From the Jet Propulsion Lab:
NASA/NOAA Study Finds El Niños are Growing Stronger
A relatively new type of El Niño, which has its warmest waters in the central-equatorial Pacific Ocean, rather than in the eastern-equatorial Pacific, is becoming more common and progressively stronger, according to a new study by NASA and NOAA. The research may improve our understanding of the relationship between El Niños and climate change, and has potentially significant implications for long-term weather forecasting.
Lead author Tong Lee of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Michael McPhaden of NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, measured changes in El Niño intensity since 1982. They analyzed NOAA satellite observations of sea surface temperature, checked against and blended with directly-measured ocean temperature data. The strength of each El Niño was gauged by how much its sea surface temperatures deviated from the average. They found the intensity of El Niños in the central Pacific has nearly doubled, with the most intense event occurring in 2009-10.
The scientists say the stronger El Niños help explain a steady rise in central Pacific sea surface temperatures observed over the past few decades in previous studies-a trend attributed by some to the effects of global warming. While Lee and McPhaden observed a rise in sea surface temperatures during El Niño years, no significant temperature increases were seen in years when ocean conditions were neutral, or when El Niño’s cool water counterpart, La Niña, was present.
“Our study concludes the long-term warming trend seen in the central Pacific is primarily due to more intense El Niños, rather than a general rise of background temperatures,” said Lee.
“These results suggest climate change may already be affecting El Niño by shifting the center of action from the eastern to the central Pacific,” said McPhaden. “El Niño’s impact on global weather patterns is different if ocean warming occurs primarily in the central Pacific, instead of the eastern Pacific.
“If the trend we observe continues,” McPhaden added, “it could throw a monkey wrench into long-range weather forecasting, which is largely based on our understanding of El Niños from the latter half of the 20th century.”
El Niño, Spanish for “the little boy,” is the oceanic component of a climate pattern called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, which appears in the tropical Pacific Ocean on average every three to five years. The most dominant year-to-year fluctuating pattern in Earth’s climate system, El Niños have a powerful impact on the ocean and atmosphere, as well as important socioeconomic consequences. They can influence global weather patterns and the occurrence and frequency of hurricanes, droughts and floods; and can even raise or lower global temperatures by as much as 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.4 degrees Fahrenheit).
During a “classic” El Niño episode, the normally strong easterly trade winds in the tropical eastern Pacific weaken. That weakening suppresses the normal upward movement of cold subsurface waters and allows warm surface water from the central Pacific to shift toward the Americas. In these situations, unusually warm surface water occupies much of the tropical Pacific, with the maximum ocean warming remaining in the eastern-equatorial Pacific.
Since the early 1990s, however, scientists have noted a new type of El Niño that has been occurring with greater frequency. Known variously as “central-Pacific El Niño,” “warm-pool El Niño,” “dateline El Niño” or “El Niño Modoki” (Japanese for “similar but different”), the maximum ocean warming from such El Niños is found in the central-equatorial, rather than eastern, Pacific. Such central Pacific El Niño events were observed in 1991-92, 1994-95, 2002-03, 2004-05 and 2009-10. A recent study found many climate models predict such events will become much more frequent under projected global warming scenarios.
Lee said further research is needed to evaluate the impacts of these increasingly intense El Niños and determine why these changes are occurring. “It is important to know if the increasing intensity and frequency of these central Pacific El Niños are due to natural variations in climate or to climate change caused by human-produced greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.
Results of the study were published recently in Geophysical Research Letters.
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Trucker Bob says: “Anthony, I admit my ignorance about sea surface temperature records, so I ask for your help here. A.R.G.O’s are very recent but do they indicate any warming outside what would normally be observed in the central Pacific as this study would indicate?”
You’re right. ARGO is recent. But their primary intent is measuring subsurface data and they spend most of the time away from the surface. There have been other floats with multiple sensors in the tropical Pacific since the late 1970s. Refer to the TOA project website:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/index.shtml
The Lee & McPhaden paper actually shows a decrease in the overall strength in El Nino events, though there has been a slight increase in Central Pacific El Ninos.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/08/on-lee-and-mcphaden-2010-increasing.html
Paddy says: “I don’t understand how analysis of El Nino events can be meaningful without concurrently studying La Nina events. Are not the trends derived from the net differences between the two what matters?”
