From NOAA NNVL:
July 2015 Ocean Temperatures –
Conditions are currently warming up in the Pacific, and the NOAA Climate Prediction Center expects a greater than 90% chance that El Niño will continue through the winter and most likely into the spring. This image shows the July 13-19, 2015 sea surface temperature departure from the 1981-2010 average. In addition to the warmer than normal waters generated by the El Niño conditions, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is also creating persistently higher than normal sea surface temperatures in the northeastern Pacific.
El Niño conditions are on the rise in the Pacific Ocean, this could potentially become a record event that might even beat the great 1997 El Niño as seen in the image above. We aren’t there yet, but the Climate Prediction Center has an advisory out that suggests we might be soon.
California could see an end to their drought situation, with the jet stream pattern changing to bring more winter storms to the south part of the state (hello mudslides).
If a record ENSO event occurs it would virtually guarantee that 2015 will become the warmest year “ever”, which will set off all sorts of calls for controlling global warming, 2C limits etc, even though El Niño has nothing to do with CO2 posited warming, being a natural event of its own.
Our own Bob Tisdale concurs that we are on the cusp: July 2015 ENSO Update – Tropical Pacific at the Threshold of a Strong El Niño
Weekly NINO3.4 sea surface temperatures for the week centered on July 8, 2015 are at 1.5 Deg C, the threshold a strong El Niño. Of course, the running 3-month average of the monthly NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies would have to remain at or above that threshold for a number of months in order to register as a strong El Niño on NOAA’sOceanic NINO Index.
Ocean and hurricane specialist Dr. Philip Klotzbach has had some interesting insights into this on Twitter this week:
About 80% of ECMWF ensemble members have 2015 as the warmest El Nino since 1950 by September. pic.twitter.com/fKElvY6TCw
— Philip Klotzbach (@philklotzbach) July 23, 2015
June PDO value is +1.54. Highest June value since '97. 12-month average values at highest levels since 97/98. pic.twitter.com/d9t8x7aGbz
— Philip Klotzbach (@philklotzbach) July 21, 2015
Weekly Nino 3 index at 2.3C. Only two El Ninos since 1950 have had monthly Nino 3 values >= 2.3C ('82-'83, '97-'98). pic.twitter.com/DvEozApXNE
— Philip Klotzbach (@philklotzbach) July 20, 2015
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I think that the El Nino is leveling off somewhat in the eastern part of the tropics, with a lot of very cold water not far south : is it the beginning of the end ?
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
What is “the eastern part of the tropics”?
I am not being facetious, I would like to know.
Think of the Pacific as a piece of land. Out West would be over by Japan. The eastern part would be up against Baja, California.
Pamela,
If the Pacific was a piece of land, the west would be Indonesia and the east would be Ecuador.
But thanks for the explanation.
That “explains” the Pacific…..now think of the “tropics” as a belt.
Close enough. Wasn’t striving for accuracy here. Just orientation.
Compared to the 97-98 Super El Nino, the India Ocean today is quite a bit warmer. This may preclude a Super Nino like we saw in 97. Additionally, July saw a very high amplitude Phase 7 MJO, which would accentuate Westerly Wind Bursts along the tropical Pacific. How much of the Kelvin waves in July were associated with the MJO?
Personally, I think this El Nino is hitting its peak; I don’t see it topping the 97-98 Super El Nino.
I agree, but for different reasons. At this stage of the 97/98 Nino the Indian ocean, Tasman Sea and Torres Straight were all experiencing significant cold anomalies.
This has not happened at all in this cycle, and I am left wondering how much of this Nino event is due to the normal Nino Kelvin waves and how much is due to the “blob” moving into the east Pacific Nino regions.
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/1997/anomnight.8.30.1997.gif
The water around Australia was much colder in 1997. Bastardi says that this is the sign of a strong El Niño.
“The water around Australia was much colder in 1997. Bastardi says that this is the sign of a strong El Niño.”
I agree with Bastardi. Here on the East coast of NSW it’s not felt like an El Nino at all, and nothing like 97/98.
Also the cold pool by the Aleutians. Not good. I just hope we can get enough rain here to end restrictions.
Also, ifn you nplot trend line joining the highest peak and the secondary peaks in Tisdale’s graph, and if trends can be expected to continue, it looks like this one has max’d out.
Don’t know if I would trust anything NOAA says!
Good point.
So what does this say about global warming? I’ve read in many comments here at WUWT that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation switched to the “cold” side, with La Ninas predominating. Is that still the case?
Climate changes naturally. The question is does or even can Man change it.
Nature hasn’t been cooperating with the computer models all the restrictions on humanity have been based on yet they’ve managed to keep the rhetoric alive. (Remember when CAGW was the norm? “Climate Change” didn’t become the hot topic until things stopped getting hot.)
Nature may finally give them a genuine hot year though it will likely still be far lower than the computer CAGW models projected.
