The 2014/15 El Niño – Part 9 – Kevin Trenberth is Looking Forward to Another “Big Jump”

My last Trenberth rant from Judith Curry’s site. Worth repeating in my humble opinion.
“Trenberth’s presentation is utterly disgusting, with the intellectual dishonesty squirting out from all sides. One scarcely knows where to begin. The 17 year gap in rising temperatures is nowhere portrayed in his “gotcha” chart of Temp/CO2. Guess its hockey sticks, hockey sticks, all the way down for him. The Sandy reference is contemptible exploitation of human tragedy, without an iota of evidence that warming had anything whatsoever to contribute. No mention of stable to declining Global ACE since 1970, or mention of the 1938 and 1944 East Coast Hurricanes that dwarfed Sandy in intensity.
If you want to just stick to statistics, take a look at the NOAA adjustments to the raw temperature data. Adjustments to the raw data are reportedly needed to eliminate inhomogeneity, time of observation, missing data etc. (none for UHI, however). As of July 2012, the raw data record had been adjusted for 329 consecutive months. The adjustments in each of the 329 months has been toward higher temperature. Not even one single negative outlier. What are the odds?
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html
“The cumulative effect of all adjustments is approximately a one-half degree Fahrenheit warming in the annual time series over a 50-year period from the 1940′s until the last decade of the century.”
In addition, temperature records compiled before 1940 have been systematically adjusted colder, intensifying the differential in the temperature time series.
How is it even remotely possible to trust the longitudinal climate record when it is ‘maintained’ and subjected to regular adjustment by people like Trenberth who readily substitute a steaming pile of agitprop in place of anything resembling scientific debate, The irony of Trenberth’s two quotes is indescribable: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” “You are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.” Trenberth can only measure temperature in one direction and cannot even distinguish anecdote from data. The presentation distinguishes Trenberth, now and forever, as someone who cannot be considered a responsible scientific authority.
The Warmists are now cheerleading the next super El Nino, hoping that it will pull the AGW fat out of the fire. Except that basing one’s temperature predictions on an ocean cycle discredits the fundamental premise that a minute percentage of CO2 has transformed the entire atmosphere.”

Bob, good work as usual. It’s almost boring how good your work is 🙂 (that takes some thinking about). In your figure 1, after the ninos we see the plateaux. Am i being silly in expecting some decay of the emerging heat during those plateau periods ? Ie a very small decrease in global temps of the period of the plateau.

Bob:
You need a Nobel Prize or something. You continually debunk the so called experts.

NYT with bits from Trenberth:
“EXTREME WEATHER
How El Niño Might Alter the Political Climate”
By NATE COHN
May 20, 2014
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/upshot/how-el-nino-might-alter-the-political-climate.html?referrer=
My title for the NYT story:
“New York Times holds major pep-rally for potential El Niño…Come cheer and root for more global warming!!!!”

We keep hearing how El Nino events cause upward steps in temperature, but what’s often been missing from this site is an explanation of what causes them to take a step down.
So we know about upward steps and what causes them, but what about the downward ones?

I got so disgusted with the IPCC’s phoney physics, I penned an engineer’s view of their pseudoscience. It uses the concept of Forcing’, net energy transfer to the surface by solar SW and atmospheric LW. This is not wrong but standard physics assesses it as the difference of ‘Irradiances’ from ‘Stefan-Boltzmann’ equations. The IPCC does it differently.
The Sun is 5,500 deg.K, the Earth’s surface much cooler. Net SW surface heating = Sigma(F1.T_sun^4 – F2.T_surface^4). Sigma is the S-B constant, F1 and F2 are parameters dependent on clouds etc., Ts are temperatures. It is +160 W/m^2 (mean). This goes to the atmosphere as 97 W/m^2 convection/evapo-transpiration plus 63 W/m^2 real net IR emission, of which 40 W/m^2 goes to Space.
Similarly, net LW surface heating is minus net LW flux to the atmosphere = Sigma(F3.T_atmosphere^4 – F4.T_surface^4). Numerically: -63W/m^2=333 W/m^2 – 396 W/m^2. Conservation of energy means: 160 W/m^2 (SW heating) -97 W/m^2 (convection) -63 W/m^2 (LW cooling) = 0 W/m^2. Near zero net surface IR in ‘self-absorbed’ GHG bands means no GHG-absorption of this energy, radiative physics 101.
However, our Climate Alchemists assume 396 W/m^2 net surface LW flux, the ‘black body’ Irradiance for 16 deg C, when that’s the potential energy flux to a sink at Absolute Zero: only 63 W/m^2 is real. They make up the difference by assuming 333 W/m^2 atmospheric Irradiance measured by ‘pyrgeometer’ (‘back radiation’) provides extra surface heat when standard physics shows for a normal temperature gradient, it cannot transfer any energy to the surface. The failure to understand what their main instrument outputs is a serious scientific mistake.
Adding 97 W/m^2 convection makes 493 W/m^2, 3x real heating rate, never proved experimentally. As it’s far too high they offset 238.5 W/m^2 by falsely applying ‘Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation’ to the semi-transparent emitter at ToA. The residual c. 60% more heating than reality is, with 3x real GHE, used to purport imaginary ‘positive feedback’. They then use c. 25% extra low level cloud albedo in hindcasting to pretend the extra energy doesn’t heat the atmosphere above reality.
IPCC ‘science’ is nothing less than fraud, cynical manipulation of data to purport much more heating than reality. The GHG-absorbed component is exaggerated 5.1x. The Tyndall experiment does not prove it thermalises in the gas phase. This scam deceived all but real heat transfer experts.