Lee and McPhaden presented El Nino and La Nina trends.
http://i37.tinypic.com/723au0.jpg
From this post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/08/on-lee-and-mcphaden-2010-increasing.html
R. Gates says: “If the majority of the warming from human GHG’s has indeed been absorbed into the oceans, as NOAA stipulates…”
This is not reflected in the NODC’s OHC data. Refer to:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/09/enso-dominates-nodc-ocean-heat-content.html
And:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/10/north-atlantic-ocean-heat-content-0-700.html
And:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/12/north-pacific-ocean-heat-content-shift.html
Thanks Smokey.
Paul
Bill Illis
I do agree with your posts, but there are alternative decadal warm and cool phases of ENSO shown in the data. This is where the PDO comes into it and difficult to explain these changes when we don’t know what causes them. I guessing along the lines that something (Arctic melt or no ice melt for long periods) onsets these different phases by altering the salanity of the oceans in key areas and different circulations result, causing different regions off ocean upwelling to occur more often. Though I don’t know if anybody has actually detected these changes. Maybe Bob Tisdale has an idea how these different phases even occur.
While these warm phases and cool phases on there own will warm and cool the atmosphere over a decadal scale. When both combined over about a 65-70 year period should almost balance out to figures you have mentioned like 0.009c etc. Although changes in albedo is going to effect how much shortwave radiation is going to increase/decrease the ocean energy content, which influences how these events respond. It’s like night and day, where day is the warm phase and night is the cool phase. Looking back the daily temperature was 15c, but the current day tempearture is 20c. There taking this point in time to judge that it has warmed more than the last daily temperature when the night phase hasn’t even occured yet.
The La Ninas and El Ninos are going to have a bigger effect on atmospheric temperatures the more surface area of the ocean they cover. This is not taken into account with the simple Nino3.4, Nino3 or Nino 4 data. There have been narrow ENSO events and wide events showing an impressive difference on the eye when looking at SST data. Also doesn’t take into account how much it has caused other regions away from this area to warm or cool.
After reading Bob’s excellent post on this and the paper itself, it is hard to believe how far off reality things have gotten to.
Generally, if you read a pro-AGW paper and review the data in it, the actual evidence almost always points to a different conclusion.
There is huge pressure on climate scientists to write abstracts as if the paper supports global warming (you get excommunicted if you don’t) and there is great pressure on news release writers to add a catastrophic global warming angle to the paper (so that it gets picked by the media and the science media), that one should actually just skip the abstracts and the news releases and go straight to the paper and the data.
After having seen 100s of examples of this, I would say 80% of pro-AGW papers actually support some very modest warming only and not the dangerous global warming angle (“dangerous” being a common word in abstracts). People put time in, gather the data, write a paper – and then they are forced to put a pro-AGW spin on it by supervisors, reviewers, editors or just knowing the reaction of the community itself – they still put the non-dangerous data into the paper and must feel a little schizophrenic when the paragraph doesn’t match the chart/data but the news release still makes it to the La Times anyway.
Bob Tisdale:
Just a quick thanks for your help Bob, I’ll now take the time to explore your links.
Dang! At a comment I did at 7:46 am I left off the link, namely
http://www.sbg.ac.at/ipk/avstudio/pierofun/atmo/elnino.htm
Under the sub-heading “Effects of El Niño” you can find the discoloring effects of the Callao Painter. I’ve seen a photo years ago but did not find one on the web.
I don’t think we can dispense with linear trends.
Civilization depends on farming and under The US house of Reps, Cap and Trade bill, farms and ranching that depends on a given temperature that are now coming on to the House radar.
In the coming minimum we will lose more than average inch of rain and that is already being felt around the world. Sir Richard Gregory proved around 1925 that the lake levels of Lake Victoria, that feeds the Nile matched the sunspot cycles.
We are now in a minimum. That will affect farming and ranching. Mongolia lost millions of livestock and Scotland lost 17,000 lambs last winter.
During the milder sunspot cycles of the early 1900s, the US was experiencing average winter temperatures well below freezing. On the other hand, from 1934 to 2007, we had some of the hottest sunspot cycles in 300 years.
Since 1984 average winter temperatures have been above freezing.
If one reviews the history of Europe during the Mini-Ice age, farms pretty much switched to the potato so their nations could survive. The French on the other hand did not wish to part with their cereal grains.
Parts of France lost 30% of their population.
