The potential for the massive El Niño to transition into La Niña later in the year is one of the hottest topics in commodities markets right now. The short question-and-answer session would look like this: Are we headed for La Niña toward the end of 2016? Looks that way. Will it be a big one? Not sure.
A La Niña environment has already begun to develop. Cooler waters are building beneath the surface in the Pacific Ocean and El Niño-supporting trade winds have lessened. But sea surface temperatures, or SSTs, in the defining region of the Pacific remain very warm, so we are still amid a strong El Niño event.
It is helpful to look for historical instances in which El Niño turned into La Niña through the course of a year. This has occurred only a handful of times since 1982, but there are enough similarities among these analogs that we can use them to inform this year’s likely outcome.
Selected analog years suggest that huge dropoffs of SST anomalies into negative, La Niña-defining territory are likely to take place between April and July. These analogs also suggest that when the SST anomalies cross into negative territory later than June, a weaker La Niña event is likely to follow.
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I just learned something. I did not realize that El Nino/La Nina was season independent. The name El Nino was from the “Christ Child” as in, arrival at Christmas. A term that predates modern weather forecasting. So I was under the impression that the warm water system that exists in advance of the winter was an El Nino. I believed that if the water was cooler, yielding cooler weather in the winter then that would be a La Nina. The terminology seems to be more sophisticated since the warm water appears in the winter (2016) and has implication about what will happen in the summer.
So would it be true that El Nino or La Nina describe the state of pacific surface temp regardless of season?
80% of El Ninos and La Ninas peak in the November to February period with December being the most common month. 20% of events peak at a different time of year.
Ok. That tidbit is helpful. So it WAS warm (Nino) and it is getting cooler (Nina)…and you can ignore the calendar. Gotcha. I hope it stays warm. I need some warm weather this summer.
El Nino is in the tropics. No winter there.
Its effects are felt over large parts of the extratropics.
Before clever people started tracking water mass distribution across the Pacific, the Peruvian fishing industry observed a phenomenon where their anchovy fishery would collapse due to the failure of cold, nutrient-rich water to rise along the coast.
Because this effect usually happened around Christmas time, they named it El Niño.
These days, we can see it coming, and start referring to a new one well before Christmas. Peru uses that as a forecast for the next anchovy failure, e.g. http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/students/fisheries/fisheries2.htm
Oops, I meant to reference http://www.gulf-times.com/story/448730/El-Nino-s-effect-on-Peru instead.
I thought it was more about an unruly problem child. Probably, only Catholics would have associated that term with the Christ child.
But I have been wrong before.
g
Spanish IS the language there after all (grin).
How are the IPCC models doing in predicting the start of ENSO cycles? Thought so 🙂
The Pacific is definitely rapidly transitioning to a La Nina state.
All this blue colder than normal water in the undercurrent is going to surface soon and become the La Nina.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/anim/wkxzteq_anm.gif
This Upper Ocean Temperature Anomaly chart shows that the average ocean temperature down to 300M from 180W to 100W has already transitioned into below average territory.
Traditionally, this value leads the Nino 3.4 index by about 1 month on a very consistent basis.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/heat-last-year.gif
Yikes, Attack of the Killer Cold! Jaws Froze.
==================
So, no more problems with sharks, because sharks can’t swim thru ice as fast as people can run on it?
So no “Sharknado” this year?
Yes, it has already entered the ‘cold cycle’ part. We shall feel this more next winter.
I predict no global cooling, as those who control the data will make some epic adjustments.
Yes, no doubt global warming is a political diktat regardless of the cause. “Man-made global warming” thus has multiple meanings.
Such is climate science today.
Adjusting/manipulating/homogenising/torturing data to meet the requirements of the Klimate Establishment is one of the great tragedies of our world today.
And one of the great boons.
All this means is that the scientists in question leave a lot of open ground for the rest of us. As in the realm of LST adjustment (which is where Anthony’s team comes in).