Update on ENSO: for the second month I have seen a “double take” on the published equatorial anomaly transect down to 450 meters:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/weeklyenso_clim_81-10/wkteq_xz.gif
This morning I looked at it and it showed that the Kelvin wave was almost gone – the inclined warm tongue had declined dramatically. But now, a few hours later – it’s back again to how it was before, with the warm tongue with unchanged intensity. Exactly the same thing happened last month – for a few minutes, a 450 m transect showed a sharply reduced Kelvin wave warm tongue, then it was replaced with a “business as usual” Kelvin wave. Has anyone else noticed this?
Is some activist manager at NOAA doctoring the 450m transects to hide a horrifyingly disappointing fizzle of the great 2014 el Nino? Or is there an innocent technical explanation? I smell a rat.
TAO / Triton 5 is showing a fairly wimpish Kelvin wave. (That’s the buoy array if I remember correctly which is being allowed to decay.)
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/sub-surf_anim.gif
More generally on ENSO, the trade winds show no sign of weakening. Maybe they are being sustained by the small but persistent patches of cold SST north and south of the east Pacific equator. Nor any obvious sign of westerly wind bursts, that would signify evolution toward el Nino.
But I guess these will happen any day, right?
Still waiting for el Ninot… (nothing to be done)

There is a lot of grant money at stake out there. Even if there is no jump, there is a vested interest in inventing one.

I have a problem discussing someone’s ‘science” ….. based on some temperature graph that the past has been adjusted down over 1/2 a degree
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/04/06/at-ncdc-if-the-present-refuses-to-get-warmer-then-the-past-must-become-colder/

I have a problem discussing someone’s ‘science” ….
Not you Bob!…..Trenberth

NEWSFLASH
The predicted El Nino induced jump in global temperatures has been found to be unnecessary due to an increase in upward adjustments of the temperature record by climate scientists investigating the lack of warming over most of the past two decades. This redundancy in available scientific explanations means that the anticipated El Nino induced jump will be deferred until further notice.
(Or is that the other way round? I can never remember.)

BTW I wonder if this is purposeful distraction from what is a mind boggling forecast of the CFSV2 for a positive arctic ice anomaly. huge given the cooling north atlantic, and the forecast for major mud in your eye rains the next 9 months in the great plains perma drought area. Its amazing, and perhaps this is the one they can strut their stuff on about being right, but every single point they make now is running opposite. Wildfires are below normal through may 19th in spite of the push there… the tornado season has tanked again. I think the two biggest climate/weather stories are the icemelt not being near what is has been and the coming 9 months of wet weather. The cfsv2 is in line with what Joe D and I have been thinking. The JAMSTEC is no where any super nino and in fact is looking like a classic Modiki ( renamed calamari by Joe and I, cause we are gumba’s and we like calamari) of course perhaps we are wrong and will provolone in our upon, but cheese what can you do.. all of this makes me squiddish
Sometimes you gotta lighten up

WOW the UKMET is not impressed ( and by the way, most climate models have this more weak to moderate) http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/seasonal-to-decadal/gpc-outlooks/el-nino-la-nina

@Joe Bastardi,
Thanks, Joe. Greatly appreciate you bringing your superb forecasting skills (and Joe D’s) to the discussion. Not sure if all readers know who you are. For those who don’t, Joe’s widely recognized as one of the best long term forecasters out there.

