Click for larger image.
I don’t have tome to do a pixel analysis (anyone is welcome to do so and post in comments) but it appears by eyeball analysis that we may have about a 50-50 cool to warm anomaly over all of the oceans surface.
h/t to Bill Illis
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La Nina seems the likely scenario given the telltale warm pool at 160-180e, 150m depth, seen here.http://www.bom.gov.au/bmrc/ocean/results/ocean_anals/NCC_Equator/2009/Feb.gif
Bob Tisdale,
I enjoy perusing your website during my lunch period. However, FYI, images from tinypic.com are blocked by corporate firewalls in my company and possibly others. I’ve also had a similar problem with WUWT from time to time albeit not as often.
Thanks for all the great work on ENSO driving climate variation!
The problem I have with this type of color coded map is that it does not indicate what the anomoly is based on. For instance, there is no way the waters around Florida are cooler than the waters around Long Island. I realize that the map does not indicate temperature but the + or – from an “average” temperature for that particular area. But there is no indication of what the average is for each area or what time frame they are using to get the average temperature to base the anomoly on. Or perhaps I missed that.
Bob Tisdale
Glad you popped in. There have been a lot quires SSTs. I like doing my own charts but some times it’s hard to keep and analysis is not my strong point.
Your blog is an excellent resource for all regardless of experience. Thank you for the work you do.
Bob Tisdale (07:17:44) :
Thank you. Look forward to you next examination of the Barents Sea anomaly.
tsk.. your
Re: Bob Tisdale (08:25:40) :
I was bored and had some spare time in work so I assigned each colour in the graphic a temperature value, added them all up and divided by the number of pixels (excluding ice, land and legend pixels) and came up with the average. Its probably the wrong way to do it since the area of each pixel isn’t the same but I thought I’d give a go.
I removed all of the -0.5-+0.5 pixels, and corrected for latitudinal distortion. Below normal pixels are about 20% of the map area, and above normal pixels are about 10%.
The reason for removing those +/-<0.5 pixels is that they are too close to “normal” since no one really knows what normal is within that precision. Should a measurement at +0,01 be marked as yellow?
TerryS: I understand what you are doing.
The picture is more blue pixels.
Right:
Only the lack GISS algorithm.
Salutes
Cryosphere: global ice extend reaches clean zero anomaly 1/3/2009:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
In the days hereafter, it seems we will see positive anomalies:
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/opdaterede-sol-is-hav-temp-grafer-osv–d12-e424-s260.php#post_11160
It seems as though the conditions are slipping fast though, SOI is dropping as it did last year in March: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
and it has never been above 19-ish since the 08 la Nina,,, so conditions are cool but not as strong as last year, although this year it has persisted for longer.
I also noted that warm spot by Barents sea… it always seems to be there…
Also the horse-shoe cold negative PDO anomaly… fascinating stuff indeed!!
Hoping this year will bring some snow to South Africa like last year :), I’m sure it is at this point loathed by many in America and Eurasia but here we just can’t get enough of it when it rarely does fall!
Fred Nieuwenhuis (07:08:09) :
“Email received from John Sapper @ur momisugly NOAA in response to an email I sent him about apparent sensor issues (with regards to sea ice) that is mentioned above:
Hi Fred,
I should probably put a disclaimer on these images about the data not being reliable outside the 70 North to 70 South latitude range.
I don’t think it is a sensor issue. Only that the data are very sparse in polar regions.
Cheers,
John”
Fred,
This implicates that:
1. NOAA should add a permanent disclaimer for all their maps and it should also apply with the temp data sets.
2. NOAA does not know what’s happening at the poles.
Do you agree?
Bob Tisdale (07:17:44) :
It appears in both volcanically active areas (Iceland and Svalbard) You would think that unless they where about to blow they shouldn’t show up on an anomaly graphic. However anomaly graphics may miss this as they are a product of a time period and may shift depending on ocean currents. They get lost in the noise. Only when the currents change for a prolonged period from the anomaly period do they show up as a persistent hot spot. This would explain the southerly Icelandic hot spot.
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/color_anomaly_NPS_ophi0.png
Also World sea ice is at normal levels according to cryosphere today.
I suspect the effects of these (weak) La Nina conditions will only be seen same time as last year, around May due to the lag…but it probably won’t be as steep.
I might be wrong but we will just have to wait and see the May anomaly.
Richard111 (04:54:35) :
“Interesting “hotspot” in . . . ”
Off of the coast of Namibia where the cold Benquela Current is supposed to be. Your post caused me to look and notice. But, of course, I have no idea if this is part of a regular cycle or something.
O/T: (for all) See Climate Audit for a request for funds to rebuild CA’s server.
Pearland Aggie: You wrote, “images from tinypic.com are blocked by corporate firewalls in my company and possibly others.”
Thanks for telling me. I had no idea. Are the graphs blocked by the firewall when they’re part of blogspot thread also? Or does it only happen as a stand-alone tinypic address? What image posting site makes it through okay?
Richard 111
That hotspot has been stuck there for months and months. I think the measurement system might be flawed or something.
Adolfo Giurfa (08:26:18) : What did it happen, around, taking into account a time lag of 6 years, say,in 1991-92?
IIRC it snowed in the Santa Cruz mountains in California in places that don’t normally get much snow. Road to Mt. Hamilton was snowed shut. Cold…
Denis Hopkins above links to “Physics and Ethics Education Project”. Please take a look if you can. Ethicss is exactly the issue here and the PEEP site is clearly slanted.
Here we have an issue that threatens the economy of the world and because of this threatens the lives of literally millions of people. The PEEP site misrepresents the reality opf the situation and pretends for example that hypothetical ocean rise is a more serious than the real life economic dislocation and starvation of tens of millions. It is sick and twisted to pretend their positon is ethical.
Adolfo Giurfa: Weren’t the 1998/99/2000 and 2000/01 La Nina events a part of the 1997/98 El Nino? Weren’t they simply be an over-reaction of the equatorial Pacific as the SSTs returned to their “normal” conditions?
MartinGAtkins (11:06:10) :
“Bob Tisdale (07:17:44) :
The following link is to Figure 1 from that post. It’s the same NOAA map as above, but dated 5/5/08. Same hot spot.
http://i37.tinypic.com/2ld80ty.jpg
It appears in both volcanically active areas (Iceland and Svalbard) You would think that unless they where about to blow they shouldn’t show up on an anomaly graphic. However anomaly graphics may miss this as they are a product of a time period and may shift depending on ocean currents. They get lost in the noise. Only when the currents change for a prolonged period from the anomaly period do they show up as a persistent hot spot. This would explain the southerly Icelandic hot spot.
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/color_anomaly_NPS_ophi0.png”
MartinGAtkins and Bob Tisdale (07:17:44) :
Iris registered some heavy quakes near Svalgaard, three quakes, 6.4 RS
Bob Tisdale: My intention is to provoke a discussion about what were the reasons for that extraordinary event, instead of trying to forecast the future to try to “forecast” the past. Which were the causes. In short: To digg the past out.
Bob Tisdale,
Both are blocked. I cannot see either.
Thanks!
Adolfo. I agree. Asking questions about previous events, and making comparisons can lead to knowledge. I am not good at predictions. I just make observations. Frank
” Mary Hinge (07:30:35) :
robert brucker (06:17:02) :
The above map not only demonstrates La Nina. Correct me if I am wrong, but the horseshoe shaped cold anomaly around the warmer central Pacific represents the negative PDO persisting.
It certainly does, it was interesting that January showed that the -ive PDO was getting stronger http://jisao.washington.edu/p”
Another way is to ask the fishermen off the coast of Chile if they are catching any anchovies.
They do when it cold but not when it is El Nino warm.