From Scientific American via Reuters
By David Fogarty, Climate Change Correspondent, Asia
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Research showing an El Nino event in 1918 was far stronger than previously thought is challenging the notion climate change is making El Nino episodes more intense, a U.S. scientist said on Tuesday.
El Nino causes global climate chaos such as droughts and floods. The events of 1982/83 and 1997/98 were the strongest of the 20th Century, causing loss of life and economic havoc through lost crops and damage to infrastructure.
But Ben Giese of Texas A&M University said complex computer modelling showed the 1918 El Nino event was almost as strong and occurred before there was much global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels or widespread deforestation.
The outcome of the research was valuable for several reasons, Giese told Reuters from Perth in Western Australia.
“It questions the notion that El Ninos have been getting stronger because of global warming,” he said ahead of a presentation of his team’s research at a major climate change conference in Perth.
The 1918 event also co-incided with one of India’s worst droughts of the 20th century.
“We know that El Ninos and drought in India are often related to each other,” he said.
El Nino is an abnormal warming of the surface waters in the eastern Pacific off South America that causes the normally rainy weather in the western Pacific to shift further to the east.
This causes drought in parts of Australia, Southeast Asia and India as well as flooding in Chile and Peru, colder and wetter winters in the southern United States and fewer Atlantic hurricanes.
The droughts in Australia of 1982-83 and 1997-98 rank among the worst in the nation’s modern history. Drought also occurred in eastern Australia from 1918-20.
Giese said his team ran a complex ocean computer model that, for the first time, used the results of a separate atmospheric model produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The result was a simulation of ocean temperatures, currents and other measures from 1908 to 1958.
For 1918, the simulation produced a strong abnormal surface warming in the central Pacific and weaker warming nearer the South American coast.
There were very few measurements of the tropical Pacific during 1918, the last year of World War One, and ship-based measurements along the South American coast suggested only a weak El Nino.
This, Giese said, reinforced the point that there is limited data about El Ninos prior to the 1950s and that computer models were one way to get a clearer picture of the past.
“We cannot rely on what El Nino looks like today to try to understand what El Nino patterns looked like in the past.”
“It makes it a challenge to talk about El Nino and global warming because we simply don’t have a detailed record,” he added.
“Of all of the early predictions made with global warming back in the 1960’s we have seen evidence slowly mounting for all of it. Increased size of deserts, severe storms, flooding in some areas, doughts and wild fires in others as global precipitation redistributes. There is a direct link with increased global precipitation and global warming.”
Of course, one unusually cold winter and we are up snow creek without a shovel. Increased precipitation means more snow. More snow means more reflected solar energy. More reflected solar energy means brrrrr.
And if you look at Pagani’s graph displaying change in temps, CO2, and continental flooding, you will see that dryer times have been the norm for quite a while. Long before we started burning fossil fuels.
It is a nice thought that we can freeze the climate where it is, but not realistic.
It gets old seeing “Reports of 50 new species found in New Guinea, Hansen claims models predicted this.” day in and day out. You wish to defend it, fine, but can you tell me what fallacies exist in the modeled scenarios?
Add long to ‘unusually cold (&long)’ winter….
I previously posted a rather simple clue to the Nino phenomenon in that it is driven by the Trade Winds (which flow East to West at the equator).
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/17/the-trade-winds-drive-the-enso/
I didn’t have a good answer to what drives these Trade Winds. Differences in atmospheric pressure have been proposed to be the cause but I found the pressure differentials even through the Southern Oscillation Index lags a little behind the Nino anomalies meaning they are not the driver.
I’m still working through this but I think it really comes to the Atmospheric Angular Momentum. The rotation of the earth literally speeds up during but mostly after El Nino events (a few tenths of a thousandth of a second.)
Atmospheric Winds create a drag on the rotation of the Earth. But the Earth’s rotation also creates a feedback causing the atmospheric winds to slow down or speed up when there is an imbalance.
