Guest post by Bob Tisdale
This post will serve as the Preliminary Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly Update for June 2012, since we’ll be using preliminary June 2012 data in it. Last week ended on June 30th, so the preliminary data should be close to the official June data, which does not come out until Monday July 9, 2012. Refer to the schedule on the NOAA Optimum Interpolation Sea Surface Temperature Analysis Frequently Asked Questions webpage.
Anthony Watts often starts a post with, “I get mail.” And sometimes I get mail from Anthony Watts. This post takes a look at the curious sea surface temperature anomaly patterns Anthony and Roger Sowell expressed interest in.
Many people, including me, have the Unisys daily maps of sea surface temperature anomalies as one of their browser favorites. Figure 1 shows the map dated July 1, 2012. I also take a look at the Unisys sea surface temperature anomaly animation at least once a week. As of today, there’s cool waters flowing toward the central tropical Pacific out of the North Pacific, and in the northeastern South Pacific, there’s the pocket of warm waters off the coast of South America feeding northward. This will be an interesting El Niño to watch.
Figure 1
The map shows very low sea surface temperature anomalies in the Bering Sea. For those of you who don’t recall where the Bering Sea is, it’s south of the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia and north of the Aleutian Island chain. In the eastern North Pacific, there’s a pattern that many would consider a negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) spatial pattern. Toward the west, though, during a negative PDO pattern one would expect positive anomalies in the western boundary current extension east of Japan called the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension or KOE. But the typical PDO pattern that people look for is stronger in boreal winter. Right now the North Pacific is transitioning from the aftereffects of the 2011/12 La Niña to the upcoming El Niño.
Are the sea surface temperature anomalies in the Bering Sea unusually cool? Looking at Figure 2, the sea surface temperature anomalies for the Bering Sea have been cooler in the past, most recently during the 1998/99/00/01 La Niña. Is the recent drop caused by the unusual amount of sea ice packed to the north of Bering Strait? Dunno. One thing is certain, sea surface temperature anomalies for the Bering Sea have been cooling steadily since 2003-04.
Figure 2
And that’s consistent with the entire North Pacific, Figure 3. Sea surface temperature anomalies, based on the smoothed curve, peaked there in 2004/05 and have been cooling since–with an ENSO-related wiggle or three. And the North Pacific is a big chunk o’ water.
Figure 3
Referring back to the map in Figure 1, over in the North Atlantic, there’s that trough of cool anomalies. It stretches northeast from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Sea and Baltic Sea. I don’t recall that pattern in any of the sea surface temperature anomaly animations I’ve created. Then again, most of those have been based on the Reynolds OI.v2 data, which start in November 1982. I took another look at the animation of Global sea surface temperature anomalies I had prepared three years ago that’s posted on YouTube. I didn’t see that same cool trough in the North Atlantic. And I had used a contour interval of 0.2 deg C in the animation to make patterns like the trough stand out. That doesn’t mean the cool trough hasn’t existed before; it just hasn’t shown itself (or shown itself as clearly?) in the last 30 years.
But you always have to keep in mind that the color scaling of the Unisys sea surface temperature anomaly maps are weighted toward blues and greens, which most of us associate with negative (cool) sea surface temperature anomalies. The light blues in the Unisys maps include anomalies as high as +1 deg C, and greens extend up to +2 deg C, where most presentations are showing yellows, oranges and reds at those levels. That’s why I also have the map at Australia’s EldersWeather webpage as a favorite. See Figure 4. Its color scale is similar to the one I use in the monthly sea surface temperature anomaly updates. It helps to put things back in perspective. The cool trough in the North Atlantic is still there, but it’s not as impressive.
Figure 4
What stands out more in that map are the high sea surface temperature anomalies along the east coast of North America, north of North Carolina, that reach up toward southern Greenland. They formed over the past couple of months. Part of that is caused by a residual seasonal cycle in the anomalies, and part of it is “weather-related” warming. Figure 5 shows the time-series graph of sea surface temperature anomalies for the Northwest North Atlantic–refer to the coordinates on the graph. It captures the hotspot from Newfoundland and Labrador to southern Greenland. There have been warmer sea surface temperature anomalies there, but that was the summer following the 2009/10 El Niño. We’ll just have to see where they wind up and how long they persist this year.