But all they need is a few headlines to keep the fires burning.
Some are predicting a PDO switch to warm. If this is El Nino is equal to 97/98, we might get the same, another cool PDO. If the PDO is wavering, I’d consider it possible it will shift back cool after an El Nino. We may get a step shift up as with 97/98. The next two years will be interesting.
To be honest Ragnaar, most of the time I doubt the PDO is a cycle. My gut tells me there are going to be back-to-back El Nino events, and three warmest years in a row: 2014, 2015, and 2016.
JCH 2016 will almost certainly be a strong la nina. Strong El Ninos pump a massive amount of moisture into the atmosphere that results in a spike in cloud cover that causes cooling. It is a case of what is cause and what is effect. My money is on El Nino being a response to energy accumulation that has a net cooling effect on the planet (even if from our atmospheric perspective it seems like warming). The 97 El nino occurred during a 5% reduction in cloud cover. What is concerning is that this large el nino has no obvious source of extra energy to feed off, the concern being the energy deficit it leaves in its wake will be decidedly chilly.
Don’t panic yet. They have never got a niño forecast right yet. Not 1 yr out, not 6 mths out, not 3 mths out and not when it has begun.
Panic? Heck no. I’m praying for it. I live out west and warmer winters are nice. I’m also hoping for some H2O (wet or white) for our continental garden in California as they need it badly. I am not looking forward to the inevitable la-Nina that follows.
The last few years mirror closely what happened in the mid to late 1950s (which saw decent Ninos during a Cold PDO). By the early 1960s, a 15 year cooling trend developed. Not every PDO is an unbroken 30 year period of La Ninas
Something tells me that we will not be hot for long. The ’98 El Nino came after multiple years of strong recharge events, meaning that the ’98 El Nino didn’t exhaust all the heat absorbed in the previous years. Notice the spread of heat to the North Pacific area that was not the case during the ’98 episode. Could this heat be left over from then? And is now being evaporated? We haven’t had much in the way of recharge events since the ’98 El Nino. My conclusion? There isn’t enough heat in the oceans to keep us warm for much longer.
Another way to look at this is to think of an oil slick. At first the oil is thick at its source, but it eventually spreads out over a much greater surface. Just because the surface area is greater does not mean there is more oil than what we started with. Calm seas do that to heat. At first the heat is all mixed in thanks to the wind-blender. But when the wind calms, the heat spreads out. Doesn’t mean there is more heat. It’s just spread out.
Jesus Pamela. I don’t even own a coat. Knock it off. You’re scaring me.
Anthony, you live on a hill don’t you? If not better check the levee.
papiertigre says:
He did check the levee, and the levee was dry. Then went off w/the good ‘ole boys to drink whiskey and rye.
Some time back on another thread I agreed with the opinion that this would turn out to be a “La Nada”. Now, I’m not so sure. I was expecting the darn thing to die by now but it just keeps hanging on. And you’d really need to find a way to do the integral over the whole area to see if there was more, less, or about the same amount of heat as back in ’97. I’m firmly now in the “not a clue” camp.
In the beginning it was a La Nada with sea surface temperatures in negative territory. Then it got stalled in neutral. After awhile, it nudged itself into El Nado land and stalled there. Eventually it tipped over into Modaki land. And finally it has layered up to be a right righteous El Nino teenager. All together, not a lot of recharging, plus quite a bit of evaporating over a fairly long period of time.
“Something tells me that we will not be hot for long.”
I hope you are right. You often are. But the Paris gathering of climate criminals is just around the corner. What happens between now and then? Warming that can be played in the media as a looming catastrophe?
The post sates, “If a record ENSO event occurs it would virtually guarantee that 2015 will become the warmest year “ever”, which will set off all sorts of calls for controlling global warming”
=============================
This may be wrong, as the satellites will tell the tale. The shifting AMO may prevent the 1998 record warm satellite data set records. Currently, considering the blob we already have record ssts, but we are considerably cooler then in 1998.
Out in the Midwest, it been cool and or wet almost all summer, it’s in the 50’s out tonight Easily the coldest summer at least till now in a long time.
And the central tropic pacific looks decidingly colder than average.
And if the arctic is as iced in as reported this a discharge event.
Now that’s not to say the wailing towels won’t be out in force, appearance have to be kept you know.
Reality doesn’t matter when it comes to paris. The criminals will be announcing the hottest, hottest 20 yrs ever once they have adjusted all the figures. Paris is the end game. If it fails, and it won’t be allowed to, it will be the final act in the global warming scam.
As I say, it will not be allowed to fail. The final communiqué will be full of weasel words.
