Bob Tisdale writes:
NINO3.4 SST Anomalies Make A Surge
NINO3.4 SST Anomalies have reached 1.5 deg C for the week centered on October 28, 2009.
http://i37.tinypic.com/nzoyvn.png
NINO3.4 SST AnomaliesSOURCEOI.v2 SST data is available through the NOAA NOMADS website:
http://nomad3.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh?lite
Here’s a look at the current global SST map:
Thanks Bob, the result is as expected. Its a small sample but the overall trend with perhaps a slight lag matches up very nicely with the Dr. Scafetta’s work regarding the solar distance from SSB and my work with Angular Momentum Strength. The wave correlates very nicely.
I have inverted the bottom part of the wave but you can see the general match up. El nino strength is quite likely related to solar UV output.
http://www.landscheidt.info/images/Powerwavesm.png
We’ve had 5 plus years of no heat increase in the top 700 meters of the ocean. Now, along with an El Nino, we are seeing SSTs increase, as they did in 1998. In 1998, the El Nino was followed (and preceded) by several years of increased heat storage in the top 700 meters of the ocean. But in 2009, we seem to be in a negative PDO, contrary to in 1998. Several authors opine that there won’t be any temperature increases for a decade or more because of a negative PDO.
So it will be interesting to see if the El Nino and higher SSTs cause increasing heat in the top 700 meters of the ocean, or whether the negative PDO will prevent or minimize such heat gain.
Another interesting science facet of this is that for some, El Nino and the PDO are interconnected. So if we get increasing heat in the upper 700 meters of the ocean going forward, does that mean that El Nino is stronger than the PDO, and that the PDO is just an artifact of a slightly different climate regime? If it is, then the predictions of a decade or more of no temperature increases may go by the board — if the lack of temperature increases really is a product of the (assumed negative phase) PDO. But that might not be the case….the sun is in cooler mode….
This complexity is what I have to revert to letting my views on the severity (or lack thereof) of temperature effects depend on data going forward.
However:
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
show only small spots of SST positive anomalies. Watch both sides of south pacific ocean with negative anomalies.
We, the El Nino parents, know for sure that when it appears the sea along the peruvian center and north coasts must be warm, now it is the contrary, there is no north -south invasion of el Nino countercurrent. El Nino it is a warm water current which opposes the Humboldt´s cold current, which has appeared absolutely in correspondence with UN FAO´s graph intended to show the increase of anchovy fish catches along SA west coasts of Chile and Peru.
http://www.giurfa.com/fao_temps.jpg
Read also, Dr. Gerhard Loebert (02:31:10) : comments on:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/01/spot-the-science-error/#comments
There are problems in interpreting SST data which is mainly satellite based … infrared remote sensing only measures the temperature of the top 0.01mm of ocean. This does not necessarily represent what is going on beneath as it can be affected by many things (e.g. evapouration, solar heating, heat loss etc.).
Jon
SSTs are certainly of interest, but OHC (ocean heat content) is the bottom line. SSTs at best measure only the thin skin at the ocean surface.
El Nino does seem to be holding on, but we still don’t see the NA west-coast precip increase as in a classic strong El Nino.
Hi there,
didn’t Joe d’Aleo predict this nino event would rapidly fade away? In opposition to the nino models? I think it is a sign that models coupling atmosphere and sea surfaces are not that bad after all…
Pamela mentioned the Arctic ice but don’t forget the Antarctic.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_stddev_timeseries.png
The Antarctic Sea Ice Extent has been above the 1979-2000 median line for more than a year now.
OT:
Hot springs found in Norwegian Sea
The researchers were stunned when the mini-sub glided into an underwater forest featuring pinnacles from which streamed water nearly 500 degrees F and saw sea life including shrimp, sea spiders, coral and eel.
“It was like looking into a fantasy world,” said Rolf B. Pedersen, who led the international expedition. “Life that can adapt to extreme conditions can have extreme characteristics.”
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2005/08/11/Hot-springs-found-in-Norwegian-Sea/UPI-75021123792788/
Maybe they just inserted some “corrections” to the data ala GISS?
