In the past week both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) scaled back forecasts for a big El Niño warming event in 2014.
![anomnight.8.7.2014[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/anomnight-8-7-20141.gif)
![figure4[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/figure41.gif?resize=643%2C546)
Source: http://iri.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/figure4.gif
Meanwhile, NOAA has announced that the probability of an El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event taking place this year has dropped significantly, saying:
“The chance of El Nino has decreased to about 65% during the Northern Hemisphere fall and early winter,”
Last week BoM changed its El Niño status from “El Niño Alert” to “El Niño Watch”, saying:
“While the chance of an El Niño in 2014 has clearly eased, warmer-than-average waters persist in parts of the tropical Pacific, and the (slight) majority of climate models suggest El Niño remains likely for spring. Hence the establishment of El Niño before year’s end cannot be ruled out. If an El Niño were to occur, it is increasingly unlikely to be a strong event.
This means the chance of El Nino developing in 2014 is approximately 50%, which remains significant at double the normal likelihood of an event,”
Earlier this year, sea surface temperature appeared on the rise, and there was hope in the warmist community that this would help 2014 become a record warm year. For example, the paid Center for American Progress mouthpiece Joe Romm squawked:
Is A Super El Niño Coming That Will Shatter Extreme Weather And Global Temperature Records?
He cited this model forecast:
![CFS21-638x564[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/cfs21-638x5641.jpg)
Uh, no. That hopes seems faded now.
Niño 3.4 Region Sea Surface Temperature Index – July 2006 to Present
Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) – Click the pic to view at source
El Niño related SST’s from earlier this year have now returned to near normal, and NOAA says: “the lack of a coherent atmospheric El Nino pattern, and a return to near-average SSTs in the central Pacific, indicate ENSO-neutral”.
Niño 3.4 Region Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly – 2000 to Present
NOAA – National Climate Data Center – Click the pic to view at source
Here is the NOAA ENSO discussion published today:
===============================================================
EL NINO/SOUTHERN OSCILLATION (ENSO) DIAGNOSTIC DISCUSSION
issued by CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER/NCEP/NWS and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society
7 August 2014
ENSO Alert System Status: El Nino Watch
Synopsis: The chance of El Nino has decreased to about 65% during the Northern Hemisphere fall and early winter.
During July 2014, above-average sea surface temperatures (SST) continued in the far eastern equatorial Pacific, but near average SSTs prevailed in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (Fig. 1). Most of the Nino indices decreased toward the end of the month with values of +0.3°C in Nino-4, -0.1°C in Nino-3.4, +0.2°C in Nino-3, and +0.6°C in Nino-1+2 (Fig. 2). Subsurface heat content anomalies (averaged between 180º-100ºW) continued to decrease and are slightly below average (Fig. 3). The above-average subsurface temperatures that were observed near the surface during June (down to 100m depth) are now limited to a thin layer in the top 50m, underlain by mainly below-average temperatures (Fig. 4). The low-level winds over the tropical Pacific remained near average during July, but westerly wind anomalies appeared in the central and eastern part of the basin toward the end of the month. Upper-level winds remained generally near average and convection was enhanced mainly just north of the equator in the western Pacific (Fig. 5). The lack of a coherent atmospheric El Nino pattern, and a return to near-average SSTs in the central Pacific, indicate ENSO-neutral.
Over the last month, model forecasts have slightly delayed the El Nino onset, with most models now indicating the onset during July-September, with the event continuing into early 2015 (Fig. 6). A strong El Nino is not favored in any of the ensemble averages, and slightly more models call for a weak event rather than a moderate event. At this time, the consensus of forecasters expects El Nino to emerge during August-October and to peak at weak strength during the late fall and early winter (3-month values of the Nino-3.4 index between 0.5°C and 0.9°C). The chance of El Nino has decreased to about 65% during the Northern Hemisphere fall and early winter (click CPC/IRI consensus forecast for the chance of each outcome).
This discussion is a consolidated effort of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NOAA’s National Weather Service, and their funded institutions. Oceanic and atmospheric conditions are updated weekly on the Climate Prediction Center web site (El Nino/La Niña Current Conditions and Expert Discussions). Forecasts are also updated monthly in the Forecast Forum of CPC’s Climate Diagnostics Bulletin. Additional perspectives and analysis are also available in an ENSO blog. The next ENSO Diagnostics Discussion is scheduled for 4 September 2014. To receive an e-mail notification when the monthly ENSO Diagnostic Discussions are released, please send an e-mail message to: ncep.list.enso-update@noaa.gov.
Climate Prediction Center
National Centers for Environmental Prediction
NOAA/National Weather Service
College Park, MD 20740
End of diagnostic discussions
I admit that your raw data looks like this El Nino is a bust, but just wait until the data is “adjusted”! Ah, then we will show you!
(some snark in the above is possible)
Damn, this is bad for California’s water situation.
The squawkers will run silent for now or move on to other squawk topics and predictions. They will have to be right sometime, even with coin flips as consultanting expertise.
