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| Contact: Christopher Vaccaro FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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El Niño Arrives; Expected to Persist through Winter 2009-10
NOAA scientists today announced the arrival of El Niño, a climate phenomenon with a significant influence on global weather, ocean conditions and marine fisheries. El Niño, the periodic warming of central and eastern tropical Pacific waters, occurs on average every two to five years and typically lasts about 12 months.
NOAA expects this El Niño to continue developing during the next several months, with further strengthening possible. The event is expected to last through winter 2009-10.
“Advanced climate science allows us to alert industries, governments and emergency managers about the weather conditions El Niño may bring so these can be factored into decision-making and ultimately protect life, property and the economy,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.
El Niño’s impacts depend on a variety of factors, such as intensity and extent of ocean warming, and the time of year. Contrary to popular belief, not all effects are negative. On the positive side, El Niño can help to suppress Atlantic hurricane activity. In the United States, it typically brings beneficial winter precipitation to the arid Southwest, less wintry weather across the North, and a reduced risk of Florida wildfires.
El Niño’s negative impacts have included damaging winter storms in California and increased storminess across the southern United States. Some past El Niño’s have also produced severe flooding and mudslides in Central and South America, and drought in Indonesia.
An El Niño event may significantly diminish ocean productivity off the west coast by limiting weather patterns that cause upwelling, or nutrient circulation in the ocean. These nutrients are the foundation of a vibrant marine food web and could negatively impact food sources for several types of birds, fish and marine mammals.
In its monthly El Niño diagnostics discussion today, scientists with the NOAA National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center noted weekly eastern equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures were at least 1.0 degree C above average at the end of June. The most recent El Niño occurred in 2006.
El Niño includes weaker trade winds, increased rainfall over the central tropical Pacific, and decreased rainfall in Indonesia. These vast rainfall patterns in the tropics are responsible for many of El Niño’s global effects on weather patterns.
NOAA will continue to monitor the rapidly evolving situation in the tropical Pacific, and will provide more detailed information on possible Atlantic hurricane impacts in its updated Seasonal Hurricane Outlook scheduled for release on August 6, 2009.
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. Visit http://www.noaa.gov.
On the Web:
Forecast: http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html
NOAA’s El Niño site: http://www.elnino.noaa.gov
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“”” tallbloke (01:12:16) :
George E. Smith (18:31:16) : “””
Thanks bloke; I knew it wasn’t as simple as it sounds; your explanation does the trick.
George
“”” evanmjones (18:38:08) :
George E. Smith (18:31:16) :
What you are seeing is a typical El Nino condition. Warm water suppresses the upwelling of cool water off the Peruvian coast which occurs during a neutral condition (with even greater upwelling during a La Nina.
Ninos and Ninas both occur during either positive or negative PDOs. During a negative PDO, it is more likely that there will be “unanswered” La Ninas and El Ninos will be less likely to be intense. But both will occur. “””
Thank you Evan; somehow, I got the impressions, that ninos/ninas affected the ocean temps to the south west of Hawaii, in the Western Pacific; I though that was where the nina that preceeded the most recent switch to cool PDO was located. I always knew that ninos affected the anchovy catch off the coast of Peru though. Got any good science theories as to why the west coast salmon even up to Alaska have gone to hell in a handbasket in the last coupla years; other than human overgrazing, and water thefts from NorCal ?
