“Hot” on the heels (ahem) of the March UAH global temperature anomaly, we have the likely primary driver of that number, a persistent El Nino in the Pacific. WUWT contributor Bob (you want graphs with that?) Tisdale explains. – Anthony
Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
MONTHLY SST ANOMALY MAP
The map of Global OI.v2 SST anomalies for March 2010 downloaded from the NOMADS website is shown below. Note the pattern of warm SST anomalies over the Southern part of the North Atlantic and cool SST anomalies in the Gulf of Mexico. If the pattern persisted through the summer months (big IF), how would it impact the hurricane season?
http://i42.tinypic.com/rur969.png
March 2010 SST Anomalies Map (Global SST Anomaly = +0.301 deg C)
Note: I was advised via email that the NOAA corrected the February OI.v2 SST data. It represents an upward change of only ~0.005 deg C globally, but since it was a correction in areas with sea ice, I decided to check those as well. The February Arctic Ocean SST anomalies rose ~0.02 deg C and the Southern Ocean SST anomalies ~0.03 deg C with the corrections.
MONTHLY OVERVIEW
There was a minor rise (0.012 deg C) this month in Global SST anomalies. SST Anomalies in both the Southern and Northern Hemispheres rose approximately the same amount. El Nino conditions remain in the central tropical Pacific (Monthly NINO3.4 SST Anomaly = +1.14 deg C and Weekly NINO3.4 SST Anomaly = +0.97 deg C), but SST anomalies there are dropping. Monthly NINO3.4 SST anomalies dropped 0.10 in March. The North Atlantic, Indian Ocean and the East Indian-West Pacific Ocean datasets all show significant rises this month. They are partly offset by the drops in the Pacific and South Atlantic.
http://i40.tinypic.com/4rav48.png
Global
Monthly Change = +0.012 deg C
############
http://i44.tinypic.com/24yvcrt.png
NINO3.4 SST Anomaly
Monthly Change = -0.104 deg C
EAST INDIAN-WEST PACIFIC
The SST anomalies in the East Indian and West Pacific continue their lagged rise in response to the El Nino. Will they also rise, noticeably, in response to the La Nina as they have in the past?
I’ve added this dataset in an attempt to draw attention to the upward step response. Using the 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Nino events as references, East Indian-West Pacific SST Anomalies peak about 7 to 9 months after the peak of the NINO3.4 SST anomalies, so we shouldn’t expect any visible sign of a step change for almost 18 to 24 months. We’ll just have to watch and see.
http://i41.tinypic.com/wsabg2.png
East Indian-West Pacific (60S-65N, 80E-180)
Monthly Change = +0.084 deg C
Further information on the upward “step changes” that result from strong El Nino events, refer to my posts from a year ago Can El Nino Events Explain All of the Global Warming Since 1976? – Part 1 and Can El Nino Events Explain All of the Global Warming Since 1976? – Part 2
And for the discussions of the processes that cause the rise, refer to More Detail On The Multiyear Aftereffects Of ENSO – Part 2 – La Nina Events Recharge The Heat Released By El Nino Events AND…During Major Traditional ENSO Events, Warm Water Is Redistributed Via Ocean Currents -AND- More Detail On The Multiyear Aftereffects Of ENSO – Part 3 – East Indian & West Pacific Oceans Can Warm In Response To Both El Nino & La Nina Events
NOTE ABOUT THE DATA
The MONTHLY graphs illustrate raw monthly OI.v2 SST anomaly data from November 1981 to March 2009.
MONTHLY INDIVIDUAL OCEAN AND HEMISPHERIC SST UPDATES
http://i42.tinypic.com/nn03rs.png
Northern Hemisphere
Monthly Change = +0.013 deg C
#####
http://i42.tinypic.com/2myrggz.png
Southern Hemisphere
Monthly Change = +0.011 deg C
#####
http://i40.tinypic.com/2mm6yw3.png
North Atlantic (0 to 75N, 78W to 10E)
Monthly Change = +0.120 deg C
#####
http://i41.tinypic.com/330679u.png
South Atlantic (0 to 60S, 70W to 20E)
Monthly Change = -0.007 deg C
Note: The 2009 upward shift in South Atlantic SST anomalies is becoming very obvious. I’ll have to work up a post about it. I have yet to see a paper that explains it.
