NOAA Mixing Their Niños

Snow storm coming in today. Looks like a duzy. Maybe its another super storm.

Wow… it is hard to believe that NOAA would actually claim the last two years are the “warmest” cold years on record.
According to the monthly ENSO reports over the last couple years, this last La Nina was quite short and so weak it only briefly barely qualified for La Nina status.

2009 started as La Nina but topped neutral in March and entered a strong El Nino through the end of the year. Arguably the strongest La Nina year by their definition.
Correction
2009 started as La Nina but topped neutral in March and entered a strong El Nino through the end of the year. Arguably the warmest La Nina year by their definition.

Count your blessing, Y’All !!
Russia is gripped in truly brutal winter conditions.
http://rt.com/news/russia-freeze-cold-temperature-379/
Baby, It’s Cold Outside!

Merry Christmas To All, from the Great NorthWet!
MtK

UAH anomalies hit a low point of –0.13C in Jan/Feb, and then bounced up to 0.34C in October, before sinking back to 0.28C in November as the El Niño fizzled out.
If you are interested, below are the latest monthly numbers for 5 other data sets as well.
2012 in Perspective so far on Six Data Sets
Note the bolded numbers for each data set where the lower bolded number is the highest anomaly recorded so far in 2012 and the higher one is the all time record so far. There is no comparison.
With the UAH anomaly for November at 0.281, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (-0.134 -0.135 + 0.051 + 0.232 + 0.179 + 0.235 + 0.130 + 0.208 + 0.339 + 0.333 + 0.281)/11 = 0.156. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.42. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.66. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.132.
With the GISS anomaly for November at 0.68, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (0.32 + 0.37 + 0.45 + 0.54 + 0.67 + 0.56 + 0.46 + 0.58 + 0.62 + 0.68 + 0.68)/11 = 0.54. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 2010 was the warmest at 0.63. The highest ever monthly anomalies were in March of 2002 and January of 2007 when it reached 0.89. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.514.
With the Hadcrut3 anomaly for October at 0.486, the average for the first ten months of the year is (0.217 + 0.193 + 0.305 + 0.481 + 0.475 + 0.477 + 0.448 + 0.512+ 0.515 + 0.486)/10 = 0.411. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.548. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in February of 1998 when it reached 0.756. One has to back to the 1940s to find the previous time that a Hadcrut3 record was not beaten in 10 years or less. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.340.
With the sea surface anomaly for October at 0.428, the average for the first ten months of the year is (0.203 + 0.230 + 0.241 + 0.292 + 0.339 + 0.351 + 0.385 + 0.440 + 0.449 + 0.428)/10 = 0.336. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.451. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in August of 1998 when it reached 0.555. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.273.
With the RSS anomaly for November at 0.195, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (-0.060 -0.123 + 0.071 + 0.330 + 0.231 + 0.337 + 0.290 + 0.255 + 0.383 + 0.294 + 0.195)/11 = 0.200. This would rank 11th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.55. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.857. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.147.
With the Hadcrut4 anomaly for November at 0.512, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (0.288 + 0.208 + 0.339 + 0.525 + 0.531 + 0.506 + 0.470 + 0.532 + 0.515 + 0.524 + 0.512)/11 = 0.45. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 2010 was the warmest at 0.54. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in January of 2007 when it reached 0.818. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.399.
On all six of the above data sets, a record is out of reach.

Paul Homewood says:
Are they making up their own definition?

Yes, the whole thing is made up. What is ENSO other than an homo sapiens “made up” Index?
For the here and now actual SSTs in the ENSO are more relevant. The index may foretell, may indicate implications, but for what is happening now look to the SSTs. Which makes the NOAA – the first 3 months makes a year even more nonsensical.

I’m just glad, even though it was a chilly, and below average, 37ºF, at my house this morning, it was 84ºF warmer than it was in Fairbanks, AK.

Shouldn’t be mixing their ninos and ninas?

This is a cold pattern through out the Planet IMHO:
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sfc_daily.php?plot=ssa&inv=0&t=cur
at least dead neutral in the El Nino portion of the East Pacific..
to my untrained eye.. No real hot spots in the southern Ocean….

PS this November’s maximum is only the warmest since ~ 2002 – pales into insignificance really.
Oh – and that is for a different weather station (in an urban area ) which is situated well away from the older bayside location – yes the old station was in a cooler location near Moreton Bay not further inland like the new one.

Once again the exception proves the rule. Because this year is the coldest in a century, it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the earth is not warming. After all there is 3% Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere than last year, so we should see a 3% increase in temperature. The linear relationship between Carbon Dioxide concentrations and temperature is just not established. There must be something else going on.

