UPDATE: Ric Werme is graciously producing a new updated meter for the WUWT sidebar, see comments. – Anthony
by Bob Tisdale
There have been a number of comments at WattsUpWithThat wondering if the NOAA ENSO Meter, Figure 1, is broken. The ENSO Meter reading has been at 0.0 deg C for over a month, even though weekly NINO3.4 SST anomalies, based on the NOAA Reynolds OI.v2 Sea Surface Temperature data, has been below the threshold of a La Nina event (-0.5 deg C) for three weeks. Refer to Weekly ENSO Index SST data from NOAA. Those comments questioning the ENSO Meter included my August 22, 2011 at 7:08 am question to Anthony Watts on the La Niña returns thread. There was a reference to the meter again today in the WUWT post It’s official: NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center says La Niña is back.
Figure 1
Leon Brozyna’s August 22, 2011 at 9:12 am comment on the La Niña returns thread suggested the ENSO Meter was based on the NOAA Oceanic NINO Index , also known as ONI. (ONI is the 3-month average of NINO3.4 Sea Surface Temperature anomalies based on the NOAA ERSST.v3b dataset.) Leon’s comment made sense since ONI was the only ENSO index showing a 0.0 deg C anomaly for that period. I wanted to confirm that when the ONI data was updated earlier this week so I could write a post about it, but the ONI reading for the “season” of June-July-August was also 0.0 deg C. The ONI data didn’t change, and the meter didn’t budge, so that was no help.
I wrote to Anthony Watts today regarding the ENSO meter, and he had already sought the answer directly from NOAA. NOAA confirmed that the ENSO meter is based on the Oceanic NINO Index.
And that means the ENSO meter will be 0.0 deg C until the ONI data is updated in early October 2011.
The SOI is a function of air pressure at Tahiti and Darwin – does not derive from SST’s.
The SOI is not in a La Nina phase yet.
Perhaps the NOAA meter should not be termed an ENSO Meter – but maybe an El Nino SST meter.
Warwick:
Thank you for your SOI notes. One question, though – when does the SOI reflect La Niña conditions? Okay, two – can it be used as a La Niña predictor?
Gidday Ric – this BoM page;
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
says that “Sustained positive values of the SOI above +8 may indicate a La Niña event,….”. Note the chart below is of the 30 day moving average. That seems fair enough – next update in a couple of days. No idea re using SOI observations as a predictor.
No change in the ENSO meter this week – still at -0.6.
Oh boy, another week before I have to finish my auto updater. (Which is
nearly done except for FTP-ing the image to Comcast.)
Weekly SST data starts week centered on 3Jan1990 Nino1+2 Nino3 Nino34 Nino4 Week SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA SST SSTA ... 03AUG2011 21.5 0.3 25.0-0.2 26.4-0.4 28.3-0.2 10AUG2011 20.9-0.1 24.6-0.5 26.3-0.5 28.4-0.1 17AUG2011 20.5-0.3 24.5-0.5 26.0-0.7 28.2-0.2 24AUG2011 20.2-0.5 24.3-0.6 26.1-0.6 28.3-0.2 31AUG2011 20.0-0.7 24.4-0.5 26.1-0.6 28.3-0.2 07SEP2011 19.7-0.9 24.2-0.7 26.1-0.6 28.2-0.3Ric Werme says:
September 12, 2011 at 6:07 am
Last week’s Official report came out on Monday showing the most recent three-month ONI value at 0.0, so it was listed as being neutral. Two days later (Sep 7) came the press release from CPC announcing that La Niña conditions exist. (Don’t those guys at CPC even talk to one another?) So, today the latest Official report is out with, you guessed it, an announcement that La Niña conditions exist.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
And in three weeks, when the newest ONI is posted, it’ll probably finally show that La Niña conditions exist … or maybe not, since the ONI upon which the definition is based is for a three month period. Assuming the next three weeks come in at -.7, I get a three month value at -.46, so it’s a squeaker, assuming that it’s rounded up to -.5. But, no matter how you slice it or dice it, if this La Niña winter is anything at all like our La Niña winter of last year, I’ll be happy … we had a slightly below average snowfall here in Buffalo with no massive lake effect storms … I can live with that.
I would suggest, Anthony, that we code up our own ENSO meter that is more timely and accurate, and offer it as a widget for others to use as well….
The BoM have just updated their ENSO Wrap-Up
Pacific approaches La Niña. Positive Indian Ocean dipole develops.
Issued on Wednesday 14 September
Steady cooling of the central Pacific Ocean since early winter has increased the chance of La Niña returning during the last quarter of 2011. Current ENSO indicators are approaching values typically associated with La Niña events. Read on at…………….
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
Found on Tips & Notes, copying here so I don’t lose it:
Anyone else seen this? It’s just a stupid .gif. Perhaps they don’t like
the home.comcast.net or ~ewerme parts.
Oops – I forgot to check this morning to see if the automatic update worked. It didn’t. Fixed and checked out, it might work next Monday.
BTW, the Nino 3.4 figure dropped from -0.6 to -0.7.
Worked this week, down to -0.8.
How come the index for August changed from Ric’s post Sep 8? Before, the August index was -0.1 from fourth column.
Copied today from
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/ersst/v3b/pdo/el_nino.dat
2011 1 -1.33 -0.87 -1.50 -0.33
2011 2 -0.86 -0.72 -1.10 0.10
2011 3 -0.76 -0.47 -0.87 -0.64
2011 4 -0.20 -0.18 -0.48 -0.32
2011 5 -0.10 -0.09 -0.16 -0.10
2011 6 0.29 -0.05 0.08 -0.01
2011 7 0.00 0.06 -0.06 0.00
2011 8 -0.38 0.00 -0.29 -0.26
2011 9 -0.60 -0.24 -0.54 -0.73
May West in Texas — so dry spittin’ cotton