#####
http://i42.tinypic.com/2eve0lk.png
North Pacific (0 to 65N, 100 to 270E, where 270E=90W)
Monthly Change = -0.058 Deg C
#####
http://i44.tinypic.com/2s180tw.png
South Pacific (0 to 60S, 145 to 290E, where 290E=70W)
Monthly Change = -0.033 deg C
#####
http://i40.tinypic.com/6i901z.png
Indian Ocean (30N to 60S, 20 to 145E)
Monthly Change = +0.082 deg C
#####
http://i40.tinypic.com/e002s4.png
Arctic Ocean (65 to 90N)
Monthly Change = -0.092 deg C
#####
http://i39.tinypic.com/dza246.png
Southern Ocean (60 to 90S)
Monthly Change = +0.120 deg C
WEEKLY NINO3.4 SST ANOMALIES
The weekly NINO3.4 SST anomaly data illustrate OI.v2 data centered on Wednesdays. The latest weekly NINO3.4 SST anomalies are +0.97 deg C. They’re working their way down.
http://i44.tinypic.com/2ll10ye.png
Weekly NINO3.4 (5S-5N, 170W-120W)
SOURCE
The Optimally Interpolated Sea Surface Temperature Data (OISST) are available through the NOAA National Operational Model Archive & Distribution System (NOMADS).
http://nomad1.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh
or
http://nomad3.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh
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Thanks, Anthony.
Good article as always. And thanks for the interesting graphs.
It appears that El Niño is sufficient to explain the changes in SST. Meanwhile, the ARGO deep sea network of 3,351 buoys shows a cooling trend: click
Smokey (14:40:42) : “Good article as always. And thanks for the interesting graphs.
“It appears that El Niño is sufficient to explain the changes in SST. Meanwhile, the ARGO deep sea network of 3,351 buoys shows a cooling trend…”
That’s a bit old. Are there any later plots, Smokey?
jorgekafkazar (14:57:44),
These are from the current ARGO site: click1, click2
They’re a little more recent. I don’t know why ARGO doesn’t show them in real time.
Great article and exactly what I believe you said was going to happen quite a while ago. It certain explains why we saw less then normal ice in the West Greenland and Labador Currents.
Smokey (15:08:25) :I don’t know why ARGO doesn’t show them in real time.
Good point. In principle it would be possible to update ARGO every day just like UAH temperatures from satellites http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/. Anybody know why ARGO doesn’t show temperatures in real time?
El Nino is proposed as a cause. But is El Nino a cause or an effect. Is it even meaningful to speak of causes and effects in a highly complex chaotic system like the climate.
Perhaps I’m reading these incorrectly. Under a global-warming scenario, would we expect these anomalies to continue getting larger every year? Secondly, if these anomalies are avg. differences from an accepted mean, and they are only a few tenths of a degree in value, what’s the big deal?
So based solely on the SST image for March, the El Nino drove cooler then normal winter temperatures south across North America cooling the Gulf of Mexico which tapped the Gulf Stream and cooled the Sargasso Sea leaving warmer then normal sea surface temperatures North West of the North Atlantic Current which raised the SST of the West Greenland and Labador Currents and inhibited some sea ice west of Greenland.
The North Atlantic current will then bring the cooler then normal Gulf Stream SST to the Arctic and force warmer then normal SST into the North Equatorial Current which will provide a perfect conveyer for Hurricanes headed into the Gulf of Mexico and a possible excuse for all the Global Warming alarmists to get their shorts in a knot.
Based on this, it looks like we’ll end up with less Arctic melt this year and less Antarctic ice growth or is SST that powerful of an influence in a single year?
