Bob Tisdale writes:
I’ve been holding off telling you about my most recent post in hopes that GISS would continue with their warmest-year nonsense. And they did.
Using correlation maps, animations, graphs and a youtube video, the post shows how leftover warm water from an El Nino gets spun up into the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension (KOE) where it continues to release heat during the La Nina. The KOE correlates with the Northern Hemisphere warming during an La Nina, and one of the datasets used for the graphs and correlation maps is GISTEMP LOTI.
The ENSO-Related Variations In Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension (KOE) SST Anomalies And Their Impact On Northern Hemisphere Temperatures
Guest post by Bob Tisdale
OVERVIEW
This post provides brief background information about the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension (KOE), and discusses the relationship between NINO3.4 SST anomalies and the SST anomalies of the KOE following major El Niño events. Using correlation maps the post also illustrates the possible impacts of the KOE Sea Surface Temperature (SST) anomalies on North Atlantic SST anomalies, Combined Land and Ocean Surface Temperature anomalies, and Lower Troposphere Temperature anomalies.
INTRODUCTION
The Kuroshio Current and Oyashio Current are located in the western North Pacific Ocean. The Kuroshio Current is the western boundary current of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. Its counterpart in the North Atlantic Ocean is the well-known Gulf Stream. The Kuroshio Current carries warm tropical waters northward from the North Equatorial Current to the east coast of Japan. The East Kamchatka Current and the Oyashio Current are the western boundary currents of the Western Subarctic Gyre. The East Kamchatka Current is renamed the Oyashio Current south of the Bussol Strait (which is located about half way between Hokkaido and the Kamchatka Peninsula). They carry cold subarctic waters south to the east coast of Japan. The Kuroshio and Oyashio currents meet and form the North Pacific Current that runs from west to east across the North Pacific at mid latitudes. The Qiu, (2001) paper Kuroshio and Oyashio Currents. In Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences, (Academic Press, pp. 1413-1425) provides a detailed but easily readable description of the two currents. Figure 1, from Qiu (2001), illustrates the general locations and paths of the Kuroshio and Oyashio Currents.
http://i51.tinypic.com/15zs014.jpg
Figure 1
As noted above, the Kuroshio and Oyashio Currents collide East of Japan and form the western portion of the North Pacific Current. These waters are often referred to as the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension or the KOE. For the purpose of this post, I’ve used the coordinates of 30N-45N, 150E-150W for the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension, Figure 2.
http://i52.tinypic.com/14twvox.jpg
Figure 2
CORRELATION WITH NORTHERN HEMISPHERE TEMPERATURES
Sea Surface Temperature (SST) anomalies for much of the North Atlantic warm (cool) when the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension SST anomalies warm (cool). This can be seen in the correlation map of annual (January to December) Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension SST anomalies and annual North Atlantic SST anomalies, Figure 3.
http://i52.tinypic.com/fjj23r.jpg
Figure 3
And, as shown in Figures 4 (RSS) and 5 (UAH), annual TLT anomalies for much of the Northern Hemisphere correlate with the annual SST anomalies of the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension.
http://i52.tinypic.com/311s49i.jpg
Figure 4
##############
http://i53.tinypic.com/2qsx7j8.jpg
Figure 5
The same thing holds true for combined land plus sea surface temperature datasets such as the GISS Land-Ocean Temperature Index (LOTI) data for the Northern Hemisphere, Figure 6. Much of the Northern Hemisphere GISS LOTI data warms (cools) as KOE SST anomalies warm (cool). (Also note the differences in the North Atlantic correlations in Figures 3 and 6. They’re based on the same SST dataset, so why are there differences? GISS deletes SST data from areas with seasonal sea ice and extends land surface data out over the oceans with its 1200km radius smoothing. Refer to GISS Deletes Arctic And Southern Ocean Sea Surface Temperature Data.)
http://i54.tinypic.com/303llxg.jpg
Figure 6
WHEN DOES THE KOE WARM?
