I think readers will appreciate the point by point style that this book is written in. It enables you to zero in on argument rebuttals with graphs and data. Highly recommended – Anthony
==========
Bob Tisdale announces: This Free Preview includes the Table of Contents; the Introduction; the beginning of Section 1, with the cartoon-like illustrations; the discussion About the Cover; and the Closing.
Have you searched the web, looking for information about La Niña and her big brother El Niño? You know, those colossal cooling and warming events in the tropical Pacific that cause flooding in some parts of the world, drought in others—heat waves here, cold spells there—blizzards and record snowfall in your driveway, but a snow-free winter at your favorite ski resort. Yup, those El Niño and La Niña. Scientists have given them that highfalutin name El Niño-Southern Oscillation or ENSO for short. Then, if you make a mistake and spell it ENZO with a “Z” in your search engine, you wind up watching a video from BBC’s Top Gear, of Jeremy Clarkson and The Stig driving a Ferrari F60 owned by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason in exchange for plugging Nick’s book. That’s a nice diversion, though. As your search continues, you keep finding technical web pages with very similar overviews, and, if you’re lucky, three schematics: one for El Niño conditions, one for La Niña and one for ENSO-neutral or “normal” conditions. Frustratingly, those three illustrations look the same to you, leaving you scratching your head. No matter where you turn, what you read, you still have no idea what they’re talking about. But you still want to know what those blasted El Niño and La Niña things are all about.
Who Turned on the Heat? begins with 29, not 3, cartoon-like illustrations, with text right there on the drawings, that explain the processes of ENSO with easy-to-understand terms.
After presenting some background information at the beginning of that section, the discussions of ENSO start with “normal” (a.k.a. ENSO-neutral) conditions in the tropical Pacific, then move on to the transition from ENSO-neutral to El Niño with an overview of what causes the El Niño to begin. That’s where the free Preview of that section ends. In the book, it continues with a presentation of El Niño conditions and the transition back to ENSO-neutral, then on to La Niña and eventually back ENSO-neutral again, providing readers with a complete overview of the ENSO phases in sequence. It discusses how La Niña is not the opposite of El Niño. The phases all fit together logically. Mother Nature’s pretty good about things like that, but she still has some tricks up her sleeves.
For those readers who haven’t looked at or read anything technical since high school, the next section discusses very basics things like how to read a graph. It presents the types of graphs used throughout the rest of the book, and a bunch of other introductory topics.
Section 3 of Who Turned on the Heat? is a more detailed overview of the phases of ENSO—it includes graphs of satellite-based sea surface temperature and other variables, color-coded maps, links to animations—all of which are furnished to support and confirm the naturally fueled processes of the ENSO-neutral, El Niño and La Niña phases. In other words, the fundamentals of ENSO are presented and documented in detail. That’s followed by a section that discusses topics that are still related to El Niño and La Niña but are beyond the basics, like what actually triggers an El Niño. Did you know that El Niño events are so big that sometimes it takes a couple of tropical cyclones (yup, the same things as hurricanes) in the western tropical Pacific just to kick-start one?
What may become your favorite section of Who Turned on the Heat? is next. In it, the sea surface temperature data presents how it accounts for global warming. The combined long-term effects of major El Niño and La Niña events are presented, discussed and documented—with satellite-based sea surface temperatures data, not climate models. Major El Niño and La Niña events are not like the smaller ones. Far from it. The big ones are responsible for the vast majority of the natural warming of the global sea surface temperatures for the past 30 years.
Yup. You’re right, that’s the time the climate models used by the IPCC say that only greenhouse gases could have caused the warming. Those scientists, who must have their heads immersed in climate models, apparently haven’t bothered to come out into the real world long enough to examine the sea surface temperature records for the last 3 decades. If they had, they’d find the data doesn’t agree with the models. All the modelers would have had to do is divide the global oceans into 3 logical subsets. Then they could see why sea surface temperatures have warmed and that Mother Nature’s two rambunctious children La Niña and El Niño were the primary natural culprits. Logically, those energetic natural siblings can explain most of the warming of land surface air temperatures, too, since temperatures there simply mimic and exaggerate the short- and long-term variations in sea surface temperatures. Of course, anthropogenic global warming exists; that is, there’s a small part of the land surface air temperature warming that can’t be explained by the natural warming of sea surfaces, and that small portion is likely manmade, with a host of contributing factors. But back to the oceans: natural variables can also explain their warming to depths of 700 meters—a dataset called Ocean Heat Content.
That would have been a great section on which to end Who Turned on the Heat?
– However –
Who Turned on the Heat? continues with three more sections. One presents links to additional animations so that you can watch the cumulative effects of an El Niño and La Niña as they took place. Remember, La Niña is not the opposite of El Niño—there are some not-so-subtle differences between the two phases. The next section presents the myths and failed arguments that proponents of manmade global warming have created to try to downplay the long-term effects of major El Niño and La Niña events. The last section is Q&A. Take a look at the Preview of Who Turned on the Heat? Scroll down through the Table of Contents.
Who Turned on the Heat? weighs in at a whopping 550+ pages, about 110,000+ words. It contains somewhere in the neighborhood of 380 color illustrations. In pdf form, it’s about 23MB. It includes links to more than a dozen animations, which allow the reader to view ENSO processes and the interactions between variables.
After reading Who Turned on the Heat? you should have a better understanding of El Niño and La Niña—AND—you should understand why global surface temperatures warm during multidecadal periods when El Niño events are stronger, occur more often and endure longer than La Niña events. The most recent period with ENSO conditions weighted toward the El Niño phase started in the late 1970s, and it’s no coincidence that global surface temperatures have warmed since then. Also not by coincidence, La Niña events dominated ENSO, but just a little bit, from the mid-1940s to the late-1970s, and global surface temperatures cooled slightly. Why did surface temperatures warm from the late 1910s to the mid-1940s? Yup, ENSO was skewed toward El Niño during that period, too.