Figure 5
The recent elevated Northwest North Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies did not have a major impact on the sea surface temperature anomalies for the North Atlantic as a whole, Figure 6. The seasonal upward swing there is not abnormal.
Figure 6
Since the decrease in North Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies (Figure 3) was much greater than the rise in the North Atlantic data (Figure 6), the Northern Hemisphere sea surface temperature anomalies, Figure 7, dropped in June 2012. But that was countered by the increase in the Southern Hemisphere data, Figure 8. (If NOAA updated their base years for anomalies, some of those seasonal swings would decrease.) The offsetting chnages in hemispheric data caused there to be basically no change in Global sea surface temperature anomalies, Figure 9. They dropped about -0.01 deg C—as I said, basically no change in Global sea surface temperature anomalies.
Figure 7
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Figure 8
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Figure 9
The preliminary monthly NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies for June (0.45 deg C) are just shy of the 0.5 deg C threshold of an El Niño event. NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies are a commonly used index for the frequency, magnitude and duration of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. See Figure 10. And the weekly NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies (Figure 11) for the week centered in Wednesday June 27thare at 0.73 deg C. That’s well into weak El Niño range. I’ve also included NINO1+2 sea surface temperature anomalies in Figure 11. The NINO1+2 region is bordered by the coordinates of 10S-0, 90W-80W, which is centered just south of the equator in the far eastern tropical Pacific. As you can see, they’ve been elevated for a number of months. The 2012/13 El Niño is starting as an East Pacific El Niño, which are typically stronger than Central Pacific El Niño events. We shall see how well the upcoming El Niño maintains that “typical” ENSO characteristic.
Figure 10
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Figure 11
Figure 12 is a graph of weekly Global sea surface temperature anomalies centered on Wednesday June 27th. They’re making their wiggly transition from their responses to the La Niña and to the upcoming El Niño. Something stands out for me in Figure 12 and in the monthly global sea surface temperature anomalies, Figure 9. Note how the La Niña-related seasonal minimum straddling 2011/12 is noticeably cooler than the seasonal minimum of 2010/11. Yet the 2010/11 La Niña was much stronger than the 2011/12 La Niña.
Figure 12
And the last two illustrations show the preliminary June sea surface temperature anomaly graphs for the East Pacific and for the rest of the world, the Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific Oceans. Those two subsets capture the data from pole to pole. I present the global data divided into those two subsets in my monthly sea surface temperature updates for very obvious reasons. The East Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies from pole to pole haven’t risen in 30 years, and that dataset represents about 1/3rd of the surface area of the global oceans. You could cut and paste a Super El Niño at the end of it and the trend would still be flat. Then there’s the “rest-of-the-world” data, which represents the other 2/3rdsof the global ocean surface area. It rose in very clear steps over the past 30 years. The steps are caused by major El Niño events that are followed by La Niña events, and those are El Niño events that also have not been counteracted by the effects of explosive volcanic eruptions, which is what happened in 1982/83. Sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific oceans don’t rise between the major El Niño events, even with the effects of a rising Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. And that means the sea surface temperatures for the South Atlantic, Indian and West Pacific Oceans decrease between those events. That and the fact that the East Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies have actually decreased over the past 30 years are hard to explain with the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis, especially when the climate models used by the IPCC don’t reproduce those global sea surface temperature patterns. Those models show no skill whatsoever.
Figure 13
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Figure 14
WOULD YOU LIKE TO UNDERSTAND WHY THE ATLANTIC-INDIAN-WEST PACIFIC DATASET SHIFTS UPWARD IN RESPONSE TO MAJOR EL NIÑO EVENTS?
Over the past three years, in so many posts it’s not practical to link them here, I’ve presented the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-related processes that cause the blatantly obvious upward shifts in sea surface temperature anomalies for the Atlantic, Indian and West Pacific data shown above. I’ve also explained why the East Pacific shows no warming over the past 30 years. You’re welcome to use the search function on this webpage.
