While alarmists bloviate about three months of warm weather citing it as cock-sure proof that global warming is at fault (like they always do), we have this from the University of Missouri-Columbia. It is research figuring out why this spring was so warm, and noting that in 1889, it happened the same way before.
Note how the ENSO pattern differences affect the USA:
2 warmest winter months in Midwest history may have connection
Discoveries could help predict weather in the future
COLUMBIA, Mo. – This past March was the second warmest winter month ever recorded in the Midwest, with temperatures 15 degrees above average. The only other winter month that was warmer was December of 1889, during which temperatures were 18 degrees above average. Now, MU researchers may have discovered why the weather patterns during these two winter months, separated by 123 years, were so similar. The answer could help scientists develop more accurate weather prediction models.
Tony Lupo, chair of the Department of Soil, Environment and Atmospheric Sciences in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources at MU, created computer models with global weather records and ship captains’ logs to determine why these two months were unusually warm. He discovered that the preceding months were also dry and warm, as well as the previous summers, which led him to determine that both 2012 and 1889 were La Niña years.
“During a period of La Niña the sea surface temperatures across the equatorial Eastern Central Pacific Ocean are lower than normal by 3 to 6 degrees,” Lupo said. “This typically directs the jet stream from the Pacific on a northeastern path over Canada. Rain storms follow the jet stream, leaving the central and south-central states dry, while blocking air from moving south into the Midwest, resulting in higher temperatures.”
The discovery of the similarity between these two months, even though they are separated by 123 years, could help scientists understand the variability within climate patterns and assist them with future weather predictions. Thus, scientists could further understand how climate is changing and how variable it is becoming.
As well as being La Niña years, 2012 and 1889 also featured strong Artic Oscillations, a pattern of air pressure that wraps itself around the North Pole. During these times the air pressure is low and the oscillation traps and keeps cold air in the artic. With oscillation keeping cold air to the north, records showed a strong “ridge” over central North America. Ridges often bring record heat into an area, explaining the unusually warm winter temperatures, Lupo explained.
“The La Niña pattern has continued into the summer and will continue to affect the weather,” Lupo said. “This will cause droughts and above average heat throughout the Midwest from Texas to Iowa. A new El Nino pattern could develop this fall and bring favorable weather conditions to the Midwest; however, I don’t see this happening.”
Lupo is a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society in London and is a member of the International Panel for Climate Change that shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007.
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He describes a statistical model using analogue years. Dynamical models use proposed mathematically represented constructs of natural drivers (and the usual anthropogenic drivers thrown in for good measure). Greenhouse gases are a major component of these dynamical models and are usually represented as a fudge factor. I have yet to find a dynamical model that does NOT include anthropogenic mechanisms. Some statistical models tack on a trend fudge factor (as a nod to AGW greenbacks?).
“Lupo is a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society in London and is a member of the International Panel for Climate Change that shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007.”
Tainted Love then.
Dry and Warm in the South East…
“The La Niña pattern has continued into the summer and will continue to affect the weather,”
That explains the 18 to 20 inches of rain that Gulf Coast has had over the last week or so.
The news media simply cherry pick any natural variation in weather patterns that occurs and then propose pure conjecture that such changes represent climate change. NBC news with Brian Williams plays this game almost every night. Last year is was tornadoes but now that 2012 has experienced more than 700 fewer tornadoes than last year according to NOAA data that outcome is hidden from view unless a major tornado hits some poor city and then its extreme weather climate change all over again. The NBC “Chief Environmental Reporter” with her BA degree in American Studies is hardly qualified to be lecturing any buddy about science related issues. Perhaps so called news programs like this one should just be boycotted until they start presenting objective information on weather and climate versus pushing completely biased climate fear political agendas.
So – by ignoring all the empirical evidence and persisting with cherry-picked corrupt science, he picks up a Nobel prize. Now, by studiously ignoring everyone who has vainly spent many years trying to draw attention to the empirical evidence, including those who are already making reasonably reliable weather predictions based on natural factors, he presents himself as having made a unique discovery which “could help scientists develop more accurate weather prediction models – thus putting himself in line for another Nobel prize?
WAAh
NOAA’s “patterns” for ENSO events roughly match what I’ve found:
http://devoidofnulls.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/enso-and-us-climateweather-revisited/
Although I am worried there may be some problems with the site I use to create this composites.
But an important point:
ENSO is associated with these weather patterns, it is not necessarily the cause. You may have noticed that Alaska has been cool and much of the US warm already, even though the positive ENSO anomalies only recently began and haven’t become a full fledged El NIno yet. Also, Florida has been much wetter already (someone else said Texas, too).
The atmosphere seems to get locked in to doing certain things at the same time. So ENSO correlates with things that the atmosphere tends to do when there are ENSO events of a certain kind. But if these can precede the event itself, they can’t be caused by the event.
The pattern match is useful for seasonal weather prediction, though.
Ouch. Guys, Anthony Lupo is a nice guy, and not an alarmist at all. Knock it off.
I think he is way off base on his seasonal forecast, though: needs to match ground truth-so far NOPE.
You guys should check out the Heartland presentations he gave, or the stuff he’s done for ICECAP. Pretty good.
Arctic.
Not in Kansas City, Missouri:
Five Warmest Marchs from 1889 to 2012:
1. 1910 with an average maximum temperature of 69.6
2. 1946 with an average maximum temperature of 65.6
3. 1938 with an average maximum temperature of 63.4
4. 1945 with an average maximum temperature of 62.5
5. 1918 with an average maximum temperature of 62.4
http://cache.ltvcms.com/wdaf/almanac/marmaxt.html
http://fox4kc.com/weather/almanac/
Title: Spring warmth: weather, not climate
Thank you; it’s been a little warmer here in Tejas than usual for spring but of course a rational reason exists for same …
We have also had rain, for which we are grateful!