Hurricanes definitely mix deep cool waters in the Gulf of Mexico with surface waters, the larger and slower moving storms doing more mixing.
I don’t know how much that would affect SSTs for the world, but it definitely happens.
John Finn, el nino has followed within 12 months of the last five minima.
Leif, because they are not being forced to mix excess incoming energy downwards.
From the links to the subsurface data it looks as if the warmest anomaly is at 150m and that the great majority of the warmth is confined to the top 200m ( I had a spat with RealClimate on whether the oceans were warming significantly at depth, arguing that most of the warming was confined to the top 200m – and that upper ocean heat content data to 700m might be integrating too far down) – I would love to have a better picture of how the equatorial regions absorb and transport heat in the upper 200m and how it accumulates in gyres – I think the release of heat from these gyres is central to the pattern of warming and cooling across the globe – anyone working on this?
Is there ever an El Nino before a minimum? And what would that time lag be? And what would it mean? Is there ever an El Nino during solar max? And what would that time lag be? And what would it mean? You can only say there is a possible unknown mechanism between solar minimum and El Nino events/conditions if El Nino’s never occur at any time other than at most 12 months after a solar minimum (and you must clearly define what you mean by solar minimum). You must also account for trade wind affects as a leading indicator of equatorial changes in SST, in this case a well understood mechanism regarding trade wind affects on equatorial SST. I would then add to Leif’s question, how do the trade winds know the Sun is in a minimum?
Bob Tisdale (03:38:54) :
tallbloke (00:44:25) : You wrote, “Bob, on your ‘global SST map’ Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica, Canada, Siberia, Northern Europe and Greenland have disappeared.”
I hate it when Tierra del Fuego disappears. My post included only the NINO3.4 SST anomaly graph.
Anthony: You may wish to delete the word global from the sentence “Here’s a look at the current global SST map.”
If you click on Anthony’s graph, you do get the full global picture. Some hi SST’s in the NE Atlantic. This is heat rising out of the oceans from the locality, not so much a circulation driven phenomenon. It is more evidence that the oceans store heat on long timescales.
The northern oceans are cooling because the recent strong La Nina reduced the flow of warmth from the equator which is required to enable the northern ocean temperatures to be maintained at the levels previously prevailing.
That is leading to an ongoing cooling process near the poles due to energy loss to space exceeding energy transported by ocean and air to those latitudes.
Meanwhile we have had a weak El Nino for a while, possibly now getting stronger but the fact is that El Nino releases energy to the air and reduces total ocean energy content so, again, that is a net global cooling process even if the air warms up a bit in the meantime.
I expect energised cyclonicity for a while as the warmed equatorial air mixes with the cooling polar air masses in the mid latitudes.
Since the general direction of global temperatures is now downwards I expect large slow moving cyclones pumping air poleward and equatorward along the lines of longitude rather than the more numerous faster moving East/West cyclones of generally warming periods which transfer energy more closely along the lines of latitude.
The real issue is whether the next La Nina in a year or two gets as cool as the last one. If so there should be another decline in overall global temperatures both in sea and air because the current El Nino does not yet look strong enough to offset the coming northern continental cooling this approaching winter.
SSTs are affected much more by hurricanes over warm but shallow water, like the GOMEX. In places where the 26ºC water is 100 meters of more deep, even a big slow moving storm like Mitch makes little difference.
Its a weak El Niño year, the Pacific is supposed to be warm.
Its complicated. Grad students study it. I have a BS in petroleum engineering. I know what I know, and not a scintilla more.
The color scheme used in the map seems to be a bit misleading. It’s either above average or below average, and there is no color separation for ‘average’. If the same color was used for the -0.5 to +0.5 range, there would be huge swaths of ocean showing a boring ‘NORMAL’ reading.
Pamela Gray (07:30:41) :
Is there ever an El Nino before a minimum? And what would that time lag be? And what would it mean? Is there ever an El Nino during solar max? And what would that time lag be? And what would it mean? You can only say there is a possible unknown mechanism between solar minimum and El Nino events/conditions if El Nino’s never occur at any time other than at most 12 months after a solar minimum (and you must clearly define what you mean by solar minimum). You must also account for trade wind affects as a leading indicator of equatorial changes in SST, in this case a well understood mechanism regarding trade wind affects on equatorial SST. I would then add to Leif’s question, how do the trade winds know the Sun is in a minimum?
