Another paper blames ENSO for global warming pause, calling it '… a major control knob governing Earth's temperature.'

expect lots of scrambling wrt CO2 emissions affecting ENSO…

Apparently the effort to blame the recent warming on human activities took too long, and natural variability is asserting itself, thus falsifying the AGW dream of the watermelons to use a natural warming period as a route to global socialist domination.

An out of ordinary English (CET) early summer in somwhat less ordinary year
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-Dmax.htm

“The mechanism of heat transfer is likely the more vigorous Hadley Cell Circulation on both sides of the Intertropical Convergence Zone distributing warm air from the tropical regions to higher lati- tudes. ”
and
“Data from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) indicate that, from 1984 to 2005, mid-level cloud cover in the tropics was relatively constant but both lower and upper level cloud cover declined slightly.
According to my New Climate Model high solar activity such as was observed in the late 20th century causes the jets and climate zones to shift poleward and the circulation to become more zonal.
The subtropical high pressure cells widen latitudinally and the enhanced descent within those regions reduces cloud cover as was observed.
Now the opposite is occurring and the changes are correlated to the decline in solar activity from the late 90s onward.
The climate shift of 1995 or thereabouts was the opposite of the late 70s climate shift.
The sun is clearly driving changes in global air circulation and thus global albedo as per my model:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/new-climate-model/
Doesn’t the 1995 shift also fit with our HenryP’s observations?
Anyway, there is now a plethora of recent papers which are consistent with my hypothesis but inconsistent with CO2 having the primary influence.
The fact seems to be that higher solar activity gradually skews ENSO in favour of warm El Ninos due to lower global albedo and more solar energy getting into the oceans.
The opposite when the sun is quiet.
And it operates in accordance with the millennial solar cycle as per the Roman Warm Period, Dark Ages, MWP, LIA and the Current Warm Period.
It is no coincidence that all those strong El Ninos of the recent warming spell have now faded away at the same time as the sun became less active, the jets became more meridional, global cloudiness increased, the tropospheric warming stalled and the stratosphere stopped cooling.

I thought Bod Tisdale’s hypothesis was that it was both sides of the Nino/Nina cycle that produced global warming not just more El Ninos, so this is not really saying the same thing. Though, like he says, it’s a step in the right direction.
He may correct me if I’m misrepresenting his ideas but I thought the Tisdale hypothesis was periods of increased El Nino/Nina amplitude or frequency caused more solar to be captured by the oceans and then put out into atmosphere.
As I’ve said many times, that sounds very credible and leads to some further questions:
What frequency of Nino/Nina is climate neutral, above which warming occurs, and then the key question : what is causing / controlling El Nino.
This is the mechanism , not the cause.

Mr Lefty, I suspect that a sufficient weight of papers will shift the length of the allowable “hiatus” to 30-40 years, and as already implied by Patchauri, this means we cannot say “global warming is finished” until about 2035, by which time most of these scam artists will be retired.

http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=312
Effect of volcanism is restricted to extra-tropical zones and is far less than what is usually attributed.
The approximate coincidence in time of other natural cycles and El Chichon and Mt P events has provided an excuse to exaggerate volcanic impact that thus pump up AGW to compensate.
This idea is so entrenched now that a study including graphs that do not show a consistent correlation still manages to report one.
At least they are broadening the scope of investigation and its getting published. A step in the right direction, as Bob says.

……the ENSO is a cyclical phenomenon of irregular period. In these situations, the results of regression analysis or similar statistical evaluation can be misleading.
Greg Goodman says:
September 3, 2013 at 2:20 am
and then the key question : what is causing / controlling El Nino.
the ENSO is indeed a cyclical phenomenon of irregular period, but it is the cause?
Not exactly known, since there is a strong random component to it, which may not be fully understood, but for time being ignored by the climate ‘scientist’ (with an odd but notable exception).
Simple analysis of the subequatorial tectonics points towards real driver of the ENSO events:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ENSO.htm
It is my view that the science of geology will eventually provide the answers.