RACookPE1978 says:
May 20, 2014 at 3:17 pm
———————————-
Regressions for an El Nino versus temperature and precipitation around the world at the link below. Various 3 month time periods are shown (keeping in mind there is a 3 month lag after an El Nino peaks that the peak impact on temperature and precipitation will be felt).
Temperature-wise; Texas-Oklahoma-US southeast are oppositely correlated to the ENSO, ie cooler in an El Nino. California is not much affected temperature-wise.
Precipitation-wise; California-Texas-US south are very positively correlated with the ENSO; ie much more rain when there is an El Nino. Much less rain when there is a La Nina. Why has there been so much drought in California to Florida in the last several years? Given the domination of La Ninas since 2010, this is expected. California is going to get flooding rains lagged 3 months after this El Nino’s timeline develops (fall and later) and so will Texas.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/ENSO/regressions/

http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/figure-7-2.png
During the recent warming it is clear that the both max and min excursions were greater. Looks like you oscillator was pumping a bit harder.

Clive best says:
May 20, 2014 at 1:17 pm
I have a problem with the hypothesis that the missing heat has all been absorbed by the oceans during the 17 year hiatus which is now due to surface as a super El Niño. In the meantime all that heat would have expanded the oceans leading to an acceleration in sea levels which has not been observed.
Curiouser and curiouser !

Since the missing warning is obviously at the deep ocean depths, the missing ocean expansion is obviously at the bottom. Duh!

At the NOAA El Nino page, http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/anomnight.current.gif they display this chart. It shows the Great Lakes with a dark red color code for temps above normal. I wonder how that is possible with ice still in places at this date.
Does anyone have a guess why the anomaly would be red for a place with historic ice levels or is this the new norm?

Somebody:
Heat has been rigorously defined since the days of Maxwell, possibly earlier. It is only pedantic physicists who cannot accept this. Engineers, i.e. people who build things that work and get sued if they break, have always defined heat as energy. Not the transfer of energy. You physicists look at the various equations for q, which in SI has units of watts and think we are talking about heat. We are talking about heat transfer of joules per second. The joules are the heat. The joules per second are the heat transfer. When an engineer talks about q, she is talking about Watts or other unit for power. I have a number of advanced (third year engineering or higher) texts on this. They date from the 1940’s (my father’s) to the 2000’s. They all speak of heat as energy and heat transfer as power. When you raise these objections you show that you have ZERO experience in real world applications of heat, such as combustion engineering, metallurgy, engine design, etc., etc. You have been sold a bill of goods by someone who doesn’t like engineers and now you are trying to pedal the same pile o’ poo. Max Planck was the last true physicist who added to the study of thermodynamics. It is truly a settled science. That is, it is engineering. Leave the definitions to those of us who use them please. I’m not going to comment further on this. This thread has been hijacked enough.

I think this el nino will be the undoing of Kevin Trenberth. Call it a hunch.

Has anyone taken the time to realize that this enso event, so far, is more than one month behind the 97 event and is comparably less powerful already (during the same stage)? I think the warmistas are hoping this turns into a “thing” because it’ll help sell their political agenda (Obama’s draconian executive orders; next years UN agreement).
It’s a hope and a prayer. These types of things usually turn out very badly for those doing the praying. It’s already becoming obvious that this won’t come near 1997 and will likely be a weak to moderate el nino. If Joe is right about the ice returning to a normal extent this summer, this could be an ugly fall for the warmistas going into such a make or break 2015.
It’s funny how these people set themselves up for failure by making such ridiculous predictions in the first place though.

@John Eggart: Claes Johnson and I have tried to add to what Planck created, the missing bit which would bring the physicists into the same fold as the engineers. Johnson developed a mathematical concept that is not easily intelligible. My own explanation is simpler, based on Poynting Vectors.
Two opposing, in-phase plane waves of the same amplitude each have the same but opposing PVs. The net wave is a standing wave with zero PV, in other words the PVs annihilate vectorally. Do the same calculation for waves with different amplitude and you get a standing wave at the amplitude of the cooler emitter, and an imposed travelling wave with the difference of amplitudes, showing the net PV is their vector sum, delta |PV|.
Do this over all wavelengths and add thermal incoherency and you get the same, but on average. Thus two Irradiances, the integral of all the PVs over all wavelengths, add vectorally. Hence for equal temperature and emissivity sources, there is zero net IR amplitude.
The atmosphere appears at an interface with condensed matter to emit GHG IR from ‘self-absorbed’ molecules at the black body level; it’s easy to show why. Because the Earth’s surface is a near black body emitter, at the surface there is no net PV, no net IR energy flux in self-absorbed wavelength ranges. For temperate regions, the emissivities are 1 and 0.6, meaning net energy flux surface to atmosphere is 396 [W/m^2] x 0.4 = 158.4 W/m^2, very near the observed 160 W/m^2.
We engineers call the 0.4 net emissivity the ‘operational emissivity’, and can use it in empirical calculations. However, in the atmosphere, vibrationally activated sites at the surface can also transfer energy to adsorbed molecules or liquid water. Hence we have the split [2009 data] to 17 W/m^2 convection and 80 W/m^2 latent heat by evaporation. The residual 63 W/m^2 net IR is about 40% of the maximum possible net IR emission, meaning the operational emissivity of the Earth’s surface to its atmosphere is about 0.16 (average).
The Earth’s surface then adapts to give the correct mix of convection and IR. The difference of its temperature and the zero GHG temperature for 341 W/m^2 incident SW is the GHE. Equilibrium radiative temperature for no clouds or ice would be 4 to 5 deg C, so present GHE is c. 11 K. Hansen et al in 1981 made a big mistake in claiming it is 33 K (there is no single -18 deg c emission zone in the upper atmosphere).
Clouds control the Earth’s GHE with the difference between now and the Last Glacial Maximum, about 9 K, being from biofeedback reducing cloud albedo. There is virtually zero effect of CO2. Our surface temperature is where we evolved. Neanderthal man who had the same genes with some switched on, had larger eyes, more optical processing, less other brain processing capacity, a cold and dark adaptation. As cloud droplets coarsened much more rapidly, the World was darker in the icy regions.
Climate Alchemists think operational emissivity is 1.0, add the convection and evaporation, then scream ‘denier’ at anyone who dares tell them they’ve got the bloody concept wrong. Then they embark on a series of bad physics’ decisions to pare away excess energy to fit past data. The models run hot, ‘positive feedback’ is imaginary. The worst part is to claim the atmosphere is a grey body so you can apply Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation at ToA to offset 238.5 W/m^2.
I once argued with the Met. Office people about this; it comes to a guy at a local University who got it wrong; they put out a false justification. However, these people are not going to relinquish their careers because they have been taught wrongly since Carl Sagan made the initial mistakes. That’s 50 years or so!
This heat transfer cockup is probably our era’s equivalent of Phlogiston with Houghton reprising the role of religious fanatic Joseph Priestley. Houghton’s treatise accepts the Earth’s atmosphere has no IR source at ToA but he believed the atmosphere is a grey body. To do the job properly, you have to apply irreversible engineering thermodynamics at ToA. Brookhaven is doing this but it uses a grey body approximation, which is damned wrong. We engineers work with reality, the engineering thermodynamics of Gaia……..:o)

@Andyj: Trenberth was trained in Meteorology. It teaches false ‘back radiation’ physics based on mistaking Irradiance for real IR energy flux. As Planck said; “Science proceeds funeral by funeral”.
Lindzen also believes in the ‘Extended GHE’ based on the Meteorologists’ mistake. It’s been 50 years of going up a blind alley we grizzled old engineers never did because we had to get the sums right.
However, modern engineers and physicists are X-box technicians. The real knowledge is in the programmes; the operators can’t work from first principles and direct experiment, the basis of my powerful, by comparison, intellect.

Change ‘Irradiance’ to ‘net Irradiance’ in 2nd to last paragraph. At a solar sail, the net Irradiance is the Sun’s irradiance to the sail minus the sail’s irradiance to the Sun, in both cases W/[m^2.Str]

In physics “heat” = “energy transfer”. Energy that is being transfered (and only the energy being transferred) by various means (conduction, convection, radiation) is called heat. Heat (by rigorous physics definition not common usage) cannot be trapped or stored.
“Heat may be defined as energy in transit from a high temperature object to a lower temperature object. An object does not possess “heat”; the appropriate term for the microscopic energy in an object is internal energy. The internal energy may be increased by transferring energy to the object from a higher temperature (hotter) object – this is properly called heating.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/heat.html

Alex Says (May 21, 2014 at 8:27AM)
I fully agree with your position because it is fully in accord with Gibb’s seminal work that established the foundation for thermodynamics in the early 1900s. However, I also think I understand “Somebody” and “John West” ’s confusion about the distinction between “heat” and “heat flow”.
I believe that their confusion results from a common explanation of the First Law of Thermodynamics which is often presented as [1]:
Delta U = Q – W;
wherein “Delta U” is the change in internal energy; Q is the heat put into the system; and W is the work done by the system. The phrase “heat put into the system” likely suggests “heat flow”. But that interpretation is obviously incorrect because “Q” has units of energy. Instead, as you and others have already pointed out “heat transfer” is govern by the temperature difference between the bodies (media) which exchange thermal energy (i.e., via Fourier or S-B equations etc.).
If “Somebody” and “John West” are still unclear on terminology, I’d suggest that they consult a thermodynamics or heat transfer textbook. It is universally acknowledged that “ heat” is energy and not a “rate of heat flow”.
Dan
[1] Richard Swalin, Thermodynamics of Solids, pg 3, Wiley 1962.

