La Nina and Pacific Decadal Oscillation Cool the Pacific
Click here to view full image (228 kb)
“The shift in the PDO can have significant implications for global climate, affecting Pacific and Atlantic hurricane activity, droughts and flooding around the Pacific basin, the productivity of marine ecosystems, and global land temperature patterns. ” – NASA JPL
A cool-water anomaly known as La Niña occupied the tropical Pacific Ocean throughout 2007 and early 2008. In April 2008, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that while the La Niña was weakening, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation—a larger-scale, slower-cycling ocean pattern—had shifted to its cool phase.
This image shows the sea surface temperature anomaly in the Pacific Ocean from April 14–21, 2008. The anomaly compares the recent temperatures measured by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite with an average of data collected by the NOAA Pathfinder satellites from 1985–1997. Places where the Pacific was cooler than normal are blue, places where temperatures were average are white, and places where the ocean was warmer than normal are red.
The cool water anomaly in the center of the image shows the lingering effect of the year-old La Niña. However, the much broader area of cooler-than-average water off the coast of North America from Alaska (top center) to the equator is a classic feature of the cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The cool waters wrap in a horseshoe shape around a core of warmer-than-average water. (In the warm phase, the pattern is reversed).
See the entire story here:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18012
See the PRESS RELEASE from JPL here:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-066
Look out California agriculture. The wine industry, fruits and nut growers will be hit with a shorter growing season and more threats of frost, among other things.
Recently in Nevada County, much of their grape crop was wiped out. From The Union in Nevada County (h/t Russ Steele)
Nevada County’s agricultural commissioner will seek disaster relief from the state after tens of thousands of dollars worth of crops were ruined from last week’s freezing temperatures.
Orchard trees, wine grapes and pastures were hardest hit, Pylman said. The commissioner is compiling a report of damages that he will send to the state Office of Emergency Services in coming weeks.
“Growers don’t have anything to harvest. That’s a disaster in my mind,” Pylman said.
In Paradise, CA, Noble Orchards reports damage to their Apple crop from recent colder weather, as well as reports of issue with vineyards in the Paradise ridge area suffering from frost damage recently.
Here is a short history of PDO phase shifts:
In 1905, PDO switched to a warm phase.
In 1946, PDO switched to a cool phase.
In 1977, PDO switched to a warm phase.
California agriculture has ridden a wave of success on that PDO warm phase since 1977, experiencing unprecedented growth. Now that PDO is shifting to a cooler phase, areas that supported crops during the warm phase may no longer be able to do so.
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What interesting comments.
” wonder why the geniuses at the IPCC never figured that out. Speaking of geniuses; the legislative savants in Washington used our tax dollars to entice farmers to produce ethanol instead of food. So now we can be hungry as well as cold.”
Washington DC enticing ethanol at the same time paying subsidy to rice farmers to not grow rice?
And some of the current inhabitants on this earth think that modern man is more itelligent than those of past? All politicians think this of themselves.
KD –
Oil’s climb to $115-120 has more to do with the precipitous fall of the dollar than supply/demand. Oil by the Euro has only risne ~130% since 2001. By the dollar, ~330%. Continued drop in interest rates and the production of dollars has contributed to this immensly.
Are we at peak oil? Who knows – we can’t even do exploration drilling in the arctic (although Canada does – and they find a lot up there!) I’ve made my opinion known that we should transition to a nuclear/methanol economy and get off oil’s randomness, but I don’t think oil is bad – it givesus freedom and the cost to the rest of the world has been an infusion of American dollars (admittadly not worht as much as they used to!) Ethanol is resulting in food riots. I choose oil.
kum: We are looking at it from opposite perspectives. You are taking a tactical view while I am taking the strategic angle.
What I figure is that the oil biz is at a transition point. That between cheap “stick a straw in the ground” methods and the “not worth it till it’s $30 a barrel” methods. Thus, we are in a period of “catchup”, a down-dip in the graph. But a temporary one. Already we are seeing countries like Cuba and China scurrying to areas off our coast where the US is “banned” from exploiting.
The newfound demand, alone, will spur the world to greater efforts.
It’s sort of like solar cycles, but with a continuing upward trend. The “old cycle” is fading out, but the “new cycle” is already beginning to take up the slack.
In the short run, the oil exploration is crippled by refinery bottlenecks, burdensome and illogical legislation, and counterproductive “energy policy”. But looking at it through the long lens, “potential” reserves have almost doubled since 1975 (from 3.4 tril. bbls to 6.5 tril. bbls). The former figure is from the Presidential Commission on energy, and the latter is derived simply by adding up the various oil sources from wiki, the latter of which I regard as pessimistic in the first place. (Both include tar sands, shale, bitumens, lignites.)
It appears that there is a discrepancy between two sources for SST. One shows more cooling than the other. Any thoughts on which is more accurate? Is the “real” cooling being downplayed?
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/sst_anomaly_AMSRE_2008105_lrg.jpg
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.4.14.2008.gif
kum dollison
why push out an intermediary step at the cost of the third world going hungry?