“Bob Tisdale who has been the lone voice in the wilderness for over a decade on this”
Not the lone voice but certainly the most industrious and influential voice as regards ENSO.
I think Bob has avoided stretching the thermal effects of the ENSO phenomenon to longer multidecadal periods of time and so far as I know does not propose solar influences affecting the changing relative dominance of El Nino and La Nina over successive positive and negative phases of the Pacific Multidecadal Oscillation ( PMO – not PDO which latter is merely an artefact of surface pressure differentials).
It is that changing longer term relative dominance between El Nino and La Nina over centuries that gives upward stepping from one positive phase of the PMO to the next (LIA to Current Warm Period) and, presumably downward stepping from one negative phase to the next ( MWP to LIA).
That longer term relative dominance on a multidecadal and centennial timescae is what appears to be linked to solar activity with the shorter term interannual ENSO oscillation itself being merely an internal system phenomenon with no necessary long term thermal implications.

” The reason for the post-1995 period shift in the SOI-
MGT relationship illustrated in Figure 1(c) is puzzling.
An explanation may lie in changes in global albedo due
to changes in lower-level cloud cover. In an analysis of
…Another possibility is that there are
problems with the HadCRUT4 1.1.0 data. For example,
we note that the published monthly average global tem-
perature anomalies are not equal to the mean of the two
published corresponding hemispheric values.
The approach used here avoids a focused statistical”
Ah, at last some recognition that there may be “issues” with these much adjusted datasets.
And the recognition that changes in cloud cover may be a player.
I think the method is poorly constructed but this paper is probably more important for throwing the door open to searching for real causation.
Finally and end to “stochastic plus CO2” mantra and an acknowledgement that maybe all “internal variation” doesn’t just average out.

could someone please head over to the septic science blog,and advise them over the implications of the paper.even the authors seem to be pushing it supports cAGW in some way.
my own personal opinion after reading many abstracts on climate related subjects recently is very little credence should be given to any of them.
the fact a layman can see glaring errors and inconsistences in most of them suggests if there were active research going on by unbiased scientists ,the rebuttals of these papers would severely out number the papers themselves.
the utter garbage assumption written about supposed ocean acidification (largely model based as usual ) is the current cause of my current state of near apoplexy 🙂
instead of performing ice smashing rescues,the admiral makarov should be dropping off a whole bunch of pseudo scientists including the septic science team to commiserate with the pair of french idiots that believed the hype about arctic ice melt and require rescuing,at someone elses expense.

sorry forgot to add reference link to discussion between papers authors and judith curry.
http://www.staatvanhetklimaat.nl/2013/08/30/xie-reacts-on-curry/

richardscourtney says: “I don’t care who gets the credit for correcting the science.
I care that the science gets corrected.”
Totally agree. There’s not limit to what a man can achieve so long as he does not mind who gets the credit. 😉
For example, Salby has raised awareness of the uncertainties concerning the carbon cycle. But, except for a minor point concerning soil moisture, his work only repeats some of the work we (i.e. Rorsch, Courtney & Thoenes) published in 2005.
Do you have a link to Salby’s work? His Hamburg vid was interesting but after years of talk I’ve not found anything published (even on the internet).
Don’t be too humble to provide a link to you paper if it covers similar ground.