Really though the SW US could use the rain from an El Nino winter. Maybe someone should call John Holdren at the WH and ask him to tell NOAA to fix the the SST readings so we can have an El Nino and the rainfall. Isn’t that how our Climate works?
/s – if you couldn’t tell.
“Is A Super El Niño Coming That Will Shatter Extreme Weather And Global Temperature Records?”
There are ‘extreme weather’ records?
Ah well, whatever happened to the ‘Monster Kelvin Wave’?
I love the emotion laden headlines associated with the Kelvin Wave earlier this spring. VERY scientific
“Monster Kelvin Wave Is Barfing Heat Into The Atmosphere” Daily KOS, May 9, 2014
* I had no idea Kelvin waves had intestinal systems that would allow them to ‘barf’*
“El Nino Update: Monster Kelvin Wave Continues to Emerge and Intensify” uknowispeaksense (??) April, 3, 2014
* the blog name says it all, I can’t add anything else*
“Monster El Nino Emerging : Massive Kelvin Wave Breaks Surface in Eastern Pacific” Lunatic Outpost (very aptly named LOL), Mar 26, 2014
*I get the mental image of a scene from ‘The Hunt For Red October’ *
“Monster El Nino Emerging From the Depths: Nose of Massive Kelvin Wave Breaks Surface in Eastern Pacific”
*Kelvin waves have noses? That implies they have faces … and bodies, yes?*
Oh well, I’m having entirely too much fun with this.
First the models predict an El Nino….
….then they predict an El Nada
and people pay attention to this, why?
Stupid El Nino ignores the climate models which say the trade winds have weakened..ah err.., I mean turbocharged..no! I mean..I mean..
reversed?
California is not going to like that. Their drought will go on. Without Celine Dion.
So does this year count as a “weak el-Ninio” or not at all? In other words, can we expect an El-Ninio next year or an El-Ninia?
Not very good news for southwest USA. We really could use extra rainfall in Texas…
Well, I don’t think that ‘climate models’ predicted a super El-Nino.
“Latitude says:
August 7, 2014 at 1:44 pm
First the models predict an El Nino….
….then they predict an El Nada
and people pay attention to this, why?
######################
when the weatherman tells me there is a 50% chance of rain, I bring an umbrella.
Well this mornings SJ Murky news, had six inch headlines about a mega el nino coming.
Really good timing.
PhilCP says:
August 7, 2014 at 1:54 pm
So does this year count as a “weak el-Ninio” or not at all? In other words, can we expect an El-Ninio next year or an El-Ninia?
=====================
So far this year (2014) the 3.4 indicator (on the right side of Anthony’s website) has been ‘neutral’, then swung to a very weak ‘El Nino’ area, then has returned to almost dead center neutral.
That being said, I don’t think (based on Bob Tisdale’s excellent ‘tutoring’) that El-Ninos or La Ninas are dependent events, probabilistically speaking. So, the bottom line is – who knows?
Steven Mosher says:
August 7, 2014 at 1:57 pm
when the weatherman tells me there is a 50% chance of rain, I bring an umbrella.
====
why do I not doubt that one bit
where I live, when the weatherman says mostly sunny….I take one
“… when the weatherman tells me there is a 50% chance of rain, I bring an umbrella.”
The weatherman has a good track record, but the Team climatologists have yet to get any prediction right. I see a big difference in a good weatherman and a computer-games-model jockey who calls himself a “climatologist”.
“””””…..charles the moderator says:
August 7, 2014 at 1:30 pm
Damn, this is bad for California’s water situation……”””””
Well California’s water usage is bad for California’s water situation.
SoCal is swilling in it. (and it comes from norcal.) You couldn’t add a thimble full to Lake Perris or Pyramid Lake up the grapevine.
Of course El Nino does not pay attention to climate models !
If there was a significant El Nino we would almost certainly be into record warm territory. NASA GISS LOTI is running at +0.65 (base 51-80) for the first half of 2014 – very close to record as it is.
Never mind.
Oops…
The third consecutive bust.
The PDO regime continues to destroy El Niño
AND Global Warming.
I think the takeaway from this is that the atmosphere drives El Niño. It requires westerly wind anomalies. Yes, there are feedbacks from warm water, but these feedbacks take place in the atmosphere, and if there is some stronger driver of the trade winds that doesn’t allow the feedbacks to create westerly anomalies, then it’s La Nada.
The Super El Niño hope by alarmists is definitely a big bust, but it still looks like we’re on track for a weak to moderate El Niño event by later this autumn in winter. This will be good news for droughted California and take another we-are-at-fault headline off the front pages. We’re only tracking slightly behind 2009 right now (the last Niño) and the atmosphere has already started to respond to it some ways (bigger Western Pacific typhoon season, suppressed Atlantic season, and cool/wetter U.S. summer for Southern to Eastern U.S.).
Steven Mosher says: August 7, 2014 at 1:57 pm
when the weatherman tells me there is a 50% chance of rain, I bring an umbrella.