The global temperature upward march is more consistent in the oceans. NOAA has established a .97F increase in the last century in global ocean surface temperatures. December 2009 saw the second warmest ocean temperatures recorded since 1880.
References here to spikes caused by El Nino or even a claim of ocean cooling are therefore a bit puzzling.
It was amazing to discover the force of the Gulf Stream. It increases in transport from Florida to about 85 Sv near Cape Hatteras and peaks at nearly 150 Sv around 65°W. Some of it then decreases in transport downstream of 65°W into the Recirculation Gyre eventually returning to the Gulf.
At 150 Sv (1 Sv = 1 million cubic meters per second), its moving 150,000,000 cubic meters of water a second. That’s a pretty amazing physical force on temperature in the Atlantic.
Mike, please remember that longwave re-radiation very weakly affects water temps and only water skin deep. So something other than CO2 is causing SST changes. The most likely candidate is a change in the Easterly trade winds. This is BY FAR a much stronger source of increased SST than CO2 can ever hope to be. The trade winds then orchestrate SST’s. So yes, El Ninos have a very strong affect on SST’s but trade winds are the true driver of ocean temps.
Maybe a better metric to report would be surface level trade winds. Which way are they blowing and how strong? The second we see a change in that, will be the moment we can begin to talk about directionality of SST’s in the near future. The surface Easterlies are still weak. So shortwave radiation will beat down on fairly calm seas at the Equator. Just saw “Master and Commander” three days ago. The doldrums are stifling hot and heat up SST’s easily.
no conflict of interest in this study?
AP: Bob Salsberg: Study: Northeast seeing more, fiercer rainstorms
BOSTON — The Northeast is seeing more frequent “extreme precipitation events” in line with global warming predictions, a study shows, including storms like the recent fierce rains whose floodwaters swallowed neighborhoods and businesses across New England…
“It’s almost like 1 inch of rainfall has become pretty common these days,” said Bill Burtis, spokesman for Clean Air-Cool Planet, a global warming education group that released the study Monday along with the University of New Hampshire’s Carbon Solutions New England group.
The study’s results are consistent with what could be expected in a world warmed by greenhouse gases, said UNH associate professor Cameron Wake. He acknowledged it would take more sophisticated studies to cement a warming link, though.
“I can’t point to these recent storms and say, that is global warming,” he said…
Global warming skeptic Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, said it would be unfair to use the recent floods as an example of what’s in the study.
“You can’t take an individual event and say it’s a product of a certain trend,” Michaels said…
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hW1_ATBmak7oS-hT4X6eZYI7zJeQD9ET6AMO0
I find it most interesting that some posters feel that saying “El Nino” did it, or the PDO, or the AMO, or any other cyclical ocean heating/cooling event, somehow negates the overall influence of AGW on top of these naturally occuring cycles. This is short sighted thinking at best, and is no different than saying the “sun did it” negates a AGW signal on top of naturally occuring solar cycles. Here’s the thing to keep in mind:
AGW will be a signal mixed in with all the other naturally occuring climate signals.
As 2010 remains on track to be the warmest year on instrument record, you can certainly trace some of this warmth to El Nino’s release of heat, as well as to the end of the solar minimum, but to suggest that El Ninos (which are natural ways for the ocean to release heat) will not either release more heat as more heat is trapped by GH gases, or become more frequent, is short sighted, and fortuately many dedicated scientists are studying this very thing as we speak…
pat (16:34:43) :
I agree with the last paragraph and I’m being overly simplistic with SST vs deep currents but it is interesting seeing the SST forces play out in the image and nearly define the North Atlantic Current as well as the possible consequence of this winters El Nino effect/run-off into the Gulf.
The image isn’t detailed enough to confirm this but doesn’t it look like the Mississippi run-off is the coolest portion in the Gulf SST in the image? It would be interesting to compare this with a similar time frame from former El Nino events.
