Source: http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.5.11.2009.gif
Bill Illis writes in comments:
The newest Ocean SST map shows the La Nina conditions have gone away and we are in slightly positive ENSO conditions.
Also interesting is that the negative PDO seems to be moving back to neutral right now. The cool SST conditions off of Alaska (which has been there for 3 years now) looks to be moderating as well.
From my perspective, the other interesting feature is how the recent La Ninas have loaded up cool SSTs in the Pacific off south-east Asia which will soon move into the Kuroshio currrent which will then flow across the north Pacific.
The upper ocean heat content is signaling we are going to move rapidly into El Nino conditions although most forecasts are calling for neutral conditions.
Source:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/anim/wkxzteq_anm.gif
Atmospheric Angular Momentum has really turned negative recently (signaling La Nina), the Trade Winds have fallen off to nothing (signaling El Nino).
So overall, the north Pacific is offically schizophrenic right now.
Good to see Erl Happ drop by here at WUWT. For some really serious discussion visit Erl at
http://climatechange1.wordpress.com/
It is worth the visit.
MC (09:01:12) :
Stephen Wilde (11:05:49) :
Under a high sun the ocean absorbs energy – find a view from space taken with the Sun behind and the ocean directly underneath, water appears black because it isn’t reflecting much. Meanwhile, the atmosphere is also loading with water vapor which increases its buoyancy. Over this area the air rises and low pressure develops. Air from both north and south moves toward this region and turns toward the west – thus the Trade Winds. While these processes cover a very large area, they are not particularly strong but persistence and Earth-rotation help to move the surface water away from the coasts of N. & S. America and toward the western Pacific. Are the Trade Winds the driver of this? I don’t think so.
“…the Trade Winds have fallen off to nothing…”
Tell me why this should be so and I’ll be a step closer to understanding and enlightenment!
Meanwhile for a good read about oceans, weather, and winds try this:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=173253
Some explanation here:
http://www.teachit.co.uk/armoore/poetry/mariner.htm
Watch for the geographical references as the ship sails south in the Atlantic Ocean, rounds South America, and heads north in the Pacific Ocean. When this was written (it first appeared in 1798) they knew the Trades could fail and they knew why. I doubt the explanation will help us very much.
So how the Sun’s magnetic activity affects the climate on Earth has to be understood with the changes that go practically all the way up through the atmosphere.
That is interesting stuff, it really does show there’s still more to be learned about how climate works, if we learn enough maybe someone can actually make a model that is accurate for even 10 years?
We can’t have an El Niño thread without this video:
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Re: MC (09:01:12)
I’m not an expert on wind, but I can note that in studying the following articles, I noticed patterns similar to ones I’ve noticed in wind time series:
Harald Schmitz-Hubsch & Harald Schuh (1999). Seasonal and short-period fluctuations of Earth rotation investigated by wavelet analysis. Technical Report 1999.6-2 Department of Geodesy & Geoinformatics, Stuttgart University, p.421-432.
http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/gi/research/schriftenreihe/quo_vadis/pdf/schmitzhuebsch.pdf
Y.H. Zhou, D.W. Zheng, & X.H. Liao (2001). Wavelet analysis of interannual LOD, AAM, and ENSO: 1997-98 El Nino and 1998-99 La Nina signals. Journal of Geodesy 75, 164-168.
NS Sidorenkov. 2005. Physics of the Earth’s rotation instabilities. Astronomical and Astrophysical Transactions Vol. 24, No. 5, October 2005, 425-439.
http://images.astronet.ru/pubd/2008/09/28/0001230882/425-439.pdf
Gross, R. S. 2005. The observed period and Q of the Chandler wobble, in Forcing of Polar Motion in the Chandler Frequency Band: A Contribution to Understanding Interannual Climate Change, edited by H.-P. Plag, B. F. Chao, R. S. Gross, and T. van Dam, pp. 31-37, Cahiers du Centre Européen de Géodynamique et de Séismologie vol. 24, Luxembourg, 2005.
http://www.sbl.statkart.no/literature/plag_etal_2005_editors/gross_1_CWTQ_final.pdf
–
I particularly recommend a careful reading of the Sidorenkov (2005) article in conjunction with an attentive look at the figures in the Zhou, Zheng, & Liao (2001) article.