– – –
When the weatherman tells me there is a 10% chance of rain, I put the roof back on my Porsche, because the last time the weatherman predicted a 10% chance of rain, I left the roof off my Porsche overnight and it rained. Fortunately my father put a sheet of plastic over the roof and in the morning I just had to gently push up on the plastic and I could let out the several inches of rain that had settled.
All those guys think an El Nino will put an end to their enemy, that pause/hiatus that has global warming stopped in its tracks.. No such luck I have to tell them. Whatever warming an El Nino may bring, the La Nina that follows will take it right back. By now they ought to know that ENSO is not, and never has been, a source of global warming. It is quite true that the super El Nino of 1998 did raise the temperature of the twenty-first century to what it is now but this warming came from a source outside of the regular ENSO oscillation. It was a once in a century occurrence that should have been investigated but unfortunately all those billions spent on climate research by governments were more urgently needed to prove that the greenhouse effect exists. You may know that Hansen himself told the Senate that he personally discovered the greenhouse effect. His proof was that he knew of a hundred year warming that could not be explained by pure chance and therefore must be greenhouse warming. Unfortunately when you look at his warming curve you find that at least 30 of those 100 years are definitely not greenhouse warming. You cannot use non-greenhouse warming to prove the existence of the greenhouse effect and that nullifies his claim. Nobody else has observed actual greenhouse effect in action either which makes it a pure theoretical concept, one they credit with creating a world-wide anthropogenic global warming or AGW.
I’m going to wait to see the graphs that Bob Tisdale provides. They are more understandable to me.
Increased global cloudiness skews ENSO in favour of La Nina events relative to El Nino events for a cooling world and decreased global cloudiness does the opposite.
Global cloudiness is affected by the level of solar activity altering jet stream tracks between zonal and meridional patterns.
The gradient of tropopause height between equator and poles is affected by variations in atmospheric chemistry above the tropopause. Those changes in gradient affect the ability of the jets to adopt a more or less meridional pattern.
Good point, Stephen. We’re also about 1/3 of the way through the current -PDO phase, which also favors more (and stronger) La Niña vs. El Niño events as we have seen.
I’m sure some warmists will be VERY disappointed that a Super El Niño isn’t on the way bringing a new record high annual anomaly along with it. It was foolish for forecasters to get too excited about the potential for an El Niño when the models are notoriously unreliable that far out and across the spring/summer barrier. They should have taken a more cautious approach and waited until August when the models are more skillful in their prediction.
If you look at the IRI chart above notice the thicker light grey line which is the average of the statistical models which generally don’t run as warm as the dynamical models. That average predicts only a slight El Niño with SST anomalies to about 0.75.
Unfortunately for California that may not be enough to ensure a wet winter and deep snowpack for the Sierra Nevada. I certainly hope we aren’t faced with another year of drought.
Steven Mosher says:
August 7, 2014 at 1:57 pm
“Latitude says:
August 7, 2014 at 1:44 pm
First the models predict an El Nino….
….then they predict an El Nada
and people pay attention to this, why?
######################
when the weatherman tells me there is a 50% chance of rain, I bring an umbrella
The weatherman is using radar and observational evidence, (among other things) to predict the possibility of rain in certain areas.
The climate models are using “best guesses” as to what should be in a climate model while they leave out items they aren’t able to reproduce or don’t understand fully.
Yeah, that’s exactly the same. Good analogy Mosher.
Oh, and to garymount – I put the top up often when I leave the car unatended here in Florida even when it is sunny. Otherwise, I push the seat backs forward.
Seagulls and other birds, you know.
🙂
Lake Powell Water levels by calendar date for the past 4 years.
http://graphs.water-data.com/lakepowell/index.php
Aug 1, 2011, Lake Powell peaked at 3660 feet, gaining 50 feet in to 2011 melt.
(3660 feet on Aug. 7, 2011 was the highest water level on Aug 7 of any year in the past 10 years.
Average for Aug 7. is 3618 in past 10 years.)
2012 and 2013 were relatively dry and the rose hardly at all in the summer months.
It fell to a low of 3573 (a drop of 87 feet) on April 15, 2014. Since then, the Lake rose 37 feet to 3610 feet in eight weeks on July 8, 2014.
It has been a good, wet year in the Colorado River Basin in 2014.
Fire Danger in Breckenridge is LOW in August. Unheard of.
The reservoirs across the state are near full.
https://coyotegulch.wordpress.com/category/colorado-water/blue-river-watershed/green-mountain-reservoir/
But the deficit in Lake Powell from 2012-13 is big. It is a big hole to fill. By volume, Powell is at 51.4% of full.
Lake Powell max elevation is 3700 feet.
Upstream reservoirs are 78% of capacity.
Colorado river is flowing 117% of average (+800 cfs) into Powell
Green River is flowing 92% (-300 cfs)
San Juan is flowing 54% (-900 cfs)
With all the others,
Powell in total has inflow of 10672 cfs, about 350 cfs below average for Aug. 7.
Arno Arrak has put his finger on it.
That global warmers in their desperation are hoping for a big El Nino and another step-up. It looks like these hopes will be dashed. The longer the flat temp. trend the more desperate they become. I predict some outrageous falsifications will be seen soon, some of the worst ever.
