Can El Nino Events Explain All of the Global Warming Since 1976? – Part 1
A guest post by Bob Tisdale
UPDATE 1 (January 12, 2009):
In my extremely brief description of an El Nino event, I wrote, “…and a subsurface oceanic temperature boundary layer called the thermocline pushes the warm subsurface water to the surface.” My oversimplification may be misleading, and while it does not undermine the intent of this post, a better explanation is available in the following video from NASA Scientific Visualization Studio video titled “Visualizing El Nino”: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a000200/a000287/a000287.mpg
If I rewrite that sentence in the future, it would read something to the effect, “During El Nino events, natural changes in atmospheric and oceanic conditions cause the warm water that was ‘contained’ by the Pacific Warm Pool to shift east along the equator. The warm subsurface water rises to the surface.”
h/t Gary for noting the poor wording.
NOTE: For those who are new to the subjects of El Nino events and sea surface temperatures, I’ve tried to make the following discussion as non-technical as possible without overlooking too many aspects critical to the discussion. It includes detailed descriptions of many of the processes that take place before, during, and after El Nino events. The period after an El Nino event is often neglected, but it holds the oceanic responses that are the most significant over multiyear periods.
INTRODUCTION
Two things have always stood out for me in a graph of Global Sea Surface Temperature (SST). The first was the Dip and Rebound in the ERSST.v2 version of the Extended Reconstructed SST data from the 1800s to the 1940s. The link above discussed it in detail.
In Figure 1, I’ve boxed SST anomaly data for the period from 1854 to 1976 to indicate that, other than the dip and rebound and the temporary rise in the early 1940s caused by a multiyear El Nino, there really wasn’t a rise of any note in SST between the late 1800s and the period from the mid-1940s to mid-1970s. The ERSST.v2 data used in this post illustrates little to no change in SST anomalies from the one period (late 1800s) to the other (mid-1940s to mid-1970s).
http://i42.tinypic.com/2ibc87o.jpg
Figure 1
Second: After 1976, Global SST anomalies appear to rise in three steps. It’s very visible if monthly SST anomaly data has been smoothed with a 37-month filter, Figure 2, or if annual data has been smoothed with a 3-year filter. Many people try to correlate those steps with variations in TSI, because they seem to coincide with solar cycles. They don’t, so those trying to make the correlation fail in their efforts.
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Figure 2
Zooming in on the period from January 1976 to present, Figure 3, and changing the filtering from 37-months to 12-months do not eliminate the appearance of steps. Why did Global SST rise in steps after 1976?
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Figure 3
Based on the title of this post, the rising step changes were caused by El Nino events, three in particular. The NINO3.4 SST anomalies from January 1976 to November 2008 are shown in Figure 4. Most people familiar with the recent El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) record could guess correctly that the 1997/98 El Nino event was one of the El Ninos that caused a step change. If the magnitude of El Ninos was the only factor, the second logical choice would be the 1982/83 El Nino, since it ranks a close second in terms of peak NINO3.4 SST anomaly. Yet that El Nino event did not create a rising step change in global SST anomalies, because another natural event had a greater impact on global climate.
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Figure 4
A volcanic eruption. The El Chichon eruption of 1982 interrupted the normal heat distribution processes of the 1982/83 El Nino. Many persons understand and cite this on blogs. Few realize, though, that the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo also interrupted a significant series of El Nino events. The Mount Pinatubo eruption didn’t occur at the same time as a singular El Nino event with monstrously high SST anomalies, but the string of El Ninos it influenced was significant in its length. “Full-fledged” El Nino events occurred in 1991/92 and 1994/95, with a minor El Nino occurring during 1993. At minimum, two of the early-to-mid 1990s El Ninos had their heat distribution processes altered.