Until our nations get off of this man-made global warming hoax and listen to the scientist that can address what I am talking about here and quit raking the good scientists across the coals in Congressional hearings,,,
We will not be prepared for what is coming.
Simply take the movie, “The Day After”, slow it down to five years, slow down the scenes, slow down the affects, throw in Winters without Summers, and take out the actors and put yourself in their shoes. Take the ice sheet out of the picture and replace it with some growing glaciers.
Next, show the lost of cattle and other livestock on US farms due to severe winters. Show farmers and ranchers being hauled in to court by animal rights groups and sympathetic or politically correct sheriffs.
Next, take the picture of Russia today and take out the Russians and put is US citizens fighting fires and 20% lost of grain crops.
I am not painting a linear picture, I am sketching what is coming so far.
Add to your email, the following Google News alerts.
Key in these newspaper key words after midnight
Drought
Winter Animal Deaths
Winter deaths
Global warming
Global warming hoax
Global cooling
Global cooling hoax
Sunspots
Sunspot activity
Glaciers
Glacier growth
Key in the cast of characters on both sides of the global warming hoax fight
Hurricanes
Hurricane Activity
Tree Ring Research
Farm losses
Herd losses
Deer losses
Copenhagen
Climate-gate
Climate hoax
Climate gate emails
This will give you about every newspaper report in the world each morning on these topics.
This is my morning report.
I will say this about that, after Copenhagen and climate-gate, the throne of the IPCC was shaken. The battlefield is a little more level now.
I find it a little humorous here in the US that Republicans are gaining an understanding of sunspots and what I am saying while Democrats and liberals still think an abundance of cows are killing us.
How many cows does it take to plug in a sunspot?
Cows died on their feet in the mini-ice age and peasants slept with them during the minimums in the early 1700 and 1800.
Is that the answer we are looking for, five cows per household?
Stack the wood a little higher and a little longer this year.
Something to think about.
Paul
IWTWT!
Stephen Richards: “Again, this El Niño thing has been driving me mad. I have seen nothing in 50 years of study that has defined clearly and precisely the origins of the Niña/o familly.” Clearly you have not read my book or you would know what El Nina/o is. ENSO is sloshing back and forth of the ocean waters from east to west thanks to wave resonance. Equatorial currents and trade winds push the water west until blocked by the Philippines and New Guinea. Water piles up and eventually returns east via the equatorial countercurrent. If you blow across the end of a glass tube you hear its resonant frequency or tone. Trade winds are the equivalent of blowing across the tube and the ocean answers with its resonant frequency – about one cycle every four-five years. As one of these El Nino waves reaches South America via the countercurrent it runs ashore, spreads out, and starts warming the atmosphere. Global air temperature will go up half a degree and rising warm air will stop or even reverse the trade winds. But any wave that runs ashore will also have to fall back. As the El Nino wave retreats sea level in its wake drops by half a meter or more and cold water from below wells up to start a La Nina. As much as the El Nino warmed the air the La Nina will now cool it. Result is a multi-year temperature oscillation about a midpoint that may stay the same for decades. There is more, but these are the basics you need to know.
Bob Tisdale says:
August 28, 2010 at 5:26 pm
R. Gates says: “If the majority of the warming from human GHG’s has indeed been absorbed into the oceans, as NOAA stipulates…”
This is not reflected in the NODC’s OHC data. Refer to:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/09/enso-dominates-nodc-ocean-heat-content.html
And:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/10/north-atlantic-ocean-heat-content-0-700.html
And:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/12/north-pacific-ocean-heat-content-shift.html
____
With all due respect, this is not what NOAA seems to be saying.
They indicated that the vast majority of AGW is going into the oceans, which they did, quite clearly in their State of the Climate Report for 2009. Check out the nice graph on page 4 of the summary that can be found here:
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/2009/bams-sotc-2009-brochure-lo-rez.pdf
The only point I was making is that according to NOAA, the bulk of AGW has gone into the oceans at approximately 93.4% according to their own graph. If this were even close to being accurate, it would not be unreasonable to postulate that such warming could alter the nature, frequency, duration, location, intensity, etc of natural ocean cycles such as ENSO, PDO, etc.
Of course, this gets back to Trenberth’s entire “travesty” comment, (used in the proper and accurate context). We simply don’t have enough measurements in deep enough water to fully know what is going on with the deeper OHC. Though, as we know, some recent research would seem to indicate that some OHC increases were being significantly underestimated, and may be revised upward by some accounts, perhaps accounting for a bit (but hardly all) of the missing ocean heat.