In my upcoming book, I go into lots more detail about how ENSO causes those upward shifts. I’m hoping to publish it in late July, early August of this year. The only things slowing down the process are the new chapters I’ve added under the section of general ENSO discussions, and those are discussions I have not posted on my blog.
SOURCE
The Reynolds Optimally Interpolated Sea Surface Temperature Data (OI.v2) are available through the NOAA National Operational Model Archive & Distribution System (NOMADS) website.
“The 2012/13 El Niño is starting as an East Pacific El Niño, which are typically stronger than Central Pacific El Niño events. We shall see how well the upcoming El Niño maintains that “typical” ENSO characteristic. ”
“Something stands out for me in Figure 12 and in the monthly global sea surface temperature anomalies, Figure 9. Note how the La Niña-related seasonal minimum straddling 2011/12 is noticeably cooler than the seasonal minimum of 2010/11. Yet the 2010/11 La Niña was much stronger than the 2011/12 La Niña.”
I know you do not like to forecast but reading between the lines , a big Niño ahead?
I`m worried,
why does the life giving Gulf stream that warms our toes over here in good old Blighty appear to have an anomaly of minus 2 deg, my old geography notes tells me it is a continuous warm body of slow moving water ? will our palm trees along the english riviera be needing some socks any time soon?
The problem using temperature anomalies is it gives the wrong impression. It makes the Gulf stream look colder than the waters round Labrador/Greenland which is not true. But the cooler Gulf Stream will contribute to the cooler, wetter weather the UK has endured the past 3 months that the Met Office blame on the jet stream alone.
Forgive the question which reveals my ignorance, but what determines the baseline of a temperature anomaly? What are the temperatures anomalous to?
“Right now the North Pacific is transitioning from the aftereffects of the 2011/12 La Niña to the upcoming El Niño.” (quote BT)
There is no certainty that an El Nino will develop.
I for one favour a return to Neutral as we move towards the September to December months, as do several other forecasting agencies.
We shall see soon enough anyway.
Cold anomaly on north Atlantic is the result of winds blowing against Gulf Stream for almost 1.5 already. This has slowed down the Gulf Stream. The reason for this unusual wind has been the non-existent Icelandic low for last 1.5 months.
Warm anomalies near Greenland are the result of the same thing; backcurrent from the Arctic has also slowed down due to slowing Gulf Stream and less cold water has arrived to the sea area south of Greenland.
Arctic sea is now cooling and fast.
The “Elders Weather” web pages are actually produced by the Australian commercial Weatherzone weather forecasting organisation.
WZ’s original examples of the SST anomaly maps as found on the Elders web site plus many other maps and comprehensive Australian weather information can be found at ;
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/climate/indicator_sst.jsp?lt=global&lc=global&c=ssta
“The offsetting chnages(<—–typo) in hemispheric data caused there to be basically no change in Global sea surface temperature anomalies, Figure 9. They dropped about -0.01 deg C—as I said, basically no change in Global sea surface temperature anomalies."
I was about to request supporting evidence for “climate models used by the IPCC don’t reproduce those global sea surface temperature patterns. Those models show no skill whatsoever.“, but then found it at
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/what-do-observed-sea-surface-temperature-anomalies-and-climate-models-have-in-common-over-the-past-17-years/
Typical cold PDO nino which will spike in mid winter, then fall apart. Joe D Aleo did extensive work on this. Its why last year I knew Nina was not over, and was yelling loudly in winter it El nino will come on, peak, and go. Posted on this several times from before hand! This has a chance to mimic such winters as 02,09,76 where if you look at mei, enhanced cold periods before hand of at least 2 years, were followed by flip, that set off winter. Theory on this: la nina signal cools overall globe, but leads to pressure rises over Pacific falls over US because enhanced nina jets drive trough into western US, opening US up for broad southwest flow and higher than normal pressures ( storm track well to north) This year it was like it was on steroids, very much like 75-76, When nino comes on, cold pdo overall attacks it and we see the warm water come off S America early and cool toward the winter, while the cent pac warms. this can be seen in forecasts already of nino3.4 and 1.2 Such an event enourages PRESSURE FALLS in tropical pacific, compensating winter rises over the areas of N America that were abnormally low in the la nina, ( central and north) and once sets a source region for the southern storm track and high pressures to the north in the means
I have been posting this theory, along with 400 mb shut down theory on tornado and hurricane season before the fact since the winter, as the winter and research debunking IPCC hot spots really opened my eyes to some things. In any case, this is a real time test for all to see ( tornado theory, that the season would crash looks good and the idea behind hurricane forecast was fast start, and the worry has to be in close development in a low ace season in the atlantic overall. BTW both those ideas were presented at ICCC7 to make sure that others saw them before hand.