Here is the Introduction to my paper:
1. INTRODUCTION
The El Niño/La Niña–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a quasi-periodic climate pattern
in the sea-surface temperatures (SST) and sea-levels of the tropical Pacific Ocean that
takes place roughly once every three to seven years [1], [2], [3]. The IPCC AR4 WG1
report [2] readily accepts that ENSO events involve large exchanges of heat between
the ocean and atmosphere that have an effect upon global mean temperature.
An El Niño event occurs whenever the sea-surface temperature anomaly in the zone
of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean referred to as Niño 3.4 [extending from 5 S to
5 N and 120 W to 170 W] is ≥ +0.5 °C for a period longer than seven to nine months
[1], [4], [5]. These events are considered to be an abnormal state of the ENSO [1]. In
contrast, a La Niña event occurs whenever the sea-surface temperature anomaly in the
Niño 3.4 zone is ≤ -0.5 °C for a period longer than seven to nine months [1], [4], [5].
These events are considered to be an exaggerated state of the ENSO neutral phase [1].
The PDO index is defined as the leading principal component of the North Pacific
monthly sea-surface temperature variability north of 20N latitude, for the period from
1900-93 [6], [7]. The PDO resembles a long-lived El Niño/La Niña-like pattern in the
sea-surface temperatures of the North Pacific Ocean [8], [9], [10], [11]. Long-term
observations indicate that it is characterized by positive and negative phases. During,
its positive phase, sea-surface temperatures are unusually warm in the Eastern
Equatorial/Tropical Pacific, while they are unusually cold in the far Northern Pacific
Ocean. In contrast, during its negative phase, the reverse is true.
Some [1], [12], [13] have argued that the PDO is a low [temporal] frequency
residual of random changes in ENSO activity on multi-decadal timescales. Indeed,
Power et al. [13] have used simple stochastic AGM models with built-in non-linear
climate processes (e.g. the integrating effect of upper ocean mixing layers in the North
Pacific) to show that the PDO can appear to modulate ENSO tele-connections with
other climate systems, even if the PDO itself largely reflects unpredictable random
changes in the relative frequency and/or strength of El Niño and La Niña events over
inter-decadal timescales [14].
This paper argues that the IPCC needs to consider the possibility that the relative
frequency and/or strength of El Niño and La Niña events is not random on interdecadal
timescales but that it is significantly influenced by long-term Lunar
atmospheric tides.
In section 2, we investigate the claim by Wilson [15] , Tisdale [1], and subsequently
by de Freitas and McLean [16], that much of the observed changes in the global mean
temperatures during the 20th century can be explained by changes in the relative
frequency and/or strength of El Niño compared to La Niña events. In section 3, we
discuss the results of Wilson and Sidorenkov [24] that shows that there is a large N=4
longitudinal standing wave-like pattern in the mean sea-level pressure (MSLP)
anomalies of the Earth’s Southern Hemisphere that is propagating around the Earth
from east to west, once every 18 years. Wilson and Sidorenkov [24] claim that this
standing wave-like pattern is associated with long-term lunar atmospheric tides that
are being driven by either the 18.0 year Saros cycle or the 18.6 year lunar Draconic
cycle. They propose that interaction between this propagating standing wave-like
pattern in the MSLP and the semi-permanent South Pacific sub-tropical high is
498 Energy & Environment · Vol. 24, No. 3 & 4, 2013
responsible for the observed changes in the relative frequency and/or strength of El
Niño events compared to La Niña events. Finally, in section 4 the conclusions are
discussed.
The IPCC now recognizes that the apparent modulation of ENSO events by the
PDO significantly modifies regional tele-connections around the Pacific Basin in such
a way that they affect the evolution of the global mean temperature on inter-decadal
timescales [2]. They also acknowledge that long-term changes in global surface
temperature caused by the PDO/ENSO phenomenon considerably complicate the
process of identifying and quantifying that part of the global mean temperature
increase that is caused by anthropogenic factors [2]. Hence, it of the utmost
importance to determine the mechanism that is responsible for these changes.

This ‘relative dominance’ aspect is not new.
“The ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) Cycle has been heavily investigated for many years but seems to be looked at as a freestanding phenomenon that just redistributes heat around the globe, sometimes warming and sometimes cooling.
I think that is wrong. I believe that ENSO switches from warming to cooling mode depending on whether the sun is having a net warming or net cooling effect on the Earth. Thus the sun directly drives the ENSO cycle and the ENSO cycle directly drives global temperature changes. Indeed, the effect appears to be much more rapid than anyone has previously believed with a measurable response occurring within a few years of a change in solar energy input. Indeed I see some evidence for the proposition that for various reasons cooling occurs faster than warming but I will save that for another time.
It was no coincidence that during the years from 1975 to 2000 we had a strong emphasis on El Nino with warming-also known as a period of positive Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and now, with an emphasis on La Nina we have cooling or at least a stall in the warming (a period of negative PDO).
As regards the Pacific Decadal Oscillation that is simply a periodical change in the predominance either of El Nino (positive mode) or of La Nina (negative mode). El Nino events can occur in a positive PDO mode and vice versa.
I believe that both ENSO and PDO are manifestations of the same process and are directly driven by shifts in the balance of heat output from the sun as it switches to or from net warming and to or from net cooling effects on the Earth.”
from here:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/global-warming-and-cooling-the-reality/
originally published 2008 at climaterealists.com
Though now I would say that the change in relative dominance of El Nino / La Nina is attributable not to solar power output per se but to the way atmospheric chemistry involving ozone changes so as to affect global cloudiness and albedo.
The idea of relative dominance of El Nino / La Nina being carried across successive Pacific Multidecadal Oscillations over centuries as a result of solar influences is I think new and unique to me but I will stand corrected if someone else can be shown to have said it sooner.