George E. Smith (14:12:57) : PDF on anchovy catches from 1992 to 2008:
http://www.imarpe.pe/imarpe/archivos/informes/imarpe_infpel_indicadorespelagico_nc.pdf
George, that was a good explanation and I suspect that maybe one of the least understood processes is how all the high energy spectrum from the sun gets dealt with by the Earth. The Earth radiates heat away at much lower frequencies than what it gets but what is the conversion factor and what filters it. What kinds of oscillations and interactions get set up. (There’s a good movie about solar effects on Euronews/Space BTW)
Lamont, you first post about AGW. IN 5 years if we have more data then hopefully we’ll have better models and understanding. And if the story is still pro-CO2 then i’ll feel a bit more confident in saying this could be the cause. However I would also be sad that a beautiful natural non-linear oscillating energy distribution process like ENSO could be reduced to just ‘noise’ over a linear trend, which will be one outcome. Somehow though I think the answer is already staring us in the face, right now. Nature and Earth’s climate is much deeper and elegant than that proposed by the relatively simple CO2 theory. So I’m not a denier, I’m like Pythagoras. I believe numbers rule the universe and that in the deep complexity of numbers you find the truth. CO2 theory is to be blunt, naive and clumsy. Too linear. But then I’ve got five years to gear up for a broken heart if that is the outcome.
anna v (11:13:02) :
Attention all skeptics:
Please do not be led down the garden path by arguments that are irrelevant;to illogical conclusions.
Please remember that there are “sufficient conditions”, and “necessary conditions” and scientists have to be able to discriminate between the two.
If for the next ten years the temperature drops another 0.5 degrees, that alone is sufficient to discredit CO2 as responsible for global warming (it would also discredit other anthropogenic influences, like black soot, irrigation, etc. etc). BUT it does not mean that if this does not happen, necessarily CO2 or something else anthropogenic creates the warming.
A condition that is is sufficient does not mean it is also necessary.
If the temperatures go up by 0.5 degrees in the next ten years, the ballpark is open to see what causes it, by positive proof and not conjectures. In my opinion we have to see what has taken us out of the Little Ice Age, to have any handle in the situation.
I agree that it would be good if the temperatures keep dropping, because the whole CO2 mess will be reduced to absurdity.
Anna V,
Agreed 100%.
Fortunately our world leaders help a lot to bring “absurdity” to a new level stating they intend to control earth’s temperature within a limit of 2 degree Celsius above pre industrial temperature levels.
Every person with two years elementary school will see the absurdity of that statement.
George E. Smith (13:52:19) :
George, thanks for the explanation of ocean heat content.
One remark, also discussed many times before but in my opinion worth mentioning.
Last week I watched a documentary about black smokers.
Industry is interested in black smokers because they flush out precious metals and methods are researched to exploit them.
The documentary followed a research team and they stated that they find those smokers in high numbers, especially in those area’s where the continental plates collide. Those smokers release hot water and gases with temperatures of about 400 degree Celsius.
I know the overall effect is limited but it would be interesting to have an idea about the scale the volume and the effect of undersea volcanic activity.
Don’t you think so?
Kum Dollison (12:56:51) :
Folks, we’re at the “hinge-point” between Positive, and Negative PDOs. Anything can happen. To bet your theory on next year’s weather is nuts.
Wheat is selling in Chicago for $4.94, at the moment. This is down 50% (from $10.00/bu) from this time last year.
Nobody, absolutely, NObody, pays any attention to what Argentina might, or might not, do (as relates to ag exports.) Their ag market actions are, basically, of the “loose cannon” variety.
Kum,
I read an article a few days ago that Argentine will stop all exports this year because of reduced crops.
I try to find it again and publish the link.
Kum Dollison (12:56:51) :
http://www.agrimoney.com/news/news.php?id=482
Ron,
I’ve seen the film footage of those spectacular smokers; but I don’t have even a vague idea how significant they are in therms of ocean warming. Just think how hot the earth’s central core is; supposedly hotter than the sun’s surface. You would think that with all that temperature, that the continuous outflow of energy from the earth’s core muast be huge. People have done those calculations and measurements, and evidently, averaged over the earth’s surface, the Watts per square meter numbers are pretty tame; so it is not a big effect. So taking into account how small a region a black smoker covers, I have to assume, that in the general scheme of things, they aren’t a major energy source, so don’t change ocean temperatures in any noticeable way, unless you are down there with them.