Further to that, as you’ll find, this book clearly illustrates and describes the following:
1. Sea surface temperature data for the past 30 years show the global oceans have warmed. There is, however, no evidence the warming was caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases in part or in whole; that is, the warming can be explained by natural ocean-atmosphere processes, primarily ENSO.
2. The global oceans have not warmed as hindcast and projected by the climate models maintained in the CMIP3 and CMIP5 archives, which were used, and are being used, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for their 4th and upcoming 5thAssessment Reports; in other words, the models cannot and do not simulate the warming rates or spatial patterns of the warming of the global oceans—even after decades of modeling efforts.
3. Based on the preceding two points, the climate models in the CMIP3 and CMIP5 archives show no skill at being able to simulate how and why global surface temperatures warmed; that is, the climate models presented in the IPCC’s 4th and upcoming 5thAssessment Reports would provide little to no value as tools for projecting future climate change on global and regional levels.
=============================================================
The book is:
Who Turned on the Heat? – The Unsuspected Global Warming Culprit, El Niño-Southern Oscillation is now on sale in pdf form for US$8.00 – Please click here to buy a copy.
Bob Tisdale adds:
For those who would prefer a Kindle edition, I haven’t decided if I’m going to publish it in that format. Due to the massive number of color illustrations, the Kindle edition price would be somewhere close to US$16.00. Personally, I think that’s a little steep for an e-book. And since other electronic versions of a book have to be priced 20% higher than the Kindle edition, that would make the pdf version about US$19.00, and that’s way too high. Right now, US$8.00 sounds like a bargain for an easy-to-read, well-illustrated, well-documented book about El Niño-Southern Oscillation and its long-term effects on global surface temperatures.
Naturally, some readers will think the price is way too low, and they’ll want to pay more for the years of research that went into preparing this book, through a tip or donation to the author. (Wishful thinking on my part.)
If you have any questions about the content, please ask them on any thread at my blog Climate Observations.
Regards,
Bob Tisdale
Dear Bob. At that price, you’ll have thousands of catastrologists buying the book so they can prove you WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!. You’ll make enough to take a holiday in Hawaii for a fortnight every week. I’ll buy a copy as soon as the site loads, which atm it is refusing to do. Must have collapsed under the custom. All the best.
I bought it and look forward to go through.
Thanks, Anthony.
Bargain of the millenium.
Nice explanation of the process Bob. Even a novice like myself can understand the basic concept of how and why the cycle happens.
Well done and good luck!
Then we come to the $64,000 question, what drives the changes in ENSO balance between nina and nino?
Information about El Niño?
This from Billy Kessler
Oceanographer
Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory / NOAA
Seattle
Frequently-(well, at least once)-asked-questions about El Niño
This page gives answers I have written to many different people asking about El Niño. Many of them came in during the excitment about the big El Niño of 1997-98, but with another (weaker) event in December 2002, interest rose again. All the questions came from real people; no plants or shills. Some of the answers go over the same ground, and they’re not in any particular order. But maybe you can find what you’re looking for here. Anybody who is interested in this subject should definitely check out the PMEL El Niño theme page, which gives access to realtime data and many links and discussions about El Niño, including a more complete FAQ page. The answers here tend to be in more depth, though.
“Your tax dollars at work”
http://faculty.washington.edu/kessler/occasionally-asked-questions.html
Bob
what is the relationship between ENSO and the jet stream which appears to be the end product that actually directly affects our weather?
tonyb
Philip Mulholland: Thanks for bringing up Bill Kessler’s “Occasionally Asked Questions” webpage. It provides a great general description of ENSO. It’s linked in the text of my book for his chicken-and-egg discussion of trade winds and sea surface temperatures and, once more, at the end of Section 3, under the heading of “Further Reading”. Unfortunately, that NOAA/PMEL webpage is very light on visual references.
My book goes into more detail with multiple cartoon-like illustrations for the interactions between the variables for each of the three basic phases and for the transitions between them, discussions of East Pacific vs West Pacific El Nino, How El Niño and La Niña are not opposites, and the like. I then reinforce that with data in Section 3. All of that should make ENSO much easier to understand.
Hi Bob. May I suggest you do the Kindle version as well? Those who think it too expensive will still have the option of PDF, so it’s not going to upset them any, and you’ll reach a larger audience by including those who prefer Kindle. For a technical book – and a nice meaty one at that – a higher price is perfectly acceptable.
anthony, CSIRO doesn’t think science should be questioned:
5 Sept: News.com.au: AAP: Science itself is being questioned: CSIRO
SCIENTISTS need to communicate with the Australian public to be heard above the voices challenging their research, the head of the national science agency says.
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) chief executive Dr Megan Clark says scientists these days are working in a “fundamentally different” environment that makes it difficult for them to properly inform public debate.
Scientists whose work was subject to peer reviewing and vigorous benchmarks for integrity were being challenged by research posted online that met no such standards, she said…
“We are in a world where science itself is being questioned,” Dr Clark told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.
“Scientific evidence is often referred to as a theory, as if a theory is something to be doubted.”…
Science has faced a formidable opponent in the USA, where the creationism movement is lobbying for theories of evolution to be banned from some school curriculums.
But in Australia, despite fierce debate around climate science dominating airwaves, there is still a healthy demand for well-informed information about the issues affecting the country…
She said the CSIRO was taking a step back to ensure it was clearly communicating with the Australian public about the issues “they need to hear about”.
For example, Dr Clark said every two years the CSIRO in conjunction with the Bureau of Meteorology released its State of the Nation’s Climate report to set an agenda for informed debate…
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/science-itself-is-being-questioned-csiro/story-e6frfku9-1226465769902
not only about CAGW:
VIDEO: 5 Sept: ABC: National Press Club: National Press Club: Megan Clark, CSIRO
Duration: 56min 33sec
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-05/national-press-club-megan-clark/4244598
——————————————————————————–
tonyb says: “what is the relationship between ENSO and the jet stream which appears to be the end product that actually directly affects our weather?”