Hi Pam:
Last I saw, you were keen to get the Confidence Intervals for the various global temperature products. Werner Kohl posted the link to the Karl(2015) Supplementary Information for the NOAA data and the SST data they modified. They also give a detailed description. It seems (in part) to be a straightforward standard error calculation, then corrected for autocorrelation using a calculated Effective N. This seems like something we could do with UAH, for comparison. I already plot the data sets with higher order least squares lines (for fun), so I already compute the “Sums Of The Squares Of Everything In Sight”. So adding a bit more should not be too tough. Look over the SI and see what you think.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2015/06/03/science.aaa5632.DC1/Karl-SM.pdf
I agree with you, I think this El Nino will peter out before spring (NH). I will be on the record so everybody can say “Told You So” if I am wrong.
Pamela,
The East Pacific seems quite warm at depth, down below 200 Meters along the equator.
The volume of warm water in the Nino 3.4 region gives a pretty good indication of how much warm water we have available, regardless of its temperature. It certainly appears to me that the depth of the 20 degree C isotherm is now anomalously shallow, meaning not much there in terms of volume of warm water compared to previous decades.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing_new/mnth_wwv_godas.gif
…also, note the trade winds…stronger winds will blow the warm water west, acting to help in ending the event.
It was at the end of seriously positive PDO. Not the case now, and I am worried. We need rain.
“Notice the spread of heat to the North Pacific area” And a larger area of lower temperature can radiate just as much heat as a smaller one of higher temperature.
Pamela,
If this El Nino event ends up being very strong into the start of next year will you at least consider the possibility that the semi-chaotic recharge/discharge model may have some failings. I have proposed alternative externally driven hypothesis for the PDO and ENSO that have produced two correct predictions so far:
Wilson, I.R.G., 2011, Are Changes in the Earth’s Rotation
Rate Externally Driven and Do They Affect Climate?
The General Science Journal, Dec 2011, 3811.
Prediction 1:
I predicted in 2008 (though the prediction was not emphasized until 2014) that the PDO would turn positive sometime between the years 2015 and 2017. The PDO turned positive sometime in late 2014 or early 2015. I made this prediction based upon two observations:
a) that since 1700 A.D., the deviation of the Earth’s LOD (Length-of-Day) from its long-term increase of 1.7 milliseconds per century reaches a maximum whenever the asymmetry of the Sun’s motion about the centre-of-mass of the solar system reaches a maximum.
b) that since 1700 A.D., every time the asymmetry of the Sun’s motion about the centre-of-mass of the solar system has reached a maximum, the PDO (based upon proxy and instrumental data) has turned positive 8 to 10 year after this maximum.
Since, the asymmetry of the Sun’s motion about the centre-of-mass of the solar system last reached a maximum in 2007, my hypothesis would predict a switch to a positive PDO some time between 2015 and 2017.
Prediction 2:
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/evidence-that-strong-el-nino-events-are_13.html
I predicted in late 2014 that a moderate to strong El Nino Event would occur in 2015. The current El Nino Event reached moderate strength around May of this year.
I claim that that the timing of almost all of the moderate to strong El Nino events between 1865 and 2015 can be explained by the 31/62 year Perigee-Syzygy lunar tidal cycle. This particular long-term tidal cycle synchronizes the slow precession of the lunar line-of-apse with the Synodic cycle (i.e the Moon’s phases) and the seasons.
A detailed investigation of the precise alignments between the lunar synodic [lunar phase] cycle and the 31/62 year Perigee-Syzygy cycle, over the time period considered, shows that it naturally breaks up six 31 year periods each of which has a distinctly different tidal property:
Period 1- before 15th April 1870.
Period 2 – 15th April 1870 to 18th April 1901
Period 3 – 8th April 1901 to 20th April 1932
Period 4 – 20th April 1932 to 23rd April 1963
Period 5 – 23rd April 1963 to 25th April 1994
Period 6 – 25th April 1994 to 27th April 2025
This six periods are further sub-divided into two distinct tidal epochs:
1. New Moon Epoch:
Period 1 – Prior to 15th April 1870
Period 3 – 8th April 1901 to 20th April 1932
Period 5 – 23rd April 1963 to 25th April 1994
In this epoch, the peak seasonal tides that are dominated by new moons that are predominately in the northern hemisphere.
2. Full Moon Epochs:
Epoch 2 – 15th April 1870 to 18th April 1901
Epoch 4 – 20th April 1932 to 23rd April 1963
Epoch 6 – 25th April 1994 to 27th April 2025
In this epoch, the peak seasonal tides that are dominated by full moons that are predominately in the southern hemisphere.
My prediction of a moderate to strong El Nino in 2015 was based upon two observations from historical El Nino data:
a) El Niño events in the Full Moon tidal epochs preferentially occur near times when the lunar line-of-apse aligns with the Sun at the times of the Equinoxes.
b) El Niño events in the New Moon tidal epochs preferentially occur near times when the lunar line-of-apse aligns with the Sun at the times of the Solstices.
