Tisdale rebuttal to JPL's "Study Finds El Niños are Growing Stronger"

“But the press release and the press have missed this realistic conclusion”
Probably because the press in general aren’t concerned with reality; just what news sells.

This is like taking candy from a baby.
News stories based on a press release based on a flawed study.
It’s worth remembering that a press release is just a public relations instrument; it’s a selling tool meant to present its subject in the most favorable light.
Tracking the shifting loci of ENSO events is not made any easier by the asymmetrical nature of the Pacific Basin. Throw in some agenda driven “science” and we’re back to the high priests examing entrails.

Thanks Bob, for another clear post. Worrying that people who should know better fail to understand the history of El Niño Modoki events.
A good estimate of the global energy moved and dissipated by El Niño and the associated La Nina ‘recharge’ event would go a long way to improving our understanding of weather regime/climate.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/210/20100828/983/tsc-volcano-quiet-for-400-years-erupts-i_1.html and new lets add some equatorial cooling to the La Nina LOL
JPL – Another junk science agency, is it a funding drive this week?

Nick wrote: ” Anthony has somewhat misrepresented your post,Bob,as a ‘rebuttal’. It’s more a criticism of its press handling.”
Anthony titled the post “Tisdale rebuttal to JPL’s ‘Study Finds El Niños are Growing Stronger’” because the post and the paper show that El Nino events are not growing stronger, disproving the title of the JPL press release, which he placed in quotes. The post also illustrates that there’s nothing new about central Pacific El Nino events. Those both sound like rebuttals to me. And there are a number of comments about the Lee and McPhaden, including the missing minus sign.
You continued, “But there really is so little data: 30 years of any kind of EN doesn’t add up to very many.”
There is only 30-years of satellite-based SST data. The Hadley Centre and NCDC have SST reconstructions back through the mid to late 1800s. Researchers like Trenberth and Stepaniak have created the Trans-Nino Index (TNI) back through 1871, using the SST anomalies of NINO1+2 and NINO4 regions.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/catalog/climind/TNI_N34/index.html
You asked, “According to the standardised index back to 1900,there seem to be more EN-Ms prior to the 1970s.Is this so?”
Assuming the SST data prior to the satellite era is a reasonable representation of reality, the data shows El Nino Modoki have existed throughout the instrument temperature record.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/07/there-is-nothing-new-about-el-nino.html

Nick says: “You are rebutting the media coverage,not L&M. ”
I never wrote that I was rebutting Lee and McPhaden. You made that leap, not me.
You wrote, “While they have used the new index to isolate the feature…”
And what new index would that be? The NINO4 index has been around for a while, Nick. Annual peak SST anomalies, or December SST anomalies, or DJF SST anomalies have been used in earlier studies.
You wrote, “I’d suggest that when reference is made to the novelty of EN-Ms it is only in context of the novelty of the Ashok et al index as the tool to distinguish them from the ‘classic’ EN.”
There is no novelty to El Nino Modoki, Nick. Central Pacific El Nino events existed prior to the period used in this study. And I illustrated this fact using the methodology developed by Ashok et al, which is very clear in the post.
You wrote, “They did not claim that El Ninos in toto are so, nor did they claim that EN-Ms are new. ”
I didn’t write that they had made those statments in the study, Nick, but I did show show their graphs reflect an overall increase in Central Pacific and Eastern Pacific El Nino events.
You wrote, “They obviously believe it is valid to proceed on the distinction between ‘classic’ and ‘Modoki’.”
Obviously, because they noted exactly that at the end of the paper. They wrote, “However, no studies have addressed possible causes for an increasing intensity of CP−El Niños. Further investigation is therefore needed to understand
these issues better given the uncertainty surrounding causal mechanisms and the implications the observed changes have for global climate and societal impacts.”
Can’t get much plainer than that.
In summary, Nick, I’m not sure what you’re arguing about. Your complaints about my post are unfounded.

I think the readers of this thread may find a recent JGR paper of mine to be of interest. [“El Niño–Southern Oscillation: Magnitudes and asymmetry” JGR 115 D15111, doi:1029/2009JD0135508, 2010]. This is a study the statistical properties of all 4 indices (Nino12, Nino3, Nino3.4 and Nino4) from 1856 to the present. I find that the positive values for all are Gaussian distributed. This means that El Ninos are merely rare events from the tail of this distribution. However, the negative values differ from Gaussian because of a deficiency of large La Ninas. The deficiency is largest for [mid-Pacific] Nino4 and least for [eastern-Pacific] Nino12.
The interpretation of these results as an “Increasing intensity of El Nino in the central-equatorial Pacific” would be incorrect.
David Douglass
University of Rochester

As has already been pointed out: Lee and McPhaden used data set that is too short. But as also is pointed out the admitted in so many words they knew it: “…changes associated with natural decadal-to-multi-decadal variability…..or whether the changes are due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing…”
But the media has to talk about the sky falling.

Bob…you wrote in a post back in May of this year the following:
“Will a La Nina follow the 2009/10 El Nino? Considering that only 2 of 10 El Nino Modoki events since 1950 were followed by La Nina events, the odds are against it. But nature does provide surprises.”
I guess this year we are seeing one of those surprises.

C James says: “I guess this year we are seeing one of those surprises.”
Yup. And next time I can write…only 3 of 10 El Nino Modoki events since 1950 were followed by La Nina events…

david (August 29, 2010 at 8:46 am): Thanks for heads up on your paper.
And here’s a link for those following the thread:
http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~douglass/papers/2009JD013508-pip.pdf

Bob, again,I never claimed that CEP El Ninos were new. I’m offering a possible reason for the way the media have represented the paper. There is unarguably novelty to the delineation and analysis of them -the concepts have only recent currency-as you well know. Media simplification represents that,which is why I think upbraiding the science media for using the word ‘new’ is overegging it,and why interposing a limited discussion of the paper into what is largely a correcting of the media is not useful. It creates the impression of damnation by association,when the paper needs to be evaluated in its own right.
Juxtaposing L& M’s figures,which in context of their paper are used specifically to identify the CP trend ,with data you use to correct the press release error about EN trend in general creates the impression that L&M’s findings don’t matter.
And as the CP is a subset of the western Pacific warm pool, I don’t think L&Ms findings can be easily extrapolated as a contradiction of earlier theoretical predictions for the much larger area.
I erred in thinking L&M may have used the Ashok EMI index in their work:that was my reference to a ‘new index’.

The ‘trick’ to selling newspapers has always been the same. Adults think it has something to do with the truth and depth and breath of the material in the newspaper. It hasn’t. Selling newspapers is an art-form and a sci-form, too, if you will. It’s a ‘trick’ that any ten year old boy can learn in less than an hour if you give him a bundle of papers and plant him in front of the La Mesa, California, Post Office after school gets out in 1958. Back then a lot more folks went to the Post Office then they do now, but that’s just a matter of ‘location-location-location’ and has nothing to do with here and now and selling newspapers and the ‘trick’. Anyway, it all boils down to the head turning, gimme-a-paper-kid, SHOUT that you use to get the attention of adults who are milling around doing nothing important except checking their mail, etc., on their way here or there. The ‘trick’ is the ‘SHOUT’ – Sometimes it’s just the main headline. Sometimes there is no real main headline and you have to brighten what you’re given up a little. Here’s an example, like at todays ‘The Globe and Blackmail’, or ‘National Exployter’, etc., you take nothing and make it into something sensational and interesting: “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE! EL NINO TO KILL EVERYONE! GET YER PAPER! TEN CENTS A PAPER! EL NINO TO KILL EVERYONE! TEN CENTS A PAPER!”
PS: Kid’s have to eat too ya’ know!

Nick: You replied, “Bob, again,I never claimed that CEP El Ninos were new.”
I didn’t say that you had. Look again at my reply:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/29/tisdale-rebuttal-to-jpls-study-finds-el-ninos-are-growing-stronger/#comment-469349
You used the word “new” in your (August 29, 2010 at 5:49 am) comment, “While they have used the new index to isolate the feature…” and I advised you NINO4 data and the Lee and McPhaden methods (the use of peak SST anomalies) were not new.
You wrote, “Juxtaposing L& M’s figures,which in context of their paper are used specifically to identify the CP trend ,with data you use to correct the press release error about EN trend in general creates the impression that L&M’s findings don’t matter.”
The post itself contradicts what you’ve written. The second to the last paragraph of the post included a portion of Lee and McPhaden’s Concluding Remarks and I closed the post with the following two words, “realistic conclusion.” And in the body of the post, I noted, “…the point of the paper is to illustrate that Central Pacific El Niño events are growing in strength.” Your belief that my post gives the “impression that L&M’s findings don’t matter” is unfounded.
You continue to attempt to spin what I wrote in my post and on this thread, Nick, so that you can contradict your spin, in effect arguing with yourself, and, by doing so, you attempt to put my post in a bad light. Your tactics remind me of those used by a Nick during a multiple-week debate I had at Accuweather last September and again in January of this year here at WUWT.
My post is very simple, Nick. It starts with, “As happens all too often, the press release for a paper has an incorrect title and begins with an unfounded claim.” And the post ends with, “But the press release and the press have missed this realistic conclusion.” Between those two sentences I showed, using the El Nino Modoki Index and the paper itself, that specific claims made in the press release were wrong.
You can continue to try to spin my post and my comments on this thread, Nick, and I will continue to correct you.
Have a nice day.

Nick says: “Correct me as you will,Bob,but I feel the structuring of your post with its rebuttal of the expedient usage in a press release does tend to diminish the observations that you share on L&M 2010,and I wonder why you chose to do this.”
And I wonder why you choose to use the unclear adjective “expedient” in your sentence. I can read it as “appropriate” or “convenient”, and that changes the meaning of your sentence drastically. And the remainder of your paragraph doesn’t clarify it.
You wrote, “When looking deeper into the media pieces based around the paper,correcting that usage seems pretty trivial as the various quoted commenters offer qualification and extra detail for their professedly tentative conclusions.”
In the press release, the “various quoted commenters” do not correct the claim in the press release that the central Pacific El Nino is a new type of El Nino event. In fact, after that discussion, the author of the press release reinforces his opening sentence with, “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,”
The Los Angeles times Story begins with “The weather pattern known as El Niño, which can bring heavy rains to Southern California, has doubled in intensity and warmth and shifted westward over several decades.” In the remainder of the article, the interviews with Lee or Patzert do not qualify or provide any more detail as you claim about the “weather pattern known as El Niño”…doubling in “intensity and warmth…”
You wrote, “Simply,why even bother to include a swipe at the media,and simply discuss the paper?”
Your question is based on your continued belief the misrepresentations presented by the media were corrected somehow by the interviews. They were not.
You wrote, “I also feel your rhetorical style is as grating as you find mine.”
There’s an easy fix for that. Don’t bother to read my posts or comments.
You asked earlier and repeated the question, “According to the standardised index back to 1900,there seemed to be more EN-Ms prior to the 1970s. Is this so?”
My apologies for not replying to your question earlier. The following is a table that lists El Nino years and whether the DJF values for the El Nino Modoki Index would have qualified it as an El Nino Modoki event. Of the 18 El Nino events prior to 1980, 12 (or 66%) are El Nino Modoki. After 1980 (and including the 2009/10 El Nino not listed on the table), there were 9 El Nino events and 6 (66%) were El Nino Modoki. In other words, there is no difference in the percentage of El Nino Modoki events.
http://i35.tinypic.com/20gy6mo.jpg
And if you’re wondering, I prepared that table for a third post last year on El Nino Modoki, but I never got around to writing it. I’ll likely update it and post it soon.