Arctic Ocean SST Anomalies
The maphttp://nomads.ncdc.noaa.gov/data.php
The RSS global maps are now available and if you check the TLT map for March it matches the SST map. I’m not set up to do a world 180 degree rotate, sorry.
At the bottom I’ve just added one of the in development time maps and you might find that interesting.
daedalearth.wordpress.com
UAH publish gridded data a few days after RSS, will be similar.
R. Gates (16:49:41) : You wrote, “I find it most interesting that some posters feel that saying “El Nino” did it, or the PDO, or the AMO, or any other cyclical ocean heating/cooling event, somehow negates the overall influence of AGW on top of these naturally occuring cycles.”
And I find it interesting that some people continue to believe that anthropogenic greenhouse gases can have any effect on SST and Ocean Heat Content when Downward Longwave (infrared) Radiation can only warm the top few centimeters of the oceans while Downward Shortwave (visible light) Radiation warms the upper hundred or so meters. The rise in global SST anomalies is simply proof that the oceans integrate ENSO.
http://i39.tinypic.com/2w2213k.jpg
Discussed here:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/reproducing-global-temperature.html
Regards
Arctic Ocean SST Anomalies
The map http://nomads.ncdc.noaa.gov/data.php was extremely interesting, the first time that I have come across Arctic water temperatures. And what did I notice most of all? The temperature for 2007-8 was a very sharp warm spike, coinciding nicely with the low ice recorded that year. Previously I have read that the winds were also unusual that summer and blew ice down into the Atlantic. So now we have two reasons for the low ice area that year.
I went to http://nomads.ncdc.noaa.gov/data.php but was unable to find the arctic SST map. I was hoping to find how many temperature measurements were made and where.
And I wish that something could be done to prevent postings from being sent if we accidentally click the Tab key twice, as I did a few minutes ago…..
IanM
Argo’s probably need GISS ‘adjusting’ before they show recent plots…
Izzat all the graphs you got ?
Well now I’m hoping that someone (Bob, Anthony, Steve Goddard, Phil) can maybe explain what we can tell from this assortment of graphs.
I shoudl ask are thes SSTs read by satellite or are they buoy data ? If satellite, are they somehow direct sea surface temperature readings (somehow) or do they infer SSTs from sea height expansion.
Not that I’m quibbling; just natuirally inquisitive.
I guess I’m getting to recognise that Westward pointing red arrow on the Pacific Equator. The Galapagos Islands seem to always have a hot SST zone around them. I sometimes wonder if that has any relationship to their bio-weirdness.
So, does that mean CO2 is making el nino more active? /sarc off
“”” Bob Tisdale (17:41:17) :
R. Gates (16:49:41) : You wrote, “I find it most interesting that some posters feel that saying “El Nino” did it, or the PDO, or the AMO, or any other cyclical ocean heating/cooling event, somehow negates the overall influence of AGW on top of these naturally occuring cycles.”
And I find it interesting that some people continue to believe that anthropogenic greenhouse gases can have any effect on SST and Ocean Heat Content when Downward Longwave (infrared) Radiation can only warm the top few centimeters of the oceans while Downward Shortwave (visible light) Radiation warms the upper hundred or so meters. “””
Bob you are so charitable. LWIR warms the top few cm. I figure that atmospheric (tropospheric anyway) LWIR can hardly be significant below about 3-4 microns wavelength, and three microns is right where H2O has its highest absorption coefficient of about 9-10,000 cm^-1, which puts the 1/e attenuation depth at 1 micron; so lets be generous and say it might warm the top 10 microns. How much of that energy remains following the prompt evaporation from that hot skin.
Seems to me that discrimination between the LWIR warming of a thin surface layer versus the tens to hundreds of metres penetration of the spectral irradiance peak solar energy, must be one of the most overlooked factors of some people who simply think in terms of “forcings”.
Thanks for all that data Bob.
Whats causing the hotspot between Greenland and Canada? I think I remember it being there before in previous graphs.