This one seems to be directed at me. El ninos do occur at other times too. Weather is messy. My general rule about ocean heat absorption and release relating to solar activity being above and below 40SSN seems to be right on the long term average, but of course short term fluctuations in cloud cover etc are going to modulate climatic behaviour at the shorter and more regional level. I don’t think we can expect to find neat correlations between two factors when there are many other factors playing into the results too.
CoonAZ (08:09:48) : The color scheme used in the map seems to be a bit misleading You are right, too much oranges/reds it’s confusing. Better see the following:
http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Fweather.unisys.com%2Fsurface%2Fsst_anom.html
tallbloke (06:52:07) :
because they are not being forced to mix excess incoming energy downwards.
The ‘excess’ is exceeding small, and what ‘forces’ the mixing anyway. You are saying that a 1/1000 deficit stops mixing in the oceans…
CoonAZ (08:09:48) :
The color scheme used in the map seems to be a bit misleading. It’s either above average or below average, and there is no color separation for ‘average’. If the same color was used for the -0.5 to +0.5 range, there would be huge swaths of ocean showing a boring ‘NORMAL’ reading.
On my PC, the colour for +1C to +1.5C is a deep orange, like the colours for +3C and above. This is also is very misleading.
Pamela Gray (07:30:41) :
Is there ever an El Nino before a minimum? And what would that time lag be? And what would it mean? Is there ever an El Nino during solar max?
El Ninos occur every 3-5 years at random, so you can always find some that are close [say, within a year or two] to anything you you like.
It’s curious that the global SST ‘anomaly’ seems to be down
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2008
Bob, I hope you don’t mind me dropping my report on your article. I don’t see a more relevant current posting.
October (month end averages) NSIDC (sea ice extent)
30 yrs ago
1980 Southern Hemisphere = 18.9 million sq km
1980 Northern Hemisphere = 9.5 million sq km
Total = 28.4 million sq km
Recorded Arctic min yr.
2007 Southern Hemisphere = 18.6 million sq km
2007 Northern Hemisphere = 6.8 million sq km
Total = 25.4 million sq km
Last yr.
2008 Southern Hemisphere = 18.1 million sq km
2008 Northern Hemisphere = 8.4 million sq km
Total = 26.5 million sq km
This yr.
2009 Southern Hemisphere = 18.5 million sq km
2009 Northern Hemisphere = 7.5 million sq km
Total = 26.0 million sq km
Another blogger asked me if I thought this year’s seasonal ice recovery (extent 1st month ice growth) appears sluggish or lagging? I thought the following might help answer the question:
1980 Northern Hemisphere (Oct.) = 9.5 million sq km
1980 Northern Hemisphere (Sept) = 7.8 million sq km
Delta Sept\Oct Extent = +1.7
2007 Northern Hemisphere (Oct.) = 6.8 million sq km
2007 Northern Hemisphere (Sept) = 4.3 million sq km
Delta Sept\oct Extent = +2.5
2008 Northern Hemisphere (Oct.) = 8.4 million sq km
2008 Northern Hemisphere (Sept) = 4.7 million sq km
Delta Sept\Oct Extent = +3.7
2009 Northern Hemisphere (Oct.) = 7.5 million sq km
2009 Northern Hemisphere (Sept) = 5.4 million sq km
Delta Sept\Oct Extent = +2.1
1979-2000 mean (Oct.) = 9.3 million sq km
1979-2000 mean (Sept) = 7.0 million sq km
Mean Delta Sept\Oct Extent = +2.3
So in the Arctic, the first month freeze-up ice growth (+2.1) is comparable to the mean first month growth (+2.3). Beyond this… we just have to wait and see. GK
John B (06:28:04) :
Pamela mentioned the Arctic ice but don’t forget the Antarctic.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_stddev_timeseries.png
The Antarctic Sea Ice Extent has been above the 1979-2000 median line for more than a year now.
How can that be when Oct 2008 anomaly was negative?
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/s_plot_hires.png