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Yes, this ridge took the Southern branch of the jet that comes ashore usually around Los Angeles and arched it over the central plains as far North as Chicago which brought warm Gulf air much father into the central US than average. In fact, right this very minute you can see a similar configuration with warm Southern air being pulled from Texas all the way up to Minnesota and into Canada:
http://hint.fm/wind/
When I see these charts they always seem to represent the two extremes. (La Nina or El Nino)
Why is there no chart for the effects of a ‘Neutral’ or near neutral condition? Seems that there should be since it has become apparant to me that in Texas (and looks like Florida, too) this year: ‘neutral’ is not the same as ‘el nino’.
And of course, in this instance I am referring to the prevelance fo dry drought-like conditions @ur momisugly the lower latitudes of both TX and FL as illustrated on the EL Nino chart above.
This is a topic that comes up all the time when the weather is a ltitle warmer than people think it should be. If there is a week or two in April that is fairly warm they start talking about Global Warming. First, their assessment is only local so how do they know it’s a global event? Just because it’s a little warm in Philadelphia doesn’t mean it isn’t bitter cold elsewhere on the planet. Second, they disregard when in the summer it’s a lot cooler than expected. If they want to talk about global temperatures average over the planet and over some timeframe then nobody should ever utter “Global Warming” based on a few weeks of local observation.
This to me is the major problem with the idea of global average temperature. If the springtime is unusually hot and the summer is unusually cold, and the northern hemisphere is hot while the southern hemisphere is cold, what does averaging all that together tell you? Put one foot in a bucket of boiling water and the other foot in a bucket of ice water. The average temperature is warm but should be tolerable.
So even though the spring was a little warm here in Philadelphia (but not warmer than it was at the turn of the century based on some 100 year old newspapers I have), it’s actually been a fairly cool and wet start of summer. I hear no shock on the local news about how cool it’s been. Raise the temperature a little and you have “is this a sign of global warming?” all over the news.
Just out of interest I decided to question a article in Huffington Post (Green). The article, which prompted it, stated that, in a recent survey 82% of Americans said they had experienced “unusual weather” this year. A supplementary question also got the response that 60+% put this down to “Global Warming”. I suggested this wasn’t particularly scientific but the site’s fanboy (who had 200+ “likes” against his name) said the science was settled and that was that. He then said “the trolls had arrived and wouldn’t it be nice if they engaged in debate/discussion instead of rubbishing the science.”
I don’t think there is much chance of any logical discussion of what has become an emotional topic.
Only the oldest farts have been through a complete PDO cycle. For most Americans the current negative PDO is untrodden territory. ENSO behavior within the PDO is also novel for most (including me, vague childhood memories of the end of the last negative PDO aside).
Andrew – these weather patterns may precede the ENSO index, but the ENSO index itself might possibly lag the actual ENSO event. I think the index is based on atmospheric pressure differences between two points (??) so presumably might not be detected until after the actual ENSO event has started. ie, it is still not ruled out that the weather events are caused by ENSO events. More likely maybe that both are caused by something else, but not yet proven??
BTW, Tony Lupo may indeed be a nice guy, but it appears he’s riding on the unacknowledged coattails of others instead of giving credit where due.
That’s regional balance. Milder somewhere often means cooler somewhere else but the media and laymen in general often forget to mention that or even bother.
For this the guy gets paid? Steven Godderd has been doing the comparisons for free. The two Joes have a pretty reliable record of predictions using information from the old data, and the list goes on. Someone made the statement that this guy is a good guy and that may be; but this study is hardly worthy of great praise as it simply repeats what we already know. The climate cycles and changes. My big concern is the constant manipulation of the temperature data. I think some people , Hansen comes to mind , should go to prison.
Sign a petition to make tax-payer funded research papers free to the public!
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/19670/
Up until the last two weeks I have been of the opinion that Texas has been cooler this Spring, especially in May.
Lupo doesn’t know how to spell arctic.
Yes, it was a warm March in the upper Midwest. It was great, I played golf 10 times when I usually am lucky if I can play at all. Interestingly, last year was much colder and snowy. It was also a La Niña year. So, it appears there are multiple factors involved. In this case the AO appears to be the factor that led to the big difference.
Mike Jonas says:
June 14, 2012 at 9:11 am
Did you read the full story? It’s at http://cafnrnews.com/2012/06/months-of-extremes/ . Did you note it is a press release? Note that it says:
I believe I have said this here before. In my study of tree rings from Iowa (about twenty years ago), one cycle really jumps out. It appears to be slightly less than twenty years long. We should just now be entering into the part of the cycle where we should see poor growing conditions for trees in Iowa. I remember when I wrote an article about this, I was wondering if the mid 90s would be poor conditions, or whether it would be like the time around 1915 where there appeared to be back to back El Ninos to moderate any hot/dry weather. I believe we are now in a period where La Ninas should be more common than El Ninos, so it would surprise me if we don’t see some really poor growing years over the next six years in the middle of the country. I believe I also said that, if this does happen, many would try to use it to push for action on global warming.
What warm weather??
In NW Europe, its been the coldest (and wettest?) spring on record, and this month is likely to follow suit. Its been F-F-Freezing.
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Odd?
Any how here is the post that did not appear.
Yes, I’m an activist. It works. “SwiftBoat”, “Climate Gate E-Mails”, Fast and Furious whistleblowers.
Get inside these CO2 con’s lie loop. Find the few good people being used.
Give them a safe place to document/info drop.
Provide help and support when and if they are fired attacked.
How small can the person/blog be that is the “David” of the deal.
http://www.sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com