I knew the moment I pressed the publish button yesterday, that Bob Tisdale would have something useful to add to this discussion on El Niño and influenza. He didn’t disappoint us. – Anthony
Guest post by Bob Tisdale
The Texas A&M press release in the WattsUpWithThat post “Possible Linkage between the 1918 El Niño and the 1918 flu pandemic ?” stated that “some researchers” continued to believe that global warming was causing stronger El Niño events. Link to press release:
http://dmc-news.tamu.edu/templates/?a=8028&z=15
Quote from it: “Giese adds, ‘The most commonly used indicator of El Niño is the ocean temperature anomaly in the central Pacific Ocean. By that standard, the 1918-19 El Niño is as strong as the events in 1982-83 and 1997-98, considered to be two of the strongest events on record, causing some researchers to conclude that El Niño has been getting stronger because of global warming. Since the 1918-19 El Niño occurred before significant warming from greenhouse gasses, it makes it difficult to argue that El Niños have been getting stronger.”
HOWEVER
Not to discount the work by Giese et al: a quick look at a graph of NINO3.4 SST anomalies that includes the 30 years before 1900, Figure 1, reveals that there were two comparably sized “Super” El Nino events in 1877/78 and 1888/89.
http://i25.tinypic.com/259v9si.png
Figure 1
Link to the preprint version of Giese et al (2009) “The 1918/1919 El Niño”:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/gilbert.p.compo/Gieseetal2009.pdf
SOURCE
HADISST Anomaly data is available through the KNMI Climate Explorer:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere
DanD: You asked, “Didn’t Hansen’s precious models indicate a “super el nino?” if he turns out to be wrong, I wonder if/what he will say about it.”
I don’t believe the Model E models ENSO.
Nogw (18:45:20) :
Instead of NOAA graph above it is easier to see anomalies in:
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
Your graph has been rejected…there are not enough scary yellows, oranges and reds.
Mike Lorrey (02:37:10) : “Can we assign any natural events, . . .”
You might try the link below. There was something similar in a popular glossy magazine sometime in the recent past (? 2 years) but I cannot find it. A similar issue has been reported regarding the natives along the east coast of North America. Seems in both places a sufficient number of folks died to threaten the population before introduction of European diseases.
Historical Review: Megadrought And Megadeath In 16th Century Mexico (Hemorrhagic Fever)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1556246/posts
Bob Tisdale (12:04:47) : Thanks, I figured. 3.4 is generally presented as the “standard” index for ENSO. SOI seems to be the second most popular.
ENSO is likely modulated on a longer period by PDO. The early 80s and late 90s El Ninos fit in with the positive PDO lobe. With the PDO likely having gone negative, I’d expect ENSO to be more like pre 1979. Also, it seems that since the late 90s event, El Nino events have been much weaker.
Ohhhhhhh noooooooooo!!!!!
Warmmmmmmmmmmmmest oceannnnnnnnnnnnnns in 110 yearrrrrrrrrrrrrs!!!!
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/august-seas-warmest-in-120-years/
SteveSadlov (14:11:21) : Will they publish the pictures of frozen Hudson river next winter?
SteveSadlov: You wrote, “ENSO is likely modulated on a longer period by PDO.”
The PDO lags ENSO.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/05/revisiting-misunderstandings-about-pdo.html
The PDO is an aftereffect of ENSO:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/04/misunderstandings-about-pdo-revised.html
Bob Tisdale (15:21:05) : In regard to those posts: Yes, the area of the specific part of the Pacific where the PDO “occurs” the temperature effect is out of phase with the PDO itself, however it seems quite clear to me that it or something related to it is teleconnected to temperature patterns world wide. For example:
http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/ClimTrends/Change/graphics/temp_dep_49-08_F_sm.jpg
There is more than just an ENSO signal there.
Bob Tisdale: “I wrote a post that explains why the Arctic SST anomalies in the NOAA/NESDIS graph read high:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/09/note-about-sst-anomaly-maps.html
Also, do you have a link for the JAXA SST anomaly map you’re referring ?”
I mis-spoke–its the DMI site surafce temp plots at
http://ocean.dmi.dk/satellite/index.uk.php . I was comparing the temps v temp anomolies along the northern coast of Alaska and the northern protions of the Baffin/New Foundland Region.
Thanks for your response. The DMI temp data has the same nightitme measurement bias that you referenced in your article. That’s likely the couple of degreees that accounts for the difference.
timetochooseagain (15:55:02): Don’t mistake regional effects with global effects. Back on an earlier thread there was a similar comment by another blogger. I’m going to repeat my reply beacuse it addresses some of your concerns:
The Eastern North Pacific SST anomalies of the area included in the PDO impact Western North America Land Surface Temperature anomalies. No doubt about it. In fact, here’s a graph to confirm that fact:
http://i41.tinypic.com/2ee8uj7.jpg
HOWEVER
On the other side of the Pacific, the Western North Pacific SST anomalies have an impact on Eastern Asian Land Surface Temperatures, and here’s that graph.
http://i42.tinypic.com/20ppslw.jpg
Looks like a wash then for the direct impacts of the PDO on land surface temp anomalies. Why? During the extremes of the PDO, if the Eastern Pacific is warm or cool, the Western Pacific has changed in the opposite direction.
Again, the effects on global temperatures of the Pacific are dictated by the entire Pacific basin, not only the area of the North Pacific included in the PDO.
Also, here’s a map of the areas included in those graphs.
http://i43.tinypic.com/2w3z0o4.jpg
Regards
Looking at the latest Unisys map, El Nino’s slowly dwindling down to nothing it seems.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
The positive Equatorial SST’s looked a lot more ominous of a good El Nino event during late June than today if you look at their archive.
Bob:
Compare:
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b370/gatemaster99/PDOCORRELATION.png
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b370/gatemaster99/NINOCORRELATION.png
Now, I do NOT mean to suggest that PDO is independent of ENSO. But it does represent something real which has more spread out effects than ENSO. My view is that PDO is a proxy for a sort of spatiotemporal “smearing” of ENSO. Note the positive correlations on either side of the equator in the Pacific. To me that looks almost like El Nino “moving out” toward the poles.
It also appears to have surprisingly strong influence on conditions in the Indian Ocean.
timetochooseagain (17:49:07): What’s the source of your maps?
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/data/correlation/
The absence of a negative SOI trend this summer is not surprising, or unusual, and it was to be expected. It’s indirectly related to the eastern qbo and the wintertime state of the southern hemisphere.
“The PDO is an aftereffect of ENSO”
Were beginning to get lost for all the trees.
Bob Tisdale:
We are being told that this year’s El Nino is “very weak” – certainly, weak compared to 1998’s duration.
But – look at the UAH (Huntsville) satellite air temperatures: The entire year of 2009 data is above the “20 year highest ever” temperatures that he plots for the satellite readings by 2/10 to 3/10 of a degree.
So, if 1998’s temperatures were “abnormally high” due to that year’s “El Supremo El Nino” then why would 2009’s temperature be even higher – if this year’s El Nino is supposed so much weaker? (Overall, satellite temps have been declining since 2001, certainly have been said to be lower than 1998’s peak, and are about the same level as 1995 at +.2 degrees C over the 1973 baseline – so something doesn’t add up right.)
RACookPE (11:53:44) : Don’t put much stock in the daily temps, they have to go through adjustment procedures for a lot of factors before they are meaningful.
And of course another thing is that there has been an issue with the AMSU’s new annual cycles that throws off the anomalies somewhat (although not the trends).
Moreoever, there are of course factors other than El Nino-although I know that Bob thinks they are THE most important factor, I’m a bit skeptical.