REFERENCE ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 5 is a comparative graph of East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies, scaled NINO3.4 SST anomalies, and inverted Sato Index of Stratospheric Mean Optical Thickness data (used as a reference of volcanic eruption timing and intensity). The data in Figure 5 have been smoothed with a 12-month running-average filter. The step changes in the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies are quite obvious. The graphs included in the following discussions are edited versions of Figure 5. In the latter graphs, I have simply limited the years in view to the periods being discussed. The three periods (January 1976 to December 1981, January 1981 to December 1995, and January 1996 to November 2008) are also shown in Figure 5. The periods were divided in this way because, working backwards in time, the first period discussed (1996 to 2008) has been covered in an earlier post and is, therefore, easiest to explain, the second period (1981 to 1995) includes the two volcanic eruptions, and the third period (1976 to 1981) is what was left over. Note that the NINO3.4 and Sato Index data are provided to illustrate timing and timing only; they have not been scaled to suggest magnitude of cause and effect. I did not want to get into a debate about scaling.
http://i44.tinypic.com/10oe6uo.jpg
Figure 5
In Figure 6, I’ve blocked off the area of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans illustrated by the black curve in Figure 5 and in illustrations that follow. The coordinates are 60S to 65N, 80E to 180. It represents a significant portion of the world oceans, in the range of 25 to 30% of global sea surface from 60S to 65N.
http://i39.tinypic.com/5n55as.jpg
Figure 6
Figure 7 is a comparative graph of the NINO3.4 SST anomalies, inverted Sato Index, and the SST anomalies for the oceans segments not included in the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomaly dataset above. These include the East Pacific, the Atlantic, and the West Indian Oceans contained by the coordinates 60S-65N, 180-80E. The East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean data (red curve) is overlaid onto the East Indian-West Pacific data (the black curve in Figure 5) during the discussions that follow to show the interactions between datasets.
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Figure 7
A final preliminary note: The filtering is used to reduce the visual impact of the noise within the datasets. It also affects (smoothes) the abruptness of the change in the Sato Index data when the volcanoes erupted. It has a minor visual impact, but it is something to consider when viewing the graphs that include the volcanic eruptions (Part 2). The impacts of the smoothing are shown in Figure 8.
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Figure 8
A VIDEO
I illustrated the cause of the step change AFTER the 1997/98 El Nino in a video posted on the thread titled The Lingering Effects of the 1997/98 El Nino. The YouTube link is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uv4Xc4D0Dk
Take five minutes and watch the video. It will help to illustrate the phenomena taking place and the causes.
Note: In the graphs for the video, I used the Optimally Interpolated SST anomaly data (OI.v2). The monthly time-series data for it starts in November 1981, and since I wanted to cover the period starting in 1976 in this post, I had to switch datasets. The SST anomaly data used in the following discussion is from the Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature, Version 2 (ERSST.v2), available from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). It runs from January 1854 to present.
THE STEP CHANGE FROM 1996 TO PRESENT – A RECAP AND EXPANSION OF DISCUSSION
The SST anomalies for the West Indian-East Pacific Oceans from January 1996 to November 2008 are shown in Figure 9, along with scaled NINO3.4 SST anomalies and the final few years of the inverted Sato Index data. The Sato Index ends in 1999, but because there has not been an explosive volcanic eruption capable of lowering global temperatures significantly since 1991, its end in 1999 has no affect on the discussion.
Note: You may wish to click on the TinyPic link (While holding the “Control” key) to open Figure 9 in a separate window. That would eliminate the need to scroll back and forth. This discussion goes on for a full page of single-spaced text in MSWord form.
