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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The Spokane area recorded another cold (high for the day) daytime temperature record that smashed the old one by a bunch. Their records go back to the 1930’s.
O/T but February’s MSu readings out http://www.remss.com/data/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_2.txt
Temperatures down slightly on last month but still higher than last year when the La Nina was in full swing.
Thanks Martin, I wonder how both sides of Meso America can be tied in, presumably a combination of winds and clouds. An unusual late autumn (SH) La Nina is starting to look very possible now.
Then let´s digg some:
The other day someone asked about one big deep in GCR around 1991, Svensmark shows a graph two deeps of low altitude clouds due to GCR one in 1989 the other in 1992 (“The chilling stars”, p.77)…
Other relations?
The idea is to put all “suspects” in a row in front of witnesses…and see, among other things, if there was some relation “among them” 🙂
You wrote, “Both are blocked. I cannot see either.”
Well that stinks. I wonder how many other people have the same problem.
Do you use firefox at work? I just investigated this and it appears firefox doesn’t like tinypic images for some reason. It also doesn’t like blogger. Hmmm.
If I could trouble you to check these tomorrow when you get to work, it would be appreciated. They’re links to one of my favorite graphs–the ERSST.v3b version of the Southern Ocean.
Here’s an “image shack” link:
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/6193/southernoceanersstv3b.jpg
And here’s “pict.com” link:
http://img2.pict.com/94/86/7b/c3ced6c20fd19299a7eb2c3aa2/FGFPG/southernoceanersst.jpg
Did either of them make it past the firewall?
The only problem, while changing image-posting sites might help future posts, it wouldn’t do anything for the old images when I link to those. And it would do no good at all if blogger doesn’t make it through.
Pearland Aggie: Referring to my 16:22:19 comment above, I just checked my site stats and most of my visitors use firefox 3.0, so that might not be it…unless your employer uses an earlier version.
Weren’t they simply be an over-reaction of the equatorial Pacific as the SSTs returned to their “normal” conditions?
Two of the most frequently confused words in the English language in recent years are ‘normal’ and ‘average’.
‘Average’ is the statistical mean of some sample of a population. The average is only ‘normal’ when the sample is representative of the population as a whole, and the population has a normal distribution.
Since we have no idea over what periods natural climate cycles occur*, we have no way of knowing whether 30 years or any other time period is a representative sample of the population of climate values (ignoring numerous other issues with sampling climate).
Hence, to say a 30 year average is normal climate is just an assumption.
*Nor do we know if climate values have a normal distribution. It appears there are a number of climate oscillations (PDO, AMO, etc) that have warm and cold phases. Therefore, values are only normal in the context of the warm or cold phase, ie as part of that population of values.
It’s entirely possible (and IMO likely) that the 30 year average used to determine ‘normal’ values is a sample of warm phase conditions (with a couple of volcanic eruptions thrown in for good measure). And we are now going into the cold phase.
Bob Tisdale. You observed the La Nina of 1998-2001,( 3 months of negative 0.4), may have been a reaction to the 1997-1998 El Nino. But the total number of warm anomaly months was 14, but the cold anomalies stretched out for 35 months. Is it possible the cooling we are seeing now,( PDO,AMO,ENSO, AMSUs), was born in the Super La Nina of 1998-2001?http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml Frank
The RSS mid trop. temps for Feb. Global .144, up slightly, tropics -.075, USA -.085.http://www.remss.com/data/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TMT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_2.txt ISTM, the very cold temps. at altitude ( 25,000-56,000), are gradually working their way lower, over time.
RSS has 0.230 C for February’s anomoly down from 0.322 C in January. — John M Reynolds
Frank Mosher: You wrote, “Is it possible the cooling we are seeing now,( PDO,AMO,ENSO, AMSUs), was born in the Super La Nina of 1998-2001?”
Speculation only: I’d be more apt to say that the Super El Nino of 97/98 was responsible for residual warming up until the last few years, with some additional help from the minor El Ninos in 2002/03, 2004/05, and 2006/07. (Kyle Swanson and Anastasios Tsonis recently reported that the 97/98 El Nino realigned all the climate modes.) Now that that additional heat has disipated, the other indices have realigned again and are headed in the other direction, with help from the decade old decline in Southern Ocean SST anomalies.
The current ENSO forecasts predict that the mild La Nina will turn into a mild El Nino by the end of the year.
These forecasts, however, did not have this new development built-in of -2.0C anomalies at the beginning of the Nino 3.0 region (the anomalies are not really in the Nino 1,2 regions which is a little south of these cold pools – the Nino 1,2 regions would show up as slightly above average right now).
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/1364/ninoareascli3.jpg
Cold pools in this region almost always indicate strenthening La Nina conditions in the long-run (although it will float back and forth for a period of months).
So, I’m just going with the Trade Wind correlation which indicates the La Nina will strengthen.
The Trades in all regions are above average right now (but not hugely above average) and they have been above average for a long time now which indicates this cold pool will start migrating across the Pacific now and be replaced by even colder water from below and who knows how cold it will get overall.
So, we will just have to watch and it might take a few more months before we can say “wow, a really big La Nina has set in” or whether the forecasts are right and a mild El Nino will develop. The forecast models are not always accurate.
