From NASA JPL, signs that “the boy” isn’t leaving. Perhaps he’s receiving too warm a welcome.
El Niño 2009-2010 just keeps hanging in there. Recent sea-level height data from the NASA/European Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 oceanography satellite show that a large-scale, sustained weakening of trade winds in the western and central equatorial Pacific during late-January through February has triggered yet another strong, eastward-moving wave of warm water, known as a Kelvin wave. Now in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, this warm wave appears as the large area of higher-than-normal sea surface heights (warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures) between 150 degrees west and 100 degrees west longitude. A series of similar, weaker events that began in June 2009 initially triggered and has sustained the present El Niño condition.
JPL oceanographer Bill Patzert says it’s too soon to know for sure, but he would not be surprised if this latest and largest Kelvin wave is the “last hurrah” for this long-lasting El Niño.
Patzert explained, “Since June 2009, this El Niño has waxed and waned, impacting many global weather events. I, and many other scientists, expect the current El Niño to leave the stage sometime soon. What comes next is not yet clear, but a return to El Niño’s dry sibling, La Niña, is certainly a possibility, though by no means a certainty. We’ll be monitoring conditions closely over the coming weeks and months.”
An El Niño also causes unusual changes in atmospheric circulation and convection around the globe. JPL’s Microwave Limb Sounder instrument on NASA’s Aura spacecraft captured a large eastward shift of deep convection from the current El Niño, indicated by large amounts of cloud ice in the upper troposphere.
NASA’s Aura Sees El Niño’s Effects on the Atmosphere
An El Niño is characterized by an abnormal warming of sea surface temperatures in the equatorial central and eastern Pacific Ocean. This sea surface temperature change is accompanied by anomalous atmospheric circulation and convection changes around the globe. The 2010 El Niño reached maximum strength during January and February 2010. The Microwave Limb Sounder instrument on NASA’s Aura spacecraft observed a clear eastward shift of deep convection, indicated by large amounts of cloud ice in the upper troposphere. The enhancement of cloud ice from 13 kilometers (approximately 40,000 feet) and above is the greatest since Aura launched in July 2004.
On July 15, 2004, NASA’s Aura spacecraft launched from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base on a mission to study Earth’s ozone layer, air quality and climate. Aura’s data are helping scientists address global climate change issues such as global warming; the global transport, distribution and chemistry of polluted air; and ozone depletion in the stratosphere, the layer of Earth’s atmosphere that extends from roughly 15 to 50 kilometers (10 to 30 miles) in altitude.
Aura is the third and final major Earth Observing System satellite. Aura carries four instruments: the Ozone Monitoring Instrument, built by the Netherlands and Finland in collaboration with NASA; the High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder, built by the United Kingdom and the United States; and the Microwave Limb Sounder and Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer, both built by JPL. Aura is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
The Microwave Limb Sounder is a second-generation instrument that is helping scientists improve our understanding of ozone in Earth’s stratosphere, especially how it is depleted by processes of chlorine chemistry. The instrument measures naturally occurring microwave thermal emission from the edge of Earth’s atmosphere to remotely sense vertical profiles of atmospheric gases, temperature, pressure and cloud ice.
For more information on Aura on the Internet, visit http://aura.gsfc.nasa.gov/.
For more information on the Microwave Limb Sounder on the Internet, visit: http://mls.jpl.nasa.gov/.
- An El Niño is characterized by an abnormal warming of sea surface temperatures in the equatorial central and eastern Pacific Ocean. This sea surface temperature change is accompanied by anomalous atmospheric circulation and convection changes around the globe. The 2010 El Niño reached maximum strength during January and February 2010. The Microwave Limb Sounder instrument on NASA’s Aura spacecraft observed a clear eastward shift of deep convection, indicated by large amounts of cloud ice in the upper troposphere. The enhancement of cloud ice from 13 kilometers (approximately 40,000 feet) and above is the greatest since Aura launched in July 2004.
On July 15, 2004, NASA’s Aura spacecraft launched from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base on a mission to study Earth’s ozone layer, air quality and climate. Aura’s data are helping scientists address global climate change issues such as global warming; the global transport, distribution and chemistry of polluted air; and ozone depletion in the stratosphere, the layer of Earth’s atmosphere that extends from roughly 15 to 50 kilometers (10 to 30 miles) in altitude.
Aura is the third and final major Earth Observing System satellite. Aura carries four instruments: the Ozone Monitoring Instrument, built by the Netherlands and Finland in collaboration with NASA; the High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder, built by the United Kingdom and the United States; and the Microwave Limb Sounder and Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer, both built by JPL. Aura is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
The Microwave Limb Sounder is a second-generation instrument that is helping scientists improve our understanding of ozone in Earth’s stratosphere, especially how it is depleted by processes of chlorine chemistry. The instrument measures naturally occurring microwave thermal emission from the edge of Earth’s atmosphere to remotely sense vertical profiles of atmospheric gases, temperature, pressure and cloud ice.
For more information on Aura on the Internet, visit http://aura.gsfc.nasa.gov/. For more information on the Microwave Limb Sounder on the Internet, visit: http://mls.jpl.nasa.gov/.