Hopefully some wind experts will join more WUWT discussions and comment on interrelations.
There is this esoteric concept called Atmospheric Angular Momentum. [You can skip through this if you don’t want to read my theory on the ENSO].
Basically, the winds on the Earth are a response to the rotation of the Earth. The Earth rotates east to west and the atmosphere and the strongest winds rotate west to east.
These winds actually create a little drag on the rotation. But there is no stopping the Earth’s rotation. Its force (with the mass of the whole Earth behind it) will overwhelm any force created by the less massive atmospheric winds.
The winds create this little drag on this rotation since mountains (and trees and hills) are in the way in a few places. The winds will tend to move back into balance with the rotation. When they are creating too much drag on the mountains, the Earth’s rotation pushes back and slows them down. When they are lighter than the equilibrium rate, the Earth’s rotation speeds up, ever so slightly, and the effective wind rate speeds back up, back to the normal equilibrium rate.
The length of the day actually changes by a few thousandths of second through this interaction.
The winds in question here are primarily the stronger mid-latitude ones. The mid-latitude winds blow west to east, opposite to the rotation and it is these winds that are constantly being pushed back into balance.
The Trade Winds at the equator move in the opposite direction to the mid-latitude winds, with the rotation, and they are, as well, a balancing mechanism to the mid-latitude winds. The Trades are a balance for the Earth’s rotation fighting against the mid-latitude winds fighting against the rotation.
Atmospheric Angular Momentum is a measure of how far off balance the mid-latitude winds are, whether they will speed up or slow down and secondly, whether the secondary balancing mechanism, the Trade Winds, will speed up or slow down.
The ENSO is really driven by the Trade Winds. When they are stronger than average over the ENSO region, we have a La Nina as colder, deeper ocean water is brought to the surface. When the Trades are weaker than average, warmer water stays in place and gets heated day after day by the equatorial Sun and warmer West Pacific ocean water moves into the ENSO region and we have an El Nino.
But the Trade Winds are driven by the mid-latitude winds which are driven by the Atmospheric Angular Momentum.
The Trade Winds drive the ENSO.
http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/1156/tradesnino34of0.png
And the Trade Winds are driven by the Atmospheric Angular Momentum and the stronger mid-latitude winds.
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/8463/aamnino34.png
Again, the year-long animation of clouds and winds illustrates this concept in some manner.
https://www.ucar.edu/publications/nsf_review/animations/ccm3.512×256.mpg
And here is the latest measures of Amospheric Angular Momentum (signaling a return to La Nina conditions eventually, if the ocean waters below the ENSO regions are cold enough and it does not appear they are at the current time.)
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/reanalysis/aam_total/gltotaam.sig.90day.gif
My model SOI forecast actually indicates a return to fairly strong La Nina during Spring 2009!…….It is usually reasonably close to the money at this distance. We shall see soon enough anyway.
http://www.holtonweather.com/article3.htm
steptoe fan 1:56:26
I’d say sun drives ocean and air with ocean and air seeking equilibrium but oceans being so large and dense it is the air that has to do the adjusting.
Note that I say air and not atmosphere. For the purposes of solar energy transmission through the planetary system both ocean and air perform similar delaying functions and so should together be regarded as the atmosphere.
Ocean is just water vapour in liquid form and it’s effect is so much greater than that of the air that in effect the oceans set the Earth’s equilibrium temperature and not the air.
The work of Tyndall et al is fine as regards the air but useless in climate terms because they never involved the oceanic effects in their consideration of the Earth’s thermal balance.
See here :
http://climaterealists.com/attachments/database/Balancing%20the%20Earths%20Energy%20Budget.pdf
Bill Illis (21:01:18) :
There is this esoteric concept called Atmospheric Angular Momentum. [You can skip through this if you don’t want to read my theory on the ENSO].
Basically, the winds on the Earth are a response to the rotation of the Earth. The Earth rotates east to west and the atmosphere and the strongest winds rotate west to east.