The Trade Winds are also a balance to the higher latitude winds (which flow West to East). The law of conservation of Angular Momentum means that the East-to-West Trade Winds must pick up when the higher latitude West-to-East winds pick up. During an El Nino, the Trades Winds slow down as higher latitude winds slow down to balance off any imbalances they may have created in the Angular Momentum.
The sloshing of higher temperature ocean water from the West Pacific Warm Pool into the Nino region and even Kelvin Waves might just be the oceans participating in the Conservation of Angular Momentum.
The rotation of the whole Earth will overwhelm any atmospheric drag effects in the short term forcing the atmosphere to respond. This is in spite of the fact that the Earth’s rotation is slowly slowing down in part due to the atmospheric drag and ocean tide effects modulated by the Moon. The Moon use to be closer and the tides used to be greater and the day used to be shorter and I imagine the Nino use to have bigger variation.
In the short-term, the winds ebb and flow but the 24 hour Earth day keeps them in some kind of balance. I need monthly data of Atmospheric Angular Momentum to show this better.
In the meantime, this fascinating animation of clouds over a full year might show what I’m saying a little better.
https://www.ucar.edu/publications/nsf_review/animations/ccm3.512×256.mpg
Bob, you wrote
‘The higher frequency and magnitude of El Nino events led to global warming.’
I agree with you that ENSO events are natural and transport heat to the poles – I didn’t disagree with you there. My argument was that El Ninos are not the cause of global warming, but are more prevalent because of it.
Something that this artical was trying to disprove by stating that in the past there has been equally large El Nino events so modern warming trends have no effect on their magnitude.
It makes sense that feedback mechanisms designed to cool the planet would operate with more frequency/severity if the global system is warmer.
Your data is really interesting but the record doesn’t extend back very far while links between atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures are in the geological record over millenia. I’m not saying CO2 is total definitive cause of all the warming mechanisms we see, but more CO2 in the atmosphere does inhibit the ocean loosing heat to space. The data clearly shows a match between the rate of warming and the rate of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere.
‘Global temperatures lag ENSO events’
Looking at your data it appears that global temperature peaks trigger sustained El Nino reoccurances and has done so more since 1900. Both global temperatures and SST peak at the same time, then Global temperatures drop while El Nino SST anomalies continue for a while afterward. Then stop when global temperatures hit a low point. The moment they stop, global temperature is able to increase again. Notice how both temperature curves have increased at the same rate since 1900? No matter how strong these events become there is still heat in the system. It cannot escape out into space quickly enough.
Assuming this pattern continues and eventually we see a the complete melt of Arctic ice, the resulting freshwater would prevent effective thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic. If this occurs then we would see increased snowfall over Europe reflecting more heat back into space than is possible at the poles even when covered in ice. I actually doubt all the ice would leave the poles though, it would likely redistribute as some papers have shown.
‘Are you discussing the La Nina of 2007/08 and the current La Nina conditions and how they relate to Northern European weather? If so, I don’t pay much attention to weather ‘
Yes. I’m talking about ocean currents transporting heat around the globe which in turn affect how much moisture the atmosphere carries. This leads to alterations in more localised weather systems. You can’t really choose to ignore it. Heat transfer in water and the atmosphere are both important to the global heat budget.
“Of all of the early predictions made with global warming back in the 1960’s we have seen evidence slowly mounting for all of it. Increased size of deserts, severe storms, flooding in some areas, doughts and wild fires in others as global precipitation redistributes. There is a direct link with increased global precipitation and global warming.”
I hope you are not refereing to Katrina 2005 (And the predictions by fearmongers that storms would become more severe each year afterwards) and the Australian fires this year because if you are your statement is complete rubbish.
‘You seem to be repeating a lot of stuff from Al Gore’
Actually, Al Gore has been repeating a lot of stuff from the scientific community at large. Back when I was studying this stuff at Uni I didn’t know who the heck Al Gore was, besides being the bloke that lost to George Bush.
Besides, how does Al Gore getting facts about a photo incorrect relate to the global warming debate? That’s like saying you couldn’t post one comment properly so therefore all your comments are wrong. A bit silly, no?