It is already showing signs of weakening again,but actually this is common to have these waxing waning pulses in every cycles.
Here is a nice link to see:
http://www.eldersweather.com.au/climimage.jsp?i=nino34
This piece was going so well until it got to the part about Aura’s mision being related to global climate change. Pity they can’t just do science without invoking the great bogeyman of climate change.
Unless the heating is caused by volcanic activity as Joe Bastardi suggested in one of his blog articles!
If this really is the last “hurray” of the current El Ninjo observations from the past indicate a steep drop in temperatures as happened after the 1998 El Ninjo and every other El Ninjo for that matter. Let’s see and learn.
This goes to show how little we know about weather and climate. I remember reading on these comments how it looked like La Nina was coming. And it has not. I remember seeing predictions saying this El Nino was coming, but it came much later than predicted. El Nino/Southern Oscillation is a key driver in climate, and we still don’t know what it is going to do with any degree of certainty. How can you model what you do not know?
By and large, there has been a significant reduction in SSTs since the beginning of the year.
Jan 4: http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.1.4.2010.gif
Mar18: http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.3.18.2010.gif
BTW, would this event be classified as a mild, moderate, or major El Nino?
Wade (09:58:35) :
How can you model what you do not know?
Hasn’t stopped the Warmistas from giving it a whirl, has it?
Of course, the longer the El Nino hangs on, the more likely 2010 will be the warmest year on instrument record. If 2010 does turn out warmer than 1998 (or 2003) this will be touted by AGW believers as proof that AGWT is correct, but will be just as quickly disputed by AGW skeptics, who will claim it is all due to El Nino, and nothing to do with AGW.
But here’s where both groups are right, and both groups are wrong. Certainly El Nino’s have an impact on global average temperature, for they release a lot of pent up heat from the oceans, and that seems to be one way they function, just as hurricanes, but on a longer scale . But the question, which is still unanswered, remains: could AGW make El Nino’s more frequent and more intense, as Trenberth et. al. have studied? Since El Nino’s are a frequent part of the earth’s natural variability, if 2010 becomes the hottest year on instrument record, unless this year’s El Nino become the most intense on record, than what other factors (if not GH gases) would have caused 2010 to become the warmest year, especially as we have just come through such a long and deep solar minimum?
To me, this is the central question that the skeptical part of me is asking right now: If the solar cycle and the El Nino event are more important in climate forcing than any AGW, then why would 2010 become the warmest year on record as the AGW believer part of me, and the Met Office believes is likely? In other words, what factors present in 2010 would cause this year to be warmer than 1998, if not the increased GH gases?
The answer to any El Nino/AGW connection will only come through more research.
Follow the money …
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/03/amazongate-part-ii-seeing-redd.html
“El Niño 2009-2010 just keeps hanging in there.” NASA JPL
In and of itself, this is not significant; it’s about a “weather maker” and not climate (as such) –though some would disagree I’m sure. It may offer some truly bright “scientists” some insights –I hope so. I’m sure it will offer Fat Albert and his Gang of Psyentists the opportunity to make several more million dollars in speaking fees and “contributions” from the faithful. I doubt that it will help Jones, Mann, and the like, in their persuit of redemption –but you never know, life is often not fair nor just. For Members of Congress, the current Administration, Members of Parlement and the #10 Mob, I’m sure it will be something they can jot up on the tot-boards as a few votes in the coming elections — people are funny little creatures aren’t they.
For my money, I’m watching this year’s hurricanes to see if there’s more of a tilt toward Europe: Western Ireland and Scotland and the Dutch Dikes.
The weather is something that you can see all day and overnight. Climate takes decades, scores, and centuries and changes soooooo slowly;-)
“An El Niño is characterized by an abnormal warming of sea surface temperatures in the equatorial central and eastern Pacific Ocean. This sea surface temperature change is accompanied by anomalous atmospheric circulation and convection changes around the globe.”
If we have a El Niño every few years, how can you call the effects “abnormal”? Would not normal include El Niño and La Niña?
So, an El Ninyo means the oceans continue to lose heat?
Here’s Unisys sst’s:
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
Doesn’t look that vicious to me, either, can’t wait for Bob Tisdale’s take on it..
Neutral by July, Nina by October…
Where’s my grant money? Oh maybe if I included the acronym:”AGW” or
the words “Climate Change.”
MattN (10:11:55) :
You can see a chart of the past Nino index at this site:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
If the number gets to 2 the El Nino is considered to be strong. This one made it to 1.8.
Give him a couple or three more weeks then he’ll grab his chest and go down pretty fast.
There should be a precipitous drop in temperatures after El Nino ends just like in 1999 when the 1998 El Nino ended.
The bigger they are the harder they fall.
“how that a large-scale, sustained weakening of trade winds in the western and central equatorial Pacific during late-January through February has triggered yet another strong, eastward-moving wave of warm water, known as a Kelvin wave.”
