New NASA satellite data indicate the current La Niña event in the eastern Pacific has remained strong during November and December 2010.
A new Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 satellite image of the Pacific Ocean that averaged 10 days of data was just released from NASA. The image, centered on Dec. 26, 2010, was created at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.
“The solid record of La Niña strength only goes back about 50 years and this latest event appears to be one of the strongest ones over this time period,” said Climatologist Bill Patzert of JPL. “It is already impacting weather and climate all around the planet.”
“Although exacerbated by precipitation from a tropical cyclone, rainfalls of historic proportion in eastern Queensland, Australia have led to levels of flooding usually only seen once in a century,” said David Adamec, Oceanographer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “The copious rainfall is a direct result of La Niña’s effect on the Pacific trade winds and has made tropical Australia particularly rainy this year.”
The new image depicts places where the Pacific sea surface height is near-normal, higher (warmer) than normal and lower (cooler) than normal. The cooler-than normal pool of water that stretches from the eastern to the central Pacific Ocean is a hallmark of a La Niña event.
Earth’s ocean is the greatest influence on global climate. Only from space can we observe our vast ocean on a global scale and monitor critical changes in ocean currents and heat storage. Continuous data from satellites like OSTM/Jason-2 help us understand and foresee the effects of ocean changes on our climate and on climate events such as La Niña and El Niño.
The latest report from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) noted that “A moderate-to-strong La Niña continued during December 2010 as reflected by well below-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) across the equatorial Pacific Ocean.” The CPC report said that La Niña is expected to continue well into the Northern Hemisphere spring 2011.
Read the latest ENSO forecast here (PDF)
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izen says:
January 15, 2011 at 10:12 am
I got a feeling that you are wrong on all counts. Go to NASA, Agos. The data from these bouys suggests that the oceans are cooling. Sea level has begun to level off from the century long 3mm rise. The Maldives are not sinking and the UK is tilting so the sea level is falling in the north and rising in the south.
Back radiation is a negligable effect because CO² absorps a little IR radiation and reradiates in all directions which means under half goes ground ward and that is probably absorbed by N and O kinectically.
richcar 1225 says:
January 15, 2011 at 10:48 am
Does anybody believe as I do that the 2010 super El Nino……
The 2009-2010 El Nino was not exceptionally strong and quite short lived…hardly a ‘super’ El Nino.
Dr Lurtz said: ‘I would suggest Climate is over 100 years and Weather is over 5 years.’
I think it was Mark Twain that provided the best definitions. “Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get”
GregO says:
January 15, 2011 at 7:47 am
All levity aside, is there a claimed relationship between man-made CO2 and a La Niña event that can be gleaned from climate models?
How do the models, which by my (limited) understanding predict warming due to the excess of CO2 put into the atmosphere by man account, for cycles like the current La Niña?
_____
In general, the acceleration (which would necessarily mean intensification) of the hydrological cycle is predicted by GCM’s when looking at increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. From a geological perspective, as part of the basic carbon-rock cycle, when CO2 in the atmosphere increases, so does the hydrological cycle, as a natural negative feeback mechanism to remove the CO2, through rock weathering. In this way, the level of CO2 is kept in a range. It is entirely possible that increased CO2 amounts could change the nature/character/severity etc. of the natural ENSO and PDO ocean cycles, and this would be one way the acceleration of the hydrological cycle would be manifested.
If instead of buying computers for the bad guys we would just work our shifts and learn!
Just saying …..
ENSO is one of the principal keys to weather/climate, I have no doubts.
To rushmike: I may have sounded like I was coming down on you; that was not my intention. I was just highlighting what you said to transition to what I wanted to say. You are absolutely right, there are many drivers to the climate, some known and some unknown. Of those that are known, none are fully understood. To prove the point, why is this winter different than previous La Nina winters?
The SOI is higher right now than it has been in a long, long time. I perused the monthly historical readings the other day, and I think you have to go back to 1917 to find higher values.
Here’s to a long, strong La Nina…
rushmike says:
January 15, 2011 at 6:54 am
….and global temperatures still keep climbing, global ice area is reaching the lowest level recorded…..and yet AGW is still being , 2010 was the equal warmest, and wettest year recorded, we are only two weeks into 2011 and extreme weather events have affected Brazil, Sri Lanka and Queensland….hmmmmmm
Rushmike, if global temperatures still keep climbing, why did even Phil Jones of Climategate fame conclude no significant warming for over a decade? 2010 wasn’t warmer than 1998 in Spencer’s UAH record. Yes, 1998 was an El Nino, so was much of 2010. Now we’re getting La Nina and cooling, plus plenty rain here in Australia, though not record amounts – we had worse in 1974 and there were earlier ones that were worse still. And where are the PDO and the Medieval Warm Period in your analysis?
Re Arctic icecap check out the effect of the Arctic Oscillation:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/12/041220010410.htm
Re Antarctic ice see:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/01/30/antarctica-again/
I don’t trust anything NASA and co. put out while Hansen has any power there. Continual high outlier data, mysterious adjustments, and his recent revelation that democracy doesn’t work and we should adopt China’s way of doing things:
http://hauntingthelibrary.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/hansen-us-democracy-not-competent-to-deal-with-global-warming-calls-on-communist-china-to-save-humanity/
Hmmm indeed. Conspiracy I doubt, but craziness fits the bill.
izen says:
January 15, 2011 at 12:17 pm
I do agree with some of your post, thank you.
Yes it is possible in the swimming pool only in a enclosed system (if we could live a lot longer, lol), but this is not the case including the oceans. (ie there are much bigger other factors) This was my point regarding the oceans, where this tiny amount would take many centuries to warm the oceans a little if everything remained the same and was in a enclosed system. (persuming the enclosed system didn’t warm or cool it from SWR) BUT, the energy ratio between warming the water by SWR and LWR is absolutely huge, so the percentage change in LWR must have to be many (orders) times bigger then any change in SWR to cause this rise in such a short period. (eg 30 years)
“If as has been claimed the only other sources are solar and geothermal, and both show no rising trend to match SST then you have a problem with explaining the observed data unless you are willing to accept the purely descriptive, but scientifically uninformative, ‘Natural variation’.”
I agree the only other two sources are these, but don’t agree there is no trend to match SST’s. Mid and low levels clouds generally have been declining during this period with albedo decreasing. This enabled more SWR to reach the surface of the ocean warming it down to 100m depth. A few percent change in global albedo is easily enougth to increase ocean temperatures 1c over a lengthy period.
While the solar ouput has been steady until recently with high levels over recent decades there is only a tiny change needed with such a huge energy source (many orders over anything else) can have a little affect. This is demonstrated above and below.
The step up in solar output during the mid 20th-century was hidden by numerous La Ninas which cooled the atmosphere, but warmed the oceans below the surface. During the late 1970’s this energy content from the ocean started to move towards the surface and release it’s energy into the atmopshere with increasing and stronger El Nino’s from the earlier solar step up. That is why we had a delay in the planet warming from this increased activity. This energy realised from the ENSO events was transferred towards the pole which in turn helped melt sea ice. This has a knock on affect where this leads to more ocean exposed to SWR, therefore this increased the SST’s further.
MattN says:
January 15, 2011 at 12:59 pm
The SOI is higher right now than it has been in a long, long time. I perused the monthly historical readings the other day, and I think you have to go back to 1917 to find higher values.
Here’s to a long, strong La Nina…
_____
Matt,
It is interesting that you’d hope for a long and strong La Nina as it is causing untold misery to the people of Australia. You might also be interested to know that during La Nina events, there is a general accumulation of heat in the Pacific to be released during the inevitable El Nino cycle…so a “long and strong” La Nina, with the misery it brings to Australia and other areas, might also mean a lot more heat released during the next El Nino cycle to inevitably come.
This la Nina is by far the strongest since 1954. The 3.4 ocean index is worthless when it comes to comparing Nina because it does not examine the driving force, the temp difference between the cold area and the warm area. This generates pressure fields (SOI)and trade winds, both of which are the highest seen in the last 50 years. The cold water in the central pacific is not that cold but the warm water around northern australia is the hottest on record. Thats where the power is coming from.
The best metric for measuring ENSO strength has to be Klaus Wolter’s Multivariate ENSO index (MEI) which assigns ENSO strength based on 6 different metrics!
Moderators
There is a misattributed quote/wrong link my prior post;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/15/nasa-la-nina-has-remained-strong/#comment-574922
i.e. “which “are caused when an area of low pressure sits at the rotation pole of a planet. This causes air to spiral down from higher in the atmosphere, like water going down a drain.”
http://www.cfm.brown.edu/people/sean/Vortex/”
That quote cited can be found here;
http://www.optcorp.com/edu/articleDetailEDU.aspx?aid=122
whereas if you select the “Physical Overview” link at the top left of this page;
http://www.cfm.brown.edu/people/sean/Vortex/
you’ll see a good animation of a fully formed polar vortex.
Can you please change/fix the link in my post above so the quote is correctly attributed? Sorry for the confusion.
[Corrections noted. Thank you for catching them. Robt]
MR. Gates, if you have not visited B. Tisdales sight, I recommend heartily that you do. Perusing this site, you will come across a graph that sets out the ENSO oscillation patterns. It appears from this graph, that if the world is on a cooling trend, La Nina’s dominate the time sequence. If warming, well then yeah, La Nino’s. If we are going into a La Nina dominated time period, then the heat that is being “stored” by the oceans right now, may not be dominate for another 15-30 years.
And yes I agree with you, warmer is generaly better, at least where I live.
🙂
Thank you for the response Matt G, the alternative explanation you propose for recent warming in the effect of solar changes decades ago on albedo and ocean cycles is probably the most credible alternative hypothesis I have encountered on the skeptic side. I am not sure would survive the level of review applied to AGW over the last few decades! -grin-
@- Matt G says: -(re warming a pool by body heat).
“Yes it is possible in the swimming pool only in a enclosed system ….., but this is not the case including the oceans. … This was my point regarding the oceans, where this tiny amount would take many centuries to warm the oceans a little if everything remained the same and was in a enclosed system.”
I agree that there are other factors, but on a rough calculation the extra DLR from the extra CO2 is a bit over 2 W/m2. that is enough energy to raise the temperature of an olympic pool by 1degC in about a month and a half.
Obviously the ocean is not an enclosed pool system…
“BUT, the energy ratio between warming the water by SWR and LWR is absolutely huge, so the percentage change in LWR must have to be many (orders) times bigger then any change in SWR to cause this rise in such a short period. (eg 30 years)”
The problem I have with this argument is that the 1LOT means that extra energy is doing something… somewhere…
In physics (and biology and chemistry) the rule is follow the energy – rather like follow the money in politics.
Where the energy goes always points to the underlying causation.
Unlike possible effects from solar variation on cloud albedo the DLR from the extra CO2 has both a well established physical mechanism and direct measurement of the anthropogenic change.
That seems to require any alternative to AGW the explanation to also provide a mechanism that negates the CO2-energy effect while amplifying the cloud/albedo energy effect.
If the rule of thumb is what is happening in ENSO + 9 months till it effects global mean temperature, then there’s a while to go till global mean hits bottom. It will be in negative anomaly.
Global warmers, get your long underwear out and keep them handy. Next winter could be worse than this one.
The MEI is found here – http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/people/klaus.wolter/MEI/
It is by no means obvious that this La Nina is bigger than anything since the 1950’s.
The results show a Pacific decadal pattern – more intense and frequent La Nina to the mid 1970’s and frequent and intense El Nino to 1998 – with a shift back since. Check the article at posted at the link above.
OK – try this link – http://www.earthandocean.robertellison.com.au/index.html
izen says: January 15, 2011 at 10:12 am
quote
“1) Oceans certainly appear to be getting warmer, direct and satellite measurements of surface temperature indicate this as does the rise in sea level which is at least in part from thermal expansion.
unquote”
The Argo data suggests that ocean heat content is on a downward trend. Is there a credible data source that suggests otherwise?
Also there doesn’t appear to be any change in the ongoing sea level rise that started long before AGW could have been a contributing factor. We can continue to live with 1 – 2 mm per year.
@- edbhoy says:
“The Argo data suggests that ocean heat content is on a downward trend. Is there a credible data source that suggests otherwise?
Also there doesn’t appear to be any change in the ongoing sea level rise that started long before AGW could have been a contributing factor. We can continue to live with 1 – 2 mm per year.”
While the ocean heat content is certainly a key parameter to measure in assesing the climate systems, along with the radiative energy balance, unfortunately the ARGO bouy system is not capable of providing definitive data.
First; it is a new system that has not operated for long enough to reveal a significant trend over the interannual variation and has a history of systemic errors. More time is required before it can be certain that errors have been eliminated and a trend is measurable to a significant level.
Second the maximum depth of measurement of the AGRO system, measured at a lower rate than shallower data is only half the average depth of the oceans. ARGO is incapable of measurement of half the ocean volume.
There is credible evidence that the recent sea level rise is not typical of past rates. A rate of ~2mm per decade over the last century still implies a increasing ocean heat content we are unable to measure directly.
Unless you know of an undiscovered source of water (from the Deeps?) to raise the oceans….
If the La Nina develops into a long term cold PDO then there will be global cooling. I am not sure we are there yet, but soon it will happen. Once it does it will be fun to watch the AGW crowd start crying about the unfairness of the PDO and how we need to ignore it because the Earth would be warming without it.
John Kehr
The Inconvenient Skeptic
If the argo buoys suggest a decreasing heat content and sea level measurements indicate an increasing level, one may well question the argo buoy data. OTOH one may also question the sea level measurements.
“Earth’s ocean is the greatest influence on global climate.”
Enough said.
Just making an early call here but I’m putting the odds on a strong El Nino developing in 2011 at about 80%.
The patterns are really setting up for year-by-year switch between La Nina then El Nino with no neutral years.
It doesn’t look to me like there has been any sea level rise since late 2005:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global.jpg
R. Gates,
Thanks for the answer to my question – that is food for thought.
“Earth’s ocean is the greatest influence on global climate.”
But only to mask any CO2 driven warming, it never causes warming of it’s own accord (that would be completely unnatural). But yet, Global Warming causes Global Cooling…which came first…the Global Warming or the Cooling?