As we’ve seen in past posts, the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans warm in response to El Niño events and then during the subsequent La Nina events. As part of the East Indian-West Pacific subset, the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension warms significantly during La Niña events. Animation 1 is taken from the videos in the post La Niña Is Not The Opposite Of El Niño – The Videos. It presents the 1997/98 El Niño followed by the 1998 through 2001 La Niña. Each map represents the average SST anomalies for a 12-month period and is followed by the next 12-month period in sequence. Using 12-month averages eliminates the seasonal and weather noise. The effect is similar to smoothing data in a time-series graph with a 12-month running-average filter. Note how the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension warms significantly during the La Niña event and how the warming persists for the entire term of the La Niña.
http://i53.tinypic.com/etb58j.jpg
Animation 1
Note in Animation 1 that the SST anomalies of the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension were cool during the 1997/98 El Niño. The KOE actually started with depressed SST anomalies, and they did not drop significantly during the 1997/98 El Niño. Refer to Figure 7. On the other hand, the KOE SST anomalies did rise significantly during the transition from the El Niño to the La Niña in 1998. The other major El Niño event that wasn’t impacted by the aerosols of an explosive volcanic eruption was the 1986/87/88 event. The SST anomalies of the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension cooled during the 1986/87/88 El Niño, but also rose significantly during the 1988/89 La Nina. We’ll take a closer look at that event later in the post.
http://i53.tinypic.com/2qa1onl.jpg
Figure 7
This response of the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension to El Niño and La Niña events is easier to see if the NINO3.4 SST anomalies are inverted, Figure 8. That is, the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension warms much more during the 1998/99/00/01 La Niña event than it cools during the 1997/98 El Niño. But could the significant drop in the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension during the 1986/87/88 El Niño impact the global response to that El Niño? Again, we’ll examine that later in the post.
http://i52.tinypic.com/wjvow.jpg
Figure 8
WHY DOES THE KOE WARM DURING LA NIÑA EVENTS?
Let’s start with the El Niño. During an El Niño event, a significant volume of warm water from the west Pacific Warm Pool travels east to the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, where it releases heat primarily through evaporation. And most of the warm water from the Pacific Warm Pool water comes from below the surface. There is “leftover” warm water when the La Niña forms, and a portion of this leftover warm water is returned to the western tropical Pacific at approximately 10 deg N latitude. Video 1 illustrates global Sea Level Residuals from January 1998 to June 2001. It captures the 1998/99/00/01 La Niña in its entirety. The video was taken from the JPL video “tpglobal.mpeg”. The phenomenon shown carrying warm waters from east to west in the tropical Pacific at approximately 10 deg N is called a slow-moving Rossby Wave.
Video 1
Link to Video 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF5vZErQ6HM
Unfortunately, the video “tpglobal.mpeg” is no longer available at the JPL VIDEOS web page, but for those who would like to watch the entire video, I uploaded it to YouTube as Sea Surface Height Animation 1992 to 2002 – JPL Video tpglobal.mpg.
In Video 1, the warm “leftover” warm water from the 1997/98 El Niño is clearly carried as far west as the Philippines. Shortly thereafter Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension sea level residuals rise and remain elevated for the duration of the La Niña.
In addition, there are other factors that add to and maintain the elevated SST anomalies in the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension during the La Niña. As shown in Animation 1 (the gif animation, not the video), Sea Surface Temperature anomalies outside of the tropical Pacific rise in response to the El Niño. The changes occur first in the Atlantic, then Indian, and finally the west Pacific. Sea Surface Temperature anomalies rise as changes in atmospheric circulation caused by the El Niño make their way eastward around the globe to the western Pacific. Then, during the La Niña, the opposite occurs for much of the globe. But in the tropical Pacific, the trade winds strengthen and the North and South Equatorial Currents return warm “leftover” surface waters from the El Niño to the west. So the western Pacific is warmed cumulatively by the El Niño and then by the La Niña. In the northwest Pacific, the Kuroshio Current carries the leftover warm water up to the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension.