The locations of the winter jet streams (Northern and Southern Hemispheres) depend on the location of the warm water in the tropical Pacific. Basically, the location of the warm water dictates the location of the convection, cloud cover and precipitation in the tropical Pacific, which impact the location of the jet streams. I use the following NOAA web pages as references for that Chapter. For the “normal” state of winter jet streams:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensocycle/meanjet.shtml
For “typical” jet stream response during an El Niño:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensocycle/enso_circ.shtml
For “typical” jet stream response during a La Niña:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensocycle/lanina_circ.shtml
But I’ve taken the “normal” illustrations and placed them next to the El Niño and the La Niña illustrations for the individual discussions, so that you can see how the jet streams have changed location. You know me: It’s all about visuals.
Ally E. says: “May I suggest you do the Kindle version as well? Those who think it too expensive will still have the option of PDF…”
The problem, Ally: The pdf version has to be priced 20% higher than the Kindle edition. And that doesn’t help.
Regards
GlynnMhor says: “Then we come to the $64,000 question, what drives the changes in ENSO balance between nina and nino?”
Every indication is it’s simply a natural multidecadal variation in the state of the tropical Pacific. I understand there’s yet another paper in the works that confirms this.
punchy title…concise summary….well done, Bob
We want a Kindle edition.
Thanks, Bob!
And congratulations. This will be an interesting read.
I will post something about it and a link.
Hi Bob,
Thanks for your informative comment.
Hi Bob
Happy to pay more for Kindle
And do we have an explanation yet why this supposed ENSO process has not already cooked the planet?
After all if it started at some in specified time in the past it should be just getting hotter and hotter and hotter with no limit in sight.
If there is no defined starting or ending point for this supposdd process and there is no reason to suppose the early 21st century is special, then Bob’s hypothesis is really really weak.
LazyTeenager you are living down to your name. Try reading the book. It has lots of colour pictures so even you should be able to understand some of the content even if the words are too dificult for you …
If you dismiss the impossible ‘subduction of surface heat’ as the ENSO cause, then warming can only come from below. Earth has 2 million cubic miles of Uranium & Thorium under high heat, high pressure and variable particle bombardments. Nodes of concentrated Ur & Th are stirred by a faster rotating Iron cyrstal core and pumped by Lunar Earthtides. As these nodes decay, they are surrounded by elemental gases, allowing them to lift as heavy vegetables in a boiling stew of molten rock, causing variations in heat and pressure. The Earth is impacted by variable amounts of solar and cosmic ray particles and partially protected by a variable magnetosphere. To assume constant, laboratory half-life decay under these conditions is the height of naivete.
Lazy Teenager
The enso process is actually associated with cold and cooling climates. If you look at lake sediments on either side of the the pacific you see more stable weather when its warm and ENSO variability when its cold. I’m still not convinced that ENSO is the driver and not the response
There was a clear decline cloud cover in the mid 90s leading up the 97/98 super el nino.
I sit in the camp whereby the stratosphere drives the Balance between Meridional/zonal climate changes via jet stream. The Stratosphere seems to be driven by two main elements. The Solar UV/ozone cycle and Changes to water vapour driven by large volcanic eruptions. (Volcanoes can inject water vapor into the stratosphere or strip it out with SO2 depending on the chemical makeup of the eruption)
Allright. I hate to do this Bob, but I have to cry foul. I clicked on the Please click here to buy a copy. Got shuttled through to PayPal, made the purchase then got a big nearly empty screen with this in the upper middle:
“The page you were looking for doesn’t exist”
“You may have mistyped the address or the page may have moved”
I think I will go for the first one since I didn’t type anything in except my paypal password. Can I have my money back please?
Faux Science Slayer says: “If you dismiss the impossible ‘subduction of surface heat’ as the ENSO cause, then warming can only come from below….”
ENSO is fueled by downward shirtwave radiation. This has been known for decades.
the kindle version (when added) won’t do this book justice with all the colors on the graphs. although the kindle fire will suffice (LOL). i bought the book today and i’m already 162 pages into it, and its excellent stuff. i’m not a novice by any stretch, but i find Bob’s style to be great for novice and intermediate level superb. i will make this required reading for my high school student is being indoctrinated to earth sciences as we speak. this is simply a must read for anyone remotely interested in this issue.
Bob’s patient teachings have corrected so many of my misunderstandings of ENSO data. Like the fact that we all freeze but the oceans warms during a La Nina and we all bake while the ocean cools during El Nino. He also corrected my mistaken understanding of the PDO. It is a statistical derivation of ENSO data (yes?). I look forward to ordering this book in some form. I am hoping it will go into print and then I will definitely order that, even if I already have the ebook.
“Of course, anthropogenic global warming exists; that is, there’s a small part of the land surface air temperature warming that can’t be explained by the natural warming of sea surfaces, and that small portion is likely manmade, with a host of contributing factors.”
I will be so happy when the farce has completely run its course, and nobody feels the need to genuflect even ever so slightly in the direction of the Lords of AGW. The above presupposes that humans are responsible for increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration. We aren’t. It’s temperature driven.
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. Ask yourself, if they got the cause of warming wrong, aren’t the odds pretty good they were sloppy in diagnosing the other as well?
Anyway, kudos, Bob. I look forward to reading your work.
Sorry guys, but this reads like Click Here you Idiot.
No doubt the book is very worthy, but I’d much rather read papers than see cartoons. If only the various journals would drop their paywalls and permitted those who pay for the papers to be produced (taxpayers) to have access to them.
William McClenney: I have no idea why you weren’t sent immediately from PayPal to the download webpage at DigitalDeliveryApp. Check your email for transaction receipts. If the transaction went through, there should be one from PayPal, and there should also be one from DigitalDeliverApp. The one from DigitalDeliverApp will have a download link.
