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.
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One of the problems the AGW’ers seem to be labouring under is the idea that “Classical Mechanics” works, especially when it comes to understanding things at large. Would it be too much to ask the AGW’ers to try to catch up a bit?
Mary Hinge:
First a coffee:
Unfortunately, I saw what happened to the models for ENSO. (Except CFS). October 2008.
All indicated neutral to El Niño.
Politely, politely, without eternal discussions.
My opinion:
Kasparov vs. Deep Blue – Game 2
correcting myself:
A “La Nina *Event*” needs to have a trailing 3-month record of low SSTs
i forgot that it needs to hit the low threshold for 5 overlapping consecutive seasons… but that doesn’t change, and in fact reinforces, the fact that the triggering of the definition of a “la nina event” happens long, long after the start of the event.
Correction: 3 month values are a 3 month running mean for the period, not average.
An Inquirer:
“Most likely, even most skeptical scientists in the AGW debate would agree that “humans play a role.”
I’m not sure this is true…what are you basing this on?
“If we irrigate valleys in the West, that will affect temperature. If we built cities and change prairies to farmland, we will increase nocturnal temperatures.”
Then you believe that the human population can definitely control the earth’s temperature.
Might I ask what temperature you are lobbying for?…and what you base that ideal temperature on?, and where should it be measured? Is it warmer than what we’re seeing now, meaning we should increase the activities that you believe cause temps to rise?
JimB
I’m in agreement with Anthony, Mary H., & others seeing an inconsistency in the language. When a squall hits the Florida coast and whips up 45 mph winds, you don’t say “tropical storm conditions” when there’s no tropical storm involved. A tropical storm is a specific type of event that is distinguished by a lot more than just wind speed.
Likewise since there is a precise definition of La Nina or El Nino, I don’t understand why they’re saying “La Nina conditions” unless we’re experiencing an actual La Nina.
hardly a word on the relation of SST patterns to the jetstream – it is the latter that distributes the heat and the moisture to land by its effect on lower level winds, clouds and storm tracks – by my understanding it has geneally shifted south not north, but the standing wave changes andcan be influenced bySSTs – take a look at the northern Pacific right now on Intelliweather’s site – the air masses are directed northward almost vertically from the trough of the wave, hence depriving California of rain – it is as if the American land mass somehow blocks the wave – I don’t know why, but a similar blockng pattern in the Atlantic this past month or so sent warmth and moisture north into Labrador nstead of westward and Europe froze – right now we are getting the downloop of cold moist air from the N Atlantic, rather than the uploop fromfurther south – it looks to me as if the amplitude of the wave has increased since the summer when it moved south generally – but I am no expert and have just this year been paying this subject due attention – what causes the blocks in the waves? What shifts it south when solar magnetics are low – as durng the Maunder Minimum (Shindell, 2001)?
Well speaking of jetstreams and the ocean cycles I’ve tried to deal with them in an overall climate scenario here:
http://co2sceptics.com/attachments/database/Do%20More%20Greenhouse%20Gases%20Raise%20The%20Earths%20Temperature__0__0__1232399431.pdf
Although it is ostensibly about CO2 the conclusion arises because of observed jetstream and ocean behaviour over the past decades.
The trouble is that although it all makes sense to me it is devilishly difficult to put the concept into words so apologies if it’s all a bit heavy.
I’m not even certain there isn’t a fatal logical or scientific flaw so if there is one then someone should point it out and stop me from wasting my time.
However, if I’m right then there are implications.
I’d have to say our Mary was more right than I a month and a half ago. I fully expected La Nina winds to turn the SSTs over for OND.
Could there be too little energy in the system?
Erl is forecasting a move away from La Nina in March.
“This does not bode well for California’s drought conditions, which are likely to continue due to this renewed La Niña event.”
crosspatch (08:59:42) :
“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.”
