The 2009 “super El Nino” predicted by some may be a “fizzle” according reports attributed to NASA JPL’s Climatologist Bill Patzert. I wonder who he might be referring to when he says “eroding the credibility”? Hansen’s prediction perhaps?
Excerpts from three different articles below:
This year’s El Nino expected to be mild
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/21/content_12086294.htm
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) — This year’s El Nino would be mild, resembling the pattern of 2006 and 2007, weather experts said in remarks published on Sunday.
The oscillation of hot water in the eastern Pacific Ocean is going to be a let-down, in terms of precipitation over a parched California, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) researcher Bill Patzert told the San Diego Union-Tribune.
“This El Nino is definitely puny,” Patzert said , adding that this year’s pattern resembles the mild El Nino of 2006-2007, which left California’s snowpack and reservoirs short of what water experts had coveted: an end to five years of drought.
Although the jet stream pattern still shows that California might get a wet winter, the likelihood of floods and massive rains is diminishing, the paper quoted climatologists as saying.
“We’re planning for a dry 2010,” said Elissa Lynn, senior meteorologist for the state Department of Water resources, in an interview with the paper.
El Nino is the name given to a change in Pacific currents that moves the jet stream and storm track from their normal vectors. Strong El Ninos can see Southern California’s coastal plains get triple the normal 10-12 inches of annual rainfall.
This year’s El Nino appeared to be off to a strong start, but has fizzled.
Patzert said it’s time to find a new name for mild El El Niño, so that the public is not confused.
“You have to reserve the name ‘El Niño’ for the real big events that only happen every 12 to 14 years,” he said.
“It’s actually eroding the credibility of long-range forecasters and climatologists.”
=====
From the SD Union Tribune article:
Forecasters have struggled to assess this year’s El Niño, he said. Initially, one report suggested it would become the second-strongest episode on record. Now, some say El Niño has peaked and is already fading.
The atmosphere is not behaving as weather models predicted in the early summer, said Mike McPhaden, a senior scientist at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. El Niño has “developed in fits and starts,” he said.
Patzert said weak and moderate El Niños shouldn’t even be labeled El Niños.
“You have to reserve the name ‘El Niño’ for the real big events that only happen every 12 to 14 years,” he said. “It’s actually eroding the credibility of long-range forecasters and climatologists.”
=====
From The Orange County register “Science Dude” Blog:
Bill Patzert, a climatologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who studies El Niño and advises CPC, says in an email, “There is considerable uncertainty among scientists as to whether this event will have the staying power to deliver the dramatic impacts that were seen during the last intense El Niño episode, which happened in 1997-1998.”
Recent satellite images show that the distinct signature of El Niño that appears directly along the equator has faded, and that the system may have slipped into neutral status.
“At this time, it is a long shot for this El Nino to expand and intensify into the fall and elevate the present weak to moderate El Niño episode to a stronger event,” Patzert says. “For comparison, the August 21, 1997, TOPEX/Poseidon image of the macho 1997-1998 El Niño is included here. In size and intensity it dwarfs the present conditions.”
Note the sea surface heat signature at the equator.Discover more from Watts Up With That?
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Juraj V. (10:04:50) :
saying it will strengthen in fall 2009…If there is such a thing to be called fall. The same happens in the SH with such a thing called “springtime”.
I couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I didn’t see any El Nino developing. Lately it appears the moderate one we’ve had is now fading.
Updating above image, the latest:
http://topex-www.jpl.nasa.gov/science/jason1-quick-look/2009/images/20090902P.jpg
Models, models, models…
Just assume the opposite of what they predict.
Here is an animation that shows the fading
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom_loop.gif
http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/cmb/sst_analysis/images/wkanomv2.png
Slightly elevated SST’s spread around the world. No big El nino.
Jim Hansen get’s it wrong.
Again.
Jeff L (11:02:28) :
OT- 1st snow of the season this morning here in the foothills outside Denver – 1 inch of mash potatoes and 36 deg at 6100 ft.