This is sort of an inertia effect, as the air has not much cohesion to the ground, no?
What about ocean currents. Water is not very stuck on the bottom either. Do they follow a similar pattern?
I am not talking about the tides, but rather if a collective long term effect similar to the one you describe for the atmosphere has been observed.
It is interesting that at the Panama Canal, the sea lavel on the Pacific side is about 20 centimeters higher than the Carribean. That indicates, i think, that if there was a sea level cut made in the isthmus the prevailing current would be from the Pacific to the Carribean. That is counterintuitive after looking at the wind animation, but of course I might be missing something.
“And the Trade Winds are driven by the Atmospheric Angular Momentum and the stronger mid-latitude winds.”
I like it, a simple, elegant explanation. We’re in an equilibration period following the change in regime from a active Sun with-in NH-positive PDO and AMO. The instability is expected, like changing direction while stirring a pot of paint.
Now BI, BT and EH, please tell us how the Antarctic circumpolar currents and the Humbolt figure in all this. So the atmosphere is the stirring stick, still the media is in the pot.
So far the discussion revolves around winds in a linear fashion – whether trade winds or upper atmospheric jets. But the major regional weather systems are dominated by spiral vortices – cyclones and anticyclones – with the former drawing air (and water vapour) upwards, leaving low pressure, and the latter bringing air downward to create high pressure at sea level – the anticyclones are bringing in dry air and spiralling it outward (clockwise) and the cyclones are opposite.
I don’t have a picture of how the mass balance operates throughout the atmosphere.
When General Circulation Models were first introduced for the oceans, they entirely missed the operation of vortices – mesoscale eddies, that could transfer water from surface to depth and stir up what were regarded as peaceful abyssal depths into abyssal storms. I would expect modern Coupled GCMs to have the same limitations – an inability to model these vortices.
If you look at the 84% of global warming the IPCC says is locked in the upper 200m of the ocean – by tracking upper ocean heat content (Hadley Centre and Lyman have different methods but similar maps) you will find two major accumulations in the North Pacific and North Atlantic gyres – spirals that drag the warm water into the first few hundred metres.
These zones are affected by the tracking of the jetstream and the transfer of heat and moisture from west to east by the spiralling vortices of the cyclones that follow the jetstream track – thus the jetstream which is implicated in the solar-atmospheric heating-cyclic affect on SSTs has a role in the gradual build up and depletion of the upper ocean heat stores.
As the heat is sucked out of the stores, the depth of the temperature anomaly reduces until eventually it is zero and the surface waters suddenly show cold (as in late 2006 off Alaska?) – the Atlantic looks as if it is turning, and westerlies into England this Spring feel decidedly cool.
There is an apparent difference between ENSO predictive models. The “dynamical” models predict El Nino. The statistical models predict ENSO neutral conditions. Does anyone have a description of the “dynamical” models that are used? I wonder if it includes a calculation for supposed predicted CO2 warming. I am assuming that statistical models do not include theorized mechanisms such as global warming and are based on statistical analysis only.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
erlhapp,
The lingo you have used suggests to me that you definitely either lurk at easternuswx, and read many of the discussions around there by some of us, or you post under a different name there. Which one is it ?
And I disagree about your returning La Nina thoughts by years end. Not unless you think Cycle 24 is going to take off like a rocket. Because the deck is stacked for El Nino, or neutral at worse.
Peter Taylor 04:57:24
We are all on the right track but cause and effect and the relative power of each observed phenomenon leave much room for debate.
You and others see the air as creating the short term oceanic oscillations of the ENSO type thereby influencing the rate of energy flow from water to air and thence to space.
I have difficulty envisaging the air causing multidecadal phase shifts and so have suggested additional independent oceanic cycles in the background behind the ENSO type cycles.
The oceans being a fluid are clearly internally mobile but act slowly as compared to the air so I cannot see that any ideas about climate would be complete without accounting for internal oceanic variability.
Over time any such internal oceanic variations must also affect the rate of energy flow from water to air to space.