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear everyone harping on about “warmest year ever” while glaciers are covering Wisconsin.
We had lesser ice extent in Antarctica this year (closer to ‘normal’). However, note in the graphic that the surges in Antarctic ice extent have a 5 year “bouncing” pattern. We are at the beginning of the next bounce, so watch for another several years of expanding Antarctic ice to begin with the new season.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
Any global cooling will be blamed on “global warming/climate change”. Like day follows night.
Very true, Bruce. No Sun involved. All to do with CO2. What a miraculous gas it is. 🙂
It would seem you are correct.
There is no Sun involved.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/media/137452/ipcc_ar5_radiative_forcing.jpg
Toneb You seem to have left out the massive natural H2O radiative forcing in your list of forcing agents which is water vapor is the largest contributor to the Earth’s greenhouse effect. On average, it probably accounts for about 60% of the warming effect..
Very poor form of you to not include it.
CO2 correlates much better with stock market indices according to Morningstar. I was just looking at their charts this morning, and my investment guru said he would use the CO2 / Markets link from now on.
G
“Toneb You seem to have left out the massive natural H2O radiative forcing in your list of forcing agents which is water vapor is the largest contributor to the Earth’s greenhouse effect. On average, it probably accounts for about 60% of the warming effect..
Very poor form of you to not include it.”
You are correct in intimating H2O has the most important natural atmospheric back-radiative effect – however H2O is not a driver – it’s forcing is a constant (within small bounds at a constant global temperature).
The above are drivers (not in inherent balance in the climate system) and are increasing the temp (or not in the case of aerosol and recent TSI especially).
The radiative forcing of H20 is a feed-back.
It does not act alone in driving a deltaT- because the hydrological cycle ensures it cannot.
Those listed can drive temperature because their only constraint is Man.
A feed-back comes into play (as in an increasing or decreasing effect) only in the presence of drivers.
Which is what is happening with the above 1C rise the planet has seen since pre-industrial times.
Toneb~ ‘the above 1C rise the planet has seen since pre-industrial times.’
YOu mean since the end of the Little Ice Age. Which just happened to correspond with the industrial age… remember, correlation is not causation.
Tone b flat,
The “natural” list looks a bit short.
What other natural drivers could there be in the radiative forcing of climate?
Differential absorption by the oceans due to clouds (liquid water and ice), water vapor (absorbs strongly in the near IR portion of the solar spectrum), wind and wave profiles.
The elephant in the room is geothermal. We easily dismiss it a lunch money now, but we really don’t have serious data on the midocean ridge system. We live in an ice age. We don’t even know what causes the shallow melt zones below the ridges that seem to be causing ocean spreading (hint, it ain’t mantle convection).
SOMEthing caused the planet to slide into the current ice age, and it definitely wasn’t CO2 because it follows temperature like a poodle on a leash in both the ice and benthic cores over the entire period.
In deep time there have been four other ice ages in wildly different continental configurations, so it seems very reasonable to suspect that both the descent into ice age and the fibrillations within them are related to radiative forcing.
You gnash your teeth over a supposed but unmeasured couple four w/m2 from CO2 representing .4% of the solar radiative budget.
An equal geothermal forcing change would be presently unmeasurable as well.
Although Nino SST has peaked (Nov 2015), it is still high and adding water vapor so LT temperature might just now be peaking. If NOAA stops changing the numbers, they will be acknowledging the downtrend before November, 2016.
That’s a big “if.”
It would be interesting to see (quantitatively rigorous) if & how the La Nina anomalies coincided/correlated with TSI variation-solar cycle history.
For example, 87-88 transition to a strong LaNina coincided with end SC21 to start SC 22 TSI minima. And the 1999-2001 La Nina that followed the 97-98 EN coincided with SC 23 peaks. Anecdotal of course, without a rigorous analysis including uncertainty values. But could be a clue as to when global step changes (up and down) occurred or may occur in the near future.