This 2009 WUWT thread from Bob Tisdale is highly pertinent:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/28/misunderstandings-about-the-pacific-decadal-oscillation/
especially my post thus:
Stephen Wilde says:
April 29, 2009 at 9:56 am
“I think this is still skating round the issue.
That issue is whether the ENSO cycle is sufficient on it’s own to account for observations without requiring any separate input from independent oceanic variations.
From the links provided I get the impression that there is doubt and that there are differences of opinion on the matter.
For my part I cannot envisage there being no independent input from ocean variability.
Nor can I see how ENSO variability alone could give rise to phase shifts at 30 year intervals with a complete cycle of twice that.
It seems to me that the logical solution is that ENSO contributes air induced variations over short periods of time, separate oceanic cycles contribute their own independent variations over longer periods of time and the general underlying trend is dependent on slow long term changes in solar output over many solar cycles.
On that basis one can explain the short term climate consequences of individual El Nino and La Nina events, the 30/60 year longer term variations in the dominance of El Nino and La Nina and also the slow rise in global air temperatures since the little ice age.
Indeed, one can also account for the stepped upward temperature movement when each positive longer term oscillation leaves the air temperatures a little higher than the one before as during the 20th Century.
Now if the sun were to go into a long term cooling trend (albeit very slow) then I would expect to see stepped downward temperature movements develop but it would take two more 30 year phase shifts for that to become apparent.
In the meantime a coincidence of weaker solar cycles and negative oceanic phases (especially if in all the oceans at the same time) would be capable of giving us a large a downward shift in temperatures as we saw a large upward shift in temperatures during the recent warming when we had both a more active sun and positive oceanic phases.
‘Large’ being a relative term of course. I’m quite sure that natural forcings can do far more than our records to date have ever noted.”

I truly enjoy these papers stating that cooling in the Tropical Pacific, more La Nina events, are responsible for the pause (or dare I say a reversal) in Global Warming. However, it this were true wouldn’t the opposite also be true, that more El Nino events would be responsible for Global Warming.

The ENSO is, indeed, a very important process impacting Earth’s climate.
But it does not have an accumulating impact or step changes. An El Nino or a La Nina phase only lasts for 3 months to 12 months at a time. After which, the opposite phase often occurs.
The ENSO provides its impact on an continuous basis with a 3 month lag with no accumulation. All of the major atmospheric processes including water vapor, OLR, temperatures, cloud cover, precipitation, follow this pattern.
Now there can be a little extra impact (just a small amount) when there is a series of El Ninos or La Ninas in a row. But there are only 3 or 4 short periods when this has occurred – (1906-1911), (1939-1944), (1974-1979) (perhaps 1987-1998).
This paper does not go far enough back into the temperature history to see this.
So this chart below is the actual Nino 3.4 Index going back to 1871 (let me know if you find periods which provide a multi-decadal trend). It is up and down so fast, it does not result in long periods of warming or cooling.
http://s12.postimg.org/t38c0hril/Nino_3_4_1871_2013.png
If one wants to ascribe longer cycle impacts, one needs to move to the AMO 30 year up and down cycle (or the PDO which is not that good at representing the temperature history but is used by some).

Richard,
I am very sorry but as far as know Arthur Rörsch is still alive and well. In the rush to post my comment I did not notice that I had be the words “the late” in front of the wrong name. It is actually Peter A. Ziegler who recently died. Again, I am very sorry for the mix up.
Both Arthur and Peter where excellent editors and they did an outstanding job with compiling the special edition for E & E. I do not fault them one bit. They are/[were] men of integrity and great scientists in their own fields. The leak did not come about because of any direct actions on their part. It was caused by an unintended intrinsic flaw in the review process which I cannot discuss on-line.
I too am not that worried about who get the credit for correcting our misconceptions about the role played by the ENSO phenomenon in regulating world temperature. However, Bob Tisdale has done most of the hard yards.