Additionally, the increased strength of the trade winds during the La Niña also reduces cloud cover over the tropical Pacific, which increases the amount of Downward Shortwave Radiation (visible light) there. The increased Downward Shortwave Radiation warms the tropical Pacific. The warmed water is carried to the west by the Equatorial Currents and the North Pacific Gyre spins the warmed water up to the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
In the post “RSS MSU TLT Time-Latitude Plots…Show Climate Responses That Cannot Be Easily Illustrated With Time-Series Graphs Alone”, I illustrated that the RSS Lower Troposphere Temperature (TLT) anomalies of Southern Hemisphere and of the Tropics (70S-20N) followed the basic variations in NINO3.4 SST anomalies, Figure 9. This is how one would expect TLT anomalies to respond to El Niño and La Niña events. El Niño events cause the TLT anomalies to rise because they release more heat than normal to the atmosphere, and La Niña events cause TLT anomalies to fall because the tropical Pacific is releasing less heat than normal.
http://i54.tinypic.com/r9h0d5.jpg
Figure 9
But the TLT anomalies of the Northern Hemisphere north of 20N, Figure 10, appear to rise in a step after the 1997/98 El Niño. That is, there is very little response to the 1998 through 2001 La Niña. It appears as though a secondary source of heat is maintaining the Northern Hemisphere TLT anomalies at elevated levels.
http://i53.tinypic.com/11lsb6e.jpg
Figure 10
A similar upward step can be seen in the GISS Land-Ocean Temperature anomaly index (LOTI) for the latitudes of 20N-65N, Figure 11. (North of 65N the GISS data is biased by their deleting Sea Surface Temperature data and replacing it with land surface data with a higher trend. Again, refer to GISS Deletes Arctic And Southern Ocean Sea Surface Temperature Data.)
http://i53.tinypic.com/34qr5t2.jpg
Figure 11
And a similar upward step is visible in the North Atlantic SST anomaly data, Figure 12.
http://i56.tinypic.com/1zewmqq.jpg
Figure 12
The North Atlantic SST anomalies, the Lower Troposphere Temperature( TLT) anomalies of the Northern Hemisphere north of 20N, and the Northern Hemisphere Land-Ocean Temperature anomalies (20N-65N) all rise in response to the 1997/98 El Niño, but fail to respond fully to the 1998/99/00/01 La Niña. The similarity of the curves can be seen in Figure 13.
http://i54.tinypic.com/200v0j5.jpg
Figure 13
The correlation maps in Figures 3 through 6 show that a portion of the warming of the Northern Hemisphere north of 20N should be a response to the elevated Kuroshio-Oyashio SST anomalies during the 1998 through 2001 La Niña. To further illustrate this relationship, Figure 14 compares the KOE SST anomalies (not scaled) to the three datasets shown in Figure 13. I did not scale the Kuroshio-Oyashio SST anomalies because I wanted to illustrate the differences in the magnitudes of the variations. The variations in Kuroshio-Oyashio SST anomalies are clearly far greater than the variations of the other three datasets in Figure 14. In fact, the KOE SST anomaly variations are about 40% to 50% of the variations in NINO3.4 SST anomalies (refer back to Figures 7 and 8).
http://i56.tinypic.com/29e0pvp.jpg
Figure 14
Figure 15 presents the same datasets as Figure 14, but in Figure 15, the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension SST anomalies have been scaled. Keep in mind that the three Northern Hemisphere temperature anomaly datasets rise first in response to the El Niño.
http://i54.tinypic.com/25hl2tz.jpg
Figure 15
It appears the warming of the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension during the 1998/99/00/01 La Niña and its interaction with the other datasets could explain a portion of the trend in Northern Hemisphere SST anomalies, TLT anomalies, and Land-Ocean temperature anomalies since 1995. The warming of the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension during that La Niña counteracts the normal cooling effects of the La Niña and prevents the temperature anomalies for the three datasets shown in Figures 13, 14, and 15 from responding fully to the La Niña.
THE 1986/87/88 EL NIÑO & 1988/89 LA NIÑA
There is a similar effect during the 1988/89 La Niña. That is, Northern Hemisphere temperature anomalies do not drop as one would expect during a La Niña. But the response during the 1986/87/88 El Niño may help to confirm the impact of the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension on Northern Hemisphere temperatures.
Figure 16 compares scaled NINO3.4 SST anomalies for the period of 1985 through 1994 to the same datasets used in Figures 13: North Atlantic SST anomalies, the Lower Troposphere Temperature (TLT) anomalies of the Northern Hemisphere north of 20N, and the GISS Northern Hemisphere Land-Ocean Temperature anomalies (20N-65N). Once again, the Northern Hemisphere datasets rise in response to the El Niño event, but don’t drop in response to the La Niña. Note also that the North Atlantic SST anomalies lag the NINO3.4 SST by more than 6 months during the ramp-up phase, but the lag in the Northern Hemisphere TLT and Surface Temperature datasets is excessive, about 18 months. Why?
http://i53.tinypic.com/iqx3te.jpg
Figure 16
Could the dip in the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension SST anomalies during the 1986/87/88 El Niño have counteracted their responses to the El Niño? Refer to Figure 17. It compares Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension SST anomalies (not scaled) to the North Atlantic and Northern Hemisphere datasets. The drop in KOE SST anomalies is significant in 1986/87/88.
http://i51.tinypic.com/2cwjs6c.jpg
Figure 17
And in Figure 18, the Kiroshio-Oyashio SST anomalies have been scaled. The North Atlantic SST anomalies rise in response to the 1986/87/88 El Niño as noted earlier. The timing of the rises in the KOE data and the GISS LOTI data are very similar. But the rise in the TLT anomalies north of 20N precedes the rise in the KOE data. If the dip in KOE SST anomalies were the only factor preventing the TLT anomalies from rising in response to the El Niño, shouldn’t we expect the TLT anomalies to lag the rise in the KOE data? Or are the TLT anomalies responding to the rise in North Atlantic SST anomalies?
http://i52.tinypic.com/2r5xdl3.jpg
Figure 18
If we replace the RSS TLT data with TLT data from UAH, Figure 19, the lag decreases between the North Atlantic SST anomalies and the TLT anomalies north of 20N.
http://i52.tinypic.com/2wqbui9.jpg
Figure 19
CLOSING
An El Niño event releases vast amounts of warm water from below the surface of the west Pacific Warm Pool. But the end of an El Niño event does not mean all of that warm water suddenly disappears. The warm water sloshes back to the western tropical Pacific during the La Niña. And some of that warm water is spun up into the Kuoshio-Oyashio Extension where it continues to release heat.
Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension SST anomalies rose significantly during the La Niña events of 1988/89 and 1998/99/00/01. These warmings appear to have counteracted the effects of those La Niña events on North Atlantic SST anomalies, and on Lower Troposphere Temperature anomalies north of 20N, and on combined Land-Ocean temperature anomalies of the Northern Hemisphere between the latitudes of 20N-65N. During the 1997/98 El Niño, the drop in Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension SST anomalies was very small and the KOE does not appear to have had a noticeable impact on the effects of that El Niño. On the other hand, the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension SST anomalies did drop significantly during the 1986/87/88 El Niño and they appear to have suppressed the effects of that El Niño on Northern Hemisphere temperature anomalies. But why did the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension SST anomalies drop significantly during the 1986/87/88 El Niño but not during the 1997/98 El Niño? Differences in Sea Level Pressure?
SOURCE
Data for graphs are available through, and the correlation and anomaly maps were downloaded from, the KNMI Climate Explorer:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere
Posted by Bob Tisdale at 6:39 AM
Bob Tisdale says:
December 13, 2010 at 1:19 am
The creators of the GCMs should care and so should you, because it means GCMs and their creators incorrectly attributed the source of the global warming.
______
ENSO cycles can’t be a long-term source of global warming. They do not create any heat, but only redistrubute it from ocean back to the atmosphere. We all know (or should know) that El Nino events can easily be seen in the long term temperature record as short-term signal that rides on on the longer term trend along with the 11+ year solar cycle. While I’ll think your delayed heat release scenario in the ENSO seems quite plausible, it doesn’t seem to be something that could be “mistaken” for a much longer term warning signal. If such as mistake is being made by GCM’s, it wouldn’t be the delayed El Nino heat release, but more likely the longer term PDO which aligns much better with the longer term signal seen in the records.
Dr, Bob T.
Great job,
I got the impression that the sign of the PDO becomes increasingly certain noise of ENSO conditions.
4. Pacific decadal variability and secular trend
Decadal variability is captured by two modes in this
analysis: the fourth (Pan Pacific) and the sixth (North
Pacific) leading modes. The related PCs (Fig. 2) exhibit
variations on long time scales (longer than ENSO’s),
capturing the climate shifts in the twentieth century:
PC4 has the 1920s shift, while the shifts from the 1940s
and mid-1970s are manifest in PC6. These shifts have
been noted in the context of Pacific SST variability by
Mantua et al. (1997) and Minobe (1997).
________
a. Pan-Pacific mode
b. North Pacific mode
http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~bguan/download/index.php?Guan&Nigam_2009.pdf
in,
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html
Abraços
Does anyone know of a link to the current Indian Ocean Dipole anomaly?…
R. Gates says:
December 13, 2010 at 8:50 am
We all know (or should know) that El Nino events can easily be seen in the long term temperature record as short-term signal that rides on on the longer term trend
Keep up at the back there!
R. Gates says: “ENSO cycles can’t be a long-term source of global warming.”
The warm water (to depths of 300 meters) released from the Pacific Warm Pool during an El Nino doesn’t just disappear when the El Nino is done. I’ve illustrated the residual effects of that warm water after it returns to the West Pacific in this post and in at least a dozen others for the past two years. So I don’t accept your explanation when, using SST data, subsurface temperature profiles, sea level data, ocean heat content data, etc., I have shown that there are multiyear aftereffects of ENSO and that these multiyear aftereffects are responsible for most of the rise on global sea surface temperatures during the satellite era. And since land surface temperatures are along for the ride, the multiyear aftereffects of ENSO would explain much of the LST warming as well.
Fernando (Yes, we have no bananas) says: “Dr, Bob T.”
There’s no Dr in front of my name. Thanks, though.
I found Guan and Nigam 2008 and 2009 to be very informative, as you are aware.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/11/guan-and-nigam-2008-and-2009.html
I’m hoping to do a follow-up post on them and another paper that takes a different approach.
Paul Vaughan says: Does anyone know of a link to the current Indian Ocean Dipole anomaly?…
It’s in the KNMI Climate Explore Monthly Cimate Indices page:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectindex.cgi?someone@somewhere
JDN says: “Why is this important to the discussion of global warming or the warmest year “nonsense”?”
Because this post was another in a long series of posts that have shown that the multiyear aftereffects of ENSO are responsible for much of the rise in global temperatures during the satellite era. It may be the warmest year, but claiming or inferring the high temperature anomalies are the result of AGW is nonsense.
@dp says:
December 12, 2010 at 11:34 pm
“Just answer this simple question: did more energy arrive on earth than left earth in 2010? I don’t care what the temperature was – did more energy arrive than left? Who can answer that? Anyone? Come on – it can’t be that hard. Nobody knows? I didn’t think so.”
Try doing a 27day averaged plot for 10-20yrs with plasma temperature and flow speed here http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/form/dx1.html
There is a recovery since the lows of last year.
I’m more interested in the + 4.5 temp anomaly sitting right above Canada… +4.5… Really??? And is that being bled over to push the world temp series to achieve the “warmest year” title, a la Steig’s warmer Antarctica?
Re: Bob Tisdale
Thanks Bob, but KNMI does not provide the current Indian Ocean Dipole anomaly.
–
Does anyone know of a link to the current Indian Ocean Dipole anomaly?
How is it going the Ap index?….
Bob Tisdale says:
December 13, 2010 at 9:58 am
I would venture that, as the Earth’s oceans stopped warming due to decreased input, the oceans have gone into osmosing thier heat out to the atmosphere. Eventually, though, the well runs dry.
I agree that it wouldn’t be ENSO related, it could be simply some fluke weather condition. What I was thinking about was if you do have some unusual condition, say a large mass of cold Antarctic air moves unusually far North (as we saw happen in South America this past summer) over the equatorial Pacific, it could to my mind result in a step change by altering the heat absorbed or dumped during one of the cycles.
But who knows, maybe it would be self correcting. Maybe these conditions occur because of a surplus or deficit of heat in the first place and altering the rate of change simply alters the duration of the event, I don’t know.
Thanks Bob, and also R Gates, for giving me lots to mull over.
Took me a while to realise that R Gates is picturing temp rises over centuries, so that heat storage and release cycles over lesser time periods would be averaged out (but I think thats a little simplistic ‘cos in a complex system one mayn’t “get back” to a similar state); whereas Bob T is concentrating on illuminating effects on the satellite records, which records are quite short. 30 years or so. So, a degree of cross purposes.
Happy to be corrected, or even KO’ed.
JDN says:
December 13, 2010 at 8:13 am
Why is this important to the discussion of global warming or the warmest year “nonsense”?
The change in the ENSO from a eastern pacific warm phase to a eastern pacific cold phase is accompanied by a change in the the polar and pacific jet streams from a fairly stable configuration to a variable one. The current configuration of the pacific jet stream is similar to a warm phase ENSO pattern and weather or local climatology for north america is also similar.
http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/shtml/ppbe50.gif
This has been the configuration of the pacific jet stream for the last several weeks but it is about to change.
http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/shtml/ppbm50.gif
This predicted configuration is similar to the configuration of the pacific jet stream during part of the month of November and low pressure weather systems move heat in the form of water vapor parallel to the path of a jet stream. During the month of November some storms tracked from the NW pacific, ~140 deg E/~45 deg N, NE to the Bearing Sea & Alaska and then east into Canada causing tempture anomalies in areas that don’t usually see many warm low pressure systems.
In addition, the variable pacific jet stream changes the typical storm track on the eastern side of the continent. Instead of moving out over the Atlantic and then turning NE the storms typically turn NE while still over land and pass through the Hudsons and Baffin bay areas. The counter clockwise rotation of the anticyclones pulled in warm moist air from the NW Atlantic causing temperature anomalies in those areas.
The November weather pattern left it’s signature on sea ice area in the Bearing straight, Hudsons & Baffin bay, and the SW & SE coasts of Greenland.
Temperatures in the Hudsons & Baffin bay areas are now normal. There is no ‘heat source’ in these areas as was claimed. The heat source was and is the NW Pacific and the NW Atlantic. Using the difference of two averages of averages of sensible air temperature at the surface doesn’t really say anything about weather, local climatology or climate. Sea ice area isn’t any better as it’s sea ice mass that is of thermodynamic interest. Locating heat sources, heat sinks and heat flows does.
Bob,
If I have not committed a gross error.
You are correct. Something smells fishy (%&*#).
corr Nov NINO3.4 with Nov UAH MSU Tlt anomaly 2000:2010 p<10% (eps: colour, B/W pdf: colour, B/W)
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/3840/correlationuauuahxnio34.png
Statistically, there is almost certainly a significant connection in the map (pfield < 0.1%).
corr Nov NINO3.4 with Nov GISS 250 T2m/SST anom 2000:2010 p<10%
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/4596/correlationgissnio34.png
Statistically, there is almost certainly a significant connection in the map (pfield < 0.1%)
Enneagram…..(aka Adolfo)…..abraços
Plot omni2_27day data from 19700101 to 20101131
http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/1827/enegran.png
“if you do have some unusual condition, say a large mass of cold Antarctic air moves unusually far North (as we saw happen in South America this past summer) over the equatorial Pacific.”
Not so unusual. More meridional jets are occurring in both hemispheres and seem to be common to all global cooling periods including that of the mid 20th century and the LIA.
In the process the boundaries between air masses are greatly elongated for more total cloudiness and a higher global albedo enhanced further by greater reflectance from more equatorward clouds.
Thus less energy getting into the oceans and probably a tendency to skew ENSO in favour of La Nina for as long as the more meridional (or equatorward) jets continue.
