UPDATE: There’s some question about NCEP’s communications intent with this paper. While they cite “La Niña conditions” in the language, and the visual imagery lends itself to that, the numerical threshold of ONI hasn’t been reached, as has been pointed out in comments. Yet NCEP made no mention in the summary that the threshold had not been reached. I’ll see if I can locate the authors and get a clarification. – Anthony
In a document published January 19th, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (NCEP) has officially put the stamp on the cold water conditions we’ve seen growing in the equatorial mid and eastern Pacific. I first reported on this on December 4th, 2008. This does not bode well for California’s drought conditions, which are likely to continue due to this renewed La Niña event.
Sea Surface Temperatures as of January 5th, 2009. Click for a larger image
In the document, which you can see here, NCEP says:
•Atmospheric and oceanic conditions reflect La Niña.
•Negative equatorial SST anomalies persist across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean.
•Based on recent trends in the observations and model forecasts,La Niña conditions are likely to continue into Northern Hemisphere Spring 2009.
Here is a map provided that shows the precipitation departure for the last 90 days. Note that while the Pacific northwest (notably Seattle) is taking a bath, California gets nearly nothing. The jet stream pattern has been pushed far north this past year.
I also found this time series graph of equatorial Pacific ocean heat content anomaly for 180 to 100 degrees west of particular interest:
They also say that:
A majority of ENSO forecasts indicate below-average SSTs in the central equatorial Pacific through Northern Hemisphere Summer 2009, with about half of the models suggesting La Niña conditions will continue through February-March-April 2009.
Place your bets now.
There is also a wealth of information in the PDF document NCEP has prepared. I’m sure our readers can draw some interesting conclusions and analyses from it.
A hat tip to WUWT reader Alan Wilkinson for bringing the NCEP document to my attention.
The 2008 El Nina was clearly seen in the AMSU 1km temps. However after a remarkable 9 day rise on Jan 18th 2009 the AMSU 1km temp was 1.12 degrees F warmer than the same day a year ago. If there is a La Nina something is very different from last year.
All right, it’s an odd number that would not have made sense. Never mind.
With the drought pattern in California, there should be a lot more wildfires this summer that the AGW folks can blame on “global warming”. This should help them out since the temperatures aren’t cooperating…
Thinking out loud here….cool air comes in from the west and meets warm moist Gulf air and we have a terrible spring tornado outbreak like 1974?
How does this impact Hansen’s “Super El Nino” event to create the warmest year ever recorded this year? ( which I find strange that the AGW Champion would put all his hopes in a weather pattern emerging to prove his claims about climate change… weather events are not climate or so we are told repeatedly. Unless they are deadly and/or destructive, hot, or very rare( regardless of what it is, Snow in Baghdad, etc) then they are a Horseman of the Environmental Apocalypse.
I would guess as in the Solar Cycle Arena they will just keep pushing the dates back and decreasing the intensity until it happens to match up, seems to be the best way to ensure accurracy and increase confidence in your abilities.
La Nina conditions are back, as they have been for a few weeks. However, there is also evidence of a Kelvin wave developing (see page 16 of the NCEP doc).
Depending on the strength of the Kelvin wave, La Nina conditions may be gone within a month. If this occurs, there will not be enough time for this to be classified a La Nina episode (see page 21).
Something doesn’t seem right in that graph of precipitation. Wisconsin is shown as mostly white (-25 to 25% or around average) but didn’t they just break the all-time (130 year) record for snowfall? I know that my relatives still living there are delighting in telling me about their six foot snow drifts.
….er…no it isn’t, the benchmark for a cool ENSO event is an SST index of 0.8. Anything inbetween is cassified as neutral. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead/about-ENSO-outlooks.shtml#Warm
We were close to a cool even last week when the SST at NINO3was recorded at -0.68, it is now at -0.46. The temperatures in the equatorial Pacific are now rising making the chances of a sustained cooling event (i.e. below -0.8 ) more unlikely. This is clearly shown on these graphs. You will also notice the whole of the equatorial Pacific is showing signs of warming http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/indices.shtml .
Also the NOOA have not said that there is now a La Nina, rather that the conditions ‘reflect’ La Nina. If you read page 25 of their latest report you will read this:
Historical Pacific warm (red) and cold (blue) episodes based on a threshold of +/-0.5 oCfor the Oceanic Nino Index (ONI) [3 month running mean of ERSST.v3b SST anomalies in the Nino 3.4 region (5N-5S, 120-170W)], calculated with respect to the 1971-2000 base period. For historical purposes El Niño and La Niña episodes are defined when the threshold is met for a minimum of 5 consecutive over-lapping seasons.
This is the latest ONI figures: -1.4-1.4-1.1-0.8-0.6-0.4-0.10.00.00.0-0.3,
the threshold of -0.5 has not even been reached yet…and this figure needs to happen 5 more times to be classified as a La Nina!
Which ever way you look at it the ENSO conditions are still neutral, there just seems to be confusion in the language!
REPLY: I agree, the NCEP language is baffling. Why say it “reflects La Niña” and “La Niña conditions are likely to continue into Northern Hemisphere Spring 2009” if the threshold is not met? Odd very odd. Thanks for pointing this out. Apparently they view the term “La Niña conditions” differently than regular folks with an interest in the subject. Citing another “cool” event, clearly a “failure to communicate” on NCEP’s part. 😉
Anthony
We really could use some rain here in California. I wanted to take the kids up to the snow next month but I am not sure there is going to be any. We already have political problems as it is with out legislature unable to pass a budget, all we need is a water shortage to really get people upset.
We are probably in for a lot less rain in California over the next 20 years than we had in the past 20.
Oh, so now were not in a La Nina and we expect the “Super El Nino” to form at any day now.