Purely on grounds of size and power (and observations) I feel that the oceans themselves must independently cause the initial underlying multidecadal trends which dictate the net flow of energy from water to air to space at any given moment and so determine overall warming or cooling for decades at a time.
The air movements caused by those independent oceanic phase changes would themselves vary over time and create the shorter term ENSO type variations. Such changes in the air movements involve the latitudinal positioning of all the weather systems.
Ignoring the potential for oceanic variations of such a type merely perpetuates the error of Tyndall and others in concentrating solely on changes in, and characteristics of, the air alone.
Given that the ONI for (FMA) was -.5, it seems unlikely that an El Nino will develope this year. Only twice since 1950, and not at all since 1965. In 1951 from -.6, and 1965 from -.2. 1951 turned out to be a minimal El Nino, barely reaching values to qualify as an El Nino. Evidently the process must be under way by April, or at least neutral, for an El Nino to form. Given the presence, at depth, of a large cool pool, extending from 160e to 100w, with warmer anomalies near the surface, i would expect the warm SST anomalies to persist for another month or so, then give way to cool SSTs, due to upwelling of the cool pool. Just my $.02 worth. fm
“The lingo you have used suggests to me that you definitely either lurk at easternuswx, and read many of the discussions around there by some of us, or you post under a different name there.”
Grasshopper, Erl has his own blog and is a humble farmer of wine grapes down under. Lurker? How quaint.
The oceans have 1200 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere. it’s clear to me which is the tail and which is the dog. An El Nino is a heat-shedding mechanism. In the short run, the atmosphere will warm up and the usual suspect will chortle with glee. In the long run, the oceans will be that much cooler, and the rest of the world will follow suit. What will happen when, despite the media, people eventually look out their windows and realize they’ve been deceived?
Correction. There have been 6 El Ninos, not 2, with the FMA ONI negative, since 1950. Still fairly rare. fm
Bill Illis,
Interesting ideas. You might want to look into some theories about how the sun can actually influence the rotation-speed of the earth, and play around with how it fits into your own ideas.
Sorry I can’t supply a link, (without spending more time on this computer than my schedule allows…..tempting, but I’ve tomatoes to transplant.)
I keep bumping into the solar-minimum-volcano-connection as I surf the meteorological web. The idea suggests a change in rotation during minimums stresses the crust, and causes earthquakes and volcanoes. Therefore when you look back at major minimums you see major volcanoes going off, and the ash has as much (if not more) to do with cooling as the sun’s ray’s do.
Then, just to boggle your brains more, there is some link between cooling volcanoes and warming El Ninos, something like five years later.
The more I poke into how our earth works, the more in awe of it I am, and the more convinced I am that computer models over-simplify.
I was trying to comprehend the formation of clouds, the other day, which involved me in cosmic rays, which involved me in magnetic fields, which involved me in attempting to comprehend the iron center of our earth. I found it a bit unnerving, as I transplanted summer squash, to think I was shoving my spade into a thin crust over a sphere of molten iron, with a ball of solid iron spinning at the center.
Regarding the El Nino, I think therohaline circulation plays a part which isn’t recognized. A pet peeve of mine is that Al Gore’s political crew refused to fund Dr. Bill Grey’s desire to study thermohaline circulation.
While it may take 1000 years for actual water molecules to sink off Greenland and slowly move towards upwelling off Peru, I wonder if waves of some sort might move through that medium, perhaps seen as a rise and fall of the thermocline. If a lot of water subsides off Greenland, in a hurry, and then abruptly stops for the winter, it seems it might create some sort of pulse in the thermohaline circulation. When this pulse reached Peru, the upwelling (which in some ways is where the thermocline reaches the surface) might increase. The sudden appearance of very cold water off the coast of Peru would have to have an effect, increasing a La Nina, or blunting an El Nino.
I’ve met fishermen who were off the coast of Peru as El Ninos turned to La Ninas, and they said the change is mind-blowing. The ocean goes very quickly from being a lifeless desert without a gull in sight to being loaded with either anchovy or sardines, with the sky full of birds. The color of the water even changes, as plankton has a population explosion in all the upwelling deep-sea nutrients.