We got it worked out. If anyone experiences the problem I did after paying, go to whatever email address your PayPal account is linked to and see if you have a message from the delivery robot.
Derek Sorensen: The book is geared towards readers without heavy-duty science backgrounds. If I was a better animator, I’d make the cartoons move and I’d narrate, I might even try that.
Check your e-mail for the link. I had the same thing happen and the link in the e-mail worked.
———————————
William McClenney says:
September 5, 2012 at 5:41 pm
Allright. I hate to do this Bob, but I have to cry foul. I clicked on the Please click here to buy a copy. Got shuttled through to PayPal, made the purchase then got a big nearly empty screen with this in the upper middle:
“The page you were looking for doesn’t exist”
“You may have mistyped the address or the page may have moved”
I think I will go for the first one since I didn’t type anything in except my paypal password. Can I have my money back please?
It would have been real nice if you had bookmarks to each chapter heading. That way we can easily pick back up where we left off.
Excellent book. Far and away the lowest priced college course I have taken. Well laid out and highly instructive. This also makes it easy to explain to anyone that one may be discussing this with. Very clarifying.
Richard Patton says: “It would have been real nice if you had bookmarks to each chapter heading. That way we can easily pick back up where we left off.”
The Table of Contents should be linked directly to the chapters.
The cover is kinda hard on the eyes. I’m not trying to be critical. Jus sayin.
Bob , I second Pamela Gray as I would love to have a print version . I hate reading on computers . Get it to print somehow so us traditionalists can enjoy it and learn . I pay big bucks for books on horticulture and I would certainly spend the money for the information of which you are speaking .
That’s only if it is sold through Amazon’s Kindle store. There are independent vendors of Kindle-compatible e-books, like Smashwords and others, who don’t have that restriction. They’ll also do the conversion work from a PDF, for a fee or %, presumably. The downside is that the document isn’t backed up on Amazon’s site.
I prefer printed books too. Just think of all the carbon sequestered in the paper and ink…
Added to my Amazon ”wish list” though they hate any book that is not alarmist in nature.
Please note that a couple of typos have been found so far. Refer to “Who Turned on the Heat?” Typos.
Thank you to all who have purchased “Who Turned on the Heat?” Tell you friends, family, weatherpersons, local politicians. We’ve just started the ball rolling,
Brilliant! After a quick look at the sample file bought the PDF, read through Section 1 and in 30 minutes my understanding of ENSO has gone up by a factor of ten. Well done Bob Tisdale. Such an elegant, rational and sensible explanation of the real mechanics at work. I’m most impressed.
Just bought the book (pdf) but it is not letting me save it on my computer as a pdf. How do I save it to keep for reading later?
Mick: Check your email for a receipt from DigitalDeliveryApp, then try to “right click and save as” on the linked webpage. If that doesn’t work, leave a comment at my blog so that I can retreve your email address. We’ll remedy the problem through email,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/05/new-easy-to-use-reference-book-for-el-nino-and-global-warming/#comment-1071908
Bob: Maybe, we should just ask the astornomers . . .
http://www.umass.edu/sunwheel/pages/moonteaching.html
http://www.umass.edu/sunwheel/pages/moontable2011.html
or would that be called astrologers?
IMHO, Bob Tisdale is one of the top ten posters on WUWT. Based on the sample pages, this book should be in the library of every serious climate enquirer. Well done, Bob.
I would like to back Pamela’s request for a print version. I will buy the PDF version as you have increased my understanding of ENSO processes immeasurably (particularly your articles delinking El Nino and La Nina from global warming), and I will gladly add a donation, but I find it difficult to read longer articles online. And I suppose a printout would not be a great idea with my black-and-white printer!
Thanks for all your contributions to knowledge, Bob!
Not sure if this comment went through the first time –
I would like to back Pamela’s request for a print version. I will buy the PDF version as you have increased my understanding of ENSO processes immeasurably (particularly your articles delinking El Nino and La Nina from global warming), and I will gladly add a donation, but I find it difficult to read longer articles online. And I suppose a printout would not be a great idea with my black-and-white printer!
Thanks for all your contributions to knowledge, Bob!
Very timely Bob!
We here in N.Z. are currently experiencing classic El Nino conditions. Anti cylcones tracking at around latitude 35 S, a convoy of sub-Antarctic depressions trucking along the border of the Pacific and Antarctic Oceans at 50 S, and the isobars getting the big squeeze to reinforce the idea of the “Roaring Forties” in between!
An ‘El Nino Spring,’ is not something those of us on the west coast of New Zealand look forward to. For the South Island it represents an increase in storms with all of the associated rain which the West Coast is famous for (right at the start of Whitebait Season!). This scenario can continue right up to Christmas if the El Nino is strong enough.
In the Lower North Island the increasing westerly flow is channelled through Cook Strait and the Manawatu Gorge and the moisture is backed up against the western side of the main divide of both islands. The fohn effect ensures a lifting of temperatures on the leeward side of the divide giving most of N.Z. an east-west dichotomy as far as temperatures and rainfall are concerned. That is not to say that it is cold on the western side of the mountains, in fact the cloud cover in the west also lifts the averages there adding to the overall temperature signal being higher over N.Z.
I notice from your list of contents that you don’t use the term “El Nino/La Nina Modoki.” Is your use of the term, “ENSO Neutral,” covering that phase, the -0.5 to +0.5 zone?
I look forward to gettng this shortly and expanding my understanding of somehting I have been studying for over thirty years from the point of a very interested observer.
Many thanks Bob for your mighty efforts.
Coops
Ian Cooper says: “I notice from your list of contents that you don’t use the term “El Nino/La Nina Modoki.” Is your use of the term, “ENSO Neutral,” covering that phase, the -0.5 to +0.5 zone?”
