Joe D’Aleo reports via email that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) Index has gone negative for this past month, see the graph below:
Source:http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/amon.us.data
This is the first time the November value has been negative since about 1996. It appears the down cycle has started. This portends a cooler period, especially winters.
The Monthly value plot also shows the down cycle in progress, though this one is only updated to 2009:
The AMO index is correlated to air temperatures and rainfall over much of the Northern Hemisphere, in particular, North America and Europe such as North Eastern Brazilian and African Sahel rainfall and North American and European summer climate. It is also associated with changes in the frequency of North American droughts and is reflected in the frequency of severe Atlantic hurricanes.
| Matt Vooro writes in this document: AMO, THE KEY GLOBAL CLIMATE INDICATOR |
The main climate indicator (in my opinion in the near term) is likely going to be the cool AMO, cool PDO. ENSO events and the changing polar jet stream which swings more often now north before coming south or heading east, bringing cold air to most of North America, and specially the western half and subsequently east, as the our climate moves from west to east.
The graph below shows the relationship between AMO and GLOBAL [ land and marine] TEMPERATURE ANOAMLIES [Hadcrut 3]. AMO appears to be like a thermostat or predictor of global temperatures. ENSO events if moderate or strong seem to modify, amplify or over-ride the AMO effects.
There are interesting times ahead.
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For anyone wanting to understand the AMO this could be a very useful read:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/theAMO-NAO.htm
or currently direct link
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/64/12/35/PDF/NorthAtlanticOscillations-I.pdf
It surely looks like those dips in the AMO index correspond to the cooling periods of the Earth’s climate. It seems like we will be revisiting another 1970’s style cooling in due course.
The climate is the continuation of the oceans by other means and the oceans are a continuation of the sun by other means.
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Just glancing at the long-term graph is appears
1) this would be an unusually short length of time for the positive part of the cycle.
2) every positive cycle has occasional negative swings.
In light of these facts, it seems a bit premature to be claiming “It appears the down cycle has started” based on one month of data. Let’s see how it looks after a few months or a year.
AMO is actually well correlated with summer temperatures in Europe. Winter temps goes up and down with NAO, as documented on CET record.
http://notrickszone.com/2010/11/28/lesson-learned-predicting-the-european-climate-from-the-cet-record/
The Gore Effect hits the Big Time!
The AMO is headed south.
The ENSO headed south.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/18/mid-october-2011-sst-anomaly-update/
And maybe way south.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/17/ncep-ensemble-forecast-shows-deep-la-nina-coming/
I read somewhere that an estimated 220,000 children starved to death last year. One of the “root causes” of the revolutions in the mid-east was the high price of food. When you can’t feed your children, it tends to make one restive. And we turn some 40% of our corn production into fuel and burn it even though we have enough fossil fuels for maybe a couple of hundred years.
What will be the toll next year?
Sometimes I get discouraged.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin.)
Hold on to your hat, or better yet, wear one… it could be a bit chilly this winter.
Well, looks like all of the various indices are pointing toward cold. And the prospect of having a weak solar cycle at the same time is not a comforting thought, either, based on the apparently response to such events in the past.
Maybe the politicians can just declare victory on Global Warming and let us keep our money now.
Joe
AMO went briefly negative in early 2009 for 5 months
Why would the latest AMO warm cycle be so short compared to the other two warm cycles on the chart? Perhaps this is just a “blip” and warmth will resume for a few more years(?). I hope not, but it looks awfully short on that chart if it is indeed turning cold now.
The question I would like answered is whether the “interesting times” mean drought in California due to cooler – and thus drier – air masses moving over the state, or wetter times with heavier snow in the mountains, thanks to orographic effects.
We’re doomed I tell you. The Ice Age cometh.
Please send me $2 trillion of taxpayer money to research the devastating climate impact and formulate plans for mitigation so I can save the planet. Unless, of course, you wish to be entombed in a glacier extending from California to New York.
This is similar to the dip in the mid 1950s after the second nina winter of 1955-1956. The amo will recover for a while in 2013-2016 ( should be neutral to negative for 2012) then go into its cold cycle after that. Dr William Gray has had this cycle pegged since the late 1970s when I saw him make his forecast on this matter linking it to the increase in hurricanes.
The turning of the amo along with the pdo forms the heart of my challenge to the Agenda driven AGW crowd to “take the test” ..that temps by objective satellite standards will return to the late 1970s value by 2030. Of course they want no part of it since it will render their god of CO2 as useless. Its part of the reason they are so vitriolic in attacks, the fear they will be exposed for some of them, and others, that already know what is coming.
BTW the cold pdo/amo la nina usually means a warmer than normal Jan/Feb in much of the east as the sinking in the means in the areas where the amo is cold, combined with the nina, leads to higher than normal pressures off the south atlantic coast and more southwest flow than normal in the east. Bad news: a late spring again for much of the north and east, but less tornadic activity. Studying all this to counter the warmingista’s has side benefits
note ( check out winters of mid 70s with la nina cold pdo/cold amo, but when the warm signal came with the 76-77, 77-78 el nino it was katie bar the door. Double ninas followed by a weak to moderate el nino in cold pdos can produce the nasty so many of us have earned after the past few decades and having to listen to the agenda driven drivel of the agw crowd
Uh-oh, Hansen isn’t going to like the AMO messing with his dire predictions!
This is usually a 30 year leading indicator of next ice age articles in the “popular” press.
It would be interesting to see that monthly AMO graph’s rise and fall periods (not absolute values) be compared to the temperature series we have. You see the 1940’s warm period, and the huge peak in 1998, and just looking at it qualitatively it looks like when the AMO rises and falls in trend domains, so too does the global temperature anomaly. Which, could mean some really terrible winters…
Anthony,
keep an eye on the the linked data file, http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/amon.us.data
-99.990 ?!?
PB
Unlike the AGW side, most here probably hope for warmth and think this sucks.
Obviously of the “trapped” heat deep in the ocean is pushing the cold water up via displacement
and the increasing CO2 air concentration is sinking more and more heat into the deep ocean which means AGW causes cold until it doesn’t.
They will have to ‘hide the decline’ again.
“That’s the problem with natural cycles – they are cycles, so please ignore.
Never fear, IPCC models will manipulate this problem away.”
Official Spokesperson for The Team
So . . . Hansen will be quoted as saying “The climate is simply changing so fast now because of human activity, we’ve brought the next ice age about. Don’t take comfort, though, it’ll only last about 2 weeks, then the climate will literally turn into Hell on Earth. Birds actually catching fire mid-air, unable to outrun climate change, oceans hot enough to cook the fish in them, only by acting immediately can we prevent . . . (blah blah blah).” (sarc/off)
Seriously though, doesn’t this portend the end of climate alarmism? Will anybody continue to listen to them, after the oncoming series of cold winters and potentially moderately or non-warm summers? Forget the AMO; watch the sunspot number. Looks to me like we’re in for the Eddy minimum. Hope you brought a coat.
Durr,
I am in agreement with you. This is NOT good, in any way, shape, or form.
Durr says:
December 9, 2011 at 1:41 pm
“Unlike the AGW side, most here probably hope for warmth and think this sucks.”
My thoughts exactly. I really, really want to deny this. I wanted more warming.
Stupid useless CO2.