Bil Illis writes “But it does not have an accumulating impact or step changes. An El Nino or a La Nina phase only lasts for 3 months to 12 months at a time. After which, the opposite phase often occurs.”
I take issue with this logic. The ENSO may well have a impact on global temperatures on a time scale of centuries. The full PDO cycle lasts about 60 years. Half of this time there is a predominance of El Ninos and the other half a predominance of La Ninas. So there is at least a 60 year cycle, when residuals from the PDO could be noticable in global temperatures. But we have no data as to whether the intensity of every PDO is the same. To take an analogy from solar cycles, each Schwab cycle is about 11 years, but these combine into 22 year Hale cycles. But the value of Rz of each cycle varies from 0 to over 150 on a time scale of centuries or even millenia.
I can see no reason for supposing that the effects of ENSO cancel out as noise on a time scale measured in decades

It would seem that the rather shaky science of the AGW is being busted, the faith and the politics of man made global warming is another matter and will take a decade at least to destroy.
Mean while we just pay the price and vote out the idiots. Real science will prevail but snake oil salesmen seem to have a charmed life.

The ENSO meter is pegged at ‘0’ – no trend. It has waffled back and forth in the neutral range for the last half year.
Meanwhile Alaska is recording some very chilly temps for this time of year….
http://ak-wx.blogspot.de/2013/08/record-cold-in-northern-interior.html

Every time I see one of the temp graphs with volcanic events marked, I see no difference between those events and the noise already apparent. I don’t think volcanoes have much of an effect globally, unless it’s something like Tambora or Yellowstone, something REALLY big, The little popguns of El Chichon, Pinatubo, etc don’t seem to really do much.

rgb wrote: “Ceteris parabus is indeed perfect for those who seek to omit variables, linearize and otherwise oversimplify the solution to a set of two coupled Navier-Stokes (nonlinear, chaotic) partial differential equations describing a thermally driven non-equilibrium environment on the surface of an oblate spheroid in an highly eccentric orbit around its primary heat source while it rapidly rotates on an axis tipped by some 22 degrees relative to the elliptic plane so that coriolis forces deflect the air and water flowing over its rough and textured surface to generate an ever changing pattern of clouds that may or may not be coupled in some speculative way to the every changing pattern of activity in the magnetohydrodynamic solution in the convective/radiative zone of the heat source itself, a pattern laid down by fusion activity in its core several hundred thousand years ago plus a most complex non-Markovian time evolution ever since.”
Yes, that’s one sentence. 😉 But a very cool one.

Assuming that ENSO events drive temperature (the step change in and around the 1998 El NIno is clearly visible in the satellite data sets as being an isolated and only event to have brought about a decadel temperature change), a number of issues arise; in particular how long does the heat which has been released by an ENSO event remain in the atmosphere, and why if this causes a step change in globabl temperatures the step change persists
Does anyone have any views on why the heat released by the 1998 El Nino has not dissipated these past 15 years?

Yup, those “real” scientists are now discovering the 60 year climate cycle and its cause. I thought they would eventually, once they got their heads out of the CO2 cloud:
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/SixtyYearCycle.htm

The approach used here avoids a focused statistical analysis of the data, in part because the study deals with smoothed data, which means there is the danger of spurious correlations, and in part because the ENSO is a cyclical phenomenon of irregular period. In these situations, the results of regression analysis or similar statistical evaluation can be misleading.
They ought to have presented graphs of GMT vs lagged SOI, to portray the strength of the association. The strong divergence between SOI and GMT after the two sharp peaks in 1998 is intriguing.
Overall, the results imply that natural climate forcing associated with ENSO is a major contributor to temperature variability and perhaps a major control knob governing Earth’s temperature.
It is good to see them use the phrase “control knob” — can “thermostat” be far behind?

It is nice to have a sensible paper come out on this subject.
Bob Tisdale has been spot on in all of his contributions to the enso /climatic impacts.

Who cares? This is where we really live:
Global Warming Threatens Food Security through Spread of Crop Pests:
Experts warn global warming is spreading crop pests by 3km ever year
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/503055/20130902/global-warming-threatening-food-security-crop-pests.htm

What is the state between high frequency El Niño and NOT El Niño conditions, and what is the state between high frequency La Niña and NOT La Niña? Is !El Niño == !La Niña? What is the climate impact of (!El Niño OR !La Niña), and what percentage of time is spent in the NOT state of these two phenomena?
If the NOT state of El Niño is La Niña then high frequency El Niño is also high frequency La Niña so the maths don’t work as described above – they cancel.