Not sure where this idea of La Nina causes droughts in California has come from. I work in water resources in California and have found little evidence of such a correlation. If anything El Nino events could be tied to drought in California simply because we tend to see more extremes of either dry of wet conditions. The worst drought conditions in the past 50 years occurred during El Nino events (see the NCEP pdf document and look at 1977 and 1992).
What I’ve found is that for Northern California – which really feeds the rest of the State’s water supply – has a greater standard of deviation in annual precipitation in El Nino years. La Nina years have less variability, thus when it is dry during a La Nina it tends not to be that extreme.
Yes California is in it’s third year of below normal precipitation, but I would not blame it on La Nina. There’s really little to point to in the historical record.
BTW – I’m looking at the ECMWF and think we could be pretty wet by the middle of next week. So should be plenty of new snow in February 🙂
JimB,
Let’s start off with an understanding of my terminology. In the AGW debate, I see a continuum ranging from global warming pessimist to skeptics. A global warming pessimist believes six steps: (1) increased CO2 levels induce temperature increases under laboratory conditions, (2) this reaction is duplicated in uncontrolled chaotic real atmosphere, (3) that humans are responsible for significant increases in atmospheric CO2, (4) that there are positive feedbacks that magnify the impact on temperature beyond the laboratory results, (5) that these CO2-induced temperature increases will swamp other impacts on temperatures and (6) that the resulting temperature increases have dire environmental consequences. As I have listened to skeptics such has Spencer, Christy, Pielke, McKitrick, I do not hear many objections to the first three. (In fact, they seem to accept that the earth is now hotter than it has been in the last 150 years – a conclusion that I am somewhat hesitant to accept until someone can explain why the dramatic impact of 1930s weather conditions are not being repeated now and why we need to assume that thermometers in the 30s were biased upwards.) However, skeptics do have problems – and point to contrary evidence – to the last three points. Also, they have pointed out we should not limit ourselves to CO2 in understanding increased temperatures. Any reading of Pielke should lead you to his views on the impact of land use. Christy points out that increased temperatures in the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys have not followed GCMs but rather have been spurred by irrigation. McKitrick’s studies show that increased temperature measurements by locality are highly correlated with robust economic activity. Other scientists have concluded that UHI leads to decreased differences between daytime and nocturnal temperatures. Smith and Freeman have separately pointed out that coal ash from China’s (polluting) coal plants might be having a substantial melting effect on snow and ice.
Therefore, I believe that most skeptical scientists would point out that “humans play a role.”
You have a legitimate concern on who should play the role of God in determining what is the optimal temperature, but your (taunting) question does not follow from my post.
Might I ask what temperature you are lobbying for?…
I’ve been pondering mightily along those lines myself. That is, until I start thinking about the Earth’s Core, not to mention the Universe.
“Have a role” is not the same as “is the major influence on”. I would not be at all surprised that 97% of climate scientists agree with “have a role”.
The question comes down to CO2. If humans increased CO2 in the atmosphere, then even with negative feedback, humans had a role. If CO2 follows temperature only, then humans may not have had a role. But if that’s the case, we should be seeing dropping CO2 levels already. I don’t think we are.
“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.”
I thought the same thing. So far Jan 09 is significantly warmer than Jan 08. I did a comparison between 2007 and 2009 and it looks like we still well below January 07 temps.
This January will be warmer than last January, but no where near any record. Still, I wonder where the heat is with all this bitterly cold air over the eastern US, Canada, Europe, etc.
If humans increased CO2 in the atmosphere, then even with negative feedback, humans had a role.
Yes, there is no doubt that, if the Queen had balls, she would be King. However, I think you are asking too much.