R. Gates says:
August 29, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Though, as we know, some recent research would seem to indicate that some OHC increases were being significantly underestimated, and may be revised upward by some accounts, perhaps accounting for a bit (but hardly all) of the missing ocean heat.
=========================================
Of course….if you are to believe NOAA….which of course you would.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100519_ocean.html
Well they got a few clues that they were being ridiculously and tragically obtuse….so their NEW motto is:
“NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources.”
It used to say “NOAA understands and predicts…”
Blah blah blah….all of these ******* public servants thinking they are gods.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
R. Gates says:
August 29, 2010 at 10:16 pm
The only point I was making is that according to NOAA, the bulk of AGW has gone into the oceans at approximately 93.4% according to their own graph. If this were even close to being accurate, it would not be unreasonable to postulate that such warming could alter the nature, frequency, duration, location, intensity, etc of natural ocean cycles such as ENSO, PDO, etc.
=================================
And it would not be unreasonable for me to postulate that you are officially mentally challenged.
But I am not going to do that.
It is so much better to let history play out on its own so you have a clear idea of who the charlatans and snake oil salesmen are, and who are not.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Paul Pierett says:
August 28, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Something to think about.
Paul
===========================
Something to think about, too, is your tropical cyclone forecast.
What was that prediction, again?
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Commenting on one of the earliest posts here:
phlogiston says:
Recently Bob Tisdale posted here on WUWT showing from recent decades that the el Nino Modoki type was less likely than the “standard” el Nino to be followed hot on its heels by a La Nina event. This analysis, based on several closely spaced el Ninos recently (e.g. 1991-2, 1994-5, 2002-3, 2004-5),
….
Ah … but 2005 had a Nina follow. I know Officially that was NOT a La Nina by the Rules of TODAY, but the NOAA head had the DEFINITION of La Nina changed to require a longer period above ONI=0.5 – – 2005 hit = 0.8, WELL OVER the previous standard – – but it was a Brief event. – -so the Change meant the Late-2005 event would not be CALLED a La Nina – – thus allowing him to grab Headlines, in this Post-Katrina Era, by predicting an above-average hurricane Season ! – – Despite the Rule of Thumb that La Ninas make for smaller (if more numerous), storms.
>> Since then, NOAA has found some excuse to predict EVERY YEAR to be FAR ABOVE AVERAGE. And been WRONG.
But they get lots of Headlines. Politically that is = SUCCESS.
… but Science loses Credibility. What if a REAL Danger needs warning about ?
Hello Chris,
If I put all my comments together, unlike the pros whom give big numbers, trash Florida tourism and cause Floridians to blow them off, I summarize:
4 to 7 named storms
50/50 mix of tropical storms and hurricanes.
If I could find historical data to justify adding major hurricane numbers in this year’s prediction, I would. I didn’t for that reason. If there was one or two, that is about par for the course this year.
I also said in one blog there would be several tropical depressions and that is part of the new Hurricane Tracking Center tracking data.
My numbers are based on three factors I use,
1. Historical data that has sunspot activity along with Accumulated Cyclone Energy, number of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes.
2. Volcanic activity around the Atlantic, in which Iceland had one, but how much did it affect temperatures?
3. The Average US Winter temperatures and this past year was 31.4F degrees, 3F degrees below historical temperature that gives us the Pro forecasts for this year.
Thus, a shorter season should be added in. I haven’t finished my distribution numbers yet, however, the season should be over in October.
So far:
There have been 7 official tropical depressions from which 5 became storms
Two tropical storms
Three hurricanes
Tropical Storms Bonnie and Colin
And
Hurricanes Alex, Danielle and Earl.
I heard Danielle made Cat 4 which is not too hard staying at sea, but it look like it has pretty much broken now. That is a good sign it is a weak season and the fact the wind currents turned it on its heels.
A new factor revealed itself this year, the collapse of humidity in the upper atmosphere. That may be a major player in years to come.
The Farmer’s Almanac is forcasting Cold and a dry winter. Ouch!
I probably gave you more than you asked for, but I am copying all my notes, comments and work for the next research paper.