It must be an act of God. Why would the trade weaken in the western Pacific? During northern Winter? Care to check atmospheric pressures in Darwin? What’s that below normal temperature band right south of the Equator?
“This sea surface temperature change is accompanied by anomalous atmospheric circulation”
Who would say that? Fantastic, it must be the hand of God.
These guys are totally clueless concerning the dynamics of the north Pacific aerological unit. At least they restrained from saying that it’s this current that controls the whole world.
Isn’t El Nino continuing what we want if we want to see serious global cooling, Bob Tisdale did point out that the 1996 La-Nina did do all the work in getting the heat for the 98 event stored up. I
t could be that the uptick in temps by 2001 is due to increased SST’s due to the big heat retaining event which was the 99 La Nina. And for America at least, Joe D’Aleo wrote on Intellicast a month or so ago a note of correlation of very hot summers with very big El Nino decays. (for the first half of the year).
El Nino in the short run heats up the atmosphere and reduces ocean heat content, right? That atmospheric heat increase is soon lost to space, right? So El Nino’s cool the earth, right? The bigger the El Nino, the more it cools the earth (after a short lived surge in atmospheric heat content).
Wade (09:58:35) : “This goes to show how little we know about weather and climate. I remember reading on these comments how it looked like La Nina was coming. And it has not. I remember seeing predictions saying this El Nino was coming, but it came much later than predicted. El Nino/Southern Oscillation is a key driver in climate, and we still don’t know what it is going to do with any degree of certainty. How can you model what you do not know?”
Not to mention the famous “slackening of the trade winds,” of the cause of which we apparently know diddley-squat.
Steve Koch (12:48:02) : “El Nino in the short run heats up the atmosphere and reduces ocean heat content, right? That atmospheric heat increase is soon lost to space, right? So El Ninos cool the earth, right? The bigger the El Nino, the more it cools the earth (after a short lived surge in atmospheric heat content).”
Yes, Steve, an El Niño is a heat-shedding mechanism that removes calories from the ocean and transfers them to the atmosphere, much to the joy of AGW theorists. The fact that the system ends up slightly lower in heat than before never crosses their minds. The ocean has 1200 times the heat storage capacity of the air. Atmospheric temperatures are transient and chaotic and have little, if any, significance vis-a-vis Global Warming.
Not being an expert with ‘El Nino’ type phenomena I decided to do a quick test. It came as a bit of a surprise that the current EL Nino convection is well correlated to the Geomagnetic field polarity in the Pacific Ocean. This may not hold for a longer period of time if the current temperature distribution is moving along in E-W / W-E direction.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC19.htm
Vuk etc. (13:12:12)
additional info:
Red / blue line is GMF intensity in micro Tesla units, along the Equator within the Pacific Ocean.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC19.htm
Adam from Kansas (12:30:22) : “Isn’t El Nino continuing what we want if we want to see serious global cooling, Bob Tisdale did point out that the 1996 La-Nina did do all the work in getting the heat for the 98 event stored up.”
Adam, have you ever wondered if instead of El Niño controlling the Climate is Climate that controls the El Niño?
R. Gates: You asked, “Since El Nino’s are a frequent part of the earth’s natural variability, if 2010 becomes the hottest year on instrument record, unless this year’s El Nino become the most intense on record, than what other factors (if not GH gases) would have caused 2010 to become the warmest year, especially as we have just come through such a long and deep solar minimum?”
The assumption behind your question is that global temperatures respond linearly to ENSO events; that is, you assume for every degree increase in NINO3.4 SST anomalies, global temperatures rise “x” amount and for every degree decrease in SST anomalies global temperatures drop “x” amount. It works that way for most of the globe, but the author you referred to, Trenberth, noted, “Although it is possible to use regression to eliminate the linear portion of the global mean temperature signal associated with ENSO, the processes that contribute regionally to the global mean differ considerably, and THE LINEAR APPROACH LIKELY LEAVES AN ENSO RESIDUAL.” [My caps for emphasis.]
The quote is from Trenberth et al (2002) “Evolution of El Nino–Southern Oscillation and global atmospheric surface temperatures”:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/papers/2000JD000298.pdf
These residuals appear as upward steps in TLT anomalies of the mid-to-high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere:
http://i37.tinypic.com/2ue1jz8.png
And they appear as upward steps in the SST anomalies of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans:
http://i33.tinypic.com/14wu8pk.png
These were discussed in this post that also ran here at WUWT:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/11/global-temperatures-this-decade-will-be.html
And it includes links to numerous other posts that go to much more detail to explain those residuals or lingering effects.
Regards
C. James (11:37:06) : In response to MattN (10:11:55), you attached a link to the ONI index and wrote, “If the number gets to 2 the El Nino is considered to be strong. This one made it to 1.8.”
Do you have a link to a reference that says the ONI SST anomaly value has to reach 2 deg C in order for the El Nino to be considered strong? I believe I’ve also seen that temperature. But the CPC has 1.5 deg C as the dividing temp in this document, (second paragraph):
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_disc_oct2009/ensodisc.pdf
So according to it, the 2009/10 El Nino was a strong event.