“The climate models are using “best guesses” as to what should be in a climate model while they leave out items they aren’t able to reproduce or don’t understand fully.
Yeah, that’s exactly the same. Good analogy Mosher.”
These would be weather models.
generally you want to look at people who have something at stake and watch if they take the advise of a model. For example, some farmers in Australia and Indonesia change planting strategies according to these types of forecasts.
In the end what you think doesnt matter. what matters is the long term performance of those who take the advice versus those who dont.
what you think is beside the point and not important
Steven Mosher must be overloaded carrying an umbrella, sun screen, galoshes, sandals, beach towel (dual purpose for rain or recreational water), sun glasses, snorkel and the many other items necessary to weather the huge range of predictions from climate models.
Which one does he follow?
Don’t forget Trenberth’s, recent prediction: It’s not a matter of if there will be an El Nino, but how big? 😉
As a farmer on SE Australia I’m not too upset at the demise of a strong El Niño event. While conditions are damp there is a shortage of heavy rain and the lack of runoff is a concern for Summer water supplies. There appears to be reduction in the moisture feed into Eastern Australia from the Tasman sea, which is consistent with a weak event.
@Stephen Rasey, could you explain why, if reservoirs upstream from Lake Powell are “overfull,” the water authorities aren’t sending the water to Lake Powell? Is it even possible for them to do it? Will Lake Powell fill up later? There’s a whole lot I don’t know about this, and I’m asking you because it seems like there’s a whole lot you do know.
J. Philip Peterson says: “I’m going to wait to see the graphs that Bob Tisdale provides. They are more understandable to me.”
I posted a quick update on Monday:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2014/08/04/nino3-4-sea-surface-temperature-anomalies-are-approaching-zero/
I’ll probably title the August El Nino update “Part 15 – Is This The Last Post in This Series or Should We Start Talking La Nina?”
Cheers.
I am beginning to wonder if there is a real chance of a La Nina in the near future. Your que Mr. Tisdale?
Steven Mosher says:
August 7, 2014 at 1:57 pm
“Latitude says:
August 7, 2014 at 1:44 pm
First the models predict an El Nino….
….then they predict an El Nada
and people pay attention to this, why?
######################
when the weatherman tells me there is a 50% chance of rain, I bring an umbrella.
/////////////////
But what if the weather man tells you that it is going to be dry, but his track record on forecasts is that he is right only 50% of the time?
But, unfortunately, in the field of climate science, no model has yet proved to be even remotely right.
So this is going to be an el-None-ia?
A new and amazing innovative EL NINO forecasting method has been developed
recently in Germany, with participation of the PIK institute. Those folks are
correct to a amazingly high degree and employ advanced computer simulations:
They were capable to place their innovative method in PNAS:
EL-NINO Prognose (Ludescher et al. 2014) erschien Anfang Februar
in der Fachzeitschrift PNAS,
Those folks, PIK and Ludescher are the greatest in EL-NiNO calculators, all others
just producing guesswork.
Horrible news for we the drought-weary.
stan stendera says:
August 7, 2014 at 3:44 pm
With the switch in PDO phase, La Ninas should again predominate during the next two or three decades.
When there was more warm water on the American side of the temperate North Pacific (1925-46 and 1977-98) El Ninos outnumbered La Ninas 15-13 (not surprisingly, since warm water reaches tropical American shores more often with more and stronger El Ninos), and when on the Asian side (1900-24, 1947-76, 1999-20xx), La Ninas outnumbered El Ninos by 24-18 (last data from 2002).
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mantua/TABLES2.html
“when the weatherman tells me there is a 50% chance of rain, I bring an umbrella.”
First I check the date of the forecast. If it’s Tuesday and the forecast is for the weekend, I ignore it, because the forecast will be useless. If it’s for tomorrow, I check the rainfall prediction. If it’s 0-1mm, I don’t pack an umbrella either.
charles the moderator says: August 7, 2014 at 1:30 pm
Damn, this is bad for California’s water situation.
I was thinking the same thing. I was actually hoping for some elNino type situation to give Mr Watts & Co in California some much needed rainfall.
Has anyone yet found the shards of the eastern Pacific surface broken by the massive Kelvin wave?
I’m sure they’ll tell us it’s all hiding in the deep ocean and when it does hit it will prove all the deniers wrong. I’ll file their Super El Nino with the super solar max that Hathaway predicted.
The threat of an El Nino was over a month ago. I have no idea what the ENSO models are using to predict a fall resurgence.
Perhaps it is just wishcasting.
But conditions can change, something unexpected might happen. That is all it might be based on.