Brendan, the Impala that got 15% better mileage on e20 was definitely an outlier. The point I was trying to make was that, although it takes a whole lot of compression to get the max out of a high blend like e85, it doesn’t take nearly as much to utilize a lower blend.
The whole point was that in a low to midlevel blend ethanol is, virtually, interchangeable with gasoline in a Modern engine. BTW, 99% of ethanol is used in a 10%, or less, blend.
Arable Land is any land that is non-forested, and suitable for agriculture. We currently pay farmers NOT to farm 34 Million Acres of Arable Land. The current RFS calls for a Max of 15 Billion Gal/Yr of ethanol from Corn. This would entail, After allowing for Distillers Grains, the use of about 20 Million Acres. Actually, with the advances that are being made in seeds, etc. it will probably be less than that. 34 – 20 = 14 left over.
Guys, world agriculture has some problems; but, the availability of Arable Land isn’t one of them. Corruption, backward economic policies, High Import, AND Export tariffs in the countries that produce, and consume rice are probably the first places one should look.
Dan, I’m NOT engaging in “half-truths;” but, you need to look into the new engines with Variable Valve Timing, Direct Injection, Variable Ratio Turbos, etc. The Valve Timing, alone (which many current autos have,) allows the engine to do some interesting things with midlevel blends.
I’m going to go away, now. I’ve said my piece. The thing is, an expert can lose credibility in his field of expertise if he expounds loudly (and, incorrectly) on a subject in which he has limited knowledge.
By the way, Wheat (remember the crisis?) is dropping like a rock. The “Cash Price” this morning had a “Six” handle on it. Down of 50% from it’s recent high. And, Corn? Hard to say. The elevators have so much on hand they’re, largely, NOT buying any. Eggs are down; Milk is down (despite enormous demand for dried dairy products out of China;) and, did I mention, the CPI for food in March was up 0.2%.
RE: Doug (23:19:33) :
I’ve been casually observing Australian weather and climate for a few years. I think one can make the case that Australian Fall – Winter weather / climate may be a significant leading indicator for the world. I base that on science – due to the fact that Australia touches both the “dipole” formed by the Indian Ocean and West Pacific Warm Pool, as well as the Southern Ocean. The Southern Ocean has gone cold, and, the “dipole” has a very weak “field” right now. The “dipole” is not feeding as much heat into the system as it was during the 80s and 90s.
Er, 76,000 BTUs doesn’t replace 110,000 BTUs.
Jean Meeus:
“Meanwhile, here in Belgium the media a few days ago said that the
northern polar ice is melting 3 times faster than previously thougth!”
Actually, the Arctic ice has been melting extremely fast in the last eight days. We could speculate on why (e.g., thin ice?, ocean currents? China’s black soot?), but I have not heard of any insightful explanation on this. And, it could be just a burp while global sea ice is still above normal.
Concerning the discussion on ETHANOL,
As you take data and analysis from a study, please observe the study’s date. I authored a study 27 years ago that blasted ethanol due to the large number of BTUs needed to grow / make it. Since then, farmers are taking three fewer trips across the field to grow corn; crop yields are up 50 to 100%; the conversion process is more efficient; and we are better at using the conversion’s byproduct.
Paul, over 70% of the world’s impoverished are subsistence farmers. They don’t need cheap cattle feed for the Rich nations; they need a “cash crop” (and, better governance.)
The U.S. and the E.U. have subsidized corn below the cost of production for so long that they have, basically, driven the third world farmers out of business. Five, or Six Dollar corn will, maybe, put a lot of them back into production.
Again, and you guys should realize this if anyone should, Coincidence is NOT Causation. The fact that Rice got in short supply at the same time we were ramping up ethanol production doesn’t, necessarily, mean one’s causing the other. In fact, it’s almost impossible to find a vector between field corn in the U.S., and Rice in China. They are grown in different locales, using different methods, for different reasons (rice to feed people, corn to feed livestock.) It just feels like a tremendous “Reach.”
kum dollison:
From the Economist:
“America’s ethanol programme is a product of government subsidies. There are more than 200 different kinds, as well as a 54 cents-a-gallon tariff on imported ethanol. That keeps out greener Brazilian ethanol, which is made from sugar rather than maize. Federal subsidies alone cost $7 billion a year (equal to around $1.90 a gallon). ”
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/how_much_does_ethanol_cost_us/#comments
I believe further investigation will reveal every statement of yours in favor of Ethanol is grounded in over-simplification.
KD:
One of the costs of increased corn acreages you attempted to calculate in the form of fertilizer, has a volatile price:
http://biz.yahoo.com/nytimes/080430/1194770341872.html?.v=6
But please note the cost of increased nitrogen applications that is enviornmental–the aquatic dead zones toward the end of the article. You made no attempt to determine this cost per gallon.
Gary, if we’re currently producing 8.5 Billion Gallons of Ethanol
http://www.ethanolrfa.org/industry/locations/
how does $7 Billion come out to $1.90/gallon?
Actually, the major federal subsidy is a $0.51 Blenders’ Tax Credit. It will be about $4.5 Billion this year (of course, we’re SAVING $11 Billion Annually on Crop Support Payments.)
