Back-to-back La Niñas cooled globe and influenced extreme weather in 2011
New NOAA-led report examines climate conditions experienced around the world
Worldwide, 2011 was the coolest year on record since 2008, yet temperatures remained above the 30 year average, according to the 2011 State of the Climate report released online today by NOAA. The peer-reviewed report, issued in coordination with the American Meteorological Society (AMS), was compiled by 378 scientists from 48 countries around the world. It provides a detailed update on global climate indicators, notable weather events and other data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments on land, sea, ice and sky.
“2011 will be remembered as a year of extreme events, both in the United States and around the world,” said Deputy NOAA Administrator Kathryn D. Sullivan, Ph.D. “Every weather event that happens now takes place in the context of a changing global environment. This annual report provides scientists and citizens alike with an analysis of what has happened so we can all prepare for what is to come.”
Two back-to-back La Niñas, each characterized by cooler-than-average water temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific, affected regional climates and influenced many of the world’s significant weather events throughout the year.
These included historic droughts in East Africa, the southern United States and northern Mexico. La Niña conditions contributed to an above-average tropical cyclone season in the North Atlantic hurricane basin and a below-average season in the Eastern North Pacific. It was also associated with the wettest two-year period (2010–2011) on record in Australia, which was particularly remarkable as the wet conditions followed a decade-long dry spell.
The Arctic continued to show more rapid changes than the rest of the planet. Sea ice shrank to its second smallest “summer minimum” extent on record during 2011, as older ice (four to five years old) reached a new record minimum at more than 80 percent below average. Overall, glaciers around the world continued to lose mass. Loss from Canadian Arctic glaciers and ice caps were the greatest since measurements began in 2002.
The report used 43 climate indicators to track and identify changes and overall trends to the global climate system. These indicators include greenhouse gas concentrations, temperature of the lower and upper atmosphere, cloud cover, sea surface temperature, sea level rise, ocean salinity, sea ice extent and snow cover. Each indicator includes thousands of measurements from multiple independent datasets.
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“The Arctic continued to show more rapid changes than the rest of the planet. Sea ice shrank to its second smallest “summer minimum” extent on record during 2011, as older ice (four to five years old) reached a new record minimum at more than 80 percent below average.”
“On record” is a common and useless reference to an unknown time period. It would be more informative to say “since [date]” rather than “on record” or “new record”. And “below the average since [date]”. And to comment on the reliability and coverage of the data series which form the records and average referred to.
I’m sure this isn’t a new point, but without that information, the paragraph quoted above doesn’t seem to mean anything.
Aren’t we supposed to be in a permanent El Nino?
I live in Alaska and so watch the arctic sea ice extent. I could not understand why the report did not mention the record high extent this year culminating in March 2012. Then I realized it must have only begun in 2011 and thus was easy to leave out of the report. But I agree with MattN that some significant cooling will have to begin soon or what are we talking about?
I often wonder if the temps reported and “adjusted” aren’t actually recording warming when in fact the planet is really cooling. It would be such a massive fraud… But the Wegman report explains how that can happen. Sigh
Notice how the warmers are no longer talking about the missing heat issue? Guess what. It is still missing. The hypothesis says we should be a lot warmer, especially the oceans. All one has to do is look at the predicted differences between the dynamical models for El Nino events vs the statistical models. All but a few of the dynamical models encorporate hypothesized AGW algorithms while only a few of the statistical models use a “fudge” factor (a.k.a. “historical trend”). The “extreme weather” tome is a cover-up and a poor one at that. It is designed to distract us away from the fact that the hypothesized mathematic results in the model outputs do not match observations in terms of heat build-up.
Who cares about weather extremes. Those things are natural events associated with oceanic and atmospheric factors with CO2 safely ignored. Where is the missing build-up of heat ALL the AGW-ing models say we should be experiencing?
There is absolutely nothing unusual about the weather this summer.
It is summer period. Nothing unusual at all but the media is absolutely hysterical.
I believe it is the last gasp of a dying global warming movement.
“Ian Cooper says:
July 12, 2012 at 1:47 am
Marian,
thanks for the heads up on that thing from TV3 (New Zealand). Now I am reminded as to why I don’t watch that channel. It is like they are competing with TVNZ (the govt. broadcaster) as to who can put out the greatest amount of CAGWG, the second “G’ being for Garbage!
I presume that it is you stirring up the blood of the climate zealots over at Hot Topic? Some very scary thinking from the faithful in there! Gareth seemed rather mute in his response. Maybe he will boil over later?”
Ian. C.
Yes that was me stirring up the pot a bit over in Chicken Little Hot Topic Land. ;Their squawking cries of impeding CO2 induced climate doom gets very tedious. Since they have the ear of the MSM and Politicians.
TV3 does do some really big whoppers of stretching the truth when it come to putting on AGW/CC stories.
One of TV3s worst ones was a few years ago. Claiming the Himalayas were melting in winter because of GW. Turned out it was some of the annual seasonal spring thaw runoff into the local rivers and they turned spring into winter!
As for the local frosts. Yes we’ve had some good ones, even up here in South Auckland off and on over the last few weeks. Infact the worst frost burnoff of leaves and killed off plants in the garden since I’ve lived here for many years.
As for NIWA’s James Renwick. Yes he’s NZ’s version of the OZ Tim Flannery. = Fail.rate pretty high.
NIWA are just as hopeless when it comes to their climate forecasts.. Only marginally better than the UK Met Office. I suppose you can’t expect any better since they pretty much use the same methodologies and Supercomputers. GIGO. 🙂
Arctic ice (which is mostly sea ice) is about 10% of the volume of Antarctic ice (which is mostly land ice), but gets about 90% of the attention of the CAGW’ers. My understanding is that the Antarctic ice anomaly is in positive territory and the global ice anomaly has been about zero for decades. I guess that is too boring for this article to point out.
That’s quite a difference, with climate “skeptics” Watts and Goddard initially predicting a minimum 2010 Arctic sea ice extent of 5.75 million square km and 70% of WUWT readers believing it would exceed the 2009 minimum, vs. tamino’s 4.78 million square km prediction with 89% likelihood of not exceeding the 2009 minimum, and Dikran’s 4.93 million square km prediction.
“2011 will be remembered as a year of extreme events, both in the United States and around the world,” said Deputy NOAA Administrator Kathryn D. Sullivan, Ph.D.
No it won’t. Warmists absolutely rely on the public not being able to remember what the weather was yesterday, let alone a year ago.
It’s about time she starting remembering the extreme weather that’s been going on for hundreds of years – CO2 or no CO2. The thousands of ancient wrecks up the East Coast of the US are a testament to the extreme weather of the past. (and I’m not referring to the population of Florida)
“coolest (EVAH!) since 2008”??
Groan.