In the meantime, the equatorial Pacific heat content has now become “neutral” across its entire length. The Pacific Warm Pool is no longer holding extra heat content. This can only extend the hiatus for another year.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt
The data feed for the ENSO meter over on the right-side nav bar:
Opening http://nomad1.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh?ctlfile=oiv2.ctl&ptype=ts&var=ssta&level=1&op1=none&op2=none&day=05&month=jul&year=2014&fday=04&fmonth=aug&fyear=2014&lat0=-5&lat1=5&lon0=-170&lon1=-120&plotsize=800×600&title=&dir=
Found target /tmp/CTEST14071500019778.txt
Opening http://nomad1.ncep.noaa.gov//tmp/CTEST14071500019778.txt
Data file
data from 00Z05JUL2014 to 00Z04AUG2014
“———-”
0.561384
0.434261
0.363833
0.0786591
0.034892
Length of data file 98, most recent value: 0.034892
Yeah, yeah, the graphs above are better….
And there goes the last great hope for obviously actionable levels of global warming for the next year or so. Even hardcore (C)AGW-pushers are going silent.
Speaking of which, and this sounds like a game, Where’s Hansen?
He retired in 2013 to become a full-time activist, mentioned how government employees can’t testify against the government which implied he was going to, and now…?
Was he on a certain GreenWar ship protesting Russian oil and gas exploration in the Arctic? Been awhile since I heard anything about those fools either.
As I recall from living most of the first 60 years of my life in Northern California, there was a 7 (SEVEN) YEAR drought in Northern Calif in the 1990s. Everybodies lawn went brown and we discovered ways to reduce flow in older toilets, etc. This current drought is a bit young by comparison.
I was hoping for an El Nino winter in Northern California Sierra mountains to help reduce the current drought, but I am happy to see the egg on the alarmist faces even if they don’t recognize it yet.
August 7, 2014 at 1:44 pm | Latitude says:
—
August 7, 2014 at 1:57 pm | Steven Mosher says:
===
Can’t help myself … Mosher gets climate and weather confused, weather is not climate !
Steven Mosher says:
August 7, 2014 at 1:57 pm
“and people pay attention to this, why?
######################
when the weatherman tells me there is a 50% chance of rain, I bring an umbrella.”
Hmmm… How many of the rest of you actually cart an umbrella around every time the precip forecast hits 50%? Exactly.
I’ve seen from Steven Mosher the occasional nearly-readable effort at something approaching coherent argument. Eventually I’ll probably see another.
But if GISS is an outlier with a record high this year, it”l look suspicious.
@Jake J at 3:37 pm
To Rasey, could you explain why, if reservoirs upstream from Lake Powell are “overfull,”
I said they are “near full” and the Powell site said upstream dams were at 78%.of capacity.
Part of your answer is sheer size.
The capacity of Lake Power is 26.2 million ac-ft.
It is six times bigger than the next biggest upstream dam. It is about three times bigger than all the dams upstream, and some of that water is owned by Denver and the Eastern Slope.
The next bigger dams upstream are
GREEN RIVER
Flaming Gorge: 152 MW, 3.79 million ac-ft
GUNNISON RIVER:
Blue Mesa Reservoir (84 MW) 0.940 million ac. ft
Morrow Point Reservoir (hydroelec, 173 MW) (0.114 million ac-ft).
Crystal Reservoir (hydroelec 31.7 MW) 0.025 million acft.
SAN JUAN RIVER
Lake Navaho 32 MW, 1.706 million ac-ft.
McPhee Reservoir Less than 0.01 million ac ft.
UPPER COLORADO River and Blue River:
Lake Granby 0.54 million ac-ft, (much of it diverted to Eastern slope through Adams tunnel.)
Green Mountain Reservoir: 0.12 million ac-ft
Lake Dillon, 0.25 million ac-ft (but most of that is owned by Denver Water Board and tunneled under the continental divide to Denver)
Wolford Mountain, 0.066 million ac-ft.
Williams Fork,
Roaring fork river has 0.052 million ac-ft diverted across the divide to the Twin Lakes reservoir at the head of the Arkansas river.
Ruedi Reservoir (Fryingpan – Roaring Fork) 0.106 million ac-ft.
So, the short answer
Lousy weather forecasters aren’t they. Mum nature is not going to be manipulated, she’ll do what she wants. Why don’t they accept that they can’t change the weather by predictions based on lousy models from the ‘holier than thou’ junket.
Steven Mosher says:
August 7, 2014 at 1:57 pm
so I guess youre preparing for the next ice age?
Given the ambiguity of the current situation (near neutral conditions) it will be interesting to see how well the models fair over the next 3 months. Half the BOM models predict an El Nino, and the NOAA model mean is strongly predicting El Nino.
All of the nada is coming from the southern hemisphere right now and a lot of warm water has been monsooned up the California coast. Mosher, what? You want me to write code for that? Just look at it.
Northern hemisphere Pacific Hadley circulation is weak and a succession of Aleutian lows has been cycling through. This is supposed to happen in the NH winter, but in the last few winters the Hadley circulation has been strong.
You write the code. I’ll watch and learn. The wind will do the talking, and no amount of Windtalker code writing will make the least bit of difference.
I’d like to know if there is any published scientific evidence linking their modelling results, particularly considering Australian Bureau of Met and NOAA’s high probability prediction of an El Nino later this year, to actual El Nino results. Where do they get such high levels of confidence from? Can anyone shed light on this please.