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Figure 9
The Pacific Warm Pool, also known as the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool, is an area in the western equatorial Pacific and eastern Indian Ocean where huge volumes of warm water collect due to a number of natural processes (normally attributed to ocean currents and trade winds). The Pacific Warm Pool is visible in SST data and in subsurface ocean temperature data; the warm pool reaches down to depths of 300 meters. Figure 10 illustrates its location. Over decadal periods of time, it expands and contracts in area and increases and decreases in volume. 
http://i42.tinypic.com/2hdqydy.jpg
Figure 10
During El Nino events, natural changes in atmospheric conditions cause the warm water that was “contained” by the Pacific Warm Pool to shift east along the equator, and a subsurface oceanic temperature boundary layer called the thermocline pushes the warm subsurface water to the surface. The high SST anomalies in the eastern equatorial Pacific are known as an El Nino. It is a natural process that occurs at irregular intervals and magnitudes. The eastern equatorial Pacific SST anomaly data is divided into areas for monitoring purposes. Refer to Figure 11. These areas are known as NINO1, 2, 3 and 4. Global temperature responses to El Nino events correlate best with the SST anomalies of an area that overlaps NINO3&4 areas. That area is called NINO3.4. That’s the data set used in the following discussions.
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Figure 11
Back to the discussion of Figure 9: The purple curve in Figure 9 shows the SST anomalies for the NINO3.4 area [5S-5N, 170W-120W] in the eastern Pacific. The data has been reduced in scale by a factor of 0.2 so that it doesn’t overwhelm the graph. During the 1997/98 El Nino event, NINO3.4 SST anomalies rose to their highest levels during the 20th century. Its impact is visible in the long-term and short-term Global SST anomaly data shown in Figures 2 and 3. It affected global and regional temperature and precipitation patterns in the short term afterwards.
That’s usually about the end of a discussion of the 1997/98 El Nino. The video showed, however, that other processes continue long after an El Nino event. Much of the heat that rises to the surface during the El Nino is then transported west by the equatorial ocean currents, recharging the Pacific Warm Pool for the next El Nino and heating the surface of the East Indian-West Pacific Oceans. It’s important to keep in mind that before the El Nino most of the warm water was below the surface, contained by the Pacific Warm Pool. Since it’s below the surface to depths of 300 meters, it is not a part of the calculation of global SST, or global temperature, for that matter. Then, after the El Nino, much of it is on the surface and included in the SST data. The resulting rise in the SST anomalies of the East Indian-West Pacific Oceans (the black curve in Figure 9) lags the change in NINO3.4 SST anomaly by a few months. As shown, East Indian-West Pacific Ocean SST anomalies reached their peak in 1998, but by that time, NINO3.4 SST anomalies had already dropped back to “normal” levels. Then the NINO3.4 SST anomalies dropped further, into the subsequent La Nina (Negative) levels, but the East Indian-West Pacific Ocean SST anomalies only dropped a portion of the amount they had risen, about one-half of it. And before the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies can slowly decrease fully to the levels they were at before the 1997/98 El Nino, NINO3.4 SST anomalies increase in 2000 and cause the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies to rise again. That’s the step change.
In summary, a large volume of warm water that was once below the surface of the Pacific Warm Pool was raised to the surface by the El Nino and distributed across the surface of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans, causing SST anomalies to rise in that region. East Indian-West Pacific Ocean SST anomalies began to drop but had not had enough time to return to “normal” before the start of the next El Nino event, which swept them upwards again.
They are slowly returning to the levels they were at before the 1997/98 El Nino, but because they were “pushed” higher again and again by the El Nino events of 2002/03, 2004/05, and 2006/07, the return has taken more than a decade.
In Figure 12, I’ve added the SST anomalies for the East Pacific, Atlantic, and West Indian Oceans to the comparative graph. (It’s another graph you may want to open in a separate window.) The East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies mimic the rise and fall of the NINO3.4 SST anomalies during the 1997/98 El Nino—to a point. Note how, during the La Nina that followed it, the NINO3.4 SST anomalies have dropped well below the levels they had been at before the start of the 1997/98 El Nino (highlighted with the blue line and arrows), yet the East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies don’t follow the NINO3.4 SST anomalies below the level they had been at before the 1997/98 El Nino to any great extent; that’s another (but smaller) cause of the step change in Global SST anomalies after the 1997/98 El Nino. Then the East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies follow the rise in NINO3.4 SST anomalies from 2000 to late 2002, the peak of the next El Nino. And, from 2003 to present, the SST anomalies for both of the major portions of the global oceans (red and black curves) “normalized” to levels near to one another, modulating back and forth as each area, at different time lags, responds to variations in NINO3.4 SST anomalies. These include the additional El Nino events of 2004/05 and 2006/07, and finally a substantial La Nina in 2007/08. Because of that La Nina, the East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies (red curve) have dropped down close to the levels they had been at prior to the 1997/98 El Nino, but it has taken more than 10 years.