That LaNina tropical Pacific conditions are associated with suppressed convection, clear skies, and positve OLRs means the state of TSI (an integrated anomaly value above a minimum baseline during the LN months) will be more influential on the ocean heat storage than during neutral or EN years.
For easy ref between the above article plot and TSI since 1980.
http://spot.colorado.edu/~koppg/TSI/TSI.jpg
The problem in doing the analysis of course (as AW notes on the solar ref page) is the unresolved sensor differences between the various TSI data sets across 34 years.
I like that ERBS V-0508 and it seems to hug the 1366 number. That’s a long way from Trenberth’s 342 Wm^-2 and the satellite number is on 24 hours per day 365 and a bit days per year with orbital radius corrections.
G
Any sign of cooling will be attributed to Mother Nature responding with hope to the Paris agreement.
What is the lag between cooler SST and cooler atmospheric temperature.
Sea surface is visually cooling this month:
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomnight.3.3.2016.gif
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomnight.3.21.2016.gif
‘Global’ sea surface temps peaked in January:
2015/12 0.717
2016/01 0.732
2016/02 0.604
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/data/HadSST.3.1.1.0/diagnostics/HadSST.3.1.1.0_monthly_globe_ts.txt
Equatorial ocean heat content is back to pre 2015 ENSO levels:
2014 12 0.50 0.48 0.54
2015 1 0.28 0.22 0.15
2015 2 0.54 0.65 0.83
2015 3 0.85 1.17 1.52
2015 4 1.05 1.42 1.74
2015 5 1.03 1.42 1.53
2015 6 0.87 1.27 1.51
2015 7 0.92 1.36 1.69
2015 8 0.99 1.43 1.97
2015 9 1.04 1.48 1.80
2015 10 1.04 1.51 1.91
2015 11 0.92 1.41 1.78
2015 12 0.58 1.04 1.20
2016 1 0.44 0.88 1.25
2016 2 -0.03 0.32 0.58
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt
Looks like PDO will be going negative very soon.
Strange how the Arctic sea ice extent is at a low maximum and NOAA shows the temperature anomaly surrounding the sea ice as negative.
This year’s arctic Ice max is shifted in the calendar a little, and is lower than ever measured, but the average extent is declining more than the ice is currently. The extent today is just a hair below the 2 std deviations area in the graph. We will see in the coming weeks how things look, then.
Aye, but how can you explain the negative temperature anomalies for areas that on average would currently be sea ice (-2 C)?
Perhaps it’s the same explanation as to why NOAA’s Arctic SST map shows positive anomalies for large areas that are unequivocally ice at the moment.
Hint* the data are questionable at best.
RW, think about 15% ice. It move easily in wind currents. In the Barents sea region wind anomalies have pushed the 15% ice further north.
Think about it this way. The sea ice is -2 degrees. In order for that NOAA SST data in that map to be correct, the surface areas where there is normally sea ice would need to -4 degrees C. If southern winds in the Barents Sea are pushing 15% sea ice north, than those areas south of the sea ice should show positive anomalies, not negative anomalies.
RW: That was not my point. While the max ice was low in Feb this year, it is not declining as rapidly as is usual. We are now within the +-2 std deviations again on ice extent. In fact, the last 3 days ice extent has been increasing.
Responding to your question, ‘Can I explain…’, that goes to the methodology of the anomaly calculation, and its underlying.climatology. In addition to those just having been changed Feb 1 this year, it’s also worthy to note that 15% ice areas are not included in anomaly areas… They are masked out. Only if an area is now less than 15% will it be be compared with the average of the prior 10’years values for that same area for that same calendar day.
So what izzat Southern Ocean hot blob half way from NZ to SA ??
G
It’s been hanging around, not as hot right now as has been. Go to
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/ocean/sst/anomaly/
And select full global on any of the links.