IN any case another interesting aspect, and we are covering this on weatherbell, is the negative aao in their winter, similar to 02/09 which is a precursor to our ao in winter. Another test, but this one was inspired by the people at METSUL, who have shown Joe D Aleo and I enough evidence to at least have us, and now you and again test it in real time!
You cant hide declines, fudge or adjust data, or run from errors when one tests in real time. More exciting and really though it stings when wrong, the real way to have things peer reviewed! Would take WUWT readers any day for that
I commented previously that the last La Niña wasn’t quite typical and now the switch towards El Niño isn’t looking typical either. I have a feeling the big Japanese earthquake may be a factor but I have no evidence to support it. There certainly could have been changes in ocean currents due to the event. Is there anyone who is looking into this?
common sense says:
July 3, 2012 at 2:09 am
I for one favour a return to Neutral as we move towards the September to December months, as do several other forecasting agencies.
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I keep watching the BOM “4-month sequence of vertical temperature anomaly sections at the equator, Pacific”
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/oceanography/wrap_ocean_analysis.pl?id=IDYOC007&year=2012&month=07
The latest sure shows how the blue traces of La Nina have receeded and been replaced in the east by the red positive El Nino anomalies, all as expected. However what is noticable is that the “warm” red anomalies have not intensified, if anything they appear to be weakening? Bit dodgy as this is only by eyeballing.
Anyhow as you say “We shall see soon enough anyway.”
Thanks, Bob, and Anthony.
If there is any good that comes from the CAGW proponents, perhaps it is that we have the measuring instruments in place to observe the cooling as it happens.
The deep blue colors in the North Pacific and the blue strip running from Florida to the UK certainly caught my attention.
The grim news is the current heat wave in the US has adversely impacted the corn crop. Commodity prices for corn zoomed.
It’s looking like a most interesting time to be alive.
Mike Bromley the Kurd says: “…but what determines the baseline of a temperature anomaly? What are the temperatures anomalous to?”
For each grid location, NOAA uses the average sea surface temperatures for the period of 1971 to 2000.
temp: Thanks for finding the typo. That was part of a last-second edit after I input the Word doc to WordPress. I corrected it on my cross post.
Roger Sowell says:
July 3, 2012 at 5:41 am
The deep blue colors in the North Pacific … certainly caught my attention.
==============
Junuary continue into July on the South West (Pacific) coast of Canada. Wet and cold. Really quite miserable weather. Winter and spring were late. No hint of summer.
John Marshall says:
July 3, 2012 at 1:55 am
The problem using temperature anomalies is it gives the wrong impression. It makes the Gulf stream look colder than the waters round Labrador/Greenland which is not true. But the cooler Gulf Stream will contribute to the cooler, wetter weather the UK has endured the past 3 months that the Met Office blame on the jet stream alone.
The Met Off have no idea what science is. They cannot get passed the fact that the jetstream has moved but they have absolutely no idea why. Thereby lies their dillema. They don’t know what controls the jetstream and therefore what controls the weather and the seasonal changes.
I’m on holiday in SW england, from sw france, and it has rained and rained and rained and it’s flaming cold.
Joe Bastardi says: “…la nina signal cools overall globe…”
If the La Niña follows an El Niño, then the western Pacific and eastern Indian Oceans warm during the transition from El Niño to La Niña. That’s caused by the warm water left over from the El Niño being driven back to the west by the restored trade winds. The subsequent La Niña helps to maintain the elevated sea surface temperatures in the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans. And that’s why global surface temperatures don’t drop proportionally with NINO3.4 SST anomalies as they transition from the El Niño maximum to La Niña minimum.
But, yes, you’re right. Overall, global surface temperatures drop during a La Niña.
Is your email listed on your website, Joe?
Where can we pre-order the book? I don’t kindle and don’t want the pdf. I want the hard-back addition to my real, not virtual, library.
“HHHHHHHHHHH”
Well, HHHHHHHHHHH to you too.
Could the cool slash from Florida to UK be the result of TS Debby sucking heat from the ocean surface? Was it there before Debby?
Juanse Barros says: “I know you do not like to forecast but reading between the lines , a big Niño ahead?”
I’ll guess moderate in the NINO3.4 region, maybe as strong as the 2009/10 El Niño, but if it remains an East Pacific El Niño (warm sea surface temperature anomalies in the east as well as the central equatorial Pacific), it would have a greater impact on global climate than a Central Pacific El Niño.
Heat and drought is not an uncommon product of a cooling world, probably more so than in a warmed wet world. Low humidity heat will suck the life out of just about anything alive. Unfortunately. And the dryer cold (versus wetter cold) elsewhere will cause its own destruction. Unfortunately.
To spin it, we are still fortunate to be in high humidity heat. High humidity heat is not a bad thing. It isn’t very comfortable because sweat just stays on you like stink on a bug, but if it dries up and stays warm, we got more problems than not being able to sweat off the heat.
All indices are saying that the supposed AGW theory of watervapored-up heating has come to a halt and is possibly sliding down the more dangerous side exposing flora and fauna to the harsher conditions found outside the pet-theory “greenhouse” we have benefited from.
Robert:
It looks to ME as though if you run the “AVERAGE” the “sea surface VARIANCE FROM SOME ARBITRARY MEAN” (better way to put it linguistically, MUCH more accurate..) is essentially ZERO.
Can you get the “area average” from some source or by some means?
Thanks!
Max
Stephen Richards
I live in SW England. Its gloriously hot in my part….Ok I lied….
A good test of a summer is how the outdoor tomatoes do. I’ll let you know once I can fight the kayaking slugs off
tonyb
The pattern of planetary winds have changed as the global temperatures decrease.
People consistently fail to go to cause getting stuck with effect because it is useful for political climate science. To provide cause would take them away from human CO2 to the sun – an unacceptable destination.
Supporters of IPCC climate science are claiming the current pattern (effect), particularly the warming in eastern North America, are proof they were right. Here are two recent examples; “This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level,” said Jonathan Overpeck, professor of geosciences and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona. “The extra heat increases the odds of worse heat waves, droughts, storms and wildfire. This is certainly what I and many other climate scientists have been warning about.”
“Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in fire-charred Colorado, said these are the very record-breaking conditions he has said would happen, but many people wouldn’t listen. So it’s I told-you-so time, he said.”
Source: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120703/D9VP9J681.html
Actually all this proves is they don’t understand basic climatology. The effect they focus on are changing global wind patterns, the cause they ignore are changes in the sun that are causing cooling, which results in increased meridional flow and potential for increased temperature differences along frontal zones. I wrote about it here:
http://drtimball.com/2012/current-global-weather-patterns-normal-despite-government-and-media-distortions/
“But you always have to keep in mind that the color scaling of the Unisys sea surface temperature anomaly maps are weighted toward blues and greens, which most of us associate with negative (cool) sea surface temperature anomalies. The light blues in the Unisys maps include anomalies as high as +1 deg C, and greens extend up to +2 deg C, where most presentations are showing yellows, oranges and reds at those levels.”
Bob, Unisys also has a more traditional SST map. Just click on SST Anom-New, just to the right of SST Anom. It’s a lot easier to distinguish between warmer and cooler than normal water on that scale.
@ Joseph Bastardi (July 3, 2012 at 3:48 am)
Could you expound on this please? It sounds intriguing.
RE: Joseph Bastardi says:
July 3, 2012 at 3:48 am
This is really bad news for CA. We got our wake up call toward the end of the last negative PDO (the infamous, but forgotten / unknown by 35 years of transplants 1974 – 1977 drought). That wake up call ought to have spurred massive upgrade of water infrastructure. That did not happen and to add insult to injury dams have been demolished ostensibly to benefit salmon and steelhead. OK, here we are, on the eve of a slow motion disaster.