E.M.Smith says:
December 21, 2012 at 10:00 pm
I can see it now: “Hottest cold day in Death Valley”…
==========================================
Yes indeed, “Record low in the Florida keys…CAGW produces warmest record low EVR in the US.”

mtobis says:
“…is a La Nina year for this purpose.”
And that purpose is what? Subterfuge? Perfidious science?

This is just follows the normal pattern for ‘climate science’ start with the desired result make the data fit it, no mater what you have to do with it, then claim victory while smearing anyone that challenges you.
This is not science, and those that wish to counter this need to realise they cannot do so effectively using scientific arguments. You spend all day pointing out the error in the numbers , but the ‘value’ of message is not there in the first place .

knr says:
December 22, 2012 at 2:23 am
….This is not science, and those that wish to counter this need to realise they cannot do so effectively using scientific arguments. You spend all day pointing out the error in the numbers , but the ‘value’ of message is not there in the first place .
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No it is not science it is propaganda and it is working beautifully.
I kept hoping Mama Gaia will give the lemmings a great big swat and she appears to be doing so. Unfortunately they just changed their shrieking from “Global Warming, Global Warming, Global Warming…” to ‘Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change….”
I just had one very nice church lady at a nativity production trying to explain to me how CO2 can make the temperature go down as well as up. It was all I could do to keep from tearing my hair out. She didn’t begin to have the science or logic background needed to actually understand the logical fallacies in the propaganda she is parroting much less to have a rational discussion.
These are the people the NOAA and Hansen are targeting and unfortunately they are the vast majority of people including our politicians. I even read one comment recently in response to the SOD, that it did not matter whether or not CO2 was harmful we still needed to close down coal plants and use Green Energy.
He will be the first to scream WHEN not IF the rolling blackouts become a normal part of life. Smart Meters are now being installed so utility companies can turn off non-commercial and small business power as needed so the big corporations are not inconvenienced by the lack of adequate power. This is already in the works.
Every one points to Green energy in Texas:

Energy InSight FAQs
….Rolling outages are systematic, temporary interruptions of electrical service.
They are the last step in a progressive series of emergency procedures that ERCOT follows when it detects that there is a shortage of power generation within the Texas electric grid. ERCOT will direct electric transmission and distribution utilities, such as CenterPoint Energy, to begin controlled, rolling outages to bring the supply and demand for electricity back into balance.They generally last 15-45 minutes before being rotated to a different neighborhood to spread the effect of the outage among consumers, which would be the case whether outages are coordinated at the circuit level or individual meter level. Without this safety valve, power generating units could overload and begin shutting down and risk causing a domino effect of a statewide, lengthy outage. With smart meters, CenterPoint Energy is proposing to add a process prior to shutting down whole circuits to conduct a mass turn off of individual meters with 200 amps or less (i.e. residential and small commercial consumers) for 15 or 30 minutes, rotating consumers impacted during that outage as well as possible future outages.
There are several benefits to consumers of this proposed process. By isolating non-critical service accounts (“critical” accounts include hospitals, police stations, water treatment facilities etc.) and spreading “load shed” to a wider distribution, critical accounts that happen to share the same circuit with non-critical accounts will be less affected in the event of an emergency. Curtailment of other important public safety devices and services such as traffic signals, police and fire stations, and water pumps and sewer lifts may also be avoided.

Jeff Alberts says:
December 21, 2012 at 8:05 pm
Or maybe a “Hey noni noni no nino”
Apologies to the original Elizabethans

It is easy to find evidence of a cooling trend from the poles since La Nina began to become more dominant in recent years.
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=10784&linkbox=true&position=2
“More Visual Proof Of Global Cooling Since 2007”