Here is my ~ 9 year year cycle in each corresponding 31 year tidal epoch:
A. Full Moon Epochs
1st FULL MOON EPOCH [1870 to 1901]
1877-88 –> 1888-89 –> 1896-97 –> 1905-06 with 1899-1900 as a half cycle
2nd FULL MOON EPOCH [1932 to 1963]
1940-41 –> 1951-52 (weak) –> 1963-64 (weak) with 1957-58 as a half cycle
3rd FULL MOON EPOCH [1993-94 to 2024-25]
1997-98 –> 2006 –>. 2015-16 –> 2024-25 with 2019-20 as a possible half cycle.
B. New Moon Epochs
1st NEW MOON EPOCH [1901 to 1932]
1902-03 –> 1911-12 –> 1918-19 –> 1931-31 with 1925-26 as a half cycle
2nd NEW MOON EPOCH [1963 to 1993-94]
1965-66 –> 1972-73 –> 1982-83 –> 1991-92 with 1987-88 as a half cycle.
It is built upon a simple alignment pattern between the lunar-line-of-apse, the lunar synodic cycle and the seasons, such that:
9 years + 9 years + 9 years + 4 year (slippage) = 31 years represents half of a full cycle of 62 years.
No. There is no reason to reject a discharge/recharge oscillator. It makes sense that El Nino conditions are producing evaporation of previously absorbed solar energy, thus creating weather/temperature pattern variations within the typical range. It appears to me we are on a long term noisy downward slide of slowly decreasing El Nino conditions. Why? Not enough recent episodes of clear sky strong La Nina conditions to sufficiently recharge the equatorial band, a band that is evaporating previously stored heat out of the oceans quite often and quite strongly.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/
Your predictions have been spot on and are essentially being ignored because they do not like the fact of the causes you are using for why your predictions have been so accurate and way in advance.
They do not want to accept that solar system dynamics influences earth intrinsic climatic items.
Ian ,I am with you on the above.
Ian ,on another matter I think if solar flux levels can stay around 90 or lower sea surface temperatures will start to drop off on a global basis in the not to distant future. . Do you have an opinion on this?
Ian, the discharge/recharge mechanism is well-represented in the literature. Here is an early version.
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christopher_Meinen/publication/2608249_Observations_of_warm_water_volume_changes_in_the_equatorial_Pacific_and_their_relationship_to_El_Nio_and_La_Nia/links/0deec528f82ef64e55000000.pdf
Fascinating stuff Ian. I’ve bookmarked your site for further reading. First question that pops to my mind is the following: Does this affect the discharge/recharge oscillator cycles and is it a cause or extra variable?
Ian, looking at predictions …
“I predicted in 2008 (though the prediction was not emphasized until 2014) that the PDO would turn positive sometime between the years 2015 and 2017. The PDO turned positive sometime in late 2014 or early 2015. I made this prediction based upon two observations:”
The PDO is not the same as El Nino or La Nina. The only way to know for sure if the PDO changed phase is in retrospect from a few years after it changes. There is otherwise too much variability. If you are talking about predicting an El Nino between 2015 and 2017 but think your prediction is fairly good because the El Nino started in 2014, well, in any 3 year period, you would have a very high chance of getting that right.
“I predicted in late 2014 that a moderate to strong El Nino Event would occur in 2015. The current El Nino Event reached moderate strength around May of this year.”
The current El Nino is a strong El Nino. A lot of people predicted a moderate to strong El Nino in late 2014. I am no expert and thought we had a very good chance to have a moderate to strong El Nino in 2014 after reading all the comments about it (Bob Tisdale and Joe Bastardi) to name a couple.
For this question, “Are Changes in the Earth’s Rotation Rate Externally Driven and Do They Affect Climate?”
For the first, I think small changes in Earth’s rotation are externally driven. For the second, I would not be surprised if there is some impact on climate but I think that impact is probably very small and much too far in the noise to be detectable.
The El Nino/La Nina events are explainable by the “discharge – recharge/oscillator” theory. Your theory lacks for example a mechanism to store energy and then discharge it.
I would suggest they might be coupled, orbital influences the time of the charge and discharge cycle, it may not control it, but could make the difference in say the strength. One would need to see how things like wind speed, which seems part of the self organizing system is impacted by orbital changes.
Pamela, I am not asking that you reject the charge/discharge oscillator model. I am asking you to possibly question the assumption that it has a semi-chaotic nature. I believe that the ENSO model developed by Bob Tisdale is basically correct – with energy being absorbed by top few hundred metres of the eastern equatorial Pacific ocean when La Nina’s are occurring [the charging part of the cycle] and energy being redistributed back towards the Western Pacific and then to higher latitudes when the El Nino’s are occurring [the discharge part of the cycle].
What I am claiming is that moderate to strong El Nino’s are mostly being triggered by factors that are related to the lunar tides. I hope to have a paper in press soon that will support this contention.
BobG: said: “The current El Nino is a strong El Nino. A lot of people predicted a moderate to strong El Nino in late 2014.”