The Atlantic cold trough is the Gulf Stream.
The “T bone” off South America has already shot three tentative salients of anomolously warm water west along the equator this year, and backed off.
It appears the trade winds are failing in the South Pacific but not in the North Pacific. Perhaps this is why negative PDO reduces ENSO.
If ENSO is really an exorcism of energy from the oceans transferred to the atmosphere, and the Pacific is the only ocean capable of this, that would explain why the Pacific is cooling and the Atlantic and Indian oceans account for the stairstep apparent in the global data.
We will have to wait a millenium or so for the THC to even this out?
It is an interesting thought experiment to try and imagine ENSO in a Panthalassic Ocean.
RE: Pamela Gray says:
July 3, 2012 at 7:48 am
A possible harbinger of the 4/5ths Death.
These SSTs are simply consistent with MPH propagations, debunking the fallacy of the Polar Front…
Bob.
What would a graph of Volcano-adjusted East Pacific SST Anomalies graph look like for the northern half only say 20-90N, 180-80W?
Pamela Gray says: “Where can we pre-order the book? I don’t kindle and don’t want the pdf. I want the hard-back addition to my real, not virtual, library.”
Sorry. I don’t have any plans for hardcover edition. The publishing costs for a 300+ page book with color images are very high–so high that I couldn’t justify buying one through a vanity press.
Max Hugoson says: “Can you get the ‘area average’ from some source or by some means?”
Please re-ask your question.
matt v. says: “What would a graph of Volcano-adjusted East Pacific SST Anomalies graph look like for the northern half only say 20-90N, 180-80W?”
Simple answer: Wiggly lines.
I didn’t think that answer would satisfy you–figured you’d want to see it. I ended the data at 65N:
http://i45.tinypic.com/14jz3p0.jpg
gymnosperm says: “The Atlantic cold trough is the Gulf Stream.”
Certainly would have be faster for me to write it as the cold trough along the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current.
Ah, but the Kindle “books” are murder when graphs and scientific/engineering data is (tried to be) presented in any intelligent manner.
The black and white/grey-and-white images on a Kindle hide all the info in colored graphs, and the small size of a graph/plot/table – particularly when the table is a half-page, make plots very difficult to read and understand. Worse, or equally bad, the lack of pages means its very hard to flip and forth to previous/next pages to review info effectively
Robert:
Yes, I can re-ask the question. With the basis explained, and the reason for asking and desired “use” of the information which might be obtainable.
Look, the value of “anomaly” which is given…is given as a 3-D plot. I.e., the 3rd dimension is the color, which is the number of degrees of “anomaly”. Excuse me for pointing out the LEFTIST TACTIC of defining debate by language, but the more PROPER way to refer to this is DEVIATION FROM SOME ARBITRARILY DETERMINED BASIS. So that is the way I will refer to it. Now that I have that off my chest, we have a certain total “sea area”. Per a grid of some refinement or lack thereof we have a value assigned to each grid location. A value in a standard temperature unit. (Say 0.5, -0.8, 1, -3 C, etc.)
SO if I had 100,000 such divisions, with the associated DEVIATIONS FROM THE ARBITRARY STARTING REFERENCE BASIS…I could add ALL of those values together, divide by 100,000 and obtain the overall average. (My suspicions are, with the current data set, it would be close to ZERO.)
NOW, whereas AVERAGE TEMPERATURE is a farcical meaningless term, THIS average “temperature” would really, have a modicum of value. That would be because for every degree F (excuse me, I’m a dinosaur!) and every pound (British units) of water (yes, it’s a force… ok, the MASS of water causing 1 lbf in a standard gravity field) there would be ONE BTU of energy involved.
THUS in this case the “average” temperature (because we are dealing with WATER, and a FINITE amount and amounts that don’t shift that fast or that much..) would give us an idea IF THERE REALLY HAS BEEN A MARKED SHIFT IN THE ENERGY BALANCE OF THE ATM AND THE SURFACE LAYERS OF THE EARTH or not.
I’m hoping that I’m making my reason for asking clear. And I also hope that we could access a TABULAR form of this data somewhere rather than the more limiting (in terms of analysis) graphical presentation.