Curry’s remark: “I thought that it might account for at least half of the observed warming, and hence my questioning of the IPCC’s highly confident attribution of ‘most’ to AGW” drew a response from Xie after Marcel Crok contacted him (see Crok’s website http://www.staatvanhetklimaat.nl/2013/08/30/xie-reacts-on-curry/
Xie responded: “I have a different take on this. The IPCC conclusion applies to centennial warming from 1880. Much of the 0.8 C warming since 1900 is indeed due to anthropogenic forcing, because natural variability like PDO and AMO has been averaged out over this long period of time.
Our results concern the effect of tropical Pacific SST on global mean temperature over the past 15 years. It is large enough to offset the anthropogenic warming for this period, but the effect weakens as the period for trend calculation gets longer simply because it is oscillatory and being averaged out.”
I wonder how Xie knows that natural variability averages out. It is merely an assumptions not backed up by any research, it seems. According to Tisdale the net effect is responsible for most of the global warming at least for the last 50 years or so (if I remember well). So over that time frame it did not average out. Note how Xie has extended his window back to the year 1880.

Ian Wilson says:
September 3, 2013 at 4:03 am
“Edited by [the late] Arthur Rörsch and Peter A. Ziegler”
As far as I know Arthur is not deceased. Sadly, Peter Ziegler has died recently.
By the way, the allegation is extremely serious. I will inform Arthur, if you haven’t done so yourself already.

Steven Mosher says:
September 3, 2013 at 9:15 am
“Another possibility is that there are problems with the HadCRUT4 1.1.0 data. For example, we note that the published monthly average global temperature anomalies are not equal to the mean of the two published corresponding hemispheric values.”
DUH.
I see – so global warming = the bipolar seesaw. (Tzedakis might not quite see it that way.)

Where to start? I could spend a week commenting on this, and I don’t even have a half hour. So: (1) An El Nino is a heat-shedding mechanism. The air warms a bit, but the sea loses heat for a net transfer outward. This reduces many comments above to irrelevance. (2) This study relies on wiggle matching (or Wackelnpassenden), a method that works except when it doesn’t, and here it doesn’t, lately. (3) The 1995/1996 divergence could involve thumbs in a variety of ways, one of which is well described by Bloke down the pub.
All in all, then, I’d call it appropriate to give the paper three thumbs up.

MattN says: “Once again, this surprises NO ONE who has actually been paying attention. But you know that they will just say that CO2 is influencing, if not outright controlling ENSO. I am 100% positive I remember reading a statement from Gavin on Reallywrong Climate years ago where he stated that the PDO was permanently positive now due to CO2.”
Did Gavin really say that? I wouldn’t be surprised. If he did. I’d sure like to see his putative mechanism for 400 ppm of CO2 affecting the PDO! What nonsense.

Sorry…
http://www.robles-thome.talktalk.net/Insolation_and_MEI.pdf
http://www.robles-thome.talktalk.net/Temp_and_Cum MEI.pdf

Ms Gray
Idle minds find ways to keep themselves amused.

Bob Tisdale said:
“Your willingness to speculate does not in any way suggest that I am “avoiding” anything. I elect to work with and present data to support my findings. You elect to work without data and you present speculation to support your conjecture.”
Sigh.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I have expressed appreciation of your work but been rebuffed by what is known in the psychiatric profession as passive aggression.
I am working from data and joining the dots logically by combining observations with basic physical principles.
As far as I know you have never proposed a mechanism whereby ENSO could result in temperature stepping from one positive or negative phase to the next.
I have.
Furthermore it appears to be linked to the level of solar activity affecting global cloudiness and albedo on a millennial time scale.
My use of the term ‘avoidance’ was intended to be neutral and respectful but you have taken unnecessary offence.
The fact is that you do not extend your undoubted ENSO expertise in a way that can lead to a more complete explanation of the role of ENSO within the climate system.
ENSO is a short term internally induced disturbance of longer term externally induced solar influences on oceanic behaviour.
One can only derive upward and downward stepping from one phase to the next by superimposing a longer term non ENSO influence.
One can only obtain a change in the amount of energy available for ENSO from the sun.
It has to be variability in the amount of solar energy entering the oceans that skews El Nino and La Nina relative to one another beyond the basic 60 year cycle of phase changes.
Your work simply does not extend to that aspect.

“the recent series of La Nina conditions has not lead to a decrease in temperature. That suggests that there are other active forcings as well.”
There is still residual warmth in the oceans near the poles from the run of strong late 20th century El Ninos.
Once the AMO goes properly negative then a decline should begin.

Stephen, I think the reasons why the temperature decline has yet to begin in earnest are due to the current weak maximum of solar cycle 24, the limited years of prolonged sub-solar activity
(started in 2005) in contrast to mostly high solar activity from end of Dalton(1830) -2005, ocean heat content up in response to high solar activity up to 2005,and very quiet volcanic activity.
I think once the maximum of solar cycle 24 passes by a more meridional atmospheric circulation which has been the rule of late will become even further entrenched, ocean heat content which is high has slowed during the past few years and will likely subside going forward, and volcanic activity should rise in response to the soon to be very quiet solar conditions.
The maximum of solar cycle 24 has to pass followed by a sustained period of very quiet solar conditions such as a solar flux value of at least sub 90 sustained,solar wind value of at at least sub 350 km/sec. sustained, ap index value of sub 5.0 (98+%of time) sustained(spikes other 1%), UV light off upwards of 50%, solar irradiance off .015% or more, sustained.
Cosmic rays will be on the increase(in response to a reduced solar wind) and that should equate to more clouds, and that along with the more meridional atmospheric circulation should cause an increase in clouds, precipitation and snow cover for the N.H. which in turn should increase the overall albedo, promoting lower temperatures.
Earth’s magnetic field in a weakening trend will compound all solar effects.
The PDO ,and soon the AMO will also make their mark on promoting global cooling. Infact the recent string of La Ninas, has been one of the reasons why the temperature rise is no longer occurring despite moderate solar activity of late, and still high ocean heat content, and very low volcanic activity.
Anotherwords the high ocean heat content ,the moderate solar activity , and lack of any significant volcanic activity ,and the lack of strong La Nina’s despite La Nina’s of late are the reasons why the temperatures have been holding up to steady readings of late, rather then showing a more definitive fall.
This should be changing as the decade proceeds and the prolonged solar minimum becomes more entrenched with all of it’s associated secondary effects.
.

The 15 year old animation is very pretty.

Congrats to Bob Tisdale. Vindication is a lovely feeling. Enjoy!

Congratulations to Bob Tisdale (“the Tisdale effect”) and Willis Eschenbach (“the Eschenbach paradigm”). Imagine, all those things going on in the central strip of the Pacific Ocean, where the potential insolation is far and away bigger than anywhere else, and where the magical ingredient, water, is involved, having ANYTHING to do with the climate of the earth. It’s shocking, I tell you.
As to why the temperatures around the globe haven’t fallen (at least much), here’s the “JimF conjecture”: the key thermometers (some of which control small empires in area) are sitting on blacktop, many in the back blast of jet engines, many of the rest near the air conditioning unit and all the hot cars. The only way these will show “cooling” is when icicles are hanging off your nose as you take a brisk summer walk to the office. Sounds like I’m writing some thriller novels. Maybe I have another career as a “climate scientist” in my future.

Ulric Lyons said:
“Yes they all show more El Nino during cold periods and less El Nino through the warm periods.”
Could you link to that data please.
An El Nino during a period of quiet sun and meridional jets with less solar energy entering the oceans would have a significant cooling effect due to its heat shedding nature.
Remember hat I propose a balance between the top down solar effect and the bottom up oceanic effect so short term misalignment between El Ninos / La Ninas and warming or cooling is perfectly possible.
In the end though I would expect to see more El Ninos during the MWP and today than there were during the depths of the Maunder Minimum / LIA.

Ulric.
It would be theoretically possible to have more, smaller El Ninos during a period of weak sun due to the top down solar effect working from the poles pushing the air circulation equatorward and limiting the regional extent of the Pacific oscillation.
Research into that area could be a useful longer term refinement of my basic hypothesis if what you say is true.
In the end hough Occam’s Razor keeps it nice and simple in the first instance.
The sun changes the global air circulation so as to affect global cloudiness which alters the amount of energy entering the oceans to drive the climate system.
The more solar energy gets into the oceans the stronger or bigger can be El Ninos and the less gets in the weaker or smaller they must be.
No solar input, no El Nino.
A La Nina would be best characterised as a non El Nino. A mere ‘resting’ period between El Nino events during which the oceans can recharge as Bob tells us.
An analysis as to how the timing works out in practice can await another day.