You miss my point. I am not just predicting a moderate to strong El Nino in 2015. My hypothesis also predicts moderate to strong El Nino events in: 2019-20 and 2024-25 as part of the current Full Moon epoch extending from 1993/94 to 2024/25. [Note: there is a slight possibility of an El Nino in 2018/19 as a follow on from the 2009/10 El Nino but my hypothesis makes this unlikely].
BobG – your point about the PDO is partly correct. My prediction is based upon 15 year running mean of the PDO index and the Earth’s LOD deviation. Hence, it will only be possible to fully confirm my prediction once a 15 year running mean [or its equivalent] can be performed. Please look at figure 8 in the following link:
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/will-pdo-turn-positive-in-next-few-years.html
BobG said: “For the first, I think small changes in Earth’s rotation are externally driven. For the second, I would not be surprised if there is some impact on climate but I think that impact is probably very small and much too far in the noise to be detectable.”
Here are two papers that contradict your last contention:
Wilson, I.R.G., Long-Term Lunar Atmospheric Tides in the
Southern Hemisphere, The Open Atmospheric Science Journal,
2013, 7, 51-76
http://benthamopen.com/ABSTRACT/TOASCJ-7-51
Wilson, I.R.G., Lunar Tides and the Long-Term Variation
of the Peak Latitude Anomaly of the Summer Sub-Tropical
High Pressure Ridge over Eastern Australia
The Open Atmospheric Science Journal, 2012, 6, 49-60
http://benthamopen.com/ABSTRACT/TOASCJ-6-49
BobG,
Here are some supporting calculations for my claim that changes in the Earth’s LOD caused by lunar tides can affect the Earth’s weather systems:
A SIMPLE MODEL FOR THE 18.6 YEAR ATMOSPHERIC TIDAL OSCILLATION
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/simple-model-for-186-year-atmospheric.html
Ian, your thesis is likely peppered with autocorrelation (think LOD with a heat expanded ocean middle from El Nino conditions, versus retracted ocean middle from La Nino conditions) mixed with a noisy ENSO signal. You may indeed perform well but due to the nature of an intradecadal random walk. I wonder how your thesis and supporting analysis got passed peer review. The nature of random walk phenomenon should be well understood before using an overparameterized prediction method. You may have fooled yourself by what is known as 12:00 pinpoint predictions: IE you are right at least everytime the clock strikes 12:00, and with your two year span, you will be right quite a lot. But falsely so. Again, how the hell did you get your paper passed peer review???????
Ian, seems pretty clear cut you made predictions with reasoning behind the prediction and you have been correct thus far. If they do not want to accept it ,it is their problem.
Pamela,
Based upon El Nino historical data spanning 150 years (from 1865 to 2015) I have noticed that:
Moderate to strong El Niño events in the Full Moon tidal epochs preferentially occur near times when the lunar line-of-apse aligns with the Sun at the times of the Equinoxes.
Moderate to strong El Niño events in the New Moon tidal epochs preferentially occur near times when the lunar line-of-apse aligns with the Sun at the times of the Solstices.
This has been true for 22 out of the 27 El Ninos event over this 150 year time period.
I have extrapolated this observations to predict when the next few El Nino events might occur.
None of this has appeared in a peer-reviewed journal for the simple reason that I believe my hypothesis is based on too few data points at this point. However, I am putting this hypothesis out for others to discuss as I believe that it may provide a potential trigger for the El Nino phenomenon. My only hope, is that those who have an open mind will find it interesting and maybe develop it further, if further evidence warrants it.
Pamela said:
“Ian, your thesis is likely peppered with autocorrelation (think LOD with a heat expanded ocean middle from El Nino conditions, versus retracted ocean middle from La Nino conditions) mixed with a noisy ENSO signal.”
The decadal deviations in LOD [smoothed over 15 years] about its long term increase of 1.7 milliseconds per century are of the order 1 millisecond, on average. This are far larger than any changes in the LOD caused by the thermal expansion or contraction of the top few hundred metres of the equatorial Pacific ocean over similar time scales. The auto-correlation that you propose is of little or no significance.
Thank you and very interesting correlations. Question: How does all that tie into the Trade Winds?
Chad,
You will have to wait for my next paper on a possible lunar trigger for El Nino events. Sorry.
Also, the NCEP tropics seems to be going down for a couple week.
http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cdas_v2_tropics_2014.png
I just went in swimming (Hornby Island BC) It was bloody cold!
And people actually CHOOSE to live there!…amazing!