Yours,
Max H.
Bob – I am with Pamela here about a book, however, if you nocando, I will gladly settle for pdf. Keep up the good work.
I get a whiff of climate alarmism from some of these posts.
For heaven’s sake, we are not in control of climate, so it is pointless to worry and fret.
So long as we have insulated homes and a ready energy supply we will be fine.
Our greater threat is probably new viruses, but there is little one can do to prepare for them either.
Best to make the most of what we have.
Bob,
Lulu.com will produce single printed copies in book form from a pdf. I did one 3 or 4 years back. The result was satisfactory. Cost about $10 per copy.
I note in the third paragraph that the color temperature legend at the bottom of the Unisys sea surface temperature anomaly animation, jumps around like water droplets on a hot skillet during the animation. Shouldn’t an accurate animation control the values of the colors so they appear rock solid? Something is wrong, in my opinion.
Will it be available on Amazon?
Joseph Bastardi says:
July 3, 2012 at 3:48 am
Very interesting post and a very pleasant surprise to see such straightforward candor on your predictions.
A question regarding: “… and the worry has to be in close development in a low ace[sic] season in the atlantic overall….”
For ace did you mean ice or is ace acronym I just don’t recognize? Thanks.
F. Ross;
I think ace=ACE=Accumulated Cyclone Energy
Only now have I found time to glance through Bob’s graphs. I haven’t read any comments.
I just want to say that it is a huge relief to simply see observations. I spend far too much time in the world of projections. IE: The world of “might” and “maybe” and “could.”
My ventures into that world involve eating crow, for if you dare forecast you are going to experience being wrong. For example, I imagined the current upsurge into El Nino territory would fail and we’d dip a third time into La Nina territory.
Crow doesn’t taste too bad. You can actually develop a taste for it, especially because you learn by making mistakes. However, in order to learn, it helps immencely to compare your incorrect imaginings with hard facts.
This is where Bob’s observations are like water in a desert. His presentations enable one to see what HAS happened, and IS happening, and skip the bother of the future, and “might” and “maybe” and “could.”
Of course, as down to earth as such observations are, that’s not where the fun is.
Therefore I am glad to see Bob is venturing past the safe ground of what has happened, and, in his new book, is daring to suggest the WHY of it all.
Risky, Bob, risky. Even if your theory is 99% correct, you’ll wind up being 1% wrong.
Welcome to the club.
RE: Joseph Bastardi says:
July 3, 2012 at 3:48 am
“….You can’t hide declines, fudge or adjust data, or run from errors when one tests in real time. More exciting and really, though it stings when wrong, the real way to have things peer reviewed! Would take WUWT readers any day for that.”
Amen.
By the way, from time to time you mention 1976 is being like the current situation. That makes me very nervous, because the following winter (1976-77) was especially bitter on the east coast, while the prior winter (1975-76) was mild, as our last winter was, in the east.
Back then I rejoiced in a nasty winter, but I have gotten old and soft, and don’t look forward to getting clobbered by cold. Therefore I tend to wish-cast, seeking signs next winter will not be as bad as 1976-77. One thing I wish-cast my line onto is the fact the AMO was cold back then, and is still warm now.
My fear is that a warm AMO will not make it warmer in the east. It will only make it moister, and lead to more snow.
What’s your take on this?
@Brian H says:
July 3, 2012 at 6:25 pm
Thanks for the explanation.
Max Hugoson: Assuming Unisys is presenting the NOAA Reynolds OI sea surface temperature data in their maps, the data is available on weekly and monthly bases, with user-defined coordinates, in absolute and anomaly form, through the NOAA NOMADS website:
http://nomad3.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh
KNMI takes the weekly Reynolds OI.v2 data and interpolates a daily value for the NINO regions. See their Daily indices webpage:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectdailyindex.cgi?id=someone@somewhere
Other than that, I know of no websites that present the data in an easy-to-use format on a daily basis. If you want the raw data, it is available through NOAA, but it’s a massive file since they provide the data in ¼ deg latitude and longitude grids.