Dan Lee (04:58:26) :”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? ”
Back when I was a child we called El Nino: The red tide. Fishermen knew that at this time shell fish could be dangerous to eat. People as far back as the Mayans knew about these ocean effect. Because modern man renamed it doesnt mean its anything new…
The problem with saying that we should be seeing the same weather with a new La Nina as the last one is that a great deal of moisture was “relocated” and in our case the land is saturated, that alone will change next years weather. The rules of the game have changed dont ya see. Or if you prefer, we have new variables to consider. Ah that is the beauty of our world, I have never seen one year exactly like another. The sooner people get over that, the better we all will be. Instead of predicting world wide disasters, we might be better served to set up aid for folks who will be impacted adversly each year by mother natures changing nature. And.. if were good and observant and get all our ducks in a row, we might be able to talk about pollution again and make this planet a better place without having to scare the bjesus out of folks to get them to care.
PS.. Hansen is [snip]
Anthony , please check out :http://us.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/eco.globalwarmingsurvey/index.html .This survey by Indiana Univ. should set everyone straight on AGW – or not. (Sorry I couldn’t get it to come up as a link.)
Squidly (10:09:31) :
“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
Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent and 64 percent, respectively, believing in human involvement.
Meanwhile, the “real” scientists are purported as
The strongest consensus on the causes of global warming came from climatologists who are active in climate research, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.
This smells funny to me. Propaganda machine running overtime?”
Squidly, That is not all.
Look at the NYT website that now shows a big add from EPA against coal.
IPCC and WorldWatch pressing Obama to take measures immediately and all the usual crap about the melting/cracking ice plates/caps.
HANSON STATING THAT 2009 WILL BE THE WARMEST YEAR IN HISTORY?
Maybe the NOAA report is made to provide a solid excuse to explain the current cold spells?
Who knows?
“An Inquirer:
You have a legitimate concern on who should play the role of God in determining what is the optimal temperature, but your (taunting) question does not follow from my post.”
I apologize for my “taunting” question, but I believe it to be a genuine and acceptable part of the debate. I am also unfamiliar with the varying degrees of pessimists to skeptics. I’m so used to seeing everyone who doesn’t agree with the C02 theory lumped into the same bag, if you will.
The reason I feel my questions are valid is your statement that “Therefore, I believe that most skeptical scientists would point out that “humans play a role.”
I have no belief and therefor no understanding of a “God” element in any of this, so I reject that analogy.
So what’s the temp?…and who gets to set it?…assuming the theories of control are correct? Or is it that humans can have an impact, but not control?
JimB
James Hansen’s prediction :
“Given our expectation of the next El Nino beginning in 2009 or 2010, it still seems likely that a new global temperature record will be set within the next 1-2 years, despite the moderate negative effect of the reduced solar irradiance.”
His past predictions have been wrong. So I don’t see a reason to incline myself to believe this one. With each wrong prediction, with each inaccurate set of data released, with each correction of past data from outside sources, and with each ungentlemanly voice coming from GISS, James Hansen’s reputation is marred further. This would be a case of self destruction. We don’t need to help expose who he is to the public; he’s doing a fine job of it for himself, thank you very much.
Also
“The strongest consensus on the causes of global warming came from climatologists who are active in climate research, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.”
“play a role”– how ’bout them words! They never specify how much of a role. These polls should include categorizations, like, “less than 1% of a role”, “+ or – 50% role”, “small role”, “large role”, etc. As ‘An Inquirer’ alluded to in a comment above man does have an effect on climate. But what is implied in these polls is that if a climatologist agrees that man plays a role in climate that means he is agreeing that Al Gore’s movie is accurate. They should ask the question : “Do you agree with Al Gore’s movie?”.
Also, to say that study still needs to be done on how man impacts climate is not an inaccuracy for anyone on either side of this issue to say. It is still not known exactly how much of an impact man has on climate. But we can see it is small, some say irrelevant. I’m satisfied with that level of knowing. But to say we know exactly, well, we just can’t say that. I don’t know exactly how much I weigh either. I have it satisfactorily narrowed down. But I don’t know exactly.
So would anyone like to send me some money so I can continue to buy, and then step on, a wider variety of scales to determine just exactly how much of an impact I have on a scale when I step on it?