🙂
It requires much more energy to cool the sea surface (since the cold water sinks) than to heat it (since the warm water rises). This El Nino may be a consequence of a temporary increase in volcanic activity as we have been encountering for a couple years, as Marcel Leroux pointed out with strengthening of Mobile Polar Highs.
https://books.google.fr/books?id=GAIRqv-kVSUC&pg=PA376&lpg=PA376&dq=marcel+leroux+el+nino&source=bl&ots=dD_qOt1Y6-&sig=sAxZJIKDFDF7IDlZNoauP29rraQ&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAmoVChMIk-fRm7fyxgIVilkUCh3DSA5a#v=onepage&q=marcel%20leroux%20el%20nino&f=false
http://oi58.tinypic.com/2mriry8.jpg
Paul, for a while pressures down the austral hemisphere were not quite strong for winter (1035 hPa max) while we still had strong high pressures (1044 hPa) during our boreal spring/summer, hence the distortion of northern hemisphere circulation and its Nino consequence, as explained by Leroux. It looks however as if austral HP are getting a bit stronger (see BOM http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDY65100.pdf) compared to boreal HP (http://weather.gc.ca/data/analysis/935_100.gif). Last year Nino chase was quite funny, they even had to play with indexes to make things happen… So we’ll see…
El Ninos / La Ninas were understood by me as a boy when picking up & putting down a filled paint roller pan which had been left in the sun. The cold liquid from the bottom welled up the sides, then the hot liquid which had been forced downwards came welling back up the middle, and the process repeated and even reversed. It’s just long-term vertical exchange between layers of different temperatures, and no mystery at all. Heck, the Earth has the same process where the mantle meets the crust and we call it subduction. And before I get down to the Earth’s core which is spinning at a different rate than the Earth proper, I’ll, er, stop now.
But, as another poster posted here a while back, someone forgot to tell the Anchovies :
http://www.seafoodnews.com/Story/982539/Over-95-percent-of-Perus-Northern-Anchovy-Quota-Taken-Ahead-of-July-31-Closure
Good news that.
I did read that they were trying to get in quick to fill their quota before the eastern waters warmed, that may be part of the reason for the high catch rate.
They seem to have forgotten to tell the winds as well, no westerlies so this may be a sea event only. Also as pointed out by Ryan Maue the typhoons left cool tracks in the SST so the warm water seems shallow. We shall see.
The top illustration is quite interesting but I note that it compares the states of the Pacific at different months. What is gained/lost by not providing a comparison of the same months?
Here is 15 July 1997 vs 15 July 2015 (source)
http://www.moyhu.org.s3.amazonaws.com/sst/1997-2015.png
Thanks Nick. One thing that strikes me is the greater similarity in warmer water masses off the northwest coast of NA in the July-July comparison.
Thanks, Nick.
The 2015 equatorial column looks weaker and doesn’t hook South as much along South America. I’d say the upwelling off the Chilean coast is a good sign.
Nick, will you be the one that screams to the world that El Nino has nothing to do with AGW?
really nice work there nick, thanks for the posting that,and the link.
Thanks Nick. The equatorial part looks warmer than 1997 but the NE Pacific doesn’t look as warm. We’ll see how this plays out and if it has the staying power to get us right through winter or peters out half way through.
Interesting comparison. I much prefer July to July than July to November.
Thanks again for saving me the trouble of looking it up 🙂
Ops I read it backwards. The caption “15 July 1997 vs 15 July 2015” threw me off because the fine print on the pictures shows it the other way. So just reverse everything I said or do like my wife and ignore it 😉
“The caption (reversed)”
Yes, sorry about that. I wrote the text without the graphic in front of me.
The differences: 2015 more surface enthalpy in the northern hemisphere mid latitudes, less concentration off South America and along the tropical ribbon. We are all learning here.
A bit concerned that the chatter about a PDO shift is confusing the relationship between PDO and ENSO. Ninos happen during negative PDO phases. Ninos mimic PDO positive conditions. Ninas mimic PDO negative conditions. The fundamental difference is time scale. ENSO has a year and a half time scale, PDO three decades. Negative PDO phases resist ENSO, and positive PDO phases amplify it.
If only we had similar imagery from 1945 to 1976…
Is the great Pacific Blob contributing to this El Nino?
It clearly did not exist in 1998.
It sorta did, see Nick Stokes post now above yours.
About 80% of ECMWF ensemble members have 2015 as the warmest El Nino since 1950 by September. …
…said that every year for the past three years
ECMWF has a thing for El Ninos
I don’t know what the Pacific Ocean temps are doing off the coast of Washington State now, but inland, daytime triple digit highs are now cooling off to the 80s F, and night time temps are in the 60s F – much more pleasant than a few weeks ago when our air-conditioning gave out. (Of course a few days are never indicators of long term averages and trends.)
Noaa,
Sorry about that AC!
~~~~~
I’m in Central Washington State, near Ellensburg.
Those high temps and no rain and now strong winds
have spawned an arsonist. It’s a strange mind.
Along with natural and accidental fires, the fire season is busy.
We’ve not had a really big bad one yet – unless you consider the tarp factory at Moses Lake. Massive roiling black smoke from that was reported by many hikers in the Cascade Mtns. 80+ miles away.
