Here is the current SST map:
From NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center:
EL NIÑO/SOUTHERN OSCILLATION (ENSO) DIAGNOSTIC DISCUSSION issued by CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER/NCEP/NWS
10 September 2009
ENSO Alert System Status: El Niño Advisory
Synopsis: El Niño is expected to strengthen and last through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2009-2010. A weak El Niño continued during August 2009, as sea surface temperature (SST) remained above-average across the equatorial Pacific Ocean (Fig. 1).
Consistent with this warmth, the latest weekly values of the Niño-region SST indices were between +0.7°C to +1.0°C (Fig. 2).
![Figure 2. Time series of area-averaged sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies (°C) in the Niño regions [Niño-1+2 (0°-10°S, 90°W-80°W), Niño 3 (5°N-5°S, 150°W-90°W), Niño-3.4 (5°N-5°S, 170°W- 120°W), Niño-4 (150ºW-160ºE and 5ºN-5ºS)]. SST anomalies are departures from the 1971-2000 base period weekly means (Xue et al. 2003, J. Climate, 16, 1601-1612).](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/noaa_enso_fig2.png?quality=75 "NOAA_Enso_fig2")
Subsurface oceanic heat content (average temperatures in the upper 300m of the ocean, Fig. 3) anomalies continued to reflect a
deep layer of anomalous warmth between the ocean surface and the thermocline, particularly in the
central Pacific (Fig. 4).
Enhanced convection over the western and central Pacific abated during the month, but the pattern of suppressed convection strengthened over Indonesia. Low-level westerly wind anomalies continued to become better established over parts of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. These oceanic and atmospheric anomalies reflect an ongoing weak El Niño.
A majority of the model forecasts for the Niño-3.4 SST index (Fig. 5) suggest El Niño will reach at least moderate strength during the Northern Hemisphere fall (3-month Niño-3.4 SST index of +1.0°C or greater). Many model forecasts even suggest a strong El Niño (3-month Niño-3.4 SST index in excess of +1.5°C) during the fall and winter, but current observations and trends indicate that El Niño will most likely peak at moderate strength. Therefore, current conditions, trends, and model forecasts favor the
continued development of a weak-to-moderate strength El Niño into the Northern Hemisphere fall 2009, with the likelihood of at least a moderate strength El Niño during the winter 2009-10.
Expected El Niño impacts during September-November 2009 include enhanced precipitation over the west-central tropical Pacific Ocean and the continuation of drier-than-average conditions over Indonesia. Temperature and precipitation impacts over the United States are typically weak during the Northern Hemisphere summer and early fall, generally strengthening during the late fall and winter. El Niño can help to suppress Atlantic hurricane activity by increasing the vertical wind shear over the Caribbean Sea and tropical Atlantic Ocean (see the Aug. 6th update of the NOAA Atlantic Seasonal Hurricane Outlook ).
This discussion is a consolidated effort of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NOAA’s National Weather Service, and their funded institutions. Oceanic and atmospheric conditions are updated weekly on the Climate Prediction Center web site (El Niño/La Niña Current Conditions and Expert Discussions). Forecasts for the evolution of El Niño/La Niña are updated monthly in the Forecast Forum section of CPC’s Climate Diagnostics Bulletin. The next ENSO Diagnostics Discussion is scheduled for 8 October 2009. To receive an e-mail notification when the monthly ENSO Diagnostic Discussions are released, please send an e-mail message to: ncep.list.ensoupdate@noaa.gov
(source: PDF)
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Manfred (17:47:30) :
In Sweden the lying is even more blatant. Dagens Nyheter, the largest newspaper (fanatically pro-AGW), claims that the freighters went through the Northeast Passage without icebreakers, and illustrates the story with a photgraph of one of the freighters following a russian nuclear icebreaker. They apparently assume that the average reader doesn’t recognize an icebreaker, and they are probably right.
TonyB (15:33:07) :
Tallbloke:
Ifr the oceans are losing energy and cooling, it should presumably mean they are now absorbing greater amounts of co2 and we might see the atmospheric concentration levels reduce.
Not until SST’s subside. The co2 would be absorbed through the ocean air interface, annd that is at an elevated temperature at the moment.
As the plot in fig 3 shows, a lot of heat/energy has arrived in the upper 300m of the tropical Pacific. Given the low solar activity and increased albedo measured by Palle et al, I suggest the logical conclusion is that this heat/energy is welling up from below.