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Figure 12
In Figure 13, the Global SST anomaly curve from January 1976 to November 2008 (same graph as Figure 3) has been annotated to indicate the causes of the step change. As illustrated and discussed in the preceding, the temperature rise resulted from the significant step response of the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies to the 1997/98 El Nino event–that was compounded by a similar response (but of lesser magnitude) to the 2002/03 El Nino—that was then “maintained” by the El Nino events of 2004/05 and 2006/07.
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Figure 13
CLOSING TO PART 1
That’s enough for one post. In the second part, I’ll cover the two earlier periods. For a preview, simply scroll back up to Figure 5 and note the step changes during those two periods and the effects of the two volcanic eruptions. (Remember that the Sato Index data is only there to illustrate the timing of the volcanic eruptions.) I’ll also add another phenomenon that confirms the step changes caused by the El Nino events are drivers of global temperature anomalies.
SOURCES
Smith and Reynolds Extended Reconstructed SST Sea Surface Temperature Data (ERSST.v2) and the Optimally Interpolated Sea Surface Temperature Data (OI.v2) are available through the NOAA National Operational Model Archive & Distribution System (NOMADS).
http://nomads.ncdc.noaa.gov/#climatencdc
The Sato Index Data is available from GISS at:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/strataer/
Specifically:
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It’s quite simple: if you want Global Rule, you must have a “global problem”. So “global warming” was born.
The #1 factor for heat, has been, and always will be: the Sun.
Right now, we are closer to the sun, so we are slightly hotter. It’s quite simple. CO2 goes up during a warming period, because life is more sustainable. For example, the Renaissance occured because of a warming period, which allowed crops to grow in more places and grow better. This led to surplus crops, which allowed a new “middle class” to spring up from services-based professions such as merchants and artists, since there were surplus crops to feed/pay them with.
When the world heats up slightly, more life exists, and CO2 is a by-product of all living matter (including plants, though they sponge up more than they emit).
For example, all the cows on Earth emit more CO2 than ALL transportation combined (cars, trains, boats, airplanes). So rather than shut down all cars, trains, boats, and airplanes, it would be more effective for everyone to pick up a shotgun and kill cows: it would reduce CO2 far faster. The idiocy of such an idea however, exposes the ridiculousness of their claims.
That’s why “killing cows” is not the goal of global warming proponents, despite it being the #1 way to reduce CO2 easily.
The real agenda is a “Global Carbon Tax” being pushed for by our elite rulers: Bush, Gore, Clinton, McCain, Obama ALL want a “global carbon tax”. All of the presidents and prime ministers of the US, UK, Germany, and France have pushed for a “global carbon tax” administered by the United Nations.
If the United Nations can tax us, then we are their subjects.
Global Warming, if successful in getting a “global carbon tax”, will have effectively united the world under the rule of these globalists.
“For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will.
If that’s the charge, I stand guilty and I am proud of it. ”
– David Rockefeller, from his autobiography “Memoirs”, page 405, admitting to treason (a secret cabal working against the best interest of the United States).
“One world government is inevitable.” Pope John Paul II (prime candidate for leading the one world religion? the blasphemer who has 1.2 billion followers)
“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.” – David Rockefeller
Ed Scott (14:26:10)
Very interesting link! Thanx for posting.
Oh and by the way, if the “Global Warming Tax” is passed, will they tax humans for breathing?