‘Of course, one unusually cold winter and we are up snow creek without a shovel. Increased precipitation means more snow. More snow means more reflected solar energy. More reflected solar energy means brrrrr. ‘
Basic geography lesson on how the Earth deals with heat, white reflects dark absorbs.
Increased precipitation does not necessarily mean more snow, it can mean rain too. Warm oceans evaporate and put moiture into the atmosphere – where and how it falls is anyones guess. Or a modellers work.
‘And if you look at Pagani’s graph displaying change in temps, CO2, and continental flooding, you will see that dryer times have been the norm for quite a while. Long before we started burning fossil fuels. ‘
Pagani’s work supports CO2 being a climate forcing mechanism – Where are you going with this?
‘I hope you are not refereing to Katrina 2005 (And the predictions by fearmongers that storms would become more severe each year afterwards) and the Australian fires this year because if you are your statement is complete rubbish.’
Nope, I’m not.
http://www.biocab.org/Geological_TS_SL_and_CO2.jpg
This graph shows a stronger correlation between flooding and CO2 than CO2 and temperature change.
In his book about the onset of the LIA, Prof. William Chester Jordan has extracted from contemporary accounts the following scenario. The summer of 1314, Great Britain had a wet and cold summer which crashed agricultural output. The summer of 1315, Western Europe and G.B. had very cold and wet summers. This pattern continued till 1322 when the growing season improved somewhat. Halfway through the 7 yrs. the livestock started dying from the constant wet and cold. The title of the book is ‘The Great Famine’. If his research is accurate, the climate went from MWP to LIA in 2 yrs. The last two summers in G.B. have been wet and cold. Time will tell.
“Basic geography lesson on how the Earth deals with heat, white reflects dark absorbs.
Increased precipitation does not necessarily mean more snow, it can mean rain too. Warm oceans evaporate and put moisture into the atmosphere – where and how it falls is anyone’s guess. Or a modelers work.”
Didn’t mean to come across as condescending. Where and how it falls is anyone’s guess. Modelers model what happens in a given scenario. They are largely wrong, but sometimes right. Of course, sometimes they can appear correct until reality yanks the rug out from under them (see Wall Street and the junk bond magic show, admission varies as an exponential function of income). Could be rain, could be snow. Could be land, could be ocean. Of course, natural climate variability is evident here.
Just off hand, why is flooding on a constant downward trend? How exactly do we blame that on CO2?
The changes in solar irradiance (TSI) are said to be around 0.01% over the course of a complete solar cycle, and UV variance is greater.
Temperatures recorded over historic time (what, a few hundred years) have been in whole degrees Farenheit, now converted to Celsius in hundreths and sometimes thousandths of a degree.
So what is the natural state of earth, absent the sun? It would seem to be somewhere close to absolute zero. So what happens when everything is based on zero and we use the Kelvin scale?
Is there a credible argument that if you measure the sun in absolute terms you must also measure everything else in absolute terms?
Terry J:
The natural state of the Earth is what it is now. It is naturally doing what it does in response to outside factors. What are the outside factors?
sarah (12:46:29) :
‘There is no evidence of an increase in the frequency of strong El Nino events.’
Note I said frequency not strength.
There are seven strong El Ninos, NOAA forgot 1998. The three strongest are 1972, 1983 and 1998 since 1950. Of the seven two 1987 and 1991 fall between the two strongest so your statement that the most recent three have been the strongest is false.
The link you gave me only deals with hurricanes that effect the USA. The USA is not the globe.
Read this again.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/12/global-hurricane-activity-has-decreased-to-the-lowest-level-in-30-years/
I wrote:
How about 10 years? The Younger Dryas cooling of about 12,000 years ago “began and ended within a decade and for its 1000 year duration the North Atlantic region was about 5°C colder.”
sarah wrote:
You’re sidestepping the issue, Sarah. If a 5°C change within 10 years is within natural variability, why do you say “the Earth’s climate is changing faster than it should by natural variation”? I asked for citations, but you didn’t provide any.