“Earlier this year, sea surface temperature appeared on the rise, and there was hope in the warmist community that this would help 2014 become a record warm year.”
I just can’t believe that the same people who consider global warming to be such a crisis that those who doubt it’s significance must be muzzled and marginalized as “deniers” would actually wish for more warming rather than welcome any reprieve we get from the inevitable roasting. These are people with huge hearts and love for all mankind, and I’m quite sure all of them are saying, “Thank God/Nature there has been at least a slowing of the rate of temperature increase as this gives us more time to improve our models and institute the necessary policies to save mankind.”
To think otherwise would be to think that these public-spirited citizens of the world would rather be right than see a delay of what is certain to be a worldwide disaster marked by widespread suffering and death.
I’m shocked — shocked I tell you — that you would ever suggest such a thing.
The only way this could be true is if these people don’t really believe in the terrible consequences they are predicting. But what possible motives could they have to dissemble like that?
Steven Mosher says:
August 7, 2014 at 3:19 pm
“The climate models are using “best guesses” as to what should be in a climate model while they leave out items they aren’t able to reproduce or don’t understand fully.
Yeah, that’s exactly the same. Good analogy Mosher.”
These would be weather models.
generally you want to look at people who have something at stake and watch if they take the advise of a model. For example, some farmers in Australia and Indonesia change planting strategies according to these types of forecasts.
I farm in Melbourne, Australia.
Last thing i do is look at computer models.
I can tell whats coming months out.
The 2009 El nino we had floods here at the end of November.
Which i predicted we would be torn a new one 6 weeks earlier.
And it only lasted 30 months, with nearly 5 years of rain squashed into 2.5 years.
Models are garbage, only 7 days are any value. The BOM had 80% chance of a warm winter,
how lucky i ignored them.
It was already on cards
ENSOetc
Steven Mosher
You can be such a pillock at times. Engage your brain before typing.
You and your incompetent colleagues claim to be able to forecast/project the climate and yet can’t predict an El Niño/a 3 months out. So is el niño a climate parameter or a weather parameter in your models.?
Stephen Wilde says:
August 7, 2014 at 2:48 pm
Increased global cloudiness skews ENSO in favour of La Nina events relative to El Nino events for a cooling world and decreased global cloudiness does the opposite.
Global cloudiness is affected by the level of solar activity altering jet stream tracks between zonal and meridional patterns.
The gradient of tropopause height between equator and poles is affected by variations in atmospheric chemistry above the tropopause. Those changes in gradient affect the ability of the jets to adopt a more or less meridional pattern.
100%.
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/eit_304/1024/latest.jpg
Here in Central Queensland (NE Australia) the south east trades have become strong and persistent with a strong subtropical ridge. Neutral this year, La Nina next year?
Nice to have this one, El Nino risk, out of the way.
Now if we can move on to a record Antarctic Sea Ice extent this September and another recovery in Arctic sea ice things will be moving well.
Perhaps the new Obama/Gore effect combined is working out !.
anthonyvioli says:
August 8, 2014 at 12:54 am
I farm in Melbourne, Australia.
==============================================================
What do you grow…….bitumen??????????
Like Koala bears need to crap to feed their young, anything that comes out of the BoM should be treated as waste.
And today we get this little gem. http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/celebrity/actress-emma-thompson-targets-tony-abbott-on-climate-change-20140808-1023ze.html
Hi Steve
“The climate models are using “best guesses” as to what should be in a climate model while they leave out items they aren’t able to reproduce or don’t understand fully”
Its a good job entire western countries aren’t spending billions and billions based on a “best guest” isn’t it.
Imagine what good could be achieved in the UK for example if instead of subsidizing wind farms the billions of tax payers cash went on our health service instead.
We could have start of the art cancer drugs, national screening programs etc.
The amount of money being spent to “prevent” a best guess is frightening.
UK Residents are already paying £100’s of a year in green taxes based on these bloody “best guesses” though electricity bills, petrol taxes, Air Taxes.
The recent few decades seem to confirm an annual phase-locking of ENSO such that the start of a La Nina cooling of the East Pacific occurs either in summer – and the subsequent La Nina is weak, or at Christmas – and the following La Nina is stronger. Thus if the ENSO index bumps along just above neutral till the end of the year this would make possible a strong La Nina cooling at the start of 2015. This would be similar to the 2007-2008 La Nina which followed a period of several years of near ENSO neutrality – such as we are now also experiencing.
Stephen Richards says:
August 8, 2014 at 1:42 am
Steven Mosher
You can be such a pillock at times. Engage your brain before typing.
You and your incompetent colleagues claim to be able to forecast/project the climate and yet can’t predict an El Niño/a 3 months out. So is el niño a climate parameter or a weather parameter in your models.?
Evidentially,
When we have an El Nino that was modeled: Climate
When we do not have an El Nino that was modeled: Weather
/sarc
Reality gets it wrong again? Surely time for a replacement.
I’ve noticed that the Atlantic Ocean is showing a La Nina like pattern. I haven’t looked at that area previously. Is this unusual? Does it have any predictive capability?