Is there anything dumber than rooting on a natural phenomenon like it is some kind of sports team?

AlecM, from the dumber and dumber department, what do you mean by the bold part in this?

Equilibrium radiative temperature for no clouds or ice would be 4 to 5 deg C, so present GHE is c. 11 K. Hansen et al in 1981 made a big mistake in claiming it is 33 K (there is no single -18 deg c emission zone in the upper atmosphere).

Thanks for the time spent answering.

Why doesn’t anyone bother look at the actual data which, so far at least, seems to show this el nino no where near as powerful as the 97 el nino?
First, this el nino is already a full month behind its counterpart. In 1997, the el nino began on April 23rd, whereas this el nino has yet to form as of May 14th (and likely to May 21).
Second, the temperature spikes, once they did hit, were higher in 1997. By April 23rd, the temp in the ENSO 1+2 region was 1.4 degrees above normal at 26.6 degrees C. By comparison, April 23rd showed the temperature 25.3 degrees in 2014, 1.3 degrees cooler.
The same was true across all the sectors except NINO 4.
Once the temperature began to spike, it rose faster and higher than it is doing now as well. By May 14th of 1997, the temperature of NINO 1+2 rose to 26.7 degrees, which is 1.2 degrees warmer than it is now. Within one week of hitting 26.6 degrees, with an anomaly of +1.4, in April of 1997, NINO 1+2 surged to an anomaly of +1.9 degrees the next week and +2.2 degrees the week following. That doesn’t appear to be happening at all now.
After reaching the +0.5 degree threshold for a few days a couple of weeks ago, in NINO 3+4, it fell below the threshold again to +0.4 for May 14 and is still below there now. By comparison, after jumping to +0.6 degrees on April 23rd, 1997, it never fell below that. It jumped to +0.8 degrees by May 7th and kept going up, hitting +1.0 by the end of May and +2.0 by August. I don’t see that happening this time, at least not that quick and probably not +2.0 degrees at all.
So if the el nino were comparable to 1997 you’d basically have to see this week…
NINO 1+2: A jump to +1.9 degrees, followed by a jump to +2.2 a week later.
NINO 3: A jump to +1.0 degrees.
NINO 3+4: A jump to +0.6 to +0.8 (as it fluctuated between the two in 1997. Compared with it fluctuating between +0.4 and +0.5 now).
Otherwise, it misses every mark compared with 1997. It came later, wasn’t as strong, etc. When coupled with the strong trade winds persisting, that’s very telling. This next week of data will actually tell us a lot about whether this will be a strong one or not. If it comes no where near those numbers above, say goodbye to your super el nino. Something else would have to happen, another kelvin wave or something, to give it more energy.
Personally, I suspect no strong el nino will be forthcoming. I think Kevin is engaged in wishful thinking and nothing more. This will rank up there with all the predictions of the ice melting by 2013, etc. This will be just one more in a long list of bitter disappointments for warmists making big predictions. Read the NYTimes story, that’s all you need to know. They WANT this to be a big one to revive the sagging fortunes of global warming and, possibly, strike a UN deal. It’s as Joe Bastardi says it is, wishful thinking.

Heat transfer from the sea to the atmosphere won’t occur through conductivity if the air temperature is the same as the ocean surface. But it does transfer through evaporation.

Somebody says:
May 20, 2014 at 2:41 pm
“It feels to me as if I have ‘stored’ some heat.”
It’s not as you ‘feel’ it. It’s as it is. Open a physics book and learn what heat means.

Cut out the zen master crap. My challenge to you was:

… what terminology would you use to describe the fact that the temperature of my coffee has been maintained at an elevated level?

Put up or shut up.

The more you can reduce the damage caused by free radicals with antioxidants,
the more your can reduce or even prevent damage. There are a few factors you want to
consider when purchasing a superfood drink powder. Not only are they good for you
to battle illness, they also aid in weight loss.