From the NOAA:
Oceanic Niño Index (ONI)
• The ONI is based on SST departures from average in the Niño 3.4 region, and is a principal measure for monitoring, assessing, and predicting ENSO.
• Defined as the three-month running-mean SST departures in the Niño 3.4 region. Departures are based on a set of improved homogeneous historical SST analyses (Extended Reconstructed SST – ERSST.v3b). The SST reconstruction methodology is described in Smith et al., 2008, J. Climate, vol. 21, 2283-2296.)
• Used to place current events into a historical perspective
• NOAA’s operational definitions of El Niño and La Niña are keyed to the ONI index.
NOAA Operational Definitions for El Niño and La Niña
El Niño: characterized by a positive ONI greater than or equal to +0.5°C.
La Niña: characterized by a negative ONI less than or equal to -0.5°C.
By historical standards, to be classified as a full-fledged El Niño or La Niña episode, these thresholds must be exceeded for a period of at least 5 consecutive overlapping 3-month seasons.
CPC considers El Niño or La Niña conditions to occur when the monthly Niño3.4 OISST departures meet or exceed +/- 0.5°C along with consistent atmospheric features. These anomalies must also be forecasted to persist for 3 consecutive months.
ONI Data:
2000
-1.7
-1.5
-1.1
-0.9
-0.8
-0.7
-0.6
-0.5
-0.5
-0.6
-0.8
-0.8
2001
-0.7
-0.6
-0.5
-0.3
-0.2
-0.1
0.0
0.0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.2
-0.3
2002
-0.2
0.0
0.1
0.3
0.5
0.7
0.8
0.8
0.9
1.2
1.3
1.3
2003
1.1
0.8
0.4
0.0
-0.2
-0.1
0.2
0.4
0.4
0.4
0.4
0.3
2004
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.3
0.5
0.7
0.7
0.7
0.7
0.7
2005
0.6
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
-0.2
-0.5
-0.8
2006
-0.9
-0.7
-0.5
-0.3
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.5
0.8
1.0
1.0
2007
0.7
0.3
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.3
-0.3
-0.6
-0.9
-1.1
-1.2
-1.4
2008
-1.5
-1.5
-1.2
-0.9
-0.7
-0.5
-0.3
-0.2
-0.1
-0.2
-0.4
-0.7
2009
-0.9
-0.8
-0.6
-0.2
0.1
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
1.0
1.4
1.6
2010
1.6
1.4
1.1
0.7
0.2
-0.3
-0.8
-1.2
-1.4
-1.5
-1.5
-1.5
2011
-1.4
-1.3
-1.0
-0.7
-0.4
-0.2
-0.2
-0.3
-0.6
-0.8
-1.0
-1.0
2012
-0.9
-0.7
-0.5
-0.3
-0.1
0.0
0.1
0.3
0.4
0.6
 
 

Can someone please replace the above scrolling nightmare with:
2000= -1.7, -1.5, -1.1, -0.9, -0.8, -0.7, -0.6, -0.5, -0.5, -0.6, -0.8, -0.8
2001= -0.7, -0.6, -0.5, -0.3, -0.2, -0.1, 0.0, 0.0, -0.1, -0.2, -0.2, -0.3
2002= -0.2, 0.0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 0.8, 0.8, 0.9, 1.2, 1.3, 1.3
2003= 1.1, 0.8, 0.4, 0.0, -0.2, -0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.4, 0.4, 0.4, 0.3
2004= 0.3, 0.2, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 0.7, 0.7, 0.7 0.7
2005= 0.6, 0.4, 0.3, 0.3, 0.3, 0.3, 0.2, 0.1, 0.0, -0.2, -0.5, -0.8
2006= -0.9, -0.7, -0.5, -0.3, 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 0.8, 1.0, 1.0
2007= 0.7, 0.3, -0.1, -0.2, -0.3, -0.3, -0.3, -0.6, -0.9, -1.1, -1.2, -1.4
2008= -1.5, -1.5, -1.2, -0.9, -0.7, -0.5, -0.3, -0.2, -0.1, -0.2, -0.4, -0.7
2009= -0.9, -0.8, -0.6, -0.2, 0.1, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 1.0, 1.4, 1.6,
2010= 1.6, 1.4, 1.1, 0.7, 0.2, -0.3, -0.8, -1.2, -1.4, -1.5, -1.5, -1.5,
2011= -1.4, -1.3, -1.0, -0.7, -0.4, -0.2, -0.2, -0.3, -0.6, -0.8, -1.0, -1.0
2012= -0.9, -0.7, -0.5, -0.3, -0.1, 0.0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.4, 0.6,

Bob,
Your link shows clearly that NOAA defined a La Nina year as one where the first three months are in the threshold for La Nina. Since the temperature usually lags the La Nina/Nino switch by about 6 months that seems reasonable. In this thread the opening post attempts to redefine what it means to be a La Nina year. Your link shows the OP is incorrect. Your attempt to spin the established definition is interesting, but does to stand up to close examination. NOAA defined a La Nina year long ago. You cannot change the goalpost set by NOAA years ago.

Ric Werme says:
December 22, 2012 at 2:39 pm
I think it’s time for a reminder about the nav bar link to Ric Werme’s guide to WUWT where I note how to write HTML that even WordPress can recognize…

Thanks for the instructional reference and the work you put into it. I had forgotten. Your reminder was timely. I will try harder!
Now can you get rid of the multi-page, wheel busting scroll that is in “Information’s” post. GK

Can someone please tell me what the latest ENSO number is? The reason I ask is that the meter shows 0.0, but the number shows +0.14, while the latest NINO 3.4 SST Anomalies Forecast seems to indicate it is -0.20 now and all forecasts start from there. Thanks!