The spectral absorption coefficient of clean ocean water, is almost a mirror image of the solar spectrum black body shape; so the deepest penetrating parts of the solar spectrum, happen to be those wavelengths at the peak of the spectral graph, with the high and low wavelength ends being more strongly absorbed so lower penetration (I have the graph, but no way to post it). The top of the ocean has of course a well known temperature gradient, down to the thermocline, and this tends to mislead people into believing that most of the energy gets absorbed in the upper layers.
I don’t think that is true, because the highest irradiance wavelengths are in fact penetrating deepest, so that energy is distributed over a larger volume of water, so it is heating a bigger water mass to a lesser temperature rise.
To some extent, the expansion is the same percentage wise, because if you heat a lot of water a little you tend to get the same sea level rise, as if you heat less water but by a higher temperature shift; so the fractional volume expansion tends to depend on the total heat content, and not on the temperature rise itself. either way, a significant upward buoyancy is established, but in a one dimensional model it wouldn’t affect anything. Because of circulations those expanding layers can force their way to the top, with cooler surface waters (somewhere else) descending to replace the rising warmer waters. In any case, theres’s an escalator pumping that heat energy back to the surface, rather than inexorably downward to the ocean depths.
So I’m not a believer in the idea of solar energy being pumped into the deep oceans, like an energy sequestration project; I think it comes right back to the surface; but of course much slower than the surface prompt warming due to downward IR long wave radiation.
And that slower thermal energy transport to the surface eventually leads to that too passing back into the atmosphere by surface radiation (dependent of SST^4), and by water-air conduction followed by upward convection in the atmosphere; by exactly the same process which brought the energy back to the ocean surface. The surface radiation is of course long wave UR, and it has to run the gauntlet of GHGs to escape the planet. Then there’s the evaporation which is the real cooling machine.
So it’s easy to see how the surface particularly the oceans can warm the atmosphere, but the other direction doesn’t look like a winner. When you examine the process of absorption and re-emission of the long wave IR in the atmosphere; you realize why the preferential direction for that radiation to proceed is also upwards, and not downwards.
I gotta go home, but I can write that here later.
George
NOAA announces the arrival of El Niño
Congratulations Mr and Mrs NOAA – a healthy bouncing boy – Might you be calling him Jason?
” Conservative&denialist (14:51:51) :
George E. Smith (14:12:57) : PDF on anchovy catches from 1992 to 2008:
http://www.imarpe.pe/imarpe/archivos/informes/imarpe_infpel_indicadorespelagico_nc.pdf ”
Thanks for that, very interesting, did you see the low catch for 1998 ?
This could be a very good El Nino indicator.
George E. Smith (17:55:30)
Nice description. Thank you.
Interesting article at Icecap.us:
” There has been an El Nino within about 12 months after each of the last four solar minimums. The same pattern seems to be developing again now. The El Nino may be a moderate or weak and short lived [about a year]. It may have a minor effect on global temperatures, like in the period 1965-1966 when US temperatures continued to drop despite the El Nino”.
and
“This latest period of cooler weather is not the start of some modern ice age or new grand cold minimum but just another cool cycle of the planet that happens about after every 20-30 years more recently when AMO and PDO are both in the cool mode simultaneously. The coldest last such cycle 1902-1925 when AMO hit a single month low of -0.563 and PDO went down to -1.72 and global air temperature anomalies plummeted to -0.581C [crutem3] in 1911. Other such cool periods occurred 1964-1976 and also much earlier during the Dalton and Maunder Minimums. Read more here”.
Friday, July 10, 2009
AMO, The Key Global Climate Indicator
By Matt Vooro
The AMO is an ongoing series of long-duration changes in the sea surface temperature of the North Atlantic Ocean, with cool and warm phases that may last for 20-40 years at a time and a difference of about 1F between extremes. These changes are natural and have been occurring for at least the last 1,000 years. [per NOAA].
The AMO index is calculated at NOAAPSD by using the Kaplan SST data set [5×5], determining the area weighted average over the North Atlantic over 0-70N and then detrending this data. The average AMO index or the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation index went negative or cool in January 2009 The average for the first 5 months this year is about [-0.06] . It has been cooling since 2003. In the past, the very cold seasons of North America and especially the East coast happened when the annual average AMO went cool [ as low as -0.405] in the 1970’s.
It seems that this level of cool AMO may be several years off as the AMO cooling rate appears to be still slow. Back in 1964 it took about 8 years before the AMO went to [-0.3] by 1971. Review of other periods for similar rates of decline of the AMO show a spread of about 2-8 years. However the solar activity was much higher during 1964-1972 and things may cool down faster currently with extended solar minimum and anticipated low future solar cycles. If AMO does drop faster, then the cold weather like 1964-1979 may be the norm here much sooner and the East Coast will cool down as well as will the globe. The most sustained number of low AMO levels was during the cold spell of 1902 -1925 and again the 1970’s.
The graph below shows how closely Annual Global Air Temperature Anomalies [Crutem3] follow the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation Index [AMO] below and enlarged here.
image
The last interval change was 1994 or about 15 years ago and according to Enfeld et.al (2005), the probability that AMO will switch to cool in 15 years is about 80%. Based on this analysis , there is a high probability that the current cooling phase of AMO which started in 2009 is real and likely sustainable for the next 20 years at least.
The graph below shows the decline of the AMO index from warm to cool between 2005 and 2009 below and enlarged here.
image
EL NINO 2009-2010
There has been an El Nino within about 12 months after each of the last four solar minimums. The same pattern seems to be developing again now. The El Nino may be a moderate or weak and short lived [about a year]. It may have a minor effect on global temperatures, like in the period 1965-1966 when US temperatures continued to drop despite the El Nino.
AMO appears to be like a thermostat or predictor of global temperatures. ENSO events if moderate or strong seem to modify, amplify or over-ride the AMO effects. This pattern will continue to bring cool yearly temperatures and colder and snowy winters like 2008 and 2009. My best guess is that the climate of the 1960’and 1970’s will be our climate for the next several decades [2-3] at least, and inter-dispersed with periodic warm years. PDO and AMO readings are of limited value for short term use but quite useful and accurate for decadal forecasts. Currently 2009 looks something like 1971 [cool PDO, low cool/ near neutral AMO] and the rest of this decade looks like the 1970’s if you had pick one decade from the past. The 1960’s and the 1950 are also close behind.
This latest period of cooler weather is not the start of some modern ice age or new grand cold minimum but just another cool cycle of the planet that happens about after every 20-30 years more recently when AMO and PDO are both in the cool mode simultaneously. The coldest last such cycle 1902-1925 when AMO hit a single month low of -0.563 and PDO went down to -1.72 and global air temperature anomalies plummeted to -0.581C [crutem3] in 1911. Other such cool periods occurred 1964-1976 and also much earlier during the Dalton and Maunder Minimums. Read more here.
Icecap notes: See Matt’s earlier post here. See a 2008 post by Dr. Don Easterbrook on the PDO and NAO influences on a cooling climate here.
See also my recent Intellicast post “ El Ninos in a Cold PDO – Are they Different?”. See another older post “Taking a Time Machine Ride Back to the 1960s or 1800s?”. See also a story on the AMO here and PDO here. Another upcoming story will support Matt’s view on this upcoming El Nino. See an older Icecap post on the role of the oceans in climate here.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog
Isnt El Nino supposed to bring warm conditions? Or is that only for the Northern Hemisphere. Its freezing here in NZ, there have been snow showers in Melbourne’s Dandenong Ranges and parts of central Victoria and almost 250 children have died in a cold wave in Peru. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8146995.stm
Whats the weather like up in the North?
Ron de Haan (15:41:54) :
Fortunately our world leaders help a lot to bring “absurdity” to a new level stating they intend to control earth’s temperature within a limit of 2 degree Celsius above pre industrial temperature levels.
Every person with two years elementary school will see the absurdity of that statement.
You think?? I humbly suggest that your statement ought to read “Every person with two years elementary school SHOULD see the absurdity of that statement”.