Disagree There is going to be an el nino. The SOI is where it was in 1986 and 2009. The MEI is right on top of 2002, one of our analog years. The reason it is called an el nino is because of it likes to rev up in the fall. But the event will be along the lines Joe D Aleo and I have said since Spring it would be.. no super nino. This is exactly as we painted it.
The latest ECWMF is in and continues to support our contention of a late to start “reactionary” enso event as in the cold pdo years? This is a term I coined, based on Joe’s writings of the short nature of the Cold PDO ensos.. where you have a sudden spike in the pdo and mei warm. and the enso event . Its simply the nature of the beast.. just like you get short lived la ninas in the warm pdo years.
Please notice a very important point.. THE WATER IS NOW COOLING AROUND AUSTRALIA SUPPORTING THE HIGHER PRESSURE NEEDED TO LINK THE SOI! We just had a major burst and another is coming out
BTW the ECMWF 500 mb pattern for the winter looks like the way Joe and I believe this is going. I am sure that speculation will start now that others seeing it, will run to the model. Please remember our winter ideas have been out since spring, based on how we felt this overall pattern was running, the seeds of which were planted with some ideas I put out there in Sept 11 on video.. in my previous life ( ha ha)
So we will see. I believe our side of the AGW is crowing much too early about this, given the physical realities we have pointed out, just like the other side and their super nino hype needed to be debunked since their agenda was wishcasting the other, like they have with every other enso event since their idol, 1997-1998 showed up
Thou shall not worship false idols
I was hoping there would be an El Nino. It might’ve nipped a polar-vortex-dominated winter in the bud here in the US east. If not, seems likely a repeat of last winter.
Earlier this year, sea surface temperature appeared on the rise, and there was hope in the warmist community that this would help 2014 become a record warm year. For example, the paid Center for American Progress mouthpiece Joe Romm squawked:
Okay so they wanted the big temperature rise. Would only the skeptics not see that ENSO is the cause and how is a rise in CO2 driving ENSO???
If the weatherman told me there was a 50% chance of rain in the next 6 months, I would switch channel.
From what I’ve seen, the farmers etc. who follow the current models have a tendency to do worse at anticipating than the farmers who follow their own knowledge and understanding of things.
I haven’t met a farmer yet who puts much stock in the GCM’s. At least not small, non-corporate concerns – you know, the type who actually have to make a living on next year’s crop.
ehhhh
I told you so, did I not? It is getting cooler.
What ‘model’ other than my own could possibly be correct?
I threw the dice three times and every time it said we are globally cooling.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/files/2013/02/henryspooltableNEWc.pdf
Such co-incidents do not exist. Probability theory simply confirms that earth must be cooling down now.
btw
I changed my screen name to accurately reflect the results of all my investigations.
Agree with Joe. A few days out it’s looking pretty fragmented and messy. Just the sort of thing that could tip the balance IMHO.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/08/12/1200Z/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/overlay=mean_sea_level_pressure/orthographic=-160,-12,466
F*ck’n Nature… Antarctic Ice insists on expanding, Arctic Ice rejects to melt, El Niño cancels its previously guaranteed comeback… This is clearly a problem of communication, as Nature is not listening. I recommend to have 3 or 4 international conferences to better explain fellow alarmists how they should talk so that Nature starts to behave properly in agreement.
We live in an age with improving technology to observe, measure and record data, not just on a much larger scale but with much more accuracy.
There are still many situations when the interpretation of data is in the eye of the beholder but real time empirical data from the sun, oceans, atmosphere and other fields related to climate science is getting more and more weight with time and stuff like tree rings, previous ice ages/geological history, speculative theories, models output using theories and things based on the past will be getting less and less weight.
This applies to all realms…………….even in those where the majority, allow their deeply imbedded cognitive bias’s to reject it. This slows progress but only fresh data can shine the light of truth on authentic science.
Nylo says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/07/el-nino-is-just-not-paying-attention-to-climate-models-looks-like-a-bust/#comment-1704699
that’s funny
henry says
except that nature is doing exactly what God programmed it to be doing
It seems we are cooling from the top lat.s down
http://oi40.tinypic.com/2ql5zq8.jpg
Mosher-
What do you bring if the weatherman tells you there is a 50% chance of El Nino?
This morning the local weather (Toronto) forecaster warned us of a potential “September Vortex”, I think it means early winter. This follows our “Summer Vortex” which meant early fall, and our “Polar Vortex” which meant late spring. Before this year we suffered no “Votex’s”of any kind, and now we are getting three in a row, has Al Gore moved to Canada?
mosher
In the end what you think doesnt matter. what matters is the long term performance of those who take the advice versus those who dont.
henry says
when are you ever going to start measuring things using the correct balancing technigue?
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
and then you agree with me that we are globally cooling?
sinewave says:
“What do you bring if the weatherman tells you there is a 50% chance of El Nino?”