NINO3.4 SST anomalies are well below the threshold of a La Nina.
http://i41.tinypic.com/ddby42.jpg
And it appears that they may go lower or at least stay down for a while until the ominous-looking hot spot works itself farther east.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/wkxzteq.shtml
Then what happens?
Just have to wait and see.
Hmmm. Bob, I’ll admit I was taken in by the language in this paper produced by NCEP. Why did they produce it in the first place if conditions are neutral? And why make a statement saying these three points in two places, beginning and end?
•Atmospheric and oceanic conditions reflect La Niña.
•Negative equatorial SST anomalies persist across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean.
•Based on recent trends in the observations and model forecasts,La Niña conditions are likely to continue into Northern Hemisphere Spring 2009.
There’s no mention of neutral in the summary, no mention of it not meeting the specs. It certainly seems as if they believe La Nina conditions exist. Odd, very odd.
“Wisconsin is shown as mostly white (-25 to 25% or around average) but didn’t they just break the all-time (130 year) record for snowfall”
Rough rule of thumb is that each foot of snow equals an inch of rain (varies according to how “dry” and fluffy the snow is). And if it is still frozen as snow, none of it is getting into the water table. The problem comes if it all blows away or evaporates (sublimation) before it has a chance to thaw. It isn’t so important that precipitation falls, it is important that it gets into the ground. Snow falling on frozen ground is not charging the ground water table (yet).
So a six foot drift might mean only a couple of feet of ground cover which is only a couple of inches of rain.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we have a stretch of neutral conditions. It has been a while since we’ve had one. I’m speaking of “officially labeled” conditions. We may go into El Nino’s, and La Nina’s without them reaching the 5 consecutive, overlapping 3 month periods that would give them the episode classification. Only 2 of them since 1950 that were extended. JJA 1958 – JAS 1962, and JFM 1979 – MAM 1982. The first noted stretch was even longer(to MJJ 1963), but the new data set(ERSST.v3b SST) reclassified ASO 1962 – DJF 1963 as a La Nina. Every once in a while, nature does find some balance.
I have a question, how much did we know about the effects of El Nino and La Nina on global climate back in 1988 when Hansen testified to congress about AGW? I know we’ve been aware El Nino for a long time, but is our understanding of their affect on global climate fairly recent?
We have known about that for a long time. What we did NOT know until almost 2000 was that multidecadal oscillations caused either Los Ninos or Las Ninas to predominate.
With a positive PDO, we see more Ninos. With a negative PDO, we see more Ninas. It has been quite a while before there were two Ninas in a row without an intervening Nino.
Minnesotans For Global Warming
http://www.m4gw.com:2005/m4gw/home.html
They even have a nice song video !
Their headquarter is homed in a luxury accomodation, no doubt, financed by big oil industry… (well, to be fair, only in part considering that they heat it with a wood stove)
Enjoy !
OT: interesting recent CNN article Surveyed scientists agree global warming is real
I would like to know which crowd of “scientists” were surveyed. They also seem to like to point out that
Meanwhile, the “real” scientists are purported as
This smells funny to me. Propaganda machine running overtime?
97% of scientists receiving grants to study anthropogenic global warming agree that AGW is real. The other 3% are ungrateful and will be dealt with shortly.
Kentuckians for warming, add us as well….maybe we can be on the beach by 2025
AMSU daily temps are showing a huge departure from December, but what does it mean? Is this indicating an end to La Nina and reversal of temperature for 2009? Or does it mean we are witnessing a preparation for a new wave of massive cooling coming in February and beyond?
One would think SST should be reflecting a gain in heat if there is an El Nino approaching.
Heat released into the atmosphere not being replaced in the oceans results in ???
Inquiring minds want to know. Where is Roy Spencer when we need him?
Anthony, present (week centered on Jan 14, 2009) NINO3.4 SST anomalies are at -1.08 deg C. That’s not neutral. Looks to me like it’s just taking time for monthly averages and three-month averages to catch up so the indices can reflect what’s happening. They’re reporting present conditions, which are not neutral.
I still want to know how anything can be more than 100% below average rainfall?
I’m not too comfortable with southern Wisconsin being below normal for precipitation either. You don’t wait until it melts to measure it, it is measured as it falls so when and how if melts has nothing to do with precipitation measurements.
It is possible that late October and November were dry with fall rains coming early and November precip just being snow. I think I am saying that data may be created by the 90 day time frame with a couple feet of November snow not making up for a few lost inches of rain.
Bob Tisdale (09:09:53)
Great work
DEC 2007 like JAN 2009
Warm Water Volume (m**3,5N-5S,120E-155W)
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/wwv/data/wwv_west.dat
Warm Water Volume (m**3,5N-5S,155W-80W)
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/wwv/data/wwv_east.dat
Sekerob (06:46:07) :
Office logic indeed says that La Nina will absorb heat, as does El Nino release. Lower water vapor, more drought on western half and more hurricanes on the eastern half. So, a 3 way bad thing, for underlying, the planet keeps covertly sucking in energy whilst doubtlessly as it has been doing for decades now the inexorable rise of CO2 in the atmosphere. Office logic is like the credit bubble. It will burst and than we’ll really learn what global frying is.
gee, “inexorable” and “global frying”. It all seems so certain to you Mr Rob. Still not replied to my many requests for you to inform us all why the IARC-JAXA ice extent data is so worthless in your eyes and Nansen is the bee’s knees. Please inform us.
I wonder where all these climatologists come from, considering that, up to about two decades ago, it was difficult to find a university anywhere which offered climatology courses.
I thought with the switch of the multidecadal Pacific Oscillation to colder times (Alaska suddenly being regularly colder) there is a mitigation of the El Nino/La Nina cycles.