a certain extent on that. Yes, a switch to warm neutral would alter the winter forecast, but the overall pattern playing out over the northern hemisphere remains similar even with warm ENSO neutral. When you have an el nino over the pacific, especially if it is central or west based you have to consider the reasons why the el nino produces a cold winter, at least for the southern and eastern US. An el nino in a cold PDO with the warmer waters over the central pacific, and with the Atlantic ocean warmer than normal, what happens is that pressures lower over both of those oceans, and in between the pacific and the atlantic oceans is the North American continent, and when you have two areas of separate low pressure, in this case being the oceans, you have an area in between that must receive higher pressures, and that area that sees this is North America. In the winter, the above normal pressures are associated with cold air because colder air sinks and forces the pressures to rise. Even with warm ENSO neutral conditions, the waters over the central pacific will be above normal, and you will still see the same effects as far as overall pressure patterns go, with the lower than normal pressures still being focused over that area of the global tropics. (although the drops in pressure aren’t as dramatic as they are in el ninos.) Unless we go into cool neutral territory, (which is very, very unlikely to happen) I don’t see this winter being a bad one like this year, given that even if we see warm neutral conditions the overall pressure pattern would support a good winter over the US, but if we get an el nino to form, the winter will likely be even better. Also of note is how the AO and NAO are going to shape up this winter. One very strong indicator of how the NAO will be in the winter is the water temperatures that are just south of, and around Greenland in the month of October. A trend that was noted during the 2009-10 & 2010-11 winters was that when the water was warmer than normal in October, the NAO and AO were negative for the upcoming winter, and last year when the waters were cooler off Greenland, we witnessed how positive the NAO and AO were. The reason this is the case is similar to what I was talking about over the tropical pacific regarding el nino and warm ENSO neutral. When you have warmer than normal waters near Greenland, what happens is the pressures are lowered over the water, and this helps to focus more predominant areas of higher pressures over Greenland, and higher than normal pressures over Greenland are what helps to drive a negative NAO. The opposite occurs when the waters are cooler than normal, and now instead of focusing lower pressures over the water, the pressures are higher simply due to the water being colder than normal, and this induces more rising air over Greenland, thus lowering the pressures overall, and lower pressures over Greenland are what helps to drive a positive NAO. This year I’m happy to say that the waters are VERY warm off of and just south of Greenland, and since this is the case, I’m leaning towards us experiencing strongly negative AO and NAO pulses this winter, which is a good reason not to be nearly as concerned about the state of the el nino, because even if we go into warm neutral, we’ll still have the warmer than normal waters over the tropical pacific supporting lowering pressures there and creating higher pressures over North America, plus, we’ll probably also have strong support from the NAO. In general, even if el nino dissipates into warm ENSO neutral, conditions overall support a colder and snowier winter than normal over the US, however, if we do see el nino conditions over the central tropical pacific this winter, then the conditions may be in place for a very cold and snowy winter, as opposed to just some cold and snow that we would see with warm ENSO neutral.”
In general, the combination of an unfavorable MJO and a cold PDO, both appear to be working against the el nino, and this could be why the el nino is not strengthening as it typically should this time of the year.

Jan P Perlwitz said on September 24, 2012 at 2:40 pm:

kadaka (KD Knoebel) wrote:

The answer is obvious. The models showed El Niño. Hansen and cronies wanted a good strong El Niño for a “record breaking year of dangerous deadly Anthropogenic Climate Change!”

It is obvious that you neither know what Hansen said, nor what the models show.

That would be “showed”, past tense. In my comment I provided the quote which clearly said “Right now, most of the simulations of air and sea conditions show a developing El Niño.” So at the time of that story’s posting, that is what the models showed.
I did include the link to the graphic of the many forecasts of ENSO 3.4 SST anomalies, as provided with the story, but that’s a dynamic image thus the exact graphic at the time of posting is unknown. What, in your esteemed wisdom, do you think the current version of the graphic is saying?
In another example of your devious wording, what Hansen said was not mentioned by me. After over a decade of stalled global warming, as the meme of “inevitable global warming” falls apart as the atmospheric CO₂ concentrations continue their merry rise, requiring endless hem-hawing and “silent” revisions and introducing of temporary exceptions to CAGW theory (actually barely a conjecture),
As the alarmism that Hansen has long championed is increasingly disparaged and rejected,
And as the “death trains of coal” continue to happily run on time, in growing numbers in China and elsewhere,
Can you honestly say that Hansen doesn’t want a “record breaking year of dangerous deadly Anthropogenic Climate Change!” to “prove” the threat he so long warned about is actually real and does exist?

@ D Böehm on September 24, 2012 at 9:53 pm:
Gee, I wonder if Jan is a legally-voting US citizen. Seems a guaranteed Obama voter. Either his share of the global warming gravy train continues, or if Congress won’t let Barry follow through on that promise then there’ll be plenty of other places at the public trough for a dedicated government servant. Or at least he could get government-paid job retraining and learn something useful and marketable, like plumbing. They’re often hiring at Lowes.
Side humor: I Googled his name, got his GISS Personnel Directory listing. Google gave me the option “Translate this page”. I guess it’s official, “Bureaucrat” is indeed a separate recognized language.

Bought you book Bob and enjoying reading it. (And I live in Australia and had no problem).
Have been watching El Nino reports at BOM for years and this helps greatly in making sense of them.
I have a question though. On the BOM site there is a description of previous El Nino events going back to ~1900. They don’t list any between 1926 and about 1940. Is that right, or have they ignored some. I ask because I’ve always heard that the mid ’30s were very hot. If so perhaps it can be pretty hot in the absence of El Nino?

Bob – you describe el Nino as a pool of West Pacific warm water sloshing east. Well – as Tallbloke observed the other day, and as has been clear looking at the WUWT ENSO and ocean reference pages, the west Pacific warm pool has been weakening and has now finally disappeared. East Pacific warm water has also dissipated, now cool water is present on the east side below the surface. So there’s nothing to slosh east. Bill Illis is right I’m sure, its RIP el Nino.
Only the cool west Pacific could maybe inhibit the return to La Nina, so maybe we’re in for a spell of neutrality?

Jan Perlwitz says:
“What is the ‘CAGW’ theory? Where can I read about it?”
Perlwitz can read about it right here, 24/7/365. But it is neither a theory, nor a hypothesis. It is an evidence-free conjecture without supporting data or observational proof.
Catastrophic AGW is a baseless conjecture pushed by the mendacious, self-serving James “Coal Trains of Death” Hansen. Perlwitz is Hansen’s sycophant, and they both spread disinformation at public expense.