Ben Kellett, you wrote, “This is a really interesting article but in interested in what has been responsible for so many recent El Ninos”
I ran across a description of El Ninos a couple of years ago that read to the effect: An El Nino is a process that redistributes tropical heat that has accumulated in the Pacific Warm Pool to higher latitudes so that it can be more efficiently radiated into space. In the second half of this post, you’ll see that heat distribution processes of two significant El Ninos were suppressed by the El Chichon and Mount Pinatubo eruptions. With those two “Non Ninos” taken from the total, the ratio of El Nino to La Nina years from 1976 to present reduces from 11/7 to 9/7. And a question that I raise in Part 2 is, considering the above, would the 1997/98 El Nino have occurred if the El Chichon and Mount Pibatubo eruptions had not suppressed the El Ninos that occurred at the same time? I can’t answer the question but it’s one that’s worth investigating.
gary gulrud (14:34:43) :
Gary,
I can’t answer your question as to why there is an apparent flux in UV impacting ozone below the tropopause and I don’t think anyone else has the answer either. If they do its a topic they don’t want to, or can’t discuss. If 200hPa temperature is to be my guide, this flux in UV occurs on ENSO timescales. Certain people in prestigious well funded organizations are responsible for exploring these questions and at there head is a person with a religious devotion to the notion of A.G.W. He will take comfort from what Leif says.
I watch the troposphere where we have good data starting from 1948. In the last two years we have seen a return to very low 200hPa temperature and very high surface pressure in the south East Pacific. The atmosphere is very compact meaning a low level of inflation of the ionosphere/plasma sphere. Satellites are traveling close without experiencing the usual atmospheric drag. Perhaps the shorter wave lengths from the sun are more effectively filtered out when the atmosphere is more compact. Perhaps the high speed wind of coronal holes that seem to account for plasma sphere inflation on a scale of days are involved in disturbing this compact state in such a way as to account for this change in UV. I don’t know.
What I do know is that tropical sea surface temperature follows sea level pressure in the south east Pacific (inversely) and that sea level pressure is inversely related to 200hPa temperature. So 200hPa temperature and surface temperature move together. And the former is the driver, not the latter.
Meanwhile, the solar flux is increasing and the UV index at the surface is jumping to levels that are inconsistent with the continuation of La Nina.
What the sun emits and what is received at the tropopause are two different things. The filter is the atmosphere above the tropopause.
Two things from the sun are responsible for the state of the atmosphere above the tropopause. One is short wave radiation that strips molecules, atoms and electrons and the other is the solar wind that is capable of shifting the plasma so created.
Sorry about the lousy syntax. Wish I could do it better. Its a property of the mind.
Bob Tisdale,
There are a few articles that stick in peoples minds that effect the way they think about or see things (climate in this case) after reading them.
This is one of those articles.
Some of the other obvious articles for climate to me include
Dr. Glassman’s The Acquittal of CO2,
Stephen Wilde’s The Hot Water Bottle Effect,
Svensmarks cloud theory.
These all seem to fit together, or at least
are not mutually exclusive of each other.
It seems that the sun, the oceans and, water vapour (all in various ways)
maybe the main players after all. (Sheesh, who’d have thought it..)
Is it possible that the so called 4th class of volcanoes
(and “ordinary” volcanoes – there are quite a few large ones under the oceans)
may have an effect that might be interpretted as “noise”.
Derek.
Johann
“Oh and by the way, if the “Global Warming Tax” is passed, will they tax humans for breathing?”
This has been proposed by a scientist in Australia.
This is a really good analysis. My biggest comment is to dampen down the smoothing and filters so that one can be sure the smoothing is not causing an artifact but Bob Tisdale does really good work.
Is the heat released by oceans being replenished? If not, global warming is over.
Yes, and it seems like the atmospheric water vapor feedback hasn’t done much of anything, either.
Thanks, that is a very interesting article – though I suspect a prevalence of El Ninos (or La Ninas) does not explain all decadal temperature changes. After all
there has been a rising temperature trend for a century. The Positive Enso phases (1910-1940’s and 1976-2000), have a steeper slope than the Negative phase (1940s to 1975).