The odd thing is that I see no branch of the thermohaline circulation winding up off the coast of Peru, on any maps of that circulation. There is no branch shown despite the fact Peru’s fishing grounds are the richest in the world, during a La Nina. (I can’t help but wonder if we have Al Gore’s refusal to fund Dr. Grey to thank, for that blank in the knowledge of thermohaline circulation.)
In any case, even if thermohaline circulation does play a part in El Nino duration-and-strength, I am fairly certain it is but one part, and there are many other parts. The further you look the more you see, and the science is far, far, far from settled.
Jim Hughes (06:28:32) :
You say:
“erlhapp,
The lingo you have used suggests to me that you definitely either lurk at easternuswx, and read many of the discussions around there by some of us, or you post under a different name there. Which one is it ?”
Only one name. Its Erl Happ and it may sound funny but it happens to be real, just like I imagine “Jim Hughes.” is real. No, I am not familiar with the site you mention though I have seen it come up occasionally on a Google Alert for ENSO or “solar cycle” You can see my efforts at my blog http://climatechange1.wordpress.com/
Re: whether it is to be El Nino or La Nina: The ozone level of parts of the stratosphere correlates well with solar flux and also geomagnetic activity. Both should be now on the turn. The El Nino that marks the start of the solar cycle starts its upward trend in global tropical sea surface temperature via the relationship with sea surface pressure in the South East Pacific and it usually gets going prior to solar minimum. You can see that on the graph at http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/FirstElNino.jpg
Data is a 12 month moving average of monthly figures centered on seventh month. Sea surface pressure is inverted so as to make the comparison with sea surface temperature easier. So, when pressure is shown as falling, it is actually rising. The scale numbers tell you that, but they have a minus sign in front of them because actual data is multiplied by minus 1. I describe why I use this pressure data rather than the SOI on my blog.
The trend of sea surface pressure is to rise (fall on the graph) from 1978 onwards as you can see. I am guessing that the current faltering of the fall in pressure (upwards movement on the graph) heralds a return to higher sea surface pressure and La Nina. The other piece of information that leads me in that direction is the knowledge that since about 2002 sea surface temperature has peaked with 20hPa temperature at 20-30°S.
But there is a quandary. Looking here: http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg220/erlandlong/20hPaandSST.jpg
you see that SST prior to Solar Cycle cycle 23 more often than not rises as 20hPa temperature in the latitude band 20-30° begins to fall. But, in cycle 23 it is mostly rising with 20hpa temperature. I am thinking that the leopard is not going to change his spots right at this minute and SST will now begin to fall with 20hPa temperature.
Notice the general depression of 20hPa temperature in 1997-8 and the heavy falls in solar cycle 21.
So, I look to the stratosphere to see what will happen in the troposphere. The stratosphere is where the solar connection is established via the influence of solar activity on ozone content.
And, since I live in Western Australia I don’t have a lot of interest in Eastern US weather.
gary gulrud (08:53:17) :
“The lingo you have used suggests to me that you definitely either lurk at easternuswx, and read many of the discussions around there by some of us, or you post under a different name there.”
Grasshopper, Erl has his own blog and is a humble farmer of wine grapes down under. Lurker? How quaint.
gary gulrud,
I’m not sure what him having a blog has to do with what I asked. People from all over the world read the discussions at eastern, even many professionals from within the field, and many have previously mentioned after joining that they lurked for long periods. So I’ll stand by what I said and I wasn’t being disrespectful. And Erl can answer for himself if he wishes.
jorgekafkazar (08:55:54) :
Agree with your notion of the ocean as the store of energy Jorge but its the La Nina that is the heat shedder. See my figure 4 and discussion under energy flows on my latest post at http://climatechange1.wordpress.com/
Stephen Wilde (06:58:35) :
How does this sit with you: “All fluctuation in surface temperature is ultimately a response to changing cloud cover.” Cloud presence depends upon the relative humidity of the air. Change the temperature of the air and cloud cover will change. Increase the ozone content of the air and the temperature of the air will increase.”