Walter Dnes (23:20:30) :.. here’s a technical question for Leif Svalgaard. Daily Solar Flux is available for download at ftp://ftp.geolab.nrcan.gc.ca/data/solar_flux/daily_flux_values/current.txt I see columns for “Observed”, “Adjusted”, and “Series”. I assume that “Adjusted” is the “standard” value. Also, is the standard to use the 1700Z or 2000Z or 2300Z observation or the average of all 3?
I will attempt to answer some of that.
1. Observed flux is the actual measured or “raw” flux on Earth
2. Adjusted flux is flux at a distance of 1 AU (Astronomical Unit) – The distance between the Earth and the Sun. So presumably this is the flux as it emerges from the Sun.
3. I havent a clue what series is, also on 1700Z or 2000Z or 2300Z. But I use flux at 2800MHz.
Richard (17:38:03) :
The el nino I learnt was due to the warm waters in the Western Pacific, that pile up there due to the trade winds, sloshing back to the Eastern Pacific when the winds weaken.
How then is this tied up with solar activity?
Leif Svalgaard:
You are correct, it is not.
There are two main types of el nino, have a read of this thread.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/07/el-nino-same-but-different/
What I and others have observed (regardless of unsuppported flat denials by Leif Svalgaard) is that substantial and sustained el nino events have followed within around 12 months of solar minimum for the last four solar cycles at least. This I believe is due to the oceans going into heat release mode when the sun is quiet.
When the sun is active, the thermal currents go the other way. This is evidenced by the fact that the solar heat that must be stored in the ocean when the sun is active, producing thermal expansion of the ocean which can only be accounted for by the mixing of heat/energy to great depths. This is consistent with the increase in SST’s during solar max which falls off fairly linearly to the thermocline.
The downward motion of heat energy to hidden depths not captured by the surface record at solar max, and the emission of ocean heat/energy during solar min in el nino’s masks the true magnitude of the solar effect on the Earth’s energy budget over the solar cycle. This leads to an underestimate of the effect on global temperature of changes in the suns behaviour over longer timescales.
rbateman (19:47:14) : “Those who insist upon driving the wrong way on the Freeway, let ‘em go, just as long as I don’t have to join them.”
Even if you don’t you may end up in a frontal collision with the ones who do.
Walter Dnes (23:20:30) :
I assume that “Adjusted” is the “standard” value. Also, is the standard to use the 1700Z or 2000Z or 2300Z observation or the average of all 3?
“Adjusted” means adjusted for the variable distance to the Sun to refer the flux to a fixed distance [the average distance].
Because the time of observation changes [1700Z or 1800Z, depending on time of year, same for 2300Z], I only use the noon value [2000Z]. It does not makes a significant difference, though.
Mr. Alex (23:36:28) :
“We can only claim that something exists if we know about it…”
Due to our limited knowledge of the solar-climate mechanisms, we can only speculate, not dismiss entirely.
As Al Gore says: “if we don’t know anything, anything is possible”.
As a couple of comments have noted, the SOI is stubbornly near ZERO.
Unless that changes radically soon, El Nino is unlikely to be strong.
See my article from 18th July, “2009 SOI so far refuses tango with El Nino”
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=259
tallbloke (13:50:54) : This is resulting in heat/energy leaving the oceans all over the globe, and it will continue for a good while while the sun is quiet. The result will be a sustained but moderate el nino modoki extending through the winter, as I predicted some months ago. But when it dies down, the reduced ocean heat/energy content will result in sea surface temperatures lower than jan 2007 in 12-16 months time.
This makes perfectly sense and I have no problem to imagine that something like this will happen. If the release of heat from the oceans becomes particularly effective, the temperature drop may become substantial in a couple of years. Thus, I encourage famous scientists that think along these lines but sit on the fence to speak in public now – it is time to be brave and ignore the temporal issues with unpopular climate statements.
From ICE CAP
“Alarmists Abandon Air Temps, But Oceans Also Show Cooling”
“those claiming there is a human-induced global warming crisis have abandoned air temperature as a measure of global climate and switched to ocean temperature”
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/alarmists_abandon_air_temps_but_oceans_also_show_cooling/
“Ocean temperatures can be measured adequately only by the Argo buoy network. Argo buoys dive down to 700m, recording temperatures, then come up and radio back the results. There are 3,000 of them floating around all the world’s oceans.”
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/ARGOBUOYS.jpg
“The Argo buoys have been operational only since the end of 2003. Before that, ocean temperatures were gathered by various methods – usually collected by ships in popular commercial shipping lanes – that lacked uniformity, sufficient geographical coverage, and the ability to measure temperature much beneath the surface. The Argo buoy system has added uniformity and greater reliability to ocean temperature measurements”
“Icecap Note: to enable them to make the case the oceans are warming, NOAA chose to remove satellite input into their global ocean estimation and not make any attempt to operationally use Argo data in the process.”
el happ (23:13:20)
Hi Erl,
I’m still trying to sort out whether the driver is changes in the air as you propose (along with Svensmark and others) or changes in the oceans as I propose.
Could you provide something that shows why you think it is the air that initiates the process rather than the oceans ?
I can see that it might look like the air in control on interannual ENSO time scales although I think the evidence at that level is ambiguous being capable of interpretation either way.
Of more interest is the 25 to 30 year oceanic phase changes. I have never seen them correlated adequately with changes in the air so I tend to favour the oceans as the driver with the air simply following and, of course, then showing the processes which you describe.
For example, if the oceans start to release energy faster then low cloud dissipates but a little later there is more evaporation, cloud at higher levels, precipitation and wind which then cools the oceans. Roy Spencer’s recent thread here showed the time lags and the sequence of events quite well.
There might be a positive solar feedback for a short while as the low cloud dissipates but soon there follows a much stronger negative feedback as the speed of the entire hydrological cycle accelerates globally from the enhanced evaporation that you mention.
Can we really explain it all with a beginning of the process in the stratosphere rather than in the oceans given the immense thermal mass and inertia of the oceans ?
I’m inclined to the view that the changes in the stratosphere occur when the flow of energy from surface to space interacts with the portion of solar energy that is always interacting in it’s own ways with the top of the atmosphere.
I can see a general background flow of energy from sun to sea to air to space and an interaction with solar input at the air/space boundary but I cannot envisage events in the air or at the top of the atmosphere working downwards against the background flow so as to enter and direct oceanic behaviour.
Can you help me on this ?
The strong El Nino of 1976-1977 didn’t prevent one of the 2 coldest and snowiest North American winters of 1976-1977/1977-1978. It would be interesting to review the synoptic weather patterns of those 2 years. If I remember correctly the summer of 1977 was also very hot and dry for the eastern 2/3rds of the US (Remember the Son of Sam Summer?). Also, there was a very strong autumn storm in 1976 across California. A strong cyclone brought very cold temps into both the coastal regions as well as the high deserts. Not your typical El Nino weather patterns.
Leif Svalgaard (03:17:32) :
“As Al Gore says: “if we don’t know anything, anything is possible”.”
I couldn’t care less about Mr. Gore’s thoughts.
We have a limited knowledge, not zero knowledge. Common sense and instinct also come into play.
El Nino and the jet stream position seem to work together to produce variations in El Nino weather patterns. When an El Nino is afoot but the jet stream stays North and loopy, we get waves of snow and then waves of cold (more snow than cold). When an El Nino is combined with the more Southerly and less loopy jet stream position, we still get waves of snow but we also get waves of more warmish rain in the North. That is what happened during the flood year of 96. Google El Nino and 1996 floods for lots of information on how we got lots of snow then warm rain in an El Nino year.
During a La Nina winter (the jet stream nearly always stays North during La Nina events), we get bitter cold with snow that stays around instead of getting rained away.
JP (06:26:37)
It takes some time for El Nino warmth to move through the oceans to affect other areas around the world. In fact it may take up to 10 years for El Nino warmth to circulate to the Arctic Ocean (1998 El Nino and 2007 Arctic ice melt for example).
In the meantime the effect of warmth transferred to the air during an El Nino event is rapid. The equatorial air masses expand, the air circulation systems move a little poleward and the speed of the entire hydrological cycle accelerates pumping more energy to space faster.
Now we currently have a situation where the run of strong El Nino events from 1975 to 2000 has ended and we are in a negative oceanic mode whereby El Ninos tend to be weaker and La Ninas tend to be stronger.
Thus the warming of the northern hemisphere from oceanic influences has declined and gradually the winter cooling of the northern continents must increase. Whenever we now get a weak or moderate El Nino pushing more energy into the air it will come up against cooler northern regions than was the case during the 1975 to 2000 warming period.
Expect a greater climate conflict this winter over the northern continents as colder polar air resists encroachment from the warm air from the current El Nino. I think that the recent ‘climate disaster’ in China was an example of just such an event but I cannot predict a repeat of that or any similar eent elsewhere. The severity of any incident is greatly affected by the size of the area over which it is distributed.
In weather terms I expect the mid latitude jets to remain further south than their 1975 to 2000 positions over North America Europe and Asia with more dramatic snowfall events scattered around as the climate conflicts occur in varying locations.
Places that remain poleward of the mid latitude jets will be cooler than they have been for a couple of decades but regions south of the jets may well be quite warm.
All this assumes that the current El Nino persists. If it collapses to a new La Nina my expectations will change.
Let the dice roll.
Stephen Wilde (06:24:02): I can see a general background flow of energy from sun to sea to air to space and an interaction with solar input at the air/space boundary.
This sounds extremely reasonable! I cannot find anything wrong with this hypothesis – this is obviously the main motorway for energy through our climate!
JP-any note that this was during the Cold phase of the PDO?
I was in Portland Or. period,nasty ice storms….
tallbloke (02:17:33)
I think you are broadly correct about the ocean/air interaction. El Nino does reduce ocean energy content and warm the air. La Nina increases ocean energy content and cools the air. In both cases the effect on ocean energy content remains dependent on solar input to the oceans.
One can get increasing ocean energy content if the sun is active enough despite a positive ocean phase (1975 to 2000)
One can get decreasing ocean energy content if the sun is weak enough despite a negative ocean phase (as now).
However I’m not sure you are right about the timing issue.
It may be that El Ninos are stronger at solar minima but if that is right it could just be a result of a lag from the earlier solar maximum.
At this point I have to agree with Leif to some extent. The actual solar variation over a cycle or two doesn’t have much effect. The main effect of solar variability on decadal time scales arises from the apparent observation that if oceans and sun are in phase then global temperature changes are faster but even then by far the main influence is the oceanic one.
However at century plus timescales I think solar variability over several cycles does provide a basic background trend of either warming or cooling. I’m actually not certain of Leif’s position on that. At one time I think he did accept the possibility of such a solar effect on time scales of several centuries but his tendency to minimise solar variabiliy over thousands of years tends to make me wonder whether I read him correctly. Perhaps he could clarify.
Now to date I haven’t delved into the internal ocean mechanics and the relationship with solar variation so I’m open minded on that. I’ve so far concentrated more on the idea of varying rates of oceanic energy emission driving the entire climate system and I see all the observed changes in the air as fitting well into that scenario including (especially) the latitudinal shifts in the air circulation systems between El Nino and La Nina and much more greatly between positive ocean phases and negative ocean phases.
At the moment I think your suggestions have merit in explaining the size disjunction between solar variability and the much larger variability in the rate of oceanic emission of energy from ocean to air. I have simply observed that disjunction but not explained it.
However the background trend needs a greater degree of certainty because that provided the upward ‘steps’ in global temperature during the 20th Century and it is the second of those steps that the IPCC and alarmists generally put down to human activity. Even the IPCC seems to accept the first step in the first part of the 20th century as solar induced.
Given the ramp up of solar activity in cycles 21, 22 and 23 I think the IPCC is on weak ground there.
The IPCC also relies on the early peak in cycle 21 (or was it 19 ?) to assert that solar effects cannot explain the late 20th century warming because during the warming period the level of solar activity was declining from that early peak.
They ignore the fact that until the end of cycle 23 solar input to the system remained at a historic high so continued warming could well have been a lagging effect of continuing high levels of solar activity especially if one also considers all those strong El Nino events pumping energy into the air.
Then subtract the undoubted UHI effect and late 20th century warming ceases to have any necessary relation to increasing CO2 at all.
Record July 2009 Sea Surface Temperatures? The View from Space
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/21/record-july-2009-sea-surface-temperatures-the-view-from-space/
All this heat energy being released into the atmosphere? I may be wrong but shouldn’t all that carbon dioxide in the air be preventing heat from being radiated into space???? Shouldn’t those El ninos at the beginning of the decade have lead to an ever increasing temperature anomaly????
Mr. Alex (01:28:05) :
At:
http://www.john-daly.com/theodor/DecadalEnso.htm
So I expect a decadal minimum in El Niño intensity around 2007 (GPTC), a maximum around 2025 (LPTC), and further minimum around 2044 (GPTC).
Mr. Alex (23:36:28) :
Look, there was and there is not a real Nino, and not because of any theory whatsoever but because, if you live near an El Nino ares, as I do, in front of El Nino 1+2, you would be able to say the same and citing that funny phrase about La Nina. In fact when it is going to be a big el Nino in december there is no winter in july/august, then, in any case it seems, as you mentioned after Landscheidt, a feeble Nino and a return to La Nina conditions for several years.
Stephen Wilde (08:17:15) :
but his tendency to minimise solar variabiliy over thousands of years tends to make me wonder whether I read him correctly.
There is mounting evidence http://www.leif.org/EOS/Holocene-TSI.pdf [Figure 3] that TSI has not varied more than +/- 1 W/m2 over the last 9300 years. The question is if such a tiny solar variation has any climate impact above 0.1 degrees. I think not, but, obviously, some people need that in order to say that ‘natural climate change’ can be large [several degrees]. In this respect TSI is just a marker for solar magnetic variability as the variation of TSI [as far as we know] is solely caused by variability of solar magnetic fields. Measurements of the solar temperature outside of active regions and their sunspots, show no variation over time. We have very accurate measurements of this ‘quiet sun’ temperature over the past almost four solar cycles and no variation with solar activity has been observed.
Hi Stephen,
You state: “I can see a general background flow of energy from sun to sea to air to space and an interaction with solar input at the air/space boundary but I cannot envisage events in the air or at the top of the atmosphere working downwards against the background flow so as to enter and direct oceanic behaviour.”
Can you help me on this ?
Thanks for the inquiry and I delight in offering an opinion.
First let us observe that energy from the sun is the source of warmth at the surface of the Earth and that the flux of energy at the surface depends upon cloud cover.
The clinching argument (for me) is that the largest fluctuation in sea surface temperature (anomalies from the long term monthly mean) actually occur not at the equator but at the highest latitudes and in the northern rather than in the southern hemisphere in particular. It is the northern hemisphere that sees the greatest fluctuation in stratospheric temperature because of the seasonal coming and going of the northern vortex. The fluctuation of the northern vortex is greatest in NH winter and the resulting flux in sea surface temperature has its greatest amplitude at that time. Changes of 4-10°C in SST are common at high northern latitudes in the space of a few months. The highest and the lowest anomaly in sea surface temperature within the space of a year, north of the 40°N parallel, commonly occurs in the November to March period. This is when the northern vortex is active. It’s stop start activity has led to the classification of ‘warmings’ into various grades including the ‘sudden stratospheric warming’ and the ‘final warming’.
By contrast the flux in temperature of equatorial waters is rendered in parts of a degree.
The fluctuation in stratospheric ozone content that results from the waxing and waning of the Arctic vortex is a potent influence on stratospheric ozone content, stratospheric temperature and sea surface temperature world wide.
You must be aware that the atmosphere between 200hPa and the top of the stratosphere tends to warm and cool as a unit. Cirrus cloud is observed not only into the upper troposphere but also the stratosphere. You should be further aware that ice particles are potent reflectors of incoming solar radiation even though their density may be so low as to render them invisible. The stratosphere and upper troposphere together give us about 50km of atmospheric depth as against the 7 km below 200hPa.
Further you need to observe that as the upper atmosphere warms, so does the sea, and that this relationship is strong at all latitudes. Ice crystals in the upper atmosphere may absorb outgoing long wave radiation but their activity in mediating the flow of incoming radiation is deterministic so far as sea surface temperature is concerned. More cirrus in a cooling upper atmosphere (due to less ozone) means a cooling surface not a warming surface. This fact seems to escape most observers. Perhaps they never actually check the data.
And of course the flux in stratospheric ozone is due to the change in flow of oxides of nitrogen from the mesosphere where the concentration of these chemicals is dependent upon solar irradiance and geomagnetic activity.
Finally, let me observe that within the period of record stratospheric temperatures increased strongly up till the late 70’s climate shift and declined till about 2003 and now seem to be increasing gently. That gentle increase may not be solar related but due to a reducing flux of water vapour into the stratosphere as tropical sea surface temperature gently declines.
Although the greatest temperature fluctuations occur in the northern hemisphere the bulk of the ocean is in the south. Hence the long observed identity between the southern oscillation in atmospheric pressure and the temperature of equatorial waters.
None of this is rocket science. It represents painstaking observation.
Stephen Wilde (08:17:15): At this point I have to agree with Leif to some extent. The actual solar variation over a cycle or two doesn’t have much effect.
What about the cold period in the beginning of the last century that coincidences with the weak solar cycles 14 and 15? I suspect that we may observe a similar cooling the next decade as we saw in that period.
Invariant (09:33:40) :
What about the cold period in the beginning of the last century that coincidences with the weak solar cycles 14 and 15? I suspect that we may observe a similar cooling the next decade as we saw in that period.
What about the cold period in the 1840s-1870s that coincided with the strong cycles 8 to 11?