OT but interesting: http://www.spacedaily.com/2006/090112183735.ojdq7esu.html
I just noticed something odd, perhaps someone can explain.
On the site : http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
They have an interactive chart, if you check the boxes for :
20 year Record high, 20 year average, and 20 year record lows, and then select
The Daily Global Average temperature at 3,300 ft / 1.0 km / 900 mb (chLT)
show temps in deg F
If you select any year later than 2001, the trace for that year goes above the 20 record high. I presume that that means the “20 year record high” does not include the most recent years, but is some standard base 20 year cycle (rather than a 30 year period).
On the front page, it lists the starting date as 1979 for the satellite data, so my presumption is that the “20 year record high” trace is computed from 1979-1999 data in this data set.
Does anyone know the true interval used to compute this reference?
Would it not be more appropriate to show an all time high to date, and all time low to date for the satellite data set rather than some arbitrary 20 year cycle?
Larry
Excellent so far. I look forward to parts 2 and 3.
Despite offering no proof what-so-ever, Realclimate has already declared in a 2007 entry that climate change is influincing El Ninos, amking them more frequent and stronger. I think that anyone with half a properly functioning brain after 2008s moderate La Nina see that it is exactly the opposite: El Ninos are infuencing climate change.
We need to find what drives ENSO and the phase switch. That’s our answer. I suspect the answer may ultimately lie with the sun.
It just occurred to me that the SST slope was steeper in the “pre”industrial 1910 – 1945 period than it was in the “Industrial” 1970 – 2005 period. It’s gotta be “mostly” the sun.
BUT, there was “some” CO2 increase even in the coldest years of the 1945 – 1975 cooling period, so I’m thinking at least “some” of the CO2 increase is from man.
Just a layman musing . . .
MattN: Thanks for bringing Part 3 up again. I need to clarify something. Part 2 is written, ready to go. Part 3, if there is a Part 3, at present is only a couple of graphs of SST anomalies (for the same areas in this post) for the period from 1935 to 1978. As I noted above, the discontinuity in the SST data at 1945 puts a real hitch in attempting to explain what happened during that period. We know the starting point of the “bucket correction”. It’s very obvious in the data, but the end point of the correction isn’t. So, as it stands, I haven’t figured out if I can work around that problem and prepare a worthwhile post. If I can, I will.
MattN, you wrote, “We need to find what drives ENSO and the phase switch. That’s our answer. I suspect the answer may ultimately lie with the sun.”
Or may ultimately lie in the causes of variations in solar irradiance at the surface, such as cloud cover and volcanic aerosols.
The ocean is huge. Surface temperatures can change relatively quickly but it takes a long time to make changes in the ocean at a mile or two depth. At three miles deep it is even slower to change. There is a lot of CO2 down there and that water is probably still slowly warming from recovery from the little ice age. That would be one of the reasons CO2 tends to lag so much behind atmospheric temperature change. You can get the surface to give up some CO2 with some heating but it takes a long time to get the bulk of the ocean to change temperature.
As surface currents such as the Gulf Stream cool and sink, they take their CO2 contents into the briny deep and it might be a long time before that dissolved CO2 makes it way back to the surface again.
Argo floats go down to less than a mile in depth. The average depth of the Pacific Ocean is over 2 miles (actually closer to 3). Argo shows this upper ocean is currently cooling. We really have no idea what the bottom 2/3 of the ocean is doing. Again, we know more about what the surface of Mars is doing than we know about most of the surface of Earth.
Oops, correction, some Argo floats descend to more than a mile (2000m).
erlhapp (16:04:05) :
In the last two years we have seen a return to very low 200hPa temperature and very high surface pressure in the south East Pacific. The atmosphere is very compact meaning a low level of inflation of the ionosphere/plasma sphere.
Perhaps the shorter wave lengths from the sun are more effectively filtered out when the atmosphere is more compact. Perhaps the high speed wind of coronal holes that seem to account for plasma sphere inflation on a scale of days are involved in disturbing this compact state in such a way as to account for this change in UV. I don’t know.
What I do know is that tropical sea surface temperature follows sea level pressure in the south east Pacific (inversely) and that sea level pressure is inversely related to 200hPa temperature. So 200hPa temperature and surface temperature move together. And the former is the driver, not the latter.
Meanwhile, the solar flux is increasing and the UV index at the surface is jumping to levels that are inconsistent with the continuation of La Nina.
What the sun emits and what is received at the tropopause are two different things. The filter is the atmosphere above the tropopause.
Two things from the sun are responsible for the state of the atmosphere above the tropopause. One is short wave radiation that strips molecules, atoms and electrons and the other is the solar wind that is capable of shifting the plasma so created.
Sorry about the lousy syntax. Wish I could do it better. Its a property of the mind.
If it was only the syntax…
There are so many errors and misconceptions in the above that it is hard to know where to begin. I have on previous occasions pointed out in detail what is wrong, but you keep barreling on regardless. Like this one: “Meanwhile, the solar flux is increasing”. From the ‘is’ one might presume you mean now, in which case everybody here knows you are in error. But perhaps, we have a syntax problem again.
From suffering through hundreds of your posts, I think I can summarize your ideas as follows: “the solar wind compacts the atmosphere making it more difficult for UV, that heats the upper troposphere which in turn heats the surface, to penetrate and hence leads to cooling”.
I believe it was Reid Bryson who said, the sun warms the oceans, the oceans warm the atmosphere.
Regarding the growth of the warm pools, is there observational data from satellites on cloud cover that might be correlated with their locations? The only energy source is sunlight and it seems that the simplest explanation for the heating is a local reduction in clouds.
SST and depth reminds me of a quaint growing up story. Wallowa Lake is a glacier/ice/snow fed, dam enhanced, body of water left over from a glacier and surrounded by a high moraine. It’s bottom consists of glacier debris and is quite deep from shore to shore with a bit of slope at the source and just before the lake turns a bit towards the little dam. It is 6 miles long and narrow with a great deal of shading from sunup to sunset. I learned how to float and then swim in that lake. In just minutes. It is only slightly warm the first 6 inches. From then on it is witch-tit cold. Once you get thrown in by grandma, you learn to float so that even your buns stay in that 6 inches. Once you have managed to catch your breath after the icy plunge, you then devise, very quickly, a way to swim back to shore. Lesson over.
… With the PDO being in it’s cool phase, this must be influencing the immediate atmospheric temperatures to also become cooler. …
You need to look up the PDO. The PDO might not be globally cool; I think it got its name because the cool phase has cooler water near North America, where its behavior was first noticed. And I suspect the cool phase encourages cooler North American temperatures, but that’s not oceanic temperature and the continental air flow contributes a lot.
If it were my study, I would have to take into account the changing temperature sample number at 1990 when surface stations dropped out in droves. If my grass plots, each placed in fairly evenly distributed rural and urban areas, were to then suddenly be reduced by the same urban-biased percentage, I would not be able to continue the study. I would have to start all over again.
But you want a longer term temperature sample than the satellite record, for good reason. I would, and cringe while doing it, splice the satellite temps onto the surface data temps somewhere prior to 1990 (and discard, while cringing, obviously corrupted surface temps after the splice) and run the analysis again.
It’s not pristine which is why I cringe, but I believe anyone worth their laboratory credentials would clearly see the need to discard the potentially corrupted surface station temperature sample data after 1990.
Paul Linsay (19:40:36)
“Regarding the growth of the warm pools, is there observational data from satellites on cloud cover that might be correlated with their locations? The only energy source is sunlight and it seems that the simplest explanation for the heating is a local reduction in clouds.”
In an interesting paper K. G. Pavlakis et al have found that changes in downward shortwave radiation (by changes in cloud cover) are a significant forcing in the enso oscillation.