Paul
Charles Wilson: The definition of what a La Nina is is plain wrong. It should be defined as the cool period initiated by the retreat of an El Nino wave. Every El Nino before 1998 was followed by a La Nina as satellite records show. If it did not meet the fashionable definition at the time that is because those defining it have no idea what a La Nina is nor what an El Nino is, for that matter. Check out my entries above and read my book.
R. Gates says: “They indicated that the vast majority of AGW is going into the oceans, which they did, quite clearly in their State of the Climate Report for 2009. Check out the nice graph on page 4 of the summary that can be found here:”
The posts I linked used the NODC OHC data. That dataset is listed in the NOAA State of the Climate Report for 2009 (the OHC graph on page 4) as Levitus et al (2009). Again, that OHC dataset, when broken down into hemispheric and ocean-basin subsets, does not reflect Anthropogenic Global Warming. It shows the majority of the rise in global OHC can be explain by ENSO, changes in sea level pressure, and the AMO.
You continued, “The only point I was making is that according to NOAA, the bulk of AGW has gone into the oceans at approximately 93.4% according to their own graph. If this were even close to being accurate, it would not be unreasonable to postulate that such warming could alter the nature, frequency, duration, location, intensity, etc of natural ocean cycles such as ENSO, PDO, etc.”
The assumption in your comment is that the NOAA presentation was “even close to being accurate.”
Here’s a why I don’t buy an assumption that the increase in OHC is changing the frequency and magnitude of ENSO events: NINO3.4 SST anomalies smoothed using a 121-month filter (same smoothing used by NOAA for their AMO dataset) show decadal and multdecadal variability, not a continuous rise:
http://i43.tinypic.com/33agh3c.jpg
Second, the linear trend of NINO3.4 SST anomalies from 1900 to present is flat:
http://i34.tinypic.com/1rwydg.jpg
Regards
Charles Wilson says: “…the NOAA head had the DEFINITION of La Nina changed to require a longer period above ONI=0.5 – – 2005 hit = 0.8, WELL OVER the previous standard – – but it was a Brief event. – -so the Change meant the Late-2005 event would not be CALLED a La Nina…”
Do you have a link to the older version of the NOAA ENSO event definition?
Bob Tisdale:
Just a quick Search: found 1997: “Values above thresholds of ±0.5°C for Niño 3 and ±0.4°C for Niño 3.4 are stippled ”
— graphs show ANY duration is OK – – but he is using a 5-month not the 3-month running average NOAA uses today http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/papers/clivar97/ Titled “The Definition of El Nino”.
Here is NOAA calling the late 2005-06 Event a La Nina: “NOAA Says La Nina Here As Predicted”
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hVc_aFkqXuUJ:www.panama-guide.com/article.php/20060209091138839+ONI+ENSO+definition&cd=62&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
In detail:
La Niña events are operationally defined using the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI), which is the three-month running-mean values of sea surface temperature departures from average in the Niño 3.4 region of the central Pacific (bounded by 5N-5S, 120-170W). NOAA defines La Niña as the condition whereby the ONI is less than or equal to -0.5 degrees C. This definition was adopted by the U.S. and 25 other countries in North and Central America and the Caribbean in April 2005
From 2004 “The NOAA operational definition for El Niño [Oceanic Niño Index (ONI), a three-month running mean of the Niño 3.4 index, greater than or equal to +0.5°C] was satisfied for the period June-August 2004, with a value of +0.7°C. ” http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-DdUBjKyQhgJ:www.storm2k.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php%3Ff%3D31%26t%3D48351%26start%3D0%26st%3D0%26sk%3Dt%26sd%3Da+ONI+ENSO+definition&cd=91&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
In the June 2002 Bulletin of Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society v.17
” NOAA’s operational definitions for El Niño and La Niña, based on the index, are:
El Niño: A phenomenon in the equatorial Pacific Ocean characterized by a positive sea surface temperature departure from normal (for the 1971-2000 base period) in the Niño 3.4 region greater than or equal in magnitude to 0.5C, averaged over three consecutive months. http://www.amos.org.au/documents/item/57
Definition : gives NO duration minimum: “Last revised 6.10.2005”
http://www.weather.gov/om/csd/pds/PCU4/Composites/CompInstructions.pdf
Also, cf http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml – – NOAA changed their ONI rating algorithm slightly which dropped the -0.8 I remembered to -0.7 but you can click & get the OLD version is still on their site.http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml