Can’t you just see this scrolling across your TV during an EAS alert?”…. If this had been an actual El Niño, you would have been instructed on where to complain to your nearest modeler turned forecaster….” I wonder what kind of graphical icon TWC will come up with for an El Niño Watch? – Anthony
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feb. 5, 2009
Contact: Linda Joy
301 713-0622, ext. 127
NOAA Unveils New Alert System for La Niña and El Niño
La Niña Likely to Continue into Spring
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center today issued the first La Niña advisory under its new El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Alert System. Forecasters expect La Niña to influence weather patterns across the United States during the remainder of the winter and into the early spring.
Defined as cooler than normal sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, La Niña impacts the weather globally. La Niña’s opposite is El Niño, or warmer than normal ocean temperatures. These changes in ocean temperatures alter the tropical wind and rainfall patterns with far reaching implications.
“The typical weather patterns associated with La Niña and El Niño affect many industries including agriculture, transportation, energy, shipping and construction,” said Michael S. Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center. “The ENSO Alert System will succinctly inform industry, government agencies, academia and the public about the onset and status of La Niña and El Niño. This system will also help decision makers plan for the potential effects presented by these conditions.”
La Niña conditions have been present since late December, but it is too early to say exactly how strong the event will be and precisely how long it will last. However, for the next few months La Niña is expected to bring milder and drier than average conditions to the southeastern and southwestern states. It is also expected to bring wetter-than-average conditions to the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, and cooler than average temperatures to the Pacific Northwest.
The new ENSO alert system includes La Niña and El Niño watches and advisories which the Climate Prediction Center will issue when specific conditions exist.
- La Niña or El Niño Watch: conditions in the equatorial Pacific are favorable for the development of La Niña or El Niño conditions in the next three months.
- La Niña or El Niño Advisory: La Niña or El Niño conditions have developed and are expected to continue.
These watches and advisories are now part of the ENSO Diagnostic Discussion, which is issued by the Climate Prediction Center on the Thursday falling between the 5th and 11th of every month. It is available online at http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
– 30 –
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I can just imagine when the next el nino emerges. The alerts will go out to the public as if we were being attacked and of course it will be due to AGW.
Peruvians and Australians do not need to read anything about la Nina or el Nino, we just feel it everyday. I would say, as NOAA, this is a mild la nina, but, as many posts in WUWT suggest we are now entering in very interesting times: So check la nina against SIM, Livingston and Penn theory, Svensmark´s CR decrease, charvatova´s trefoils, etc., everything fits.
timbrom (07:24:51) : Who’s Helmut and why do you need him in the shelter?
A cartoon from long long ago… helpful dog character… though it looks like there is a newer take on the theme:
http://www.collywood.com/woof/helmut/index.html
Slightly OT but the AMSU values are very interesting at the moment and seem to be following AGW predictions solidly at the moment. There has been a large drop in temperatures at 21km the last week or so. http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps+007
Meanwhile temperature below 7.5km have started increasing again.
Hopefully they are better at predicting El Nino’s and La Ninas, than they are at predicting low temps.
Example, here in Ann Arbor (where I work) the forcast for the overnight low wednesday night/thursday morning, was a bitter cold 3 degrees F (I even have the newspaper as proof). The actual low for Thursday morning was…
-19 F.
http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/monthly/USMI0028?from=sixten_topnav
It was just a 1 day forcast, and they blew the forcast by 22 degrees!
This has been the worst one, but in the past several weeks, they have routinely missed the low temp by at least 5-10 degrees numerous times.
Pierre,
There’s one other piece to the puzzle that is starting to get really curious — the lack of sunspots. We’ve passed 400 spotless days in this minimum and it’s getting, frankly, a bit creepy. One thing’s for sure; the competing hypotheses are going to get a clear test.
While it would be amusing to see a big minimum (“the Gore minimum”) lead to another serious cold spell, the consequences for mankind would not be fun. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, including us.
The coincidence of all this is just amazing though. “The powers that be” just seem to have a way of slapping down big egos. I really feel sorry for big Al.
Bob Tisdale may have better insight, but the outlier appears, IMHO, to be NINO 4. Although NINOs 1,2, and 3 have fluctuated on either side of neutral, for the past year, with very positve temps. last July, NINO 4 barely made it back to neutral(.01), then. Maybe Bob can shed some insight into any historical significance to a persistently cold NINO4.