That southern Blob started forming in the second week of December 2015.
The southern hemisphere summer Pacific gyre?
As of last week NINO 3.4 is down to +1.44. Looks like we are going into the steepest part of the decline but won’t know how strong the La Nina will be until July-August.
Looks like the trade winds are back to normal and may soon be increase to favor La Nina formation.
The tropical Pacific has already decreased to having a negative temperature anomaly but that has just as much to do with the western Pacific negative anomaly increasing as it does with the eastern Pacific positive anomaly decreasing.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/tlon_heat.gif
Great data/information, I never stop learning. Thanks to all.
The only thing green about ” Green Energy ” is the amount of green dollars it wastes !
You still fail to ever post anything enlightening, just political, grumpy BS.
Doesn’t look like a strong La Nina is on the cards…
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/imagesInd3/nino34Mon.gif
Don’ you mean… In the models?
Hmmmm, 50 models and none of them agree !! Yea, that’s useful !! Sarc !!
Bob Tisdale posts graphs of model runs too…a forecast of what may happen in the future…do you have a better way to do that?
Yes- models that actually represent what is going on with the atmosphere. And which don’t make CO2 the primary driver.
Which we mostly don’t have yet.
A NOAA forecast or a spaghetti incident? Both are equally accurate.
Looks like this problem is a good candidate for the dart board solution.
g
Here are all the ENSO forecast models. Some of these have no accuracy at all so one wonders why they are still being maintained (GFSv2, however, is one of the better ones sometimes). Yellow is the average.
http://iri.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/figure4.gif
http://iri.columbia.edu/our-expertise/climate/forecasts/enso/current/
It wasn’t that long ago where the forecast was saying that this El Nino would last well into 2016.
Last I knew we are well into 2016 and the El Niño is still here.
@John
If 2-1/2 months is “well into”, then I suppose you are correct. For me, “well into” would be 4-6 months.
The graph in the story didn’t look like the graph from the ENSO Meter.
I overlaid the two graphs. What I saw was that this year’s graph lagged 1997/98 by a week or two. For the last month they have been running pretty much parallel. FWIW. Just because the two graphs are running together now doesn’t mean they will be doing so six months from now.
..Liberals are so mature !!…. Boaty McBoatface ? LOL
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2016/03/21/uk-asks-internet-to-name-vessel-gets-boaty-mcboatface.html?intcmp=hplnws
Sounds like a microaggression against the Irish.
ima go out on a limb here, and predict that this La Nina will be the start of a new Little Ice Age… 😉
“How Much Global Cooling Will We See On Transition To La Niña?”
Global? Probably none, just like with “global” warming. Regionally, probably some.
When it comes climate cooling in the NH.
Then the Hudson Bay area tends to be the “the canary in the coalmine”. Because when there is climate cooling then that’s the area that tends to get hit hardest. Weather wise then the thing to watch out for large static weather patterns forming just south of the Arctic but which also push southwards in there extend. Does not matter if they are lows or highs, what matters is there size and extend and how long they last. Because when you gets these large static patterns then there will be a large mass of air flowing between the Arctic and the south. Which will aid with increasing the rate of any cooling going on in the system.
extent not extend.
their extent
I see you finally found a chart you don’t have to flip upside down to make your “argument” work. Is that click-bait, or moving on to commodities forecasting since your temp/pause forecasts are looking so hot. Ha ha. Such a funny topic with nothing much at stake anyway
Sorry to nag but would everyone please note where graphs, plots, quotes and numbers come from? If led back to sources information can be evaluated by examiners more readily and more certainly.
Have the oceans exhausted their store of heat? Don’t know because we haven’t been able to directly measure the balance of heat between the atmosphere, and that stored heat in the oceans. I use the term balance with the caveat that I don’t think the oceans and atmosphere are ever balanced in short, long, or millennial time scales.