With the impression I get from Congress and this 700 billion thingy they did a few months ago I bet I could get the money from them!
“” Pamela Gray (06:49:09) :
This is good news for California grapes and Florida oranges. Sun is good! Not so good for all the other states that thought they could grow grapes and oranges. We could see wine prices going back up and oranges getting scarce again. When I was a child and we were freezing in bitter cold, we drank home-made wine and one of our Christmas gifts was a family box of oranges. It was the only time Safeway had any oranges. “”
How do you figure that Pamela ? We aren’t going to have enough water in California, to even grow grapes; well maybe the farmers can grow sun-dried rasins right on the vine; that should make them cheap.
George
The current SST numbers are low enough to officially call this a La Nina but there has been a change in the conditions recently.
The big driver of the ENSO is low level Trade Winds at the equator – which blow east to west at the equator.
When the Trades are sustained above average for long periods of time, the warmer ocean surface waters gets blown/pushed to the western pacific and they are replaced by cold upwelling water from below and we have a La Nina.
When the Trades are below average for long sustained periods of time, the ocean surface stalls in place and gets heated day after day by the equatorial Sun and we are left with an El Nino. Sometimes, the Trades just stop and the warm water in the western pacific sloshes backwards into the ENSO region and we have a Kelvin Wave.
At one time, they used the Southern Oscillation index (which is probably too far to the West) to predict these winds but we now have better monitoring and we can directly measure the Trades Winds over top of the ENSO region.
For whatever reason, the Trade Winds in the centre of the ENSO regions have stopped blowing in the past several days and they have now gone below normal. There is very cold water below the Nino regions but if the Trades are not blowing, there is no upwelling of the cold water.
So, it is looking less likely a significant La Nina will develop but the current numbers are low enough to call it one.
Here is the time series of low level Trade Winds measured each day (Sept 2008 to Jan 20th, 2009).
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/zw/zw.obs.gif
“” Pierre Gosselin (11:55:00) :
tty
Maybe only 3164 respondents were counted! “”
Well that scientist survey was just a scam. They asked basically two questions.
1/ do you believe we have had a period of warmer temperatures in recent years (or words to that effect) ? Who wouldn’t say yes to that ?
2/ Do you think man has any influence on the climate ? Well who wouldn’t say yes to that.
3/ The question they didn’t ask. Do you think the extent of man’s influence on climate is significant ? So who would say yes to that.
So you ask some stupid questions, and you get some stupid answers.
I say we have a cigar either way.
“” An Inquirer (13:07:36) :
Regarding:
“The strongest consensus on the causes of global warming came from climatologists who are active in climate research, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.”
I believe it would be proper to ratchet down cynicism. Most likely, even most skeptical scientists in the AGW debate would agree that “humans play a role.” If we deforest eastern Africa, that will affect precipitation around Kilimanjaro and elsewhere. If we irrigate valleys in the West, that will affect temperature. If we built cities and change prairies to farmland, we will increase nocturnal temperatures. If we build roads and houses, we will decrease the albedo effect. (I believe that we have over 2.5 million square kilometers of blacktop in the United States – that is larger than the loss of Artic Ice under discussion and probably is impactful that the ice loss.) . . . Oh, I have not mentioned CO2 yet, and that subject has potential. Perhaps in the real world, CO2 has only 50 to 100% of the laboratory impact on temperature, but that is still more than zero. And we could also look at secondary socioeconomic impacts – increased CO2 has increased crop production which has enabled more humans to “thrive” and produce more heat through transportation, cooking, and HVAC activities. “”
All very good points enquirer.
So how come you didn’t say that any of those influences would be deletarious; or of any great significance.
The rain forests on the plains around Kilimanjaro, were all cut down centuries ago (by the natives), so nothing much has changed there in centuries. The ice still doesn’t melt, but it does sublime because of low humidity over the mountain; and that has nothing to dow ith global warming.