Guest post by Bob Tisdale
This post will serve as the mid-September 2012 sea surface temperature anomaly update.
Sea surface temperature anomalies for the NINO3.4 region of the eastern equatorial Pacific are a commonly used index for the strength, frequency and duration of El Niño and La Niña events. In recent weeks, they have cooled to well below the threshold of El Niño conditions. For the evolution of an El Niño that starts from La Niña conditions, that dip is unusual during the satellite era (since November 1981). See Figure 1. Actually, it’s unusual for any El Niño event over the past 30 years.
Figure 1
This does not mean the El Niño this year has come to an end. A dip of similar magnitude did occur once before in the satellite era, and that was during the evolution of the 1991/1992 El Niño. See Figure 2. The dip in 1991, however, may have been in response to the June 15, 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. There have been no explosive volcanic eruptions comparable to Mount Pinatubo this year. The evolution of the 1991 event is highlighted in purple in Figure 2.
Figure 2
MID-MONTH UPDATE
Weekly NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies for the week centered on August 15, 2012 are approximately +0.365 deg C, having dropped from almost +1.0 deg C over the past few weeks.
Figure 3 – Weekly NINO3.4
Global sea surface temperature anomalies are continuing their wiggly upward march, rebounding from La Niña conditions and responding to the evolving El Niño. There is a time lag between the variations in the NINO3.4 data and the response of global sea surface temperature anomalies. It will be interesting to see if they reach 2009/10 levels.
Figure 4 – Weekly Global
INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT THE EL NIÑO AND LA NIÑA AND THEIR LONG-TERM EFFECTS ON GLOBAL SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES?
Why should you be interested? Satellite-era sea surface temperature records indicate El Niño and La Niña events are responsible for the warming of global sea surface temperature anomalies over the past 30 years, not manmade greenhouse gases. I have been publishing blog posts for the past 3 ½ years that illustrate that fact.
I’ve recently published my e-book (pdf) about the phenomena called El Niño and La Niña. It’s titled Who Turned on the Heat? with the subtitle The Unsuspected Global Warming Culprit, El Niño Southern Oscillation. It is intended for persons (with or without technical backgrounds) interested in learning about El Niño and La Niña events and in understanding the natural causes of the warming of our global oceans for the past 30 years. Because land surface air temperatures simply exaggerate the natural warming of the global oceans over annual and multidecadal time periods, the vast majority of the warming taking place on land is natural as well. The book is the product of years of research of the satellite-era sea surface temperature data that’s available to the public via the internet. It presents how the data accounts for its warming—and there are no indications the warming was caused by manmade greenhouse gases. None at all.
Who Turned on the Heat? was introduced in the blog post Everything You Every Wanted to Know about El Niño and La Niña… …Well Just about Everything. The Updated Free Previewincludes the Table of Contents; the Introduction; the beginning of Section 1, with the cartoon-like illustrations; the discussion About the Cover; and the Closing.
Please buy a copy. (Paypal or Credit/Debit Card). It’s only US$8.00.
SOURCES
The Sea Surface Temperature anomaly data used in this post is available through the NOAA NOMADS website:
http://nomad1.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh
or:
http://nomad3.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh?lite=
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Thanks, Anthony.
Thanks Bob, it is interesting watching the present ENSO developments. All the better for your input.
Should the following
be “centered on September 19, 2012?
Ugh, I was actually hoping for an El Nino, so all this talk of horrific drought would cease.
Also, I like rain.
Thanks Bob, always looks forward to your updates. I made the following observation in late June 2012: “Thought that this may be of interest: It looks like El Nino is starting to kick in (not official yet), after a double-dip La Nina. The SST anomaly maps below show a tongue of warm water off the West coast of South America, expanding westward into the tropical Pacific. But there is still strong upwelling off the West coast of North America (from a negative PDO) and it will be interesting to see if the cooler water to the North will dampen the development of this El Nino.”
See http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/anomnight.current.gif
See http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
Not sure if the -PDO is really influencing this El Nino’s weak start, was wondering what your thought were about that.
-Frank
Son of a gun. I was hoping for some semblance of El Nino. Us western states need to moisture which it (usually) brings. As long as it doesn’t go La Nina like it did this past winter/spring…
How does this affect the ENSO-meter on the WUWT home page?
IanM
Bob-
Thanks for update. I saw the 3.4 temp drop the other day and wondered if the El Nino was over. You really didn’t venture an opinion, just stated the fact that the only other time there was a dip, it was probably caused by volcanic eruption. Would you care to guess? Is the El Nino over?
By the way, I am reading your book. I can’t praise it highly enough. Well written and illustrated. Being an old guy, I am still amazed by the technology that allows you to click on a reference and there it is. A real argument for an on-line book.
I don’t see any striking divergence from previous La Nina-initiated El Ninos with exception of the 1998 one, all of the differences are below noise level and the fact that some arbitrary line was crossed in “wrong” direction does not change anything on that. If the line was just 0.2 degree higher, the 2010-11 would have done the same.
My prediction has not changed: I believe we’re going to have a weak El Nino.
Er… “I meant 2009-10 would have done the same”
More global cloudiness from more meridional jets is reducing the amount of energy entering the oceans to weaken the recharge process.
Reblogged this on Is it 2012 in Nevada County Yet? and commented:
This maybe bad news for those hoping for El Niño rains to give our dry California forest a big drink and fill our lakes and reservoirs. Stay Tuned, as Mother Nature is in charge of the results.
Thanks for the update Bob. I too was hoping for an El Nino for a bit more water in the west.
All the ninos in a cold PDO are short lived reactionary, mainly central pacific based. Jamstec on target again.. weak winter nino.. La Nina returns next years. Hasta la vista to las Warmingistas! Let me remind the super nino spikers, you admit the ocean, not co2 , controls the shooting match every time you scream global warming from the el nino. The cold PDO eats ninos and is why the average length of la nina in cold PDO is 21 months, nino 9 months, hence the global downturn in temps
http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d1/iod/e/seasonal/outlook.html
scroll down to enso 2 year outlook. Pretty good looking to me.
If the threshold for El Nino dips without a Mt Pinatubo eruption event doesn’t this cause concern for a stronger La Nina for the future? Which may cause a stronger La Nina for the future and a continued drought for the southern states and a stronger dry year for California? Not good news for the Golden State.
http://blogs.kqed.org/climatewatch/2012/07/10/after-two-years-of-la-nina-el-nino-may-be-on-the-way/
The answer is obvious. The models showed El Niño. Hansen and cronies wanted a good strong El Niño for a “record breaking year of dangerous deadly Anthropogenic Climate Change!”
So reality and Nature itself have canceled the El Niño, to spite both the modelers and Hansen with his “known associates”.
They should have remembered the old Chiffon commercials, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” If they say it’s global warming, but it’s not…
Green Sand: Thanks for picking up the typo. I only had one cup of coffee when I did my cutting and pasting this morning–at least that’s my excuse for now. I’ll go correct the cross post at my blog.
Thanks again.
I’m currently doing some research into the ENSO index. It is my thinking that the ENSO index tends to have a negative drift during the spring and autumn equinox. And that the tendency during mid winter and summer solstice is for a positive drift.
Is that so?
As we all know El Niño got is name because it starting to affect Peruvian fishermen mostly during Christmas time.
For those of us that understand how low solar and a negative PDO affect the ENSO cycle the current situation is “as expected”. The information has been FREELY available for months at:
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/?q=node/270
old engineer says: “Would you care to guess? Is the El Nino over?”
Personally, I don’t believe it’s over. But I don’t expect it to be very strong.
Thanks Bob!
BTW, That is the best 1.4 cents per page (561) I have invested in for some time. I would encourage others to spend the 8 bucks on his very good /educational read.
Drought in Africa over the past few centuries. Written before the warmist bandwagon really kicked in:
http://ccb.colorado.edu/ijas/ijasno2/georgis.html
Frank says: “Not sure if the -PDO is really influencing this El Nino’s weak start, was wondering what your thought were about that.”
Here’s a link to the Unisys animation:
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom_loop.gif
Too bad that doesn’t run further back in time. The North Pacific gyre definite spun some coolers waters down to the tropics, which very likely have had an impact on suppressing the El Nino this year.
The recent cool anomaly at depth is also interesting:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/wkxzteq.shtml
Isn’t this exactly what we’d expect during a negative PDO? Fewer, shorter and weaker El Niños and more, longer and stronger La Niñas?
Here on the west coast La Niñas can be very wet or very dry as seen in the 2010/11 and 2011/12 winters unlike El Niños which tend to be wet only.
old engineer: Thanks for the kind words on my book. Glad you’re enjoying it.
Regards
Philip Finck says: “Maybe the ocean – atmosphere is decoupling and we will see massive swings in temperature … Venus to Day After Tomorrow types of events. What do you think? :)”
I don’t think it’s possible to decouple the ocean and atmosphere.