I think we are nearing the end of net evaporation of heat (known as an interstadial – see link) out of the oceans. For the global warmers who think CO2 is keeping us from sliding down the cold side, what little longwave re-radiated heat can add back into the oceans cannot stop the eventual loss of enough heat in the oceans such that they flip into net gain condition. That’s when we get cold (known as a stadial – see link). And indeed that jagged downward condition is normal for Earth in this present age, as is a warm upswing interstadial. It remains to be determined if humans can survive the next cold stadial. My guess is that we have a little ways to go but not much.
http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/swetc/azso/back.1_div.1.html
Where does the extra energy come from to cause an El Nino and higher global temperatures? Without any increase of solar energy, the only explanation is that it’s an artefact caused by linearly averaging non-linear effects of energy on temperature. Air temperatures will go much higher than water with the same energy input. With water current changes moving more energy from sea to land, average global temperatures go up. If the energy moved to the Arctic, little temperature change occur since melting ice would attenuate any temperature changes. Just another example of the fallacy of an “average” global temperature.
The oceans can store solar energy just like a battery. The condition of the surface (choppy or calm) and the teleconnected atmosphere (clear or cloudy), determines when oceans cough up stored heat or keep it mixed in. The following link explains this. It likely drinks the coolaid of AGW further into the site but I just ignore that part.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/students/weather/weather1.htm
Pamela
lf you take a look at the Stormsurf +180hr global jet stream forecast. Over the NE Pacific a blocking high has formed. Forcing a powerful jet stream to drive north and then south around it. l believe this was a common weather pattern during the ice age. This set up would surly be removing a fair amount of heat from the mid Pacific over the long term. With any large increase in cloud cover and wind speeds due to a more powerful jet stream world wide. Then the climate system maybe hard pushed to replace this loss.
Which is exactly my point, a redistribution of energy shown as a temperature change. The total energy in the system remains the same, but the temperature changes. CAGW is based on trapping excess energy as shown by increasing temperature. Yet temperatures can increase just by moving existing energy around. Using temperature as a proxy for energy in a linear fashion when there are extremely non-linear relationships between energy and temperature, especially when a lot of water in it’s three forms is present, is not science.
Mixing warm water with cold water will give you warmer water. Mixing warm water with mixed ice and water will melt some of the ice, but won’t change the temperature even though there is a change in energy.
Okay, now I follow you. Yes. If we assume incoming energy is static, we don’t yet know how much energy is immediately used versus how much is being stored on any given day in order to then develop a yearly average, etc, to make any kind of statement about future global warming. All we really have are ice cores and other reconstructions now back to 800,000 years. In those reconstructions, it is clear that the energy balance is decidedly not balanced, instead being a see-saw pattern of sudden rise followed by a jagged fall. The fall seems to have a floor whereas the ceiling is less defined, either by measurement artifact or by natural factors.
The following link (please take note of the “personal use” directive) takes you to a graph of that reconstruction. Whenever looking at these types of ice core reconstructions, be aware that it takes a while for snow to compress into ice. Researchers do not yet know exactly how ice cores reflect actual atmospheric CO2 levels. Which is why ice core data are not yet available much beyond the 18th century at most locations and it irritates me no end that many will tack on current atmospheric levels onto ice core levels as if the two are made of the same cloth.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.420.2030&rep=rep1&type=pdf
FI,
“Where does the extra energy come from to cause an El Nino …”
Go to the link below and do a lot of reading.
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/
For me, the important issue of the root link is the fact that the climate risk of a La Nina has been highlighted in the mainstream financial media.
Up to now the financial markets have generally seemed to be blind to global climate risk.
Sure, some specific markets like energy make use of regional weather forecasts, but there has not been much focus on global climate.
The warmist hysteria has generally been ignored by the financial markets, except for the lucrative by-product market opportunities in subsidized renewable energy.
A La Nina should be good for energy stocks as the next winter will require greater demand for natural gas and heating oil.