So if the ice melts and triggers a cooling, then it’s clearly natural variation. CO2 levels lag temperature changes. It’s a mistake to try to control CO2 to the detriment of prosperity when that prosperity is what would enable people to adapt to climate change–whether for warmer or cooler.
Sarah, you wrote, “Something that this artical was trying to disprove by stating that in the past there has been equally large El Nino events so modern warming trends have no effect on their magnitude.”
But as I illustrated in my links above, the early higher magnitude El Nino events was not news. Here are the links to the raw HADISST and HADSST2 NINO3.4 SST anomaly data again so you don’t have to go searching for them:
http://s5.tinypic.com/2con29d.jpg
http://s5.tinypic.com/6j3u5i.jpg
You wrote, “but more CO2 in the atmosphere does inhibit the ocean loosing heat to space.”
The hypothesis goes: CO2 warms the top few centimeters of the oceans, then through mixing caused by waves and wind, CO2 also warms the mixing layer and inhibits loss of heat to space. We should then see a higher rate of warming during the more recent period than during the early warming period of the 20th century if CO2 has become a major forcing. But the rates of warming, the trends, for those two periods are fundamentally the same. Refer to:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/03/has-global-warming-accelerated.html
You wrote, “Looking at your data it appears that global temperature peaks trigger sustained El Nino reoccurances and has done so more since 1900… …No matter how strong these events become there is still heat in the system. It cannot escape out into space quickly enough.”
Assuming you’re discussing Figure 5 in my post “Low Frequency ENSO Oscillations”, you’re reading too much into the correlation of two totally different datasets. I would think it would be better, if you wanted to compare the two in any detail, that you would apply the Gaussian-weighted filtering to the HADSST NINO3.4 data as opposed to the Mann reconstruction, then perform your comparison. My statement, “Global temperatures lag ENSO events,” had to do with the lag between NINO region SST anomalies and global temperature, which is on the order of 3 to 6 months. Refer to Trenberth et al (2000) “Evolution of El Nino–Southern Oscillation and global atmospheric surface temperatures.”
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/papers/jgr2001b/jgr2.html
You wrote, “Assuming this pattern continues and eventually we see a the complete melt of Arctic ice, the resulting freshwater would prevent effective thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic.”
What proof is there that variations in sea ice “would prevent effective” THC, other than conjecture? In 2008, sea ice extent varied from ~14.5 million sq km in winter months to ~6.2 million sq km during summer months. Refer to the historical University of Illinois Sea Ice dataset.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/SEAICE/timeseries.1870-2008
But in 1870, sea ice extent only varied from ~15.5 million sq km in winter months to ~10.9 million sq km during summer months. During that time, not only has the extent decreased, but the ice volume would have decreased as well, adding even more fresh water to the THC cycle. In recent years, has that increased amount of fresh water prevented effective THC? The AMO still varies and it appears to be impacted more by ENSO than anything else.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/11/atlantic-meridional-overturning.html
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/02/there-are-also-el-nino-induced-step.html
You wrote, “You can’t really choose to ignore it.”
I pay closest attention to global, hemispheric, oceanic, and regional SST patterns. Occasionally, I post about LST and TLT, rarely about TSI. If there’s more precipitation over Northern Europe from one year to the next, I wouldn’t know.
Here’s one more tidbit for you to consider. I’ve shown that global SST anomalies are simply a function of NINO3.4 SST anomalies. Scale the NINO3.4 SST anomalies, plot the running total of the scaled NINO3.4 SST anomalies, and throw in some noise from volcanic eruptions and from variations in TSI and ENSO. It duplicates global SST anomalies better than most GCMs.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/reproducing-global-temperature.html
Can you do the opposite to reinforce your case?
Sarah:
There were many big El Nino events in the past, many yeas before europeans came to america. Between 500 to 700 AD Moche culture was wiped out by big el ninos.
