By Steve Goddard
El Niño made it’s last gasp this week. Note that SST’s in the equatorial Pacific went from above normal to below normal during the past few days.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/sst/plots.php
Is there a La Niña on the way? Most of the models said no in April, though it appears they may be already wrong – given that they forecast positive ENSO through the summer. Two models forecast a very strong La Niña.
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.pdf
The last El Niño to La Niña transition occurred in 2007, and caused a sharp drop in GISS global temperatures.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:2006.9/to:2008.1
Most of the US had a miserably cold winter during the recently deceased El Niño. It is not pleasant to think what a cold La Niña winter might bring.
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/maps/current/index.php?action=update_userdate&daterange=DJF&year=10
Here was my prediction from February, 2010 :
Flashback to 2007 – SST To Plunge Again?
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Bob Tisdale says:
May 15, 2010 at 6:23 am
Ok. But I didn’t see him mention 60 years.
But I do understand your point.
Sera – I didn’t express that very well. I meant “Although there is a change of wind pattern associated with an El Nino, it (the wind pattern) does not appear to be the main cause (of the El Nino). ”
Bob Tisdale would know much more about this than I do, and says that winds are a causal factor for El Nino. (In my defence: please note that I have stated exlicitly “I am not an expert in this at all” and “Others more qualified than me may be able to give better information.“)
I am not yet convinced that winds are the main cause of El Nino. I suspect that some other factor may be influencing both. Bob Tisdale states in his website
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/03/is-there-60-year-pacific-decadal.html
that “there is also no evidence of a persistent 60-year PDO cycle“.
The graph from Shen, C., W.-C. Wang, W. Gong, and Z. Hao. 2006 in the same item
http://i43.tinypic.com/2j16iwx.png
actually looks to me like evidence that there is a persistent cycle (NB. “evidence” not “proof”).
I have downloaded global temperatures for the period available (from 1850), and certainly in this limited period there appears to be an approximate 60-year cycle which I understand dovetails nicely with the PDO.
http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/GlobalTemperature_PDOPhaseTrends.JPG
The pale blue line segments are least-squares fit by both time and temperature.
Note that the duration of the segments varies; it’s not precisely an N-year cycle.
Mike Jonas: You wrote, “The graph from Shen, C., W.-C. Wang, W. Gong, and Z. Hao. 2006 in the same item
http://i43.tinypic.com/2j16iwx.png
actually looks to me like evidence that there is a persistent cycle (NB. “evidence” not “proof”).”
But is it a 60-year cycle? No.
You wrote, “Bob Tisdale would know much more about this than I do, and says that winds are a causal factor for El Nino.”
ENSO is an ocean-atmosphere coupled process. Bill Kessler/NOAA explains ot well:
http://faculty.washington.edu/kessler/occasionally-asked-questions.html#q1
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
May 14, 2010 at 11:59 pm
“….I think us “skeptics”, or whatever we are called, pay closer attention to the wording of what “skeptics” are saying than global warming believers do.”
______________________________________________________________________
Isn’t that an integral part of what being a “skeptic” is? If you do not pay close attention to what is said, how can you understand/learn?
I know I will often reread and look up terms when I am following a discussion on this site.
Kinda reminds me of a Sterling engine- once it gets going…
davidmhoffer
“When the same sounds mean different words, our minds automaticaly [sic]choose the correct meaning in the context of the sentence. ”
Dave, Dave, Dave… Construe this:
‘Mann points to the earth’s warming, but the record shows [its] cooling.’
Phonetic [its] is ambiguous; speaker may intend either possessive pronoun or contraction of ‘it is.’ Literary conventions are rarely without some usefulness.
your own linkshows that the 50 to 60 watts/m2 were reached during a few days in February-March 2010, in the 10 S 10 N and 180 W 150 W region only (Pacific). The yearly average anomaly in watts/m2 in that region is much smaller. How can you compare this with a sustained 2xCO2-forcing of 3.7 watts all over the land-ocean-world (which would translate in a global warming of 1.1°C according to the IPCC)? It’s apples and oranges. But your point suggests there is an addtional heat bild-up in the equatorial Atlantic right now. This seems to me a more interesting observation of yours, which hopefully ^does not mean the development of too many severe storms in the northern Atlantic region (see Joe Bastardi).