Mary. I am sorry, but “models” don’t interest me. I am more interested in the here and now. I also watch the AMSU temps. daily. I like the 17 km readings because they incorporate the 20 year average. So far this year, every day is cooler than the same day last year. The temps. at 17 km tend to be very consistent, with little month to month change, so for me, the trend is easier to discern.When temperatures are going down, IMHO, that is cooling.
NOAA Unveils New Alert System for La Sunrise and El Sunset!
I already had one: Watts Up With That?!!
OT on this thread but it’s worth a look for those who think that the AGW hypothesis is driving us to make daft policy decisions in the energy arena
http://co2sceptics.com/news.php?id=2738
I am convinced we have have an energy problem arising in the UK – we have invested a great deal in wind power which produces about the output of one medium sized power station at a grossly elevated economic cost and now have carbon taxes impacting household power bills by as much as 16%
I seriously doubt we will be able to meet power demand in the medium term in the UK
Frederick Michael (10:42:01) :
There’s one other piece to the puzzle that is starting to get really curious — the lack of sunspots. We’ve passed 400 spotless days in this minimum and it’s getting, frankly, a bit creepy. One thing’s for sure; the competing hypotheses are going to get a clear test.
We passed 510 spotless days for this minimum at the end of 2008, we should be be around ~540 spotless days by now.
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html#Evolution
This is significantly longer than the average 20th century cycle (16-23), but still less than late 19th century cycles (10-15). The 19th century was cooler…
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html#Main
2009 will be very interesting indeed.
PaulHClark, that is a very worrisome observation, especially if the possibility exists that there is a cooling trend.
Perhaps it is part of the NHS plan to combat obesity since shivering in the cold is probably good aerobic exercise.
On The Hijacking of the American Meteorological Society (AMS)
by Bill Gray
Professor Emeritus Colorado State University
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/On_The_Hijacking_of_the_American_Meteorological_Society.pdf
“I am appalled at the selection of James Hansen as this year’s recipient of the AMS’s highest award – the Rossby Research Medal. James Hansen has not been trained as a meteorologist. His formal education has been in astronomy. His long records of faulty global climate predictions and alarmist public pronouncements have become increasingly hollow and at odds with reality. Hansen has exploited the general public’s lack of knowledge of how the globe’s climate system functions for his own benefit. His global warming predictions, going back to 1988 are not being verified. Why have we allowed him go on for all these years with his faulty and alarmist prognostications? And why would the AMS give him its highest award?”
As my wise physics professor said in 1958 (statics and dynamics) “If you know all of the forces acting or that will act on a body of mass, then you can accurately predict the future acceleration, velocity and position of the body of mass. If you don’t know all of these forces, you are only guessing.”
Earlier on, when I was taking a heavy-duty chemistry course in 1953 (4 year USAF delay) my chemistry professor explained just why mercury thermometers were inaccurate at mid-ranges (between the freezing point and boiling point of water). He also explained, through the laws of probability, why there was no reason at all to assume that these inaccuracies would “balance out”.
I do absolutely love knowing scientific notation. In days of slide-rules, what a marvelous way of making quick and accurate estimates. Is scientific notation even taught thoroughly nowadays? For sure, the basics of physics and chemistry aren’t.
Ed
Did you read the Appendix A & B? Now there is some stuff to be discussed as I mentioned at 09:41:25. I wonder what Bob Tisdale thinks of it. I would like to know more about the empirical evidence from the AQ satellite too.
OT
This has likely been brought up, but the recent stratospheric warming may have serious weather implications in the coming weeks.
Many are scratching their heads as it is off the charts warm when cooling was forecast.
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/clisys/STRAT/html_e/pole30_n.html
If things fall into place, we may be seeing some extreme winter weather after the current warm up takes its course. Who would care to take a stab at what is going on? What is influencing this phenomenon?
See this discussion:
http://www.netweather.tv/forum/index.php?showtopic=50299&st=255
If you can’t get the forecast out to 10 days right how to you have a chance in hell of getting it out to 10 years, sorry for the rant !!
Pierre Gosselin (08:54:13) :
After reading about Gavingate at CA, I absolutely felt compelled to leave a tip to Steve McIntyre’s site. In fact it’s a good time to leave a tip to any of these websites. Guess I’m just feeling generous today.
I urge others to do the same.
That’s a great idea. On the other hand, why not subscribe (by leaving a tip regularly). These guys are GOOD — better than any publications I take these days. And we not only get Antthony and Steve, but an entire parade of characters who not only opine and debate, but give us some of the hottest science. What could be more attractive than that?! (I include IceCap, too, and a few others.)
Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?
By Timothy Ball
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm
“Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification. For example, Environment Canada brags about spending $3.7 billion in the last five years dealing with climate change almost all on propaganda trying to defend an indefensible scientific position while at the same time closing weather stations and failing to meet legislated pollution targets.”
Thanks Bob, that explains it quite well.
Just one question though regarding your analogy of storms – is it quite the same? If La Nina conditions apply, does the predominant weather change immediately as a consequence? Or is there a lag of some months before the weather conditions follow the La Nina conditions?
Storm warnings imply a storm event could happen soon, whereas in the La Nina case, the conditions are already physically happening (ie: anomalies are negative), and therefore are potentially already driving weather changes. It’s just that the historical La Nina episode still needs to play out over 5 months. Is that correct – is the episode just a statistical nicety, while the conditions are a physical reality? Or is there physical meaning in the definition of an episode?
If the La Nina conditions imply an immediate effect on weather, then the NOAA warnings are sensible, I would say. There’s no point in waiting 5 months to find out that an episode has occurred, you need to know that the weather conditions could change now.
I’m still trying to get my head around all this, and I found your blog very informative, especially regarding the ENSO effect on PDO. Thanks very much.
It is time to speak out against one of the most appalling examples of sex discrimination in history. In all my time as a spokesperson for the feminist cause I have never come across anything so deeply offensive.
Some man, I bet it was a man, decided that names must be given to cold sea water and warm seawater and he called the cold water The Little Girl and the warm water The Little Boy ! What an affront to my dignity (or it would be if I had any).
I demand an immediate end to this gratuitous, politically-motivated outrage !
Frank Mosher: You wrote, “Bob Tisdale may have better insight, but the outlier appears, IMHO, to be NINO 4. Although NINOs 1,2, and 3 have fluctuated on either side of neutral, for the past year, with very positve temps. last July, NINO 4 barely made it back to neutral(.01), then. Maybe Bob can shed some insight into any historical significance to a persistently cold NINO4.”
Frank, there’s a reasonable explanation for the disparity between the SST anomalies in the NINO1, 2, 3 and 4 regions, and to help explain it, the following is a comparative graph of NINO 1&2 (combined), NINO3, and NINO4 SSTs (not anomalies).
http://i41.tinypic.com/1q3dkw.jpg
SSTs along the equatorial Pacific are coldest in the East (NINO1&2) and warmest in the West (Pacific Warm Pool, not illustrated). This is a function of the trade winds “piling” the warmer water in the West and allowing more cool water to upwell in the East. The NINO3 area is farther West than NINO1&2 and is therefore warmer, and the NINO4 area being farther West again is still warmer. When the trade winds relax and the warm water in the Pacific Warm Pool “sloshes” East (an El Nino), the temperature difference between the Pacific Warm Pool and the NINO4 region is less than the temperature difference between the Warm Pool and the NINO1&2 region. Therefore, the anomalies in the West (NINO4) are impacted less than the anomalies in the East (NINO1&2). Refer to the comparative graph of the NINO 1&2 (combined), NINO3, and NINO4 SST anomalies.
http://i44.tinypic.com/zygdup.jpg
Thank you, Ed Scott, for posting my fathers articles. At least Canada Free Press has the marbles to print his stuff. No one else has for fear of retribution. One of the many stabs by critics is that he doesn’t publish. See if you can guess why. We are very humble folks and I dare not risk credibility by posting them myself. Thank you. Our house was not a house of indoctrination. We had to form our own opinions through research, no matter what the subject. Today I am very grateful for this, as I can think for myself, and am not afraid to ask the tough questions. Yet still have the humility to continue learning and growing. To quote Isaac Asimov; ” Since the coming of the atomic bomb, more and more scientists have come down from the ivory towers; more and more feel they cannot, after all, evade the responsibility for the applications others make of their own refined, above-the-world researches. That represents the growth of humility, without which there is the tendency to assume too great a certainty and therefore too small a need to learn more.” This is a perfect description of my father (and Anthony, moderators and posters), but certainly not many others in this field of study.
Carsten,
Great link. I was using solarcycle24.com, which must use a stricter standard for “no spots.”
We’ve already had another 30 spotless days since the last update on the j.janssens site so that’s 540 spotless days and counting. Another fun bit is that the most recent spot didn’t look like a member of cycle 24 (see spaceweather.com for January 19th).
Yikes.