@Bob Tisdale
“Do you use firefox at work? I just investigated this and it appears firefox doesn’t like tinypic images for some reason. It also doesn’t like blogger. Hmmm.”
I don’t have any problem with tinypic on Firefox, but it could be the type of firewall protection they use. At work we use a ‘trusted source’ algorithm to weed out sites that are otherwise accessible from behind the firewall, and companies can set their own policy about what sites they consider safe/appropriate etc. for work.
I can reach tinypic images from my department (lunch break only, in case my boss is reading this!), but others in other departments can’t, since their security policy is tuned to be tighter than ours.
“RSS has 0.230 C for February’s anomoly”
That’s about what I figured based on AMSU daily readings. I had it ~.25.
This is the site I follow;
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst.html
NOAA I understand does’t have make a profit. Good thing too!
Bill, are the models set up to assume connections between these various warm and cool pools (from your post it sounds like they are) that predict warmer times ahead? I am wondering if these mini oscillations are not so intricately connected and swing in and out of sync under their own power. That means that the model prediction, based on assumed connections that aren’t there, will not land it’s prediction on the bulls eye. If these pools manage to swing together, and you are right about the trades, the big pond to the left of us could get mighty cold, followed by even further temperature drops as the effects of this cold pond roar over the top of us in North America. What would take the picture over the top would be if the SO and AMO (and any other oscillations out there who want to joing the party) decided to follow suit.
Are these people nuts? I just got this on CNN form the BBC:
More bad news on climate change
Matt McGrath
BBC environment reporter
Scientists will present the most recent data on sea level rise
More bad news on climate change is expected as more than 2,000 climate scientists gather in Copenhagen.
They will be trying to pull together the latest research on global warming ahead of political negotiations later in the year.
The scientists are concerned that the 2007 reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are already out of date.
Their data suggests greater rises in sea levels this century.
For the scientists gathering in the Danish capital, this meeting is about removing as much wriggle room as possible from the political negotiations on a new global climate treaty taking place in December.
While the IPCC reports of 2007 were praised for their recognition of the causes of global warming, the slow, consensus-based nature of the process, meant more recent data was not included.
Greater clarity
But with this meeting taking place outside the IPCC, it means it will have the very latest estimates, and the scientists will have no need to agree every word with the political masters.
This unfettered atmosphere is likely to produce greater clarity about the scale of some very worrying trends, especially sea level rise.
The IPCC was widely criticised for stating that sea level rise this century would only amount to 59cm (23in).
The most recent data, to be presented here, will suggest a far higher figure with dramatic implications for many island nations and coastal regions.
The meeting is being organised by the University of Copenhagen. Its prorector Lykke Friis said the scientists would be presenting the latest and the clearest information, meaning political leaders would not have the excuse that they needed more research before agreeing on a deal.
As well as hearing from scientists, the meeting will also look at the social and economic impacts of the global rise in temperatures.
Bill Illis (17:51:45) et al.
I doubt the short term strengthening of the cool anomalies in Nino3 signal a restrengthening of the current La Nina, instead, I think it is this La Nina’s “last gasp”. CPC’s weekly ENSO updates
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
have shown that the 0-300 meter oceanic heat contents (a “leading” indicator of warm and cool episodes) have been steadily rising since late December, which is reflected in the shrinking area of cool anomalies at thermocline depth. The recent appearance of the cooler sea surface anomalies in Nino3 appear to simply be upwelling of the last of the cold water around thermocline depth.
Random musing from a madman: If Earth had a global temperature, why would there be icecaps? Wouldn’t it all be ice or all water? Sorry, I know it’s off topic, but I am a random kinda guy.
RSS Mar .32
RSS Feb .23
UAH Jan .30
UAH Feb .36
Now that is a major divergence, and opposite sign.
That should be RSS Jan .32
La Niña’s/ El Niño’s are like waiting on the rising up of the “Great Pumpkin” in the pumpkin patch!
You really HAVE to believe in your heart that the great pumpkin is coming … I mean really commit yourself to it, like “IT’S COMING! ”….. like predicting AGW doom and gloom prediction. Hehe!
OH, OK and maybe a SC 24/23/? sun spec or two! 😛 LOL
*EXITING WITH Monty Python “Always look at the bright side if life” : )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo
In http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/
one gets both the SST temperatures and the SST anomalies, every week or so.
At the bottom there is animation for both.
One can see the persistence of hots spots in the anomalies.
I do not know whether these data differ from the posted on top. Satellite data origins are confusing.
SSSailor and anna v: Do either of you know whose SST data unisys uses?
Note how in the current unisys SST anomalies that SSSailor linked there is no hotspot in the Barents Sea, North of Scandinavia, but in the NOAA version at the top of this thread there is the hotspot.
RE: http://www.peep.ac.uk I added a couple of comments on their pages. My knowledge in this area of climate change is limited. Although I have learnt a lot from this site. Thanks Anthony! If anyone with greater knowledge and a bit of spare time could do so it would be useful for you to comment on the pages. These pages will be used by students and teachers in the UK to gain an understanding of climate change. If it is just me adding comments they will think I am just an activist of some type who is pushing a political agenda ( well that never happens does it!)