How was the Sun for them? Look:
http://www.giurfa.com/theangrysun.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moche
And don´t take it lightly, in the region there were cities 5000 years ago, as Caral http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=700900783139955717
There were not Gwrs. back then
Whenever I read or hear anti-global warming ideas all I hear is “i love to litter and pollute. Don’t take that away from me.”
Political existence and action is justified in part by crises or threat of crises. (Any crisis will do.) The lifeblood of scientific research (and of politics) is money, and money for scientific research often comes from government grants. The political machine has a vested interest in funding scientific research that proves crises and so justifies political existence and action.
In this light, the debate represented by the above article and previous comments is encouraging. But if and when we do face climate-related crises, politics may not be able to wait until science comes to a consensus about causes and probable future scenarios. It would prefer that “the debate over global warming is over” (as has been claimed) so that its trumpet call to action can be popularly supported and taxation justified.
We made need to settle for action under threat of possible crisis, but there will be political friction over losing my job, my home, my money, my lifestyle, and my food over a possibility that may be overblown or in error.
somekindofmuffin (05:35:47) :
Whenever I read or hear anti-global warming ideas all I hear is “i love to litter and pollute. Don’t take that away from me.”
Then you are not listening, or do not know what the conversation is about.
somekindofmuffin (05:35:47) :
Then you have not been listening. As a skeptic I object to the corruption of science in order to achieve a goal. The goal may be a worthy one but it can be achieved with honesty and openness. Show me one poster on WUWT who advocates the destruction of our forests and wild life or the polluting of our waters or air. If you can then you will find an ally in me against such foolishness.
The demonizing of CO2 is pure politics and does not stand up to scientific scrutiny.
‘But as I illustrated in my links above, the early higher magnitude El Nino events was not news’
Yes Bob I believe we already agreed on this point. That was not my issue. Showing that past El Nino events have been as strong before does not undermine the hypothesis El Nino events will be more common and last longer with each increase in global temperatures. Take a look at the NOAA data set, look what happens after 1980, long protracted El Nino events with a number of strong events.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/
Whether or not you agree CO2 is the cause of the current warming or not we both agree there is a global average warming trend. I believe that SST anomalies are a symptom of the higher global temperature triggering feedback events, while you believe that increased global average temperatures are due to El Nino events.
I find that reasoning a bit odd because you and I both agreed that El Nino events are a global cooling mechanism. I don’t think we are going to agree on this until all the climatic feedback mechanisms are properly modelled. Its a chicken and egg debate. It’s been fun debating it though and I’ll be interested to see future conclusions from your work.
‘What proof is there that variations in sea ice “would prevent effective” THC, other than conjecture? In 2008, sea ice extent varied from ~14.5 million sq km in winter months to ~6.2 million sq km during summer months. Refer to the historical University of Illinois Sea Ice dataset.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/SEAICE/timeseries.1870-2008
But in 1870, sea ice extent only varied from ~15.5 million sq km in winter months to ~10.9 million sq km during summer months. ‘
There is research on this very subject right now in both the U.K and USA. The geological evidence points to the halting of THC causing the Younger Dryas – I already gave the link above.
14.5 – 6.2 = 8.3 million sq km of ice that melted in 2008, while 15.5 – 10.9 = 4.6million sq km of ice melt in 1870. Both were cold years yet now we see more dumping of Fresh water into the North Atlantic than was experienced before. Maybe we won’t have to wait too long to find out what the effect will be and put an end to the conjecture. Look at the NOAA SST anomally data over the north Altlantic in 2008, that bulk of cooler water to the NW and trapped mass of heated water near the east coast of the USA. That’s not how the gulf stream is supposed to work. I’m sure this is temporary but it does show how global ocean circulation impacts on localised weather systems.
‘The hypothesis goes: CO2 warms the top few centimeters of the oceans, then through mixing caused by waves and wind, CO2 also warms the mixing layer and inhibits loss of heat to space. We should then see a higher rate of warming during the more recent period than during the early warming period of the 20th century if CO2 has become a major forcing. But the rates of warming, the trends, for those two periods are fundamentally the same.’