The Import tariff is simply to offset the blenders’ credit which applies to ALL ethanol (even imported ethanol.)
As for the “dead zone:” it’s been building for a long, long time. I’m sure there are Many contributors, and I think we need to work on it. I’m sure we can figure it out.
Re An Inquirer and polar ice.
If you go into the regional breakdown you will see that there are obvious data problems in both Bering Sea and Baffin Bay. Ice area simply does not go down a hundred thousand square miles one day and up fifty thousand the next. I would say that the real melting rate is only slightly higher than normal for the time of year.
KD:
As Robert and Brendan noted a gallon of Ethanol does not replace a gallon of your petrol.
The DOE (care of U of Chicago) paper you cited gave an optimistic 40K btu used to produce 76K. So your output half of the equation needs balancing still further.
The same agency kept telling us the Ethanol blended into our fuel returned 70% of the mileage. I remember some chemical engineers (ostensibly with no dog in the fight) said, well, 30%.
I made several trials of my own with my unmodified 4-cylinder Camry and found 0%. Now, who, seriously am I to believe; your arithmetic or my lying eyes?
There is still one warming trend left. And it is both natural and man-made. It is caused when “some of the people” have been attempting to fool “most of the people” “most of the time”.
It creates a chemical reaction, that results in anger and frustration, and is enough to actually get “your blood boiling”.
The good news is the btu’s burned will help keep you warm, when the sun, the ocean’s and the glaciers, refuse to cooperate, with the AGW propaganda.
The Gulf Stream is now the latest domino to fall.
The excuse machinery is in high gear.
There will be a constant stream of “if it weren’t for , we would really be in trouble”.
Then the first sign of any warming will be “proof” of AGW. And anyone that doesn’t believe, is a flat-earth moron.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080430/sc_afp/scienceclimatewarming_080430173430
Gary, in this test the State of Minnesota, with help from the Univ. of Minnesota, tested 40 identical pairs of vehicles, half with straight gasoline, half with E20.
http://www.mda.state.mn.us/news/publications/renewable/ethanol/e20drivability.pdf
After removing a couple of outliers (that got incredible results with E20 – or, incrredibly bad results with gasoline) the difference between the vehicles using E20, and those using straight gasoline was 1.6%. The results are in section 15.
Note: The Toyota Prius went from 40.7 to 38.5, or about a 5% difference. Did you run 3 tankfuls through in your tests. That’s very important, as was explained in my prior link.
“Actually, the Arctic ice has been melting extremely fast in the last eight days. We could speculate on why (e.g., thin ice?, ocean currents? China’s black soot?), but I have not heard of any insightful explanation on this.?”
I have a theory. I believe that when the days get longer, ice has a tendancy to melt. I call this theory “Spring”. To test my theory, we can check again at this time next year and see if ice is also melting quickly in the Northern lattitudes.
Inquirer, the reason is summer! When the ice forms 3 times faster, in Winter, the press doesn’t mention it.
‘The salinity of water entering the North Atlantic is being affected by meltwater running off Greenland glaciers and Siberian permafrost, and some research suggests this is already slowing the conveyor belt’
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080430/sc_afp/scienceclimatewarming_080430173430
I told you that global cooling is caused by global warming!
It is an established fact that ethanol only has 2/3rds the energy content by volume as gasoline. We buy gasoline by the volume. Therefore, we must get less mileage. People probably delude themselves and with only 10% ethanol, as we have in Canada (grrrr) it isn’t noticeable, but it is real. When gas prices go up, I modify my riving habits, 110 instead of 130 klicks.
RE: Russ R. (14:51:44) :
If indeed, the NAO flips, on top of the PDO flip, on top of La Nina, on top of the feeble solar activity, on top of Asian aerosols … we be in deep doo doo. It would truly be a perfect storm … a perfectly cold storm.
RE: crosspatch (15:38:47) :
I looked at areal extent in the NH today, nothing abnormal. Still a very minimal anomaly, statistically zero. Well within measurement / data “interpretation” error of the passive u-wave methodology and corresponding estimation techniques. Globally the anomaly continues its move into positive territory.
Robert, a chunk of coal, a twig of grass, and a granola bar ALL have BTUs. The problem is you can’t burn them in an internal combustion engine.
Let’s try it this way: gasoline has 116,000 btus; but the ICE can only extract about 23% of them. = 26.7
Ethanol has, only, 76,000 btus; but, a properly tuned (compressed) ICE can extract 40% of this energy potential. = 30.4
Now, it’s true, your standard modern engine with a compression ratio in the nines can’t extract 40% efficiency from that 10% that’s ethanol; But, it can make a few adjustments (with the exhaust gasses, for instance) and get it within a nudge of 23%. That’s why your standard Modern engine gets within about 0.5% of the mileage of straight gasoline when running e10.
How crazy that anyone could think we are immune to what is going on on, under and above the planet. It’s shocking really — I mean we ain’t gonna be able to escape to any Moonpods or such like any time soon…
Awesome in the original sense of the word…
(Check out my blog: http://adsensestrategiesadsense.wordpress.com