—
Good thing Jeff, since some people in your area actually believe global warming will bring the “death of skiing”…
http://www.examiner.com/x-5720-Denver-Skiing-Examiner~y2009m5d13-Global-warming-The-death-of-skiing
Now that I think of it, ski resorts will probably use global warming as a reason to raise lift ticket prices!
This 2006 study of long-term drought variability during the past 500 years for the Glacier National Park and other Rockies areas shows the decadal and longer fluctuations of moisture. Has anyone tried to tie this variablility to ocean oscillations?
http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/cirmount/wkgrps/ecosys_resp/postings/pdf/pederson_etal2006.pdf
We can call the little El Niño events El Pequeño Niño. I don’t know much Spanish, but I do know pequeño means little. And that rhymes, which is what I like. (I always forget which types of adjectives go before or after the noun in Spanish. Except color, I know color goes after the noun.)
(P.S.Thanks for letting me copy the ñ letter. It isn’t on my keyboard.)
In the record of El Ninos going back to 1871, there is about 20 big El Ninos (over 1.5C anomaly) and there is only 2 which had a stall period like this one.
The build-up period can still take over a year or, more commonly, 5 or 6 months but the stalling El Ninos seem to only get to about 1.0C.
So, odds-wise, this will not get stronger but there is still time and possibilities available. None of the usual drivers are pushing this one higher right now however.
Three Q’s:
Q #1 What is a climatologist doing at the “Jet Propulsion Laboratory”?
Q #2 Can we not consilidate the climatological duties at GISS with those at JPL?
Q #3 Am I paying for this redundancy?
.
.
Little El Niño = El Niñito
Super El Niño = El Niñon
JimB (09:40:29) :
So is the Old Farmer’s Almanac. Last year Joe D’Aleo help set them on their decades of cooling tack, so I’ll go with them.
http://www.almanac.com/weather/longrange says for the northeast
They’re calling for a very cold March in several regions, that will be interesting if it verifies.
El Nono?
A SUPER el NINO was forcast only because is seemed most likely due to the fact that current temperature is below the IPCC predicted values. A SUPER el NINO would boost the temperature back up to predicted values. The warmist needed this SUPER el NINO to proove their theory. Too bad all they get is an el NONO.
http://fast1.onesite.com/my.telegraph.co.uk/user/clothcap2/2001-2009_temp_decline_ipcc_forecast.jpg
This is so typical of you people, maintaining your ignorant Denialism, when everyone knows the situation is getting worse much faster than predicted.
Global temperatures are rising faster than predicted.
CO2 in the atmosphere is rising faster than predicted.
Arctic sea ice is declining faster than predicted.
The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are “collapsing” faster than predicted.
Glaciers everywhere are disappearing faster than predicted.
Hurricanes are increasing faster than predicted.
The Oceans are all turning into vinegar faster than predicted.
Everything, everywhere on the planet is getting worse faster than predicted.
When are you people going to wake up and realize there isn’t a moment to lose to act to save us from our doomed fate.
Or as Emily Litella used to say “Never Mind”.
I called this about 3 months ago, but it might be a little early for my victory dance. We are still in El Nino conditions, fading or not, and they have declined several times this summer.
From my 7-23 snowmobiling blog posting, “The ENSO models have it lasting through winter. I’d put 20 on it that it doesn’t.”
From August 13th..”The real scientists and I have some pretty wide disagreement on how we think that winter will go down. They are saying a mild to moderate El Nino year and they are pretty sure of it. I am thinking more along the lines of a mild La Nina on up to a mild El Nino.”
If it works out, it will be the third year in a row that I outguessed the guessers. I need a grant so’s I can get a model too..
NOAA/CPC is sticking to their guns even as their El is turning into a La and the SOI is going positive. As of Sept. 10th…. “Synopsis: El Niño is expected to strengthen and last through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2009-2010. ” http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html
Yes eventually their credibility will be called into question like the Met’s is with their BBQ summers forecast.
As far as renaming it, I don’t know. Right now the convention seems good enough if it is reported that it needs to dwell for a certain length of time to be an official El Nino. Some people don’t either because they don’t know about it, or they may be invested in the AGW/warming oceans theory.