………………..Your fishing boat (:
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/apr/15/outdoors-el-nino-fishing-san-diego/
Interesting site for “Friends of Lake Powell”
http://www.lakepowell.org/page_two/what_s_new/what_s_new.html
In it is a 10 year water level chart and a Dec. 3, 2013 Snow Cover map on the drainage basins for lake Powell. It would be interesting to find the source for that map.
Here is a photo of Lake Mead (Hoover Dam) on July 14, 2014. at record low water.
http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/358700/slide_358700_3987035_free.jpg
Here is a link to dynamic map of the Colorado River System showing locations of Dams, Water Flows, tunnels, agriculture diversions.
http://www.savethecolorado.org/map.php
(Source appears to be National Geographic)
The topmost map of the SST anomaly — it must run hot by force, because sea areas which are normally ice-covered are depicted as running hot, and ice areas which are normally open water are depicted as white ice-covered and so removed from the display. That’s anti-normalized. Do they calculate global SST anomaly that way too — it would run hot by force.
moreCarbonOK[&theWeatherisalwaysGood]HenryPon August 8, 2014 at 8:17 am
ehhhh
I told you so, did I not? It is getting cooler.
What ‘model’ other than my own could possibly be correct?
I threw the dice three times and every time it said we are globally cooling.
Ha ha very funny. The only thing that would be dumber than your parody post would be if some retarded jerk were to claim – with a straight face even – that the climate is still warming.
BTW what is WUWT mod policy on deliberate imitation of another poster trying to discredit them?
@phlogiston
Perhaps you want to share with us why you think the earth is cooling and why?
Regarding California’s water shortages and no El Ninio:
Please tell me again how many Damns and reservoirs were destroyed? The Greenie naboobs told everyone they were un-necessary after all. Another idiotic claim by the Druidic cults of the WWF, and the Sierra Club lunatics.
Hoist on their own Petard? No. Others minions will suffer while these Leftiy, affluent, elites lounge in their swimming pools. Conservation by shortage, is for the other guy.
Oh well less showers a day or share a bath, the least dirtiest goes in first. That’s what we had to do in Currabubula, (20 miles south of Tamworth, NSW) that didn’t have any mains water, only rain water tanks.
Regarding the “hope in the warmist community”, DD More (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/07/el-nino-is-just-not-paying-attention-to-climate-models-looks-like-a-bust/#comment-1704554) says:
“… Okay so they wanted the big temperature rise. Would only the skeptics not see that ENSO is the cause and how is a rise in CO2 driving ENSO???”
The CO2 causes global warming and the global warming is driving ENSO variability. I know this because I got it from Wikipedia, specifically in an edit by one Wiki.isya, who showed up on 12/28-29/2009, made two edits to the El Niño article and was never heard from again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Ni%C3%B1o&diff=next&oldid=334145137
Wiki.isya’s opinion that “recent El Niño variation is most likely linked to the global warming,” is supported by links to a paper that says of the variations that, “The possibility that global warming is affecting those variations cannot be excluded,” and another paper that says, “Observations show that the tropical El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability, after removing both the long term trend and decadal change of the background climate, has been enhanced by as much as 60% during the past 50 years.” Those quotes are from the article abstracts, perhaps in that second article the paper itself says by how small a percentage the variability may have been enhanced in the past 50 years. [emphases all mine -R]
You see, it doesn’t much matter what the science actually demonstrates about an hypothesis, what counts is that an article was published that alludes to the hypothesis in a friendly way.
But if it’s good enough for Wikipedia it should be good enough for us non-experts, right?
Yet cucu Kaku was just on the TV ranting about how the strong El Nino this year was causing all the problems due, of course, to climate change… Never mind that there isn’t an El Nino…
MoreCarbonOKetcHenryP says:
August 9, 2014 at 5:26 am
@phlogiston
Perhaps you want to share with us why you think the earth is cooling and why?
Just now it seems to be neither warming nor cooling.
No-one knows why climate changes on any timescale – why and when and interglacials occur, why there was the MWP, LIA etc. See rgbatduke’s posts about the full extent of our ignorance of climate.
Climate science is thus like chemistry before the periodic table or physics before Newton or biology before Darwin. CO2 is the imaginary “phlogiston”.
phlogiston says
Just now it seems to be neither warming nor cooling.
henry says
that it just plain wrong. That was one [luke] warmist’s idea to keep the money rolling [into his pocket]
Clearly it is either cooling or warming. There is no pause. I have proven this scientifically from my tables. All three of my data sets show that we started cooling just before the new millennium.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/files/2013/02/henryspooltableNEWc.pdf
If you want to duplicate my experiment [in case you do not trust me ]
please be my guest.
My sampling technique is described here:
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
Note the last graph below the third table. IF there were any warming due to more GHG it should show by rising minimum temperatures and more chaos i.e. Rsquare<1. However, I find there is 100% correlation for the deceleration of minima. That means that I can tell you exactly what the rate of global warming and cooling was in K/annum, [for minimum temperatures], at any point during the past 40 years. So AGW must be 0.000K/annum?
So I fixed that problem. There is no AGW.
My bet is that in history AGW will go down as a scientific erroneous theory, just like the Phlogiston theory.