Stephen Wilde says:
September 3, 2013 at 11:29 pm
“…Although I am a trained lawyer I seek to use words as simply as possible so readers should not worry about any lawyerly subtexts. None such are ever intended…”
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Stephen
Whilst it is good to use simple and readily understandable language, words inevitably carry with them their ordinary and accepted meaning. Some part of this meaning is implicit subtext. The word ‘avoid’ is one such word. It is not neutral in subtext, and I understand why Bob takes offence. Since he has raised this objection before, I would have thought that you would have refrained from expressing what you consider to be limitations in Bob’s analysis in similar fashion and more neutral wording would be employed by you.
If you desire to be neutral and use simple and understandable wording, you can state that ‘Bob does not deal with X’ or ‘Bob only deals with X and does not deal with Y’.
In Climate Science there is lots of data, the issue is its quality. In my opinion, most, if not very nearly all, is not fit for purpose, and one of the problems in this field is that data is overstrained, and there is not a proper recognition of its short comings, limitations and errors.
I consider that Bob’s comment that you are working without data to be more than harsh, in fact to be wrong, but likewise I understand his point as to why he works with more recent data. But inevitably, that recent data is of short duration. Working with data of short duration even if that data is of better, or even good quality, imposes its own limitation.
Given the age of the planet and the length of glacial and interglacial cycles, all data that we possess is woefully short in duration and incapable of addressing the heart of the issue, namely is planet Earth experiencing something unusual at this stage of an interglacial cycle? We would need high resolution data dealing with numerous glacial/interglacial cycles to shed light on that question.
It is good to see that more attention is at long last being paid to the oceans. It is obvious that the oceans control the climate (are the driving force behind it) given that they account for two thirds of the surface and their heat capacity wholly overwhelms that of the atmosphere. We are a water planet and given the behavoir of water and its phase changes, this is fundamental. It has always baffled me why research has not concentrated on understanding the behavoir of the oceans, how they are heated, how they distribute that heat, the interaction with the atmosphere immediately above them, the generation of cloud formation and how they drive the jet streams etc.
In my opinion, Willis will be able to refine his model once he appreciates that the equitorial/tropical oceans would not freeze over even if they received no DWLWIR, and the excess solar that they receive (ie., that which would heat them to above 28 to 30degC) is pumped around the globe thereby preventing the oceans outside the tropical regions freezing, or only freezing for part of the year.
I am also of the view that the ‘new’ research looking more at the natural world, will reveal that the radiative model is misconceived and has been overplayed.

richard verney said:
“The word ‘avoid’ is one such word. It is not neutral in subtext, and I understand why Bob takes offence”
Then if that is the case I must express regret.
In my mind the word ‘avoid’ is neutral. If I were to try to add a judgmental subtext I would have used the term ‘evade’.
In my world, for example, tax evasion is illegal but tax avoidance is not.
If I need to refer to the issue again I will simply say that Bob chooses not to go beyond the data which he uses in connection with his ENSO work and which is largely limited to the period since 1982.
To get a better grip on the climate system as a whole one has to go way beyond that period because no discussion of natural variability can omit consideration of the Roman Warm Period, MWP, LIA and the other warm and cool periods.
A similar point applies to Willis’s Thermostat Hypothesis which is limited to events in the tropics whereas it needs to be extended globally.
Both Bob and Willis have done fine work but in both cases it needs to be extended for an integrated climate solution. Each is just a small part of the whole.
Their work needs to be integrated one with the other, extended globally, extended back in time and integrated with the solar variations that appear to influence the entire global air circulation system on multiple time scales.
That is what I have attempted to do. With some success, I hope.

richardscourtney says:
September 4, 2013 at 1:11 am
“…And what does this paper imply about climate sensitivity?…”
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Quite obviously if the conclusion is correct that “Overall, the results imply that natural climate forcing associated with ENSO is a major contributor to temperature variability and per- haps a major control knob governing Earth’s temperature….” it follows that Climate Sensitivity to CO2 is lower than the IPCC presently ‘estimates’. I would say ‘guesses’ since until such time as natural variation is fully understood; precisely what it comