Summary:
La Niña conditions continued across the equatorial Pacific.
The magnitude of negative sea surface temperature anomalies continued to decrease across the Pacific Ocean.
A transition to ENSO-neutral conditions is expected by June 2011.
Ensemble forecast:
All models indicate that La Niña will continue to weaken in the coming months.
A majority of models and all three multi-model forecasts indicate ENSO-neutral conditions by May-June-July 2011 (Niño-3.4 SST anomalies between -0.5C and +0.5C ), continuing through the rest of 2011.
Complete report here:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
h/t to WUWT reader Pamela Gray
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
SOI is still strongly positive (30+), defying the BOM prediction of it starting to weaken by now.
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/climate/indicator_enso.jsp?c=soi
Keep an eye on the JPN-FRCGC forecast. I have found them consistently far more reliable than ANY of the others. Note also how their forecast differs considerably from all others. Their forecast from about 2 years back is still on track.
Ahh….. ENSO….!
Whats up with Cola CCMS3, is it predicting a volcano will open up in the 3.4 area and boil the ocean?
Actually Niño has just started. By July it will not be neutral, but full Niño.
Interesting comments from the Australian BOM.
However, atmospheric indicators of ENSO continue to be at odds with recent trends in the ocean, and remain consistent with a well developed La Niña event. The latest 30-day Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) value (+30.2) is only a little short of the highest April monthly value on record (+31.7, recorded in 1904), and has remained consistently high throughout the event. Cloudiness near the date-line remains below normal while trade winds continue to be stronger than normal. These atmospheric indicators are expected to return to neutral over the coming months in response to the changes in the ocean.
A return to La Nina next December is on the cards.
There appears to be one extreme outlier in that ensemble of forecasts. Who produces COLA CCSM3?
Oh, the models tell us this? Well that’s all settled, then!
I apologise if I don’t bank on the models “projections/predictions”, but I have a deep suspicion of computer modelling when people have to tell the “puter” to show this or that. We are a very long way from serious predictive power from “puters”, they are after all, nothing more than a modern day crystal ball, & who seriously takes those predictions on board. Oh well, I am off to kill some furry animal, drain some of its blood into a bowl, spit into it, put it on the Aga to boil, then pour some onto a plate, let it cool sufficiently to drag a couple of fingers through it to make an abstract pattern, then read some weird prediction into what is left! Long live the modern world. Sarc off!
All those model predictions? Well they cannot all be correct.
So does this mean we’ll get more or less snow in New England this coming winter, compared to last winter? 🙂
JimB
Weekly NINO3.4 SST anomalies are approaching ENSO-neutral temperatures:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/mid-april-2011-sst-anomaly-update/
They’re at approximately 0.57 deg C.
Oooops. Correction. The NINO3.4 SST anomaly value in the preceeding comment should read -0.57 deg C. (I need another cup of coffee.)
That Niño-3.4 SST graph above will tick over the zero line but by July will swing back towards negative just like in 2008, only deeper.
JimB says:
April 28, 2011 at 2:36 am
“So does this mean we’ll get more or less snow in New England this coming winter, compared to last winter? :)”
That’s easy. The ‘theory’ of global warming/climate change/disruption means that you with get both more snow and less snow next winter.
RR Kampen says: “Actually Niño has just started. By July it will not be neutral, but full Niño.”
My guess is that you’re either looking at subsurface anomalies…
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/wkxzteq.shtml
…or NINO1+2 SST anomalies:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst.for
I think that long term ENSO predictions (based on any model or historical values) are not possible. However, when an inter-annual cycle is initiated than it is likely to be completed. My current research (an online article with all data will be soon available) points to existence of a central Pacific driver (indicator) responsible for initiating a new cycle or modulating the existing one .
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SOI.htm
If this upwards shift results in a full el-nino, then it will break my SC transition causal theory.
http://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=globalwarming&action=display&thread=1488
( UAHatmos is correlated to ENSO and NINO3.4 SST )
So, while moving back up to around neutral is possible, I don’t think a strong el-nino will follow on from it.
“Jimmy Haigh says:
April 28, 2011 at 3:00 am
That’s easy. The ‘theory’ of global warming/climate change/disruption means that you with get both more snow and less snow next winter.”
Not true, what the theory actually says is that whatever you get, if you don’t like it, we will blame on global/warming/climate change/disruption. If you do like it, we keep quiet until the next bad thing happens.
It’s the classic ancient religion ploy – whatever bad happens the priests blame on the anger of the gods who must be appeased. Maybe instead of reducing CO2 emissions, we should sacrifice some virgins.
This is from April 5:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/05/bastardi-no-retrun-of-el-nino-til-2012/
And a link in that article worth reading:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/settled-science-masters-vs-masters-vs-hansen-vs-noaa/
And this one from corrupt James Hansen on March 23:
I don’t think we will have ENSO-neutral or positive conditions. Jeff Masters believes in AGW and he promotes that idea a lot; that is why I stopped reading his blogs. James Hansen needs a strong El Nino so that global temperatures will rise and his easy money will still keep coming in. I’d trust a thief with my money before I would trust those two with predictions on El Nino.
I do trust Joe Bastardi. He called for a strong La Nina when others said no La Nina, and he was right. I trust those with a history of being right. Joe Bastardi doesn’t believe in AGW, but he is mostly objective. By contrast, James Hansen has an agenda and career that needs a strong El Nino or it will lose steam.
Keep Steven Goddard’s link handy for another entry of the climate fail files.
I agree with Keith … post 1. and a few others.
The SOI is still well positive, which according to some is a good predictor of Nino conditions. They predicted the La Nina 7 mo before it occurred, based purely on SOI values.
I guess the rest of the year will be a good test of the predictive power of their theory. The Devil in me hopes they are right, and that Global Temp will fall back to pre-1995 levels .. if for no other reason to throw yet another monkey wrench into the Alarmists propaganda ….. not that it will matter, they ‘ll still say we are going to boil because of our evil CO2 emission.
The ENSO meter on the right side nav bar (see http://www.noaawatch.gov/images/elnino/elninometer-current.gif ) says things are at -0.7 units.
Ah – http://www.noaawatch.gov/ says it was last updated on April 7. That’s no fun.
That snow will also melt faster and stick around longer than ever before.
John Marshall says:
April 28, 2011 at 2:32 am
All those model predictions? Well they cannot all be correct.
Yes, but, one of them has a good chance of being right, and can then crow about the accuracy of computer models!
Ric Werme,
I, too, look at the ENSO meter every day, hoping to see it change.
One wonders what part of the COLA input equations is breaking the back of that model. That has got to be embarrassing. Anyone want to bet there is a CO2-related equation driving the obviously CO2-tipping point-ish output? Not only does it clearly indicate a major problem with dynamical models in that they are not constrained by historical statistics, meaning they are at risk for just this sort of fly-away behavior, when they do exhibit this problem, they screw with the dynamical average. If I were determining odds, the statistical average has a better than even chance of being closer to what will actually happen.
Wish we could get the entire set of the COLA dynamical equation. It would be fun to dig into it.