John,
How much of the fire danger is the lack of brush clearing that the environmentalists have imposed on forest management? I have a feeling the denser fuel load will make it a real fire nightmare. Hopefully the rains will get there first!
Owen,
There are some issues as you suggest. However, local communities are getting serious about being “fire wise”. See:
http://firewise.org/?sso=0
This is for where there are people and homes. On State and Federal lands there
is a problem of scale – too much, too steep, too remote. See photo #32, at 2nd link and consider how one would clear it of brush. Many photos at the link show dead trees – forest fire of 2012:
http://wildfiretoday.com/2012/09/24/exceptionally-good-fire-photo-table-mountain-fire/
http://octopup.org/2014/wenatchee-forest
Latitude, the question ECMWF should be asking themselves is if the NINO3.4 SST anomalies are even achievable. I suspect they’re not:
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2015/05/16/wow-ecmwf-long-term-weather-model-is-predicting-a-super-el-nino-and-i-mean-super/
The warmists are praying for a strong El Nino so that they can misrepresent it as evidence of CAGW.
When the communists behind the iron curtain reached this level of cynicism about the wonders of state socialism, their fall was ready to happen.
The Pause has given the warmists pause about CAGW theory in direct proportion to their integrity as scientists. Anything that ends the Pause would suit them.
But only till the next La Nina brings another cold spell, and the long term trend returns to near-zero warming.
We live on a water world and what happens in the oceans has dramatic effect on our climate. Most, but not all, people acknowledge that fact. This news looks to be saying that we will see some warming just in time for Paris. Damn.
An event that is in the ocean and well understood to have a weather related impact will be touted as global warming caused by … you got it … CO2. Just in time for a climate agreement? Outlook not good.
Any agreement signed by the U.S. must be ratified by the U.S. Senate. Not going to happen.
You have more faith in congress than I do. Let us hope you are right.
The northern pacific appears much warmer this time. Assuming the graphics are scaled similarly between the two images.
We have had for the last two years, cool summers and very cold and long winters, in southern Ontario. If El Nino can warm us up a bit, I am all for it. That a warmer world should inspire the climate alarmists to go even further off the deep end, I don’t really care. At least I will know why it is getting warmed – lovely El Ninos, please come more often.
i am enjoying it greatly. I have a sinking feeling that it wont last, it never does.
Sure is! Whilst somehow not quite being “right”? It is like any 2 year old, unpredictable, incomprehensible and frustrated at not being able to influence its parent, because the Pacific (its Parent) started its own 2 year old tantrum way before this child was thought of! One wonders how much influence this child will be allowed to have, sure should be interesting to watch.
Not a word about climate models. Do they have anything to say about El Niño?
The missing heat is hiding in the oceans.
(It’s just been napping the last decade or so.)
…actually, it’s in my Jacuzzi…don’t tell. 😉
Oh missing heat
Where have you gone?
The search for you
Goes on and on,
They’ve looked in the oceans,
They’ve looked out in space,
You must be hiding
In some secret place.
http://rhymeafterrhyme.net/global-warming-and-the-missing-heat/
Curious George, the climate models used by the IPCC can’t even simulate the basic feedback between the trade winds and surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific…called Bjerknes feedback. Those models create extra-strong variations in the tropical Pacific that sort of look like El Ninos and La Nina , but they bear no relationship to the ones that exist in nature because the models can’t simulate the basic processes.
Cheers
“… but they bear no relationship to the ones that exist in nature because the models can’t simulate the basic processes. …”
Shocked! I am Shocked! Can’t simulate the basic processes? Next you’ll tell me that there is gambling going on in Rick’s place. (h/t one of the best movies ever made)
Well, the good news is that California could see an end to their drought situation. What’s the prediction for the rest of the US if it is a true big El Nino?
True, but because no planning has been conducted to improve water storage and distribution, most of the rain will simply return to the sea without doing much good for anyone. The drought is just one La Nina away.
Northern California, where most of the rain and snow falls, has it,s greatest rain/snow events in La Nina years. On either side of the main flood year there is always several years of moderately heavy rains. Examples of flood years are 2008, 1996, 1984, there is no flood event in the 1970s and there is the drought in the mid 1970s as the global climate shifts to a warm phase, 1964/65, 1955/56, 1946/47.
Undercurrent News (“seafood business news from beneath the surface”) reports forecast of an El Nino by year end.
http://www.undercurrentnews.com/2015/07/14/peruvian-fishmeal-producers-fear-el-nino-impact-on-anchovy-by-year-end/
Excerpts:
According to Enfen, the Peruvian committee watching El Nino, the weather event will be strong through the winter in Peru — from May to November.
An El Nino of “uncertain magnitude” will also be likely during the Peruvian summer — from December this year to April 2016 — although forecasts will become more accurate in August, Enfen said.
This means El Nino could be present during the whole second anchovy fishing season, usually running from November to the end of January.
[. . .]
According to Enfen, the Peruvian committee watching El Nino, the weather event will be strong through the winter in Peru — from May to November.
An El Nino of “uncertain magnitude” will also be likely during the Peruvian summer — from December this year to April 2016 — although forecasts will become more accurate in August, Enfen said.
This means El Nino could be present during the whole second anchovy fishing season, usually running from November to the end of January.
Please delete the last three paragraphs and replace with these:
Sea-surface temperatures recorded by meteorologists in the central equatorial Pacific were the second largest anomalies on record for the month of June this year, behind only June 1997 — the year of the super 1997-98 El Nino event.
Oceanic scientist Luis Icochea, who forecasted a strong event in 2014, ruled out an extraordinary El Nino for this year, however.
“Based on my research El Nino can be defined as strong, but it will not be extraordinary as in 1998,” he told Undercurrent News.
Sure hope you’all are right about this. I just raised the deductible on my hurricane insurance. Saved about $500 for this year.
Any year NASA/NOAA wants is the hottest year ever.
Perceptive.
I used to work with government statistics (health related). I always asked my boss (well, bosses, this was the government, after all): what are you trying to say, just tell us and we’ll hit it. In politics, your job was to ensure the current administration looked good, and the other guys looked bad, after all. Public policy took a very distant second.
Easy to do: change your start year (can’t include the data as it wasn’t “robust” and we weren’t asking the same questions”, change your end year (can’t include the new data as it hasn’t been audited yet [and we did the auditing…shhh]). Throw out some “suspect” data (i.e,, makes us look bad). Add some SWAG (stupid, wild *ss guess)…and when in doubt, produce a pretty graph that told you nothing as you stretched (or shrank) the axes as needed.
Then you hoped and prayed nobody looked at the raw data, or there was an FOI…
[snip over the top -mod]
How come if you go to Nullschool Earth, SSTs, it appears to show a body of warm water in the Western Pacific? Have these SST’s been ‘adjusted’ maybe?
A cool “anomaly” is still warm, if it is in the western Pacific. Just like current warm anomolies around the arctic fringe are, in fact, still darn frigid to you and me. That anomoly is relative to an average, while plain old temperature is absolute (even when its not Kelvin -grin-) Brett
NASA, Nov, 2008: Correcting Ocean Cooling
Sydney Levitus, the director of NOAA’s Ocean Climate Laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland argues that before anyone assumes that the observations must be wrong, they should remember that the amount of variability they are talking about is probably less than the amount of heat gained and lost during the intense El Niño in 1997-98.
“Climate models don’t reproduce El Niño events very well either,” he says, but no one doubts they are real.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/
The models?
Or the El Niños?
The models are practically metaphysical – will prove anything you (or your Government) want.
Even down to the number of unicorns dancing on the head of a watermelon . . . .
Per Caligula’s experientially gifted comment a few above – July 24, 2015 at 7:52 am
And this El Niño?
It will definitely get stronger or weaker, or neither.
Our understanding of the Oceans – big places, even when we have a bit of data – is still pretty limited.
And our understanding of what affects them – never mind how much – is no better.
The models are carp.
The science is probably a century away from being settled.
And I hope the Paris jamboree is cancelled – due to too much snow to allow planes to fly into Paris for three consecutive weeks.
And as I assume the Gore-bull Taxing guy is supposed to be there – it’ll probably happen!
Auto
El Niño cycles are net cooling events for the Earth system where stored energy (I can’t make myself call it heat because it isn’t) in the oceans finds its way to the vast void of space. On the way it energizes the atmosphere for a bit, but the energy released from the oceans is definitely headed up and out of the Earth system. There is no joy for alarmists who may wish to call this a heating event.
Thanks dp for the reminder. I type “heat” because, well its just a dang sight easier to type than “energy”. But yes, you are correct to refer to it as energy. Just like in the atmosphere with regard to precipitable water evaporated from the oceans. When water vapor turns into rain droplets up near the anvils of cumulonimbus clouds, energy is released in the form of heat. That heat that came from the oceans and lower atmosphere continues to rise up and away as the rain falls back to the earth to rejoin the hydrological cycle.
How about calling it “latent heat” instead of just heat?
glad someone else gets it . really gets on my goat when people relate to them as “warming” events.
Certainly not El Nino conditions in eastern Australia, lots of rain and cold weather for some months now, with a lot of rain falling inland where it has been dry for some time. It will be interesting to see if a strong El Nino develops, it almost seems as if Gaia is sending water in anticipation of a long dry period.
Not wet where I live in Western Victoria. A bit on the cool side though.
agree the sth west hasnt had much/enough rain yet
but hell Gippsland…seems hardly a day it doesnt rain there this year.
present rather savage wind n rain here tonight
hope the roof stays put:-(