By focusing only on SST you miss out on a big part of the picture. The deep oceans are warming, these areas are usually very cold and very stable. If the surface ocean cannot cool then the heat is tranfered to the deep ocean. These effects are still only just being understood.
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/204_2001GL014360.pdf
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080618143301.htm
Ultimately short and long term heat fluxes between the ocean and atmosphere will still be a subject of research for many years as we attempt to understand and model them. In the meantime I believe it is prudent to limit how much CO2 we release into the atmosphere. It’s a bit late to slam the barn door after you realise the horse really has left.
‘Whenever I read or hear anti-global warming ideas all I hear is “i love to litter and pollute. Don’t take that away from me.”
I think that is a bit unfair to the skeptics.
I’m sure there are some people out there that have that view, mainly those who drive hefty 4×4’s in the city I should imagine. Who the really needs a land rover to take kids to school in the middle of a city? Not as many as have them for sure. Just like politicians people will sometimes choose the arguement that suits their own agenda. However that isn’t true for every skeptic going.
It’s really good to be able to have an open honest debate because it brings out the facts from both sides and makes everyone more aware of how things are changing. This means that politicians will be less likely to draw the conclusions they like best from available data and blind people with science.
It’s been fun, but really I have to get back to work.
Sarah: You wrote: “By focusing only on SST you miss out on a big part of the picture.” And then you provided a few links.
The 8-year old study by Lindzen is outdated. And the ScienceDaily link contains graphs that are erroneous. Why? Compare the graphs to the commentary below them. It appears they have the wrong graphs or the units are wrong. The units are both sea level where the commentary discusses OHC and SST. Hmmm. I’ll have to look for that paper, if I don’t have it already.
I’ve also posted on sea level and OHC. They slipped my mind earlier. In fact, my last post on OHC contained a graph from the most recent Levitus paper (in press). Here’s a link to the Levitus et al (2009) paper:
ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat08.pdf
The graph compares the times series graphs of OHC from that study with two others, all published within a year of one another. Here’s the graph:
http://s5.tinypic.com/24v33t4.jpg
The Levitus et al curve has been relatively flat for five years. And the Ishii & Kimoto curve shows a significant recent drop in OHC. Domingues et al elected not to show the most recent years. Why?
A link to my post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/03/latest-revisions-to-ocean-heat-content.html
My concluding remark in that post was “A decade from now, when researchers sort out the problems of measuring Ocean Heat Content, when they agree on the methodologies to be used to calculate it, it may serve as a worthwhile measure of climate change. At present it does not.”
You wrote, regarding the effects of sea ice melt on THC: “There is research on this very subject right now in both the U.K and USA. The geological evidence points to the halting of THC causing the Younger Dryas – I already gave the link above.”
The Woods Hole link you provided was dated 2003. Lots of hysteria about the slowing of AMOC has come and gone and been disputed and disproved in that time. Got something newer to back your claim?
I said I didn’t pay attention to weather. I do pay attention to AMOC, OHC, sea level, and the like, though, in addition to SST.
Sarah: Oops forgot. The ScienceDaily link you provided is for the Domigues et al OHC study in the above comparison chart. Graph duplicated again here:
http://s5.tinypic.com/24v33t4.jpg
Gleckler was part of that team. Again, although the more recent data was available, why did they elect to end the data in their study in 2003? Curious.
Here’s a link to the Nature abstract of the Domingues et al (2008) “Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise”
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7198/abs/nature07080.html
Regards
SST anomaly maps for this time of year since 1999.
1999
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-990328.gif
2000
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-000326.gif
2001
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-010325.gif
2002
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-020324.gif
2003
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-030323.gif
2004
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-040328.gif
2005
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-050314.gif
2006
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-060326.gif
2007
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-070325.gif
2008
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-080323.gif
2009
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-090322.gif
Brian D: Be careful with flipping between those 11 maps of SST anomalies. Note that the temperature scale changes, too, from year to year, so you have to account for that.
I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but I posted the JPL’s Sea Surface Height video on YouTube.
It’s too bad they haven’t updated those videos.
Regards