Speaking of eroded credibilities, here is the response of senior Senator Feinstein to an email from me, which was sent over a year ago. The stack was really deep, or the Senator is in short supply of interns.
Some of you may have read Dr. Bob Carter’s The Futile Quest for Climate Control, http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2008/451/the-futile-quest-for-climate-control, In which Dr. Carter postulates: Climate change knows three realities: science reality, which is what working scientists deal with every day; virtual reality, which is the wholly imaginary world inside computer climate models; and public reality, which is the socio-political system within which politicians, business people and the general citizenry work.
Senator Feinstein’s email is an example of the political reality of several years of bogus scientific propaganda..
————————————————————-
Dear Mr. Scott:
Thank you for writing to express your views about global warming. I appreciate hearing your thoughts, and I welcome the opportunity to respond.
I believe that there is convincing scientific evidence that global warming is happening and has already begun to change the world as we know it. Eight of the Earth’s nine warmest years on record have occurred since 2001, and these rising temperatures are shrinking snow packs and glaciers, changing patterns of drought and flooding, and increasing the frequency and intensity of wildfires.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – whose work reflects the consensus view of more than 600 leading scientists from 42 countries around the world – released its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, which stated that human activity has “very likely” caused the earth’s temperature to rise more than 1 degree Fahrenheit over the last century alone. Scientific experts predict that this warming trend will continue in the decades to come and agree that greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activity – such as the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and agriculture – are the leading cause of that warming.
In order to avoid potentially catastrophic climate change, I believe that the United States must take swift action to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, decrease greenhouse gas emissions, and make a permanent shift toward clean, renewable energy and energy efficient technologies. The cost of failing to act to address climate change far exceeds the cost of taking the necessary steps to slow it. A recent study by researchers at Tufts University found that inaction could cost the U.S. economy as much as 3.6 percent of the gross domestic product, or $3.8 trillion annually by 2100.
Again, thank you for writing. Although we may not agree on this subject, I hope you will continue to keep in touch on matters of importance to you. Should you have any further questions or comments, please contact my Washington, DC office at (202) 224-3841. Best regards.
Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator
I’m surprised to learn that long-range forecasters have any credibility left. I obtained a BS in meteorology/climatology in 1996. Upon graduation, I had the distinct impression that the science of climate was a young science and that it was impossible, given what we knew about the earth’s climate at the time, to predict long-term patterns with any reasonable degree of accuracy. Now, 13 years later, I am supposed to believe that all of the mysteries of climate have been resolved and neatly accounted for in computer models. Give me a break!
Barry L,
Dang, beat me to it! El Nono, spot on.
La Nada.
_Jim (12:03:48) :
Three Q’s:
Q #1 What is a climatologist doing at the “Jet Propulsion Laboratory”?
A: Providing balance between the west coast and the east coast.
Q #2 Can we not consilidate the climatological duties at GISS with those at JPL?
A: Absolutely not, unless the offices are merged in the center of the country.
Otherwise we will reach a tipping point and the country will fall into the
ocean.
Q #3 Am I paying for this redundancy?
A: Yes.
This reminds me – I haven’t heard the term “tipping point” lately. Perhaps
the tippers are getting concerned that the temperature isn’t tipping?
_Jim (12:03:48) :
“Three Q’s:
[…] Q #3 Am I paying for this redundancy?”
Paying and paying and paying and paying and paying…
What credibility does the AGW community have left to erode?
There is no ‘tipping point,’ except in the minds of Al Gore’s true believers. There is a concerted effort by people in government, in academia, and by their enablers in the major media to game the system to promote their AGW agenda. Prof Richard Lindzen:
What Prof Lindzen describes is pure rent-seeking, based on deliberately false propaganda. By the time the general public catches on to what’s happening, their standard of living will be substantially reduced and their freedom restricted by unaccountable bureaucrats. And for what? For the mendacious demonization of an entirely beneficial trace molecule.
I don’t see the link with el nino want to be strong believing and saying: you see AGW! If there would be a supernino and the overal temps are lower than 98 then agw is busted.