Prime candidate as the cause is the reduced level of solar activity.
“Maybe these conditions occur because of a surplus or deficit of heat in the first place .”
I suggest such conditions arise as the jets are bounced about between a variable flow of energy from oceans to air and a variable flow of energy from air to space. The former being a product of internal ocean cycles and the latter being a product of multidecadal or even multicentennial solar cycles (the climate effects from one cycle to the next being too small to measure at present).
I found this paper interesting, especially after page 280 or so. Seems Yousef was correct in his guess that a new Gleissberg cycle was about to start, but maybe missed it by one solar cycle. All the indications are there. He has some interesting correlations with SST and these cycles, too.
http://www.virtualacademia.com/pdf/cli267_293.pdf
Hi all,
just to illustrate my point in an earlier thread about use of running mean , I reworked one of Bob’s graphs once with rm and again with gaussian filter. Both filter work on a 13 month window.
The difference it not huge but some interesting features can be seen by comparing the two.
Firstly, there is quite a bit of high frequency noise left by the rm filter. As I previously showed this is a distortion, the gaussian follows the trends in the data rm often gets it wrong. It should not be there, it is selective and and depends heavily on the surrounding data as to whether it inverts small peaks, misses them of creates false features.
Before looking at dates , please DO note that this is just playing with pictures to illustrate the different filter behaviour. I have given ZERO thought to any physical meaning of the graph or it’s differences. My sole point here is about data processing using Bob’s work as an example. That said, the are relevant to Bob’s work and to this discussion. They have implications to wider climate data presentations because they are very commonly used.
Unfortunately Bob does not give references for his data but I’m guessing I have similar data sources to his figure 9 above. At least the Nino3.4 should be the same since he gave me a pointer to that last time.
Some intersting features emerge:
1984-85 , G resolves the cyclic nature of both data sets much better in this area compared to rm where the plot is just a noisy trough.
1993-95 , again G resolves clearly defines cycles in both whereas rm suggests that the correlation has totally broken down (presumably the reason Bob chose to cut-off his plot pre-95 to “hide the decline” in the relationship 😉 ). In the post pinotubo period there is a disruption but the correlation can still be seem to be present in the gaussion smoothing. Spurious distortion hides this relationship in the rm plots.
1977 , the single “event” in the rm plot actually resolves as two adjacent peaks with G.
1980 cf 83 , the magnitude of the two peaks are nearly the same in G plot, whereas rm shows a distinct decline.
I showed in the previous thread that this is not just “different”, the gaussian is the one correctly following the trends in the data and , where there is a difference it is the running mean that is corrupting the filtered plot.
I would suggest from this evidence that using better data processing would probably better expose the correlation between that two sets of data and avoid the need to crop off annoying bits that don’t seem to match. (Sorry to labour the point but I don’t like selective science, it smacks too much of Mann et al. If there is a divergence , lets see it not hide it).
It would be interesting to see some of the other numerous plots here reworked with a gaussian filter (for example) to see whether the relationship Bob is putting forward is more clearly demonstrated.
Just posted this as a comment on Sciencemag.org. It’s awaiting moderator approval 😉
Enneagram says:
December 13, 2010 at 11:20 am
How is it going the Ap index?….
Ap’s gone to sleep, NFC1 does its stuff
Hmm, seems to have lost the image somewhere in the mix.
http://i55.tinypic.com/ftqbf6.jpg
rbateman says:
December 13, 2010 at 11:29 am
I would venture that, as the Earth’s oceans stopped warming due to decreased input, the oceans have gone into osmosing thier heat out to the atmosphere. Eventually, though, the well runs dry.
___
Except for the fact that ENSO is never-ending cycle, and SW solar radiation continues to fall on the oceans around the world, including the equatorial pacific, and we’d better hope the “well never runs dry” or we’ll be back to the snowball earth. Bob’s notion has merit in showing a delay in the release of heat during the occilation of the ENSO cycle, but since the process has gone on, and will continue to go for a very long time, there surely won’t be any “well running dry.”