With respect to your comment that the anomalies appear close to zero, it depends on how you define close. Assuming that Unisys is presenting the anomalies provided by NOAA, the global average sea surface temperature anomaly for the week centered on Wednesday June 27th was about +0.19 deg C.
RACookPE1978: I understand that the free Kindle for PCs and Macs defeat the convenience of a handheld Kindle reader, BUT the graphs are quite clear. Here’s a screen cap from my first book:
http://i50.tinypic.com/ojqcxs.jpg
RACookPE1978, Pamela Gray, Philip Bradley: I’ve looked into publishing through lulu and others. The manufacturing cost of a 350-page color hardcover book is in excess of $90 U.S. Then you’ve got to add the manufacturer’s margin, shipping, handling, and a couple of bucks for me. I’ll see what arrangements I have to make, but I suspect I would get very few buyers. And I definitely have no plans to distribute it through retailers.
Chad Jessup: Sorry that I missed adding your name to those discussing hardcover versions of my book. See above July 4, 2012 at 2:29 am reply to RACookPE1978, Pamela Gray, and Philip Bradley. Assuming the publisher adds a 40% markup (and that’s probably low) onto the manufacturing costs, would anyone really be willing to pay $130 to $140 for a copy of my book? I wouldn’t buy one for me.
Bryan Clark says: “I note in the third paragraph that the color temperature legend at the bottom of the Unisys sea surface temperature anomaly animation, jumps around like water droplets on a hot skillet during the animation.”
I have been told the color coding for the maps remains constant (that is, for a particular color of dark blue, for example, the anomaly is always a specific negative value), but that Unisys shifts the range of the scale being presented based on the high and low anomaly values on the map.
Pamela Gray says: “Will it be available on Amazon?”
In Kindle form. For the pdf edition, I’ll be using the same website that I used with my first book.
Right now, my plan is to initially release it for a week in pdf form at a price that’s about 1/2 of what it would be through Amazon (Kindle). Then I’ll release the Kindle version, which requires me to have the pdf edition priced 20% higher than it.
Caleb: There are still chunks (technical term) of warm subsurface anomalies in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific and they’ve increased toward the east in recent weeks.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/wkxzteq.shtml
But I would find a three-peat La Nina entertaining. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to happen.
Bob Tisdale says:
July 4, 2012 at 3:10 am
Caleb: There are still chunks (technical term) of warm subsurface anomalies in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific and they’ve increased toward the east in recent weeks.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/wkxzteq.shtml
But I would find a three-peak La Nina entertaining. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to happen.
Equally there is still an active cold tongue in the south east equatorial Pacific, just below the developing warm tongue to the north. ENSO with a forked tongue? This cold tongue is not going away despite the signs of strengthening el Nino. And there is a chunk of cold water still lying below the surface at the east Pacific (well there always is everywhere I guess). Could the Pacific bifurcate and have an el Nino in the north and a continuing La Nina in the south?
Thanks, Anthony.
Reynolds, R. W., T. M. Smith, C. Liu, D. B. Chelton, K. S. Casey, and M. G. Schlax, 2007: Daily high-resolution blended analyses for sea surface temperature. J. Climate, 20, 5473-5496.
Well it looks like Vladimir and Estragon waited for el Ninot long enough – he finally came for them!
http://samuel-beckett.net/Waiting_for_Godot_Part1.html
(or maybe not…)
[Well] if El Nino follows into this winter, I guess up where I am in Flagstaff, AZ could see a repeat of the 09/10 winter. We got dumped on pretty good. The roof at my laboratory partially collapsed from all the snow. All the news talking heads were exclaiming about how the reservoirs around Phoenix were filled up beyond maximum in just the early winter months.
The last two La Nina winters have been very dry, and of course its blamed on AGW.
Thank you Anthony, Bob, Jim and others for all your information. This website and the amazing information and analysis pulled me back from the brainwashed haze that college had me in for a while. Al Gore’s preaching was pounded into me all 5 years and I just had to go with it. Even if the claims just seemed outlandish and triggered my “something’s wrong here” feelings.
Thomas;
Contact 2 or 3 of your classmates and send them here. Ask them to do the same once they’ve emerged from their personal hazes. Pass it forward!