While we wait for NOAA to update their ENSO meter on the WUWT sidebar, Bob Tisdale is way ahead of them. Visually, the La Niña seems rather obvious in the image below:
More is available at the WUWT ENSO page
Weekly ENSO Index Drops Below The La Niña Threshold
by Bob Tisdale
This post will serve as the Mid-August 2011 SST Anomaly Update
NINO3.4
NINO3.4 SST anomalies (a commonly used El Niño-Southern Oscillation Index) have dropped significantly below the -0.5 deg C threshold of a La Niña Event. They are presently at approximately -0.74 deg C.
NINO3.4 SST Anomalies
GLOBAL
Weekly Global SST anomalies rose since the last mid-month update, but made a minor dip last week. Global SST anomalies usually lag NINO3.4 SST anomalies by a few months so the global SST anomalies should be nearing their seasonal peak for this year, before they start to respond to the depressed NINO3.4 SST anomalies. For the week centered on August 17, 2011, Global SST anomalies are +0.169 deg C. I’ve also included a shorter-term graph so that the most recent wiggles are visible.
Global SST Anomalies
################################
Global SST Anomalies – Short Term
SOURCE
Reynolds OI.v2 SST anomaly data is available through the NOAA NOMADS system:
http://nomad3.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh?lite
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I am not surprised to see this.
From the data set out in your recent post (Memo to Hansen), it certainly appeared that this was just around the corner. It will be interesting to see how long these conditions sustain and what this does to the global temperature anomaly.
Interesting times ahead, especially if the effects of the quiet sun and chnge to cooler ocean phases begins to kick in next year/the year after.
Some European says: “Can anyone provide me with a link of Hansen predicting an El Niño or “Super El Niño” for the coming 12 months or so? Thanks a lot in advance!”
Both are included in the post I wrote yesterday:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/08/21/a-memo-to-hansen-and-sato/
It was also cross posted here at WUWT
In March they predicted a strong El Nino for the 2011/12 ENSO season. And back in 2006, they predicted a Super El Nino.
Hi Bob, thanks for the update.
OI.v2 SST seems to be still on the up, whereas Dr Spencer’s AMRE (70N-70S I think) offering seems to be on the way down. Is the arctic/antarctic getting hotter? Might there be some other reason for the divergence?
Thanks
Way to go Joe!!!
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/45220/bastardi-three-of-next-five-wi.asp
Just saw a dump truck at a golf course in Texas dumping sand in a dry water hazard…
I have been keeping a close eye on this for a while now.
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2011/08/what-is-going-on-in-the-pacific/
Still early to call it El Nino, especially in comparison to last year when it was fully developing already. Not say it won’t go that way, but certainly it will be different from what developed last year.
There has not bee a strong cool phase PDO in a while, but it still looks like the PDO is stronger than the ENSO at the moment.
Building on Leon’s comments and links, an official La Nina episode is when there are 5 consecutive 3 month overlapping periods of cooler than -0.5 C, which would not happen prior to this fall.
Please help with a fuzzy memory:
Didn’t Joe Bastardi (formerly of AccuWeather, and now on a new gig) post a WUWT article more than a month ago, predicting a La Nina deja vu?
Mark H.
P. S. Not to take anything away from Bob, or any other scientist, who actually looks at DATA (Heaven forbid!!)!
Dang, that means Alberta will have another stupid cold winter and lots of snow…yuk…..please bring back global warming!!!
tallbloke says: “OI.v2 SST seems to be still on the up, whereas Dr Spencer’s AMRE (70N-70S I think) offering seems to be on the way down. Is the arctic/antarctic getting hotter? Might there be some other reason for the divergence?”
I believe Roy Spencer’s AMRE based SST data is limited to 60S-60N, so that he didn’t have to deal with sea ice. He also presents it on a monthly basis, and comparing weekly data to monthly data is difficult. For example, the July 2011 Monthly Reynolds OI.v2 Global data appears to have dropped from its peak in June.
http://i51.tinypic.com/cuhio.jpg
Well that didn’t last long. Neutral / positive for what, about 3 or 4 weeks?
As I had mentioned a few months ago, the key was if the Nino 3.4 SST anomalies would swing back towards La Nina territory around about mid July, and it has.
There is a difference between this young La Nina and the previous one in that the previous La Nina was driven by strong trade wind anomalies. The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) was in record positive (La Nina) territory of +30. The current 3.4 SST anomalies are driven by cooler sub-surface waters rising to the surface. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/sub_surf_mon.gif The SOI is only slightly positive, swinging around +6 to +10. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/monitoring/soi30.png
If the SOI returns to high positive values, this La Nina will strengthen and persist through to the new year. If the SOI doesn’t, it will peter out by years end.
Either way, there is yet another difference between this baby La Nina and the last one in that the last one was accompanied by quite warm Western Pacific waters which were pushed up against the Australian coast and the Indonesian archipelago. There are no such warm waters this time around, in fact the SST anomalies in the Indonesian archipelago are cooler than usual.
What I believe this means to Global temperature anomalies is that if the SOI stays low i.e. the trade winds don’t pick up, this La Nina will have a low impact on Ts. However if the SOI does pick up and reach anywhere near the record levels of earlier this year, Global Ts will drop like a stone.
This is just personal opinion from observation.
Not again! The Front Range of Colorado was dry as a bone for most of the winter/spring, the cool temps and rain in May were SUCH a relief! We’ve also had a great summer up until the past few weeks. Now we’re hot and dry.
I guess the ski areas will be happy, the mountains got pounded with snow last winter.
Thanks Bob. We are dealing with small fractions of a degree here, so I guess we’ll have to await developments. I still think we’ll be going as low as the Jan 2008 figures before this double dip la nina is done.
@Bob Tisdale: As always a remarkable post. No way, the UN´s IPCC political science forecasts have been succesfully replaced by UN´s FAO humble fish catches report:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/
Figure 9.1 The future fluctuations of detrended Global temperature anomaly (top) and “zonal” form of Atmospheric
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/y2787e08.pdf
(page 50)
As I said last year: La Niña just went to the toilette to fix her make-up so she was going to come back soon, and she did so.
Mark Hladik says:
August 22, 2011 at 11:34 am
Yes, I believe Joe Bastardi did predict another round of La Nina. Only I can’t remember how strong …Something about the 2nd one being colder and drier than the 1st one.
It would be nice to have Joe drop by and set the record straight.
Anthony: I suspect Leon Brozyna is correct and that the ENSO meter is based on the Oceanic NINO Index (ONI) data. It’s the only one I’ve come across that’s at 0.0.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
November 2010 to April 2011 was a bit extreme for Queensland – hardly saw the sun at all. Now in August after a few fine mostly beautiful clear skies it is raining again – out of season too might I say – normally mostly sunny in August to December.
The recent cloudy cool weather and recent rain look ominous.
Not another La-Nina so soon – please – you probably saw Toowoomba, Grantham, Rockhampton, Ipswich, Brisbane and about 70% of Queensland under water.
For comparison look at a map of Aus to see how big Queensland is and you’ll appreciate why we don’t want a repeat dose this year.
Double dip La Nina has been forecasted for a couple of months now from GFS:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/images3/nino34SSTMonE120.gif
K.R. Frank
The Sun is still quiet. No heat for the Earth’s largest heat storage system, the Pacific. When the heat upwelling in the North Pacific is cooled; the true effects of a quiet Sun will be felt.
Note that the 10.2 cm Flux rarely went above 110 for the last 7 years. A normal peak would be 250++.
No heat, no El Nino…
But what do the models say? Only when we look at the models – not just the actual data – can we make a prediction of what will happen…
I think it would be an interesting albeit somber area of study to look into how a mini glacial in the Cordilleran may or may not be a trigger for an overall NH glacial during an general Ice Age such as the current one.
Mark Hladik says:
August 22, 2011 at 11:34 am
Go to top of page. Enter Bastardi in search form. Hit enter.
see links like
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/12/bastardi-science-and-reality-point-away-not-toward-co2-as-climate-driver/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/06/u-s-east-coast-is-the-next-wild-weather-target/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/22/bastardi-just-say-no-to-el-nino-at-least-till-2012/
You don’t need to remember when the post was, just how to find it.
My two-pennyworth:
Anecdotally it seems to have been an extraordinarily dry quarter in Singapore. Anything to do with general cooling of equatorial surface water in the Pacific I wonder?
O/T El Nina effects parts of the world differently. But – in UK, the Ministry of Defence has said they can not approve a wind turbine farm near Carlisle as it interfers with their surveillance detection devices. Wind are denounced as Bird choppers, ear stoppers, low generator per cost, now a National security danger. Now of course the land owners want them they get paid heaps
(in Oz $10k per turbine on their land) if they have 15 that’s a fair income. Also those dreadful things have a habit of bursting into flames, getting iced up in winter, won’t turn if the wind is too low or too high. Reliability. Bet they can be disabled quicker too (like blown up by terrorists).
Check Tory Aardvarks blog for more info.