Cooler times ahead: indicators show deepening La Niña

“Apparently you’ve only read the quote I provided and not the two papers in full, because they contradict your speculations.”
I have read Jian Lu’s paper and he proposes that the climate system response differs between that for El Nino and that for AGW.
I have explained how it could work without any such difference being necessary.
Lu’s paper is speculation in the way it tries to explain away that non existent dichotomy without damaging AGW theory.
A warming world gives poleward jets. He confirms that. He then becomes confounded by the initial short term and unrepresentative climate response to El Nino.
El Nino warms the troposphere. A warmed troposphere gives more poleward jets.
The initial response to an El Nino is analogous to the initial stages of an explosion. First the surrounding air is drawn inward and sent upward. Then comes the outward blast at all levels. Thus first the slight equatorward shift of the subtropical jets then the poleward shift of all the air circulation systems.

“But the initial part of that sentence contradicts your earlier speculation on this thread about the expansion of the tropics during an El Niño, which is the topic of discussion.”
I dealt with that by saying that perhaps “I should refer to the combination of the tropics and subtropics and look at their joint response to El Nino rather than just the response of the tropics themselves.”
Originally I referred to ‘equatorial’ which could include sub tropics but perhaps unwisely switched to ‘tropics’ at some point.
Nonetheless my general concept appears to match the observation of poleward jets in a warming world and the undoubted role of El Nino in creating a warming world.

Stephen Wilde says: “Rossby waves are also known as planetary waves. I doubt that anyone has ever thought to question their global nature except you just now.”
You wrote that in reply to my question, “Do you have a link to a webpage or study that confirms this?” with “this” being your statement, “That’s easy. The Rossby wave is coupled to the global oceans as a whole and not just the bit of the globe over which it is situated. The oceans enabled the Rossby wave throughout.”
Regarding your statement, “I doubt that anyone has ever thought to question their global nature except you just now,” I can and will cite papers that discuss the non-global nature of specific types of Kelvin and Rossby waves, so there are others who have questioned “their global nature”.
Recall that I was talking about Rossby AND Kelvin waves. Refer back to:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/31/cooler-times-ahead-indicators-show-deepening-la-nina/#comment-471487
Let’s concentrate on a very specific type of Kelvin wave, an equatorial Kelvin wave. In the Pacific, they are at best a few hundred km wide, being trapped along the equator. Refer to the following for a very basic discussion:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/05mar_kelvinwave/
In it you will note that NASA describes the cause as, “El Niños and Kelvin waves are both triggered by winds — or a lack thereof — in the Pacific Ocean.”
But according to you, (the statement that initiated this entire discussion): “The thermal energy of water is so much greater than that of air that as a basic first principle the initiator of any new trend in any coupled ocean air interaction must always be the ocean.”
These equatorial Kelvin waves also occur in the Atlantic. Refer to Lazar et al “Kelvin Waves Activity In The Eastern Tropical Atlantic”:
http://earth.esa.int/workshops/venice06/participants/1263/paper_1263_lazar.pdf
They write, “Regarding the causes of the equatorial waves, the source of the equatorial Kelvin wave seems to be the zonal wind stress at the equatorial western Atlantic associated to an atmospheric Oscillation (i.e. MJO). This anomalously deep convection at the western Atlantic and the surface winds divergence appear before the SSH perturbation starts to propagates, which seems to indicate that the atmosphere is leading the phenomenon.”
Hmm. A change in the atmosphere leads the change in the ocean. This again contradicts your statement that I quoted above that “any new trend in any coupled ocean air interaction must always be the ocean.”

Stephen Wilde: Regarding your September 1, 2010 at 9:37 am reply, does all of that rethinking of your initial statement mean that you no longer agree with the comment you made that initiated the discussion? And that statement was, “I would say that the El Nino by expanding the tropical air masses pushes poleward the air circulation patterns that cause the Trade Winds…”

Bob,
Our discussion of various points of detail is becoming too unwieldy and going rather off topic for this thread but before I withdraw I should make a few more points:
i) NASA says this “which seems to indicate that the atmosphere is leading the phenomenon.” The use of the word ‘seems’ suggests speculation and an element of doubt. As it is I disagree with their speculation. They also say this: “causes of the equatorial waves, the source of the equatorial Kelvin wave seems (guessing again) to be the zonal wind stress at the equatorial western Atlantic associated to an atmospheric Oscillation (i.e. MJO). Well my reply would be that the atmospheric Oscillation must itself be initiated by a change in the rate of energy release by the ocean so I consider their speculation to be wrong. Now I do not exclude a top down influence on climate. indeed my hypothesis requires that such an effect be present within the vertical air column. However the density differential between water and air must in my opinion prevent it from having a significant effect on the behaviour of the oceans. In my opinion the oceans vary independently (albeit influenced by total solar energy input), the sun varies independently (having an effect on the upward energy flux through the air column) and climate results from the interplay as the system seeks equilibrium by varying the speed of the hydrological cycle mediated by the latitudinal position of all the air circulation systems.
ii)As you point out I initially said this : “I would say that the El Nino by expanding the tropical air masses pushes poleward the air circulation patterns that cause the Trade Winds…” I now accept that I should have referred to tropical and subtropical air masses. Nonetheless my concept is correct overall as Lu accepts i.e, a warmer troposphere results in more poleward jets and I think everyone accepts that a warmer troposphere results from more energy released to the air by the oceans and especially El Nino. So whilst your minor criticism of my terminology may have been correct it takes us nowhere because the underlying point is supported by Lu’s paper.
iii) For a long time now you have been challenging me to produce data that shows that the jets move latitudinally at all beyond normal seasonal variation. I have referred you to lots of anecdotal sources concerning their different positions in the MWP and LIA because no such precise data exists. You have now referred me to Lu’s paper which confirms a poleward drift of the jets when there is a warmer troposphere so I ask you to desist on that particular issue.

Stephen Wilde: You replied (predictably), “NASA says this ‘which seems to indicate that the atmosphere is leading the phenomenon.’ The use of the word ‘seems’ suggests speculation and an element of doubt. As it is I disagree with their speculation. They also say this: ‘causes of the equatorial waves, the source of the equatorial Kelvin wave seems (guessing again) to be the zonal wind stress at the equatorial western Atlantic associated to an atmospheric Oscillation (i.e. MJO).’”
There are other many other discussions that present the change in trade winds (as the initiator of Kelvin waves and ENSO) and they do it with certainty. Bill Kessler in his ENSO FAQ webpage writes, “During El Niño events, this entire system relaxes. The trade winds weaken, particularly west of the Dateline, and the piled-up water in the west sloshes back east, carrying the warm pool with it.” There’s no uncertainty in those sentences. Link:
http://faculty.washington.edu/kessler/occasionally-asked-questions.html
And there are other papers that are also much more certain. The first sentence of the Introduction of Lazar et al reads, “The seasonal adjustment of the equatorial ocean to the wind stress forcing drives a cycle of consecutive Kelvin waves.” Again, there is no guessing in the sentence. Link to Lazar et al:
http://earth.esa.int/workshops/venice06/participants/1263/paper_1263_lazar.pdf
You continued, “Well my reply would be that the atmospheric Oscillation must itself be initiated by a change in the rate of energy release by the ocean so I consider their speculation to be wrong.”
But your comment is also speculation, and is based solely on your beliefs, not on reality. Keep in mind that not all weather is dependent on the oceans. Differences in land surface albedo cause changes in atmospheric circulation. Differences between land and sea surface temperature causes wind. These are impacted seasonally.
My point is that a change in atmospheric circulation can initiate a change in ocean processes, and this contradicts your earlier comment, “The thermal energy of water is so much greater than that of air that as a basic first principle the initiator of any new trend in any coupled ocean air interaction must always be the ocean.”
You continued. “In my opinion the oceans vary independently (albeit influenced by total solar energy input)…”
The temperature of and heat released by oceans are not independent of the atmosphere and they are not influenced solely by solar flux. The SST anomalies of the tropical North Atlantic, for example, rise in response to an El Niño. Wang provides a very detailed description in his “ENSO, ATLANTIC CLIMATE VARIABILITY, AND THE WALKER AND HADLEY CIRCULATIONS” (2005).
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/…..Camera.pdf
There’s a brief summary of the causes for the rise in tropical Atlantic SST anomalies in response to an El Niño on page 24. He writes about the tropical North Atlantic [TNA], “The anomalous subtropical ascending motion corresponds to a late winter weakening of the North Atlantic anticyclone and the associated northeast (NE) trade winds over its southern limb in the TNA region. With the weaker NE trades come reduced evaporation and entrainment (from below the oceanic mixed layer) during late winter and early spring, leading to warmer SST anomalies over the TNA region by late spring and early summer (Enfield and Mayer 1997 and others)… …Thus, the Walker and Hadley circulations can serve as a ‘tropospheric bridge’ for transferring the Pacific El Niño SST anomalies to the Atlantic sector and inducing the TNA SST anomalies just at the time of year when the warm pool is developing.”
So SST anomalies can rise in response to an El Niño without the transfer of heat and without a change in solar flux. When North Atlantic trade winds decrease in response to an El Niño, SST anomalies increase.
You wrote, “As you point out I initially said this : ‘I would say that the El Nino by expanding the tropical air masses pushes poleward the air circulation patterns that cause the Trade Winds…’ I now accept that I should have referred to tropical and subtropical air masses. Nonetheless my concept is correct overall as Lu accepts i.e, a warmer troposphere results in more poleward jets…”
Wrong. You again fail to acknowledge the errors in your initial statement. Your statement read, “El Nino by expanding the tropical air masses pushes poleward the air circulation patterns that cause the Trade Winds so that they fade away whereas the La Nina by allowing the tropical air masses to contract again allows the air circulation systems that cause the Trade Winds to sink back equatorward so that theose winds resume once more.”
First, an El Niño does not expand the tropics. You accepted this in an earlier comment. Second, “Lu accepts…a warmer troposphere results in more poleward jets…” only when the opposing effects of El Niño events are removed from the general warming. Third, the relaxation of the trade winds in the western tropical Pacific initiates (precedes) the El Niño. During the El Niño, the trade winds in the western Pacific reverse due to the relocation of the convection to the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, a point your conjecture overlooks.
You ended that portion of your reply, “So whilst your minor criticism of my terminology may have been correct it takes us nowhere because the underlying point is supported by Lu’s paper.”
This is wrong, as noted above, because we were discussing your comment about the effects DURING the El Niño, not the effects of the long-term warming.
You wrote, “You have now referred me to Lu’s paper which confirms a poleward drift of the jets when there is a warmer troposphere so I ask you to desist on that particular issue.”
A few weeks ago I presented the NASA opinion that the AO is correlated with the latitude of the jets stream:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/19/global-sea-surface-temps-still-headed-down/#comment-462488

Bill Kessler’s work says this:
“The reason that you don’t see much publicity about the causes of El Niño is that we don’t understand the origins of the event. We do, however, have a pretty good understanding of how it evolves once it has begun, and that gives a useful ability to make forecasts 6-9 months ahead for some regions. That is the information you see because that is the present state of reasonably-secure knowledge. Of course, there are a variety of theories, and many scientists are working on various aspects of the genesis, which would presumably extend the predictive skill out another few months or even years.
The fact is, at several points over the past two decades we thought we had working theories of what causes El Niño. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for those who like scientific challenges), nature has shown that those theories were at best incomplete. For example, during the mid-1980s a group at Columbia University developed a fairly simple theory and wrote a computer model to produce predictions based on it. This was successful in predicting the 1986-87 and 91-92 events almost a year in advance, and they were (figuratively?) breaking out the champagne. Then along came the event of 1993, then another in 94-95, and most prominently the present event, none of which developed according to the ideas in their theory.
The main reason this is so difficult is that the processes that cause El Niños involve the full complexity of ocean-atmosphere interaction on a global scale. We have developed a reasonably good understanding of how the atmosphere works (at least in theory), once the sea surface temperature (SST) that drives the atmospheric circulation is known. (We are somewhat further behind when it comes to the ocean, which is much harder to observe). That works pretty well to run the atmospheric models to make short-term weather forecasts, because the ocean changes rather slowly. But, when you consider longer-term phenomena like El Niño, it is not enough to specify the SST; one must consider how the ocean will evolve under the winds, and then how the altered ocean will modify the winds, and so on, in many tricky and sensitive feedback loops. We are just beginning to be able to see how these fundamentally coupled disturbances work, and generally only in very idealized cases. Remember that for a long time meteorologists only talked to meteorologists, and oceanographers only to oceanographers. Now we are really at the initial stages of being able to think about these coupled problems.”
I think that is a realistic assessment of the situation.
I am looking at ways to resolve the causation issues for ENSO and the entire climate system. It is clear from the levels of uncertainty that I have nothing to be embarrassed about if you find apparent inconsistencies between what I propose and what you observe.
In particular I have proposed a bottom up oceanic and top down solar interplay that could well initiate and direct both ENSO events and air circulation changes.
You are looking almost exclusively at events after ENSO is already under way and I would accept that those short term regional events may well be very different from the long term global processes that must underlie them.
To conclude our discussion I emphasise these words from Bill:
“We are somewhat further behind when it comes to the ocean, which is much harder to observe.”

Bob, you said this:
“The temperature of and heat released by oceans are not independent of the atmosphere and they are not influenced solely by solar flux”
They are not dependent on the atmosphere either. My proposition is that the internal mechanics plus the size and density of the oceans make them substantially independent (in energy flux terms) of atmospheric effects but not immune to them.
All you are doing is dealing with the short term localised exceptions to the general rule and then pronouncing that there is no more to consider.

Fall day here in central MN with, wonder of wonders, rain third day running. Half the days since June we’ve had rain. We get 30 inches a year and are up over norm 6 inches in 60 days. La Nina jet stream I’m thinkin’.