Abstract. We have studied the spatial and temporal variation of the downward shortwave radiation (DSR) at the surface of the Earth during ENSO events for a 21-year period over the tropical and subtropical Pacific Ocean (40_ S–40_ N, 90_ E–75_ W). The fluxes were computed using a deterministic model for atmospheric radiation transfer, along with satellite data from the ISCCP-D2 database, reanalysis data from NCEP/NCAR for the key atmospheric and surface input parameters,and aerosol parameters from GADS (acronyms explained in main text). A clear anti-correlation was found between the downward shortwave radiation anomaly (DSR-A) time-series, in the region 7_ S–5_ N 160_ E–160_W located west of the Ni˜no-3.4 region, and the Ni˜no-3.4 index timeseries. In this region where the highest in absolute value DSR anomalies are observed, the mean DSR anomaly values range from −45Wm−2 during El Ni˜no episodes to +40Wm−2 during La Ni˜na events. Within the Ni˜no-3.4 region no significant DSR anomalies are observed during the cold ENSO phase in contrast to the warm ENSO phase. A high correlation was also found over the western Pacific (10_ S–5_ N, 120–140_ E), where the mean DSR anomaly values range from +20Wm−2 to −20Wm−2 during El Ni˜no and La Ni˜na episodes, respectively. There is also convincing evidence that the time series of the mean downward shortwave radiation anomaly in the off-equatorial western Pacific region 7– 15_ N 150–170_ E, precedes the Ni˜no-3.4 index time-series by about 7 months and the pattern of this anomaly is indicative of ENSO operating through the mechanism of the western Pacific oscillator. Thus, the downward shortwave radiation anomaly is a complementary index to the SST anomaly for the study of ENSO events and can be used to assess whether or not El Ni˜no or La Ni˜na conditions prevail.
Whilst this is an additional indicator,the enso oscillation is a highly coupled mechanism that is both internally driven(self organized far from equilibrium) and externally forced,both the fluctuations and inversions are a result of highly coupled feedbacks both positive(amplifying) and negative (dissipative),this is a well understood open problem for long term predictive modeling.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/5565/2008/acp-8-5565-2008.html
For people looking for causes this might be interesting :
http://www.nosams.whoi.edu/PDFs/papers/tsonis-grl_newtheoryforclimateshifts.pdf
We construct a network of observed climate indices in
the period 1900–2000 and investigate their collective
behavior. The results indicate that this network
synchronized several times in this period. We find that in
those cases where the synchronous state was followed by a
steady increase in the coupling strength between the indices,
the synchronous state was destroyed, after which a new
climate state emerged. These shifts are associated with
significant changes in global temperature trend and in
ENSO variability. The latest such event is known as the
great climate shift of the 1970s. We also find the evidence
for such type of behavior in two climate simulations using a
state-of-the-art model. This is the first time that this
mechanism, which appears consistent with the theory of
synchronized chaos, is discovered in a physical system of
the size and complexity of the climate system.
I have thought about this long and hard. There is something I must do.
For years I have railed against the folks who have called me “DENIER!!!!” as though I were denying Christ or their inquisition…. I have taken great pains to say to them that I deny nothing, I am skeptical of the veracity of their claims and the quality of their “science”. Now I find that I must retract that position.
Where better to do that than here?
So, for all the world to see, here and now, I make the public testimony that I am, in fact, a denier of the claims of AGW. They are simply wrong. A lie.
Why the change? What I have learned in the last year. Before, I was not sure, now it is very clear to me that there is no doubt. AGW does not exist. It is at best a fraud. The present patterns of weather and solar output make it very clear to me that the sun is the big driver with ocean oscillations making the harmony. We are but fleas on the rump of the earth in comparison.
So, from this day forward, when someone asks me if I’m a denier of AGW, my answer will be “D*mn Straight, Loud & Proud DENIER of AGW, It is a LIE! and don’t you forget it, son!”
Heck, I may even get a T shirt made up… And smile when you say that, pardner…