Yup, ENSO neutral is the “phase” between El Nino and La Nina. I also discuss El Nino Modoki in the chapter about Central Pacific vs East Pacific El Nino events.
Kindle solution: make a small addendum for the Kindle edition, modify the title slightly (add “-K”?) and sell it and the PDF as separate works.
john;
pdf format is specifically designed for printing. Print and bind it yourself!
“Sea surface temperature data for the past 30 years show the global oceans have warmed. There is, however, no evidence the warming was caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases in part or in whole; that is, the warming can be explained by natural ocean-atmosphere processes, primarily ENSO.”
No evidence? Bob, unless you are ever able to provide evidence of how your fabulous ENSO ocean cycles can be scientifically linked to magically reduce temperatures in the lower stratospheric at the same time (http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/2__Ozone/-_Cooling_nd.html; http://www.wunderground.com/resources/climate/strato_cooling.asp), I think I will keep my $8.
Dennis H: Is that you, Dennis Hlinka?
Please read what you quoted, and then read your response. For some reason, known only to you, you elected to discuss stratospheric temperatures during a discussion of sea surface temperatures.
Thank you for not buying a copy of my book. It was written for people who can differentiate between the surface of the oceans and the stratosphere.
Bob,
Yes, there indeed is no linkage between ocean cycles and stratospheric cooling, and that’s the reason why your argument for ENSO only causes to the warming and against anthropogenic GHG is wrong!
The problem with the main argument of your book is there is confirmed physical evidence in the global data set of lower stratospheric cooling, and as you just implied here your ENSO cycles cannot be linked in any way to that observed cooling over the past 30+ years. You conveniently want to ignore physical data just because it doesn’t happen to fit with your ocean cycle argument, but this lower stratospheric cooling does provide verifiable evidence for the anthropogenic GHG argument.
Therefore your statement “There is…no evidence the warming was caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases in part or in whole; that is, the warming can be explained by natural ocean-atmosphere processes, primarily ENSO” is completely false since, as you have implied in your response to me, are unable to provide any scientific linkage (evidence) to explain the causes of stratospheric cooling through your ENSO cycles.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/05/new-easy-to-use-reference-book-for-el-nino-and-global-warming/#comment-1073001
By what .8 up .8 down . . . . when the variation is 100 times that over the seasons (and of course, depending on the latitude, longitude and altitude)?
Would some one tell me a rational reason why is I should not just ask SO? . . . What?
I am sure I must be missing some important point here!
Dennis H says: “Yes, there indeed is no linkage between ocean cycles and stratospheric cooling, and that’s the reason why your argument for ENSO only causes to the warming and against anthropogenic GHG is wrong!”
It’s not wrong, Dennis. YOUR statement contradicts itself, and YOU simply cannot grasp the obvious.
Did I state above that greenhouse gases do not have an impact on stratospheric temperatures? No. Did I state that greenhouse gases do not have an impact on land surface air temperatures? No. I simply stated that greenhouse gases have no impact on sea surface temperatures and that ENSO is the primary cause of the warming of that dataset.
I write very plainly, Dennis. Go back up and read the post again. Most of the people here can understand what I’ve written. Why do you insist on arguing a point that, by your own admission, has no bearing on the conversation? Assuming you are the Dennis H who I recall from Accuweather, it was your inability to understand what I’ve written very plainly, your comments that were self-contradictory, and your incessant need to restate the same old tired nonsensical arguments that have no impact on the topic being discussed, that caused me to banish you at my blog.
Another point YOU must also consider, Dennis, is that the short- and long-term variations in sea surface temperatures are the primary causes of the short- and long-term variations in land surface temperatures. That is, ENSO is the primary cause of the short- and long-term warming of global sea surface temperatures AND global land surface air temperatures over the past 30 years.
You’re a troll, Dennis. That’s the simplest way I can put it. I have better things to do with my time than to continue to respond to your nonsensical attempts to downplay what I’ve presented.
Goodbye, Dennis.
Bob,
Not wanting to consider or Include all scientifically observed data into the discussion on climate change as to whether or not anthropogenic GHG may actually be the cause of the tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling says it all. There is evidence of GHG warming and it can be scientifically linked together with the stratospheric cooling. Your are just too blind in your agenda to see it since your ocean data does not give you that same link and so you are so desperate to hide it and chastise anyone that brings it up the dynamics of climate science (that includes atmospheric responses) simply because you want to sell a book on ocean cycles being the one and only answer.
Bob,
By the way, you called me a troll simply because I presented a contrary argument to the ones typically brought up here. What then do you call yourself when you contribute contrary comments on other blog sites?
Bob,
You keep trying to divert my arguments here by saying your points are all about SST and not the atmosphere.
How then can you explain your comments below when you responded to tonyb?
tonyb says: “what is the relationship between ENSO and the jet stream which appears to be the end product that actually directly affects our weather?”
“The locations of the winter jet streams (Northern and Southern Hemispheres) depend on the location of the warm water in the tropical Pacific. Basically, the location of the warm water dictates the location of the convection, cloud cover and precipitation in the tropical Pacific, which impact
the location of the jet streams.”
Sounds like you are using the ocean SST to create a change or response in the atmosphere and in particular the jet streams patterns. You just happen to stop there and are not willing to discuss the lower stratosphere for some reason.
I’m late to the party, but count me for 4-5 printed copies as gifts. Maybe more… top shelf book, Bob.
Dennis
Explain why the stratospheric cooling hasn’t been happening for 20 years.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadat/images/update_images/msu_timeseries.png
Dennis H: Your latest attempt to redirect the conversation back to lower stratosphere temperatures by grasping at my discussion of how the winter jet streams are impacted by ENSO is another clear indication that you fail to understand what’s being discussed. It is well known that ENSO impacts the locations of the jet streams in both hemispheres. In turn, the ENSO-caused relocations of the jet streams impact where around the globe SURFACE temperatures warm or cool and precipitation increases and decreases. Nowhere in that discussion do lower troposphere temperatures come into play. Those ENSO-related causes and effects have been known for decades. If you are the same meteorologist I recall, you should understand that. Then again, maybe you don’t. Maybe you skipped class that day. Maybe you don’t read meteorological journals so that you can keep it fresh in your mind.
Only you, Dennis, are concerned about the temperature of the lower stratosphere. Do we live in the lower stratosphere? No! Does the cooling of the lower stratosphere cause sea surface temperatures to warm? No! YOU, Dennis H, admitted that above. Is the temperature of the lower stratosphere mentioned in this post? No! Is it mentioned in the book presented in this post? No! Has anyone else on this thread mentioned lower stratosphere temperatures? No! So why do you insist on talking about the irrelevant temperature of the lower stratosphere?
If you’d like to discuss the temperature of the lower stratosphere, open a blog and write a post.
Your persistent attempts to redirect the conversations, and your failure to discuss the topics at hand, indicate to everyone reading this thread that YOU, Dennis H, are not capable of disputing the content of my book. You have no idea or grasp of what’s discussed and presented in it. Your misguided arguments, and the laughingly ridiculous comment by LazyTeenager, on this thread appear to be the best that can be conjured up by proponents of anthropogenic global warming. Let me phrase that another way: you’re helping me sell books, Dennis. Thanks!
Had you begun your appearance here with questions that related to ENSO and its long-term effects on global surface temperatures, I likely would have answered them. Instead you chose to waste my time with nonsense.
Adios, Dennis H.
Goode ’nuff says: “I’m late to the party, but count me for 4-5 printed copies as gifts. Maybe more…”
Whenever you’re ready stop by my website.
On stratospheric cooling:
Ignoring the effect of ozone, the reason the stratosphere has cooled is the troposphere has warmed. Stratospheric cooling doesn’t tell us why the troposphere has warmed.
If Bob is correct and ENSO accounts for most of the SST warming then this is a persuasive argument that GHGs are not the cause of troposphere warming, because the mechanism of GHG troposphere warming also causes SST warming.
If GHGs aren’t the cause of troposphere warming, what is?
Aerosols cause troposphere warming by absorbing and scattering solar radiation, but don’t cause SST warming. In fact they will tend to cause SST cooling.
Dennis H: The sentence in my latest reply to you that reads, “Nowhere in that discussion do lower troposphere temperatures come into play…” should read “Nowhere in that discussion do lower stratosphere temperatures come into play.”
Since Bob continues on his irrational and very public tirade against me here and on his own site just because I dare question him on his ocean cycle theories regarding the bigger picture of climate change, i.e. the interaction back and forth with the atmosphere. No surprise to me since he acknowledges here that he banned me from doing the same thing on his own blog site.
So I will ignore him for now and at least talk to a more rational Philip.
Tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling are linked to the idea that when less heat is allowed to escape into the upper atmosphere, the more heat energy is allowed to accumulate in the lower layers. With less heat escaping above, the stratosphere is not receiving that heat that would normally go there from below, and thus it cools. What is causing this extra heat from not escaping into the stratosphere? Ignoring ozone, which by the way is also affected by another manmade pollution called CFC’s, the known physical responses to an increase in GHG’s can help to explain why there is less heat being allowed to escape into the stratosphere.
While a warmer ocean can be used to explain why the troposphere is warming as the heat is allowed escaping. What would happen if you were able to apply an insulative film over the ocean surface that would prevent some of that heat from escaping into the atmosphere? The oceans would continue to warm, but the atmosphere above it would not since they would not be receiving that heat. In fact the atmosphere could even cool if that heat was kept from entering the atmosphere.
What I have been trying to get Bob to explain is, if the ocean cycles are the one main reason for his increase in ocean temperatures and thus the troposphere, while he claims there is no evidence of anthropogenic GHG effects warming the atmosphere and the oceans below, how then can he use that same argument to explain another key observation that the stratosphere is cooling. He does this because he dismisses anthropogenic GHG in his ocean theory, and by doing that he has no explanation of why the stratosphere is cooling because of his ocean cycle theory because he can’t. So he ignores it and anyone that brings up that question that is key to answering why these things are happening in the observed global climate environment.
I already see it now how Bob will bring up his counter argument that the heat in the atmosphere from increasing GHGs cannot be transferred down into the ocean and that it requires increased short-wave radiation to do that. The actual output from the sun does not change enough [http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-LEIF.png] to explain the observed temperature changes we are seeing. However, there is evidence that a warmer atmosphere does have a relationship with reduced cloud cover [http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/20/spencers-cloud-hypothesis-confirmed/]. With reduced cloud cover, the oceans can receive more heat.
So the key question is, what comes first? A warming ocean through some magical increase in ocean cycles (requiring some new internal heat source for that) or the increasing short-wave radiation due to a warming atmosphere and less cloud cover because of something preventing some of the heat from escaping into the upper atmosphere? Ocean cycles cannot be used to explain both occurrences.
I anticipate another rant coming from Bob shortly and I am sure he is also waging a campaign to somehow ban me from commenting on this site as well. That’s how he thinks he can win this argument.
Dennis H,
I have not been following this thread, but I just read your comment above. You seem to be saying that there is increased global warming, but the extra heat is not getting into the statosphere.
That sounds like nonsense to me.
The warmist prediction, repeated endlessly, was that the troposphere would show warming: the so-called “fingerprint of global warming”. But that never happened. The models were wrong.
So now the goal posts have been moved to the cooling stratosphere argument. Excuse me, but that reeks of desperation, particularly due to the fact that global temperatures are not rising.
Bob has credibility, you don’t. That’s how I see it.
Smokey,
You can believe anything you want. The figure you referred to shows warming in the lower and mid troposphere over the tropics. What does that have to do with an observed cooling of the stratosphere?
Then you post a graph showing temperatures after 1998. Why don’t you use the entire temperature record that covers the same period that was in you other chart (post 1979)?:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut3gl/from:1978/offset:0.39/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1978/offset:0.3/mean:12/plot/uah/from:1978/offset:0.54/mean:12/plot/rss/from:1978/offset:0.54/mean:12/plot/uah/from:1978/offset:0.54/trend/plot/rss/from:1978/offset:0.54/trend
Here again is the observed data (not anything to do with computer models and how inaccurate they are) for the stratosphere from 1958 indicates that your particular belief on this incorrect:
http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/2__Ozone/-_Cooling_nd.html
http://www.wunderground.com/resources/climate/strato_cooling.asp
Even based on your own graphic figure, the L/M troposphere over the tropics has warmed around 0.5-0.1C/decade while the stratosphere has been cooling around 0.5C/decade. Coincidence?
Sorry I meant to say:
Even based on your own graphic figure, the L/M troposphere over the tropics has warmed around 0.05-0.1C/decade while the stratosphere has been cooling around 0.5C/decade. Coincidence?
Ian H,
Unlike you I only believe what the data and evidence tells me. I explained the connection with the “fingerprint of global warming”. The fact is, that was the alarmist meme until it was falsified. Then the goal posts were moved to the stratosphere. Also, see John Bills’ post above.
Let’s cut to the chase, and post a very long temperature trend chart. Here you see that the green trend line is decelerating. Note that the trend is not accelerating. The planet has been warming since the LIA at about the same rate. Thus, CO2 has made no measurable difference, whether it was high or low. Since anthropogenic CO2, specifically, is what the entire debate is about, the climate alarmists have lost the scientific debate. The public relations debate is still up for grabs.
Smokey: Sometimes it’s just best to ignore trolls like Dennis H. He’s admitted the cooling of the lower stratosphere has no bearing on the topics discussed in this post.
Yet, for reasons known only to him, Dennis H insists on yakking on and on about it.
I know it’s tough. Maybe if we ignore him, he’ll go away.
I’m going to try one more thing. Maybe the reason he’s here is to waste my time. I’m just going to cut and paste my earlier reply to him.
Regards
Thanks, Bob. I’ll take your advice.
Dennis: I think I’ve figured it out. Like the troll you are, you’re here simply to waste my time. You’ve seen how much time I’ve spent responding to you and that fulfills a bizarre inner need.
So, I’m not going to waste any more time. In response to your recent comments, I’ve cut and pasted my last reply to you. Rest assured, that’s all you’ll receive from me on this thread from this moment on. If you continue to persist, I’ll cut and paste it again. On a future thread, if you try your bandwidth- and time-wasting tactic again, I’ll paste the same reply to you there. Problem solved for me.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Dennis H: Your latest attempt to redirect the conversation back to lower stratosphere temperatures by grasping at my discussion of how the winter jet streams are impacted by ENSO is another clear indication that you fail to understand what’s being discussed. It is well known that ENSO impacts the locations of the jet streams in both hemispheres. In turn, the ENSO-caused relocations of the jet streams impact where around the globe SURFACE temperatures warm or cool and precipitation increases and decreases. Nowhere in that discussion do lower stratosphere temperatures come into play. Those ENSO-related causes and effects have been known for decades. If you are the same meteorologist I recall, you should understand that. Then again, maybe you don’t. Maybe you skipped class that day. Maybe you don’t read meteorological journals so that you can keep it fresh in your mind.
Only you, Dennis, are concerned about the temperature of the lower stratosphere. Do we live in the lower stratosphere? No! Does the cooling of the lower stratosphere cause sea surface temperatures to warm? No! YOU, Dennis H, admitted that above. Is the temperature of the lower stratosphere mentioned in this post? No! Is it mentioned in the book presented in this post? No! Has anyone else on this thread mentioned lower stratosphere temperatures? No! So why do you insist on talking about the irrelevant temperature of the lower stratosphere?
If you’d like to discuss the temperature of the lower stratosphere, open a blog and write a post.
Your persistent attempts to redirect the conversations, and your failure to discuss the topics at hand, indicate to everyone reading this thread that YOU, Dennis H, are not capable of disputing the content of my book. You have no idea or grasp of what’s discussed and presented in it. Your misguided arguments, and the laughingly ridiculous comment by LazyTeenager, on this thread appear to be the best that can be conjured up by proponents of anthropogenic global warming. Let me phrase that another way: you’re helping me sell books, Dennis. Thanks!
Had you begun your appearance here with questions that related to ENSO and its long-term effects on global surface temperatures, I likely would have answered them. Instead you chose to waste my time with nonsense.
Adios, Dennis H.
So I will ignore him for now and at least talk to a more rational Philip.
Tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling are linked to the idea that when less heat is allowed to escape into the upper atmosphere, the more heat energy is allowed to accumulate in the lower layers. With less heat escaping above, the stratosphere is not receiving that heat that would normally go there from below, and thus it cools.
The key difference between troposphere warming by aerosols and GHGs is former traps heat originating from above (sunlight) and the latter traps heat originating from below (LWR). Stratosphere cooling doesn’t seem to be well understood, but your statement is likely mostly true, and the stratosphere will cool irrespective of the cause of troposphere warming.
You seem to think stratosphere cooling is evidence that GHGs must be warming SSTs. It isn’t as I have explained, it could equally well be evidence aerosols are cooling SSTs
FWIIW, I think troposphere GHG (warming) and aerosol (cooling) effects on SSTs on a global average are probably roughly equal. So a valid working assumption is zero troposphere warming/cooling of SSTs.
Whether this is consistent with Bob’s position is up to him to say.
Philip,
Thanks for at least directly responding to my comment. Bob thinks that by ignoring my questions, or never willing to at least directly answer them make me go away. Sorry Bob, but that won’t work when science is on my side.
Bob said and repeated this: “It is well known that ENSO impacts the locations of the jet streams in both hemispheres. In turn, the ENSO-caused relocations of the jet streams impact where around the globe SURFACE temperatures warm or cool and precipitation increases and decreases. Nowhere in that discussion do lower stratosphere temperatures come into play.”
There is a recently published paper that shows there is a relationship between ENSO El Nino and La Nina cycles and temperatures in the lower stratosphere: http://www.columbia.edu/~lmp/paps/garfinkel+etal-JGR-2012-inpress.pdf
Unfortunately for Bob, the relationship is the opposite of the claims he keeps making here. From what I understand, he claims the warming that has occurred over the past 30+years is due to an increase in El Nino’s, That’s all well and good. But as the paper I linked to describes this link:
“There is an apparent inconsistency between the impact of opposite phases of ENSO on the seasonal mean vortex and on SSWs: El Nino leads to an anomalously warm, and La Nina There is an apparent inconsistency between the impact of opposite phases of ENSO on the seasonal mean vortex and on SSWs: El Nino leads to an anomalously warm, and La Nina leads to an anomalously cool, seasonal mean polar stratospheric state, but both phases of ENSO lead to an increased SSW frequency.”
So if Bob is right that all the warming in the oceans and lower atmosphere is due to an increase in El Nino’s. But what Bob can’t explain here is with that reported increase in El Nino’s, there should be a corresponding increase of temperatures in the lower Stratosphere, with everything else remaining equal. But that is not being reflected the observation record of a cooling stratopshere as I linked to in my earlier comments.
Bob always thinks he can just get away with harshly criticizing me in public and calling me a troll for supposedly asking him questions that are to him “unreasonable.” But Bob just never gets that he is the one being unreasonable when all he has to do take a deep breath and just answer my questions without going ballistic. The biggest problem for Bob is he does not have any scientific background, at least he has never actually provided on his blog site or elsewhere despite his claims of being an expert on this subject that just so happens to require some important decisions to be made for our future generations.
You may all now go on with your book lovefest with Bob as he happily takes your money for a book that will become scientifically irrelevant in the near future as the polar sea ice continue to melt to seasonally low levels and global weather extremes become more frequent: http://icons.wxug.com/hurricane/2012/cei_jan-aug2012.png
Bob, ignoring me and all the other actual scientists out there will not make us go away and we will continue to question you until you become irrelvant and actually go away.
To Smokey (and all the rest),
I find it sad that Bob thinks he can tell you not to respond to me and that you graciously agreed. Does Bob own this blog site? Why does he feel that he can tell you that you should not freely comment here? Who made Bob the boss here and why do you feel totally obliged to do exactly what he says or tells you to do? For a great country like the USA that fights for an individual’s rights and freedoms, it certainly looks like some limitations are being drawn here and I for one will not stand for it.
Bob thinks he can just shut out the opposing view by calling people names like trolls, banning them from his blog site, or as he has done repeatedly done to me over the many years just not ever respond directly to any of my questions because he doesn’t think he has to.
I say we need more discussion on this not less, that’s what our country is all about isn’t it? And anyone that tries to limit that discussion is simply getting in the way.
Our future generations depend on us to continuing with those discussions and important decisions, and I will do just that, with or without Bob.
Bob Tisdale says:
September 5, 2012 at 7:40 pm
Derek Sorensen: The book is geared towards readers without heavy-duty science backgrounds. If I was a better animator, I’d make the cartoons move and I’d narrate, I might even try that.
Bob, I was objecting to the pitch, not the content. I understand the need to communicate with those without an understanding of science, but just because someone doesn’t grok the scientific method isn’t any reason to treat them like idiots or mere punters, which is how the sales-pitch came across to me.
Derek Sorensen: What exactly are you objecting to, the link that reads “Please click here to buy a copy”?
Wikipedia definition of troll (my boldface):
In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
This has been an interesting thread to read through once again. Interesting inasmuch as a troll has reached a new low with his inferences and that new low is questioning my patriotism.
Bob,
All I have done here is pose a legitimate scientific question that goes directly to your written claim in the actual forum posting that there is no evidence that the warming is caused by anthropogenic GHG. Through the latest data and research studies I linked to, I can directly tie ENSO cycles to known atmospheric responses all the way up to the lower stratosphere that indicates that your claim that you made is not supported by the evidence. Your willful failure to respond to that legitimate question in direct response to the claims being made in those blog topic and to also tell other people to not engage in the debate on this issue is indeed a travesty here.
Dennis H says: “Through the latest data and research studies I linked to, I can directly tie ENSO cycles to known atmospheric responses all the way up to the lower stratosphere that indicates that your claim that you made is not supported by the evidence.”
Dennis, all you’ve managed to do is further illustrate to all of the readers here that you have no idea of what you’re talking about. You’re wasting their time, my time and Anthony’s bandwidth. The links you provided do not confirm your nonsensical statements. For instance, you have cause and effect backwards in your mind with the Garfinkel et al paper you linked:
http://www.columbia.edu/~lmp/paps/garfinkel+etal-JGR-2012-inpress.pdf
It’s a study of how ENSO impacts Stratospheric Sudden Warming Events, not vice versa. It is irrelevant in a discussion of the ENSO-caused natural warming of the sea surface temperatures of the global oceans. Why do you persist with this nonsense?
You keep digging the hole larger for yourself. Stop digging. Move on. You have no credibility here. If you had credibility here in the past, which I doubt, it’s gone now. Every comment you’ve made on this thread has destroyed it.
Good-bye, Dennis Hlinka.
Bob Tisdale says:
September 11, 2012 at 5:52 am
Derek Sorensen: What exactly are you objecting to, the link that reads “Please click here to buy a copy”?
Bob, apologies, it might be a cultural thing. I’m a Brit, we are in the maion unused to the style of pitch used in the OP. More than that: we find it off-putting. I’m happy to correspond privately if you’d like more explanation, but it’s probably not fruitful to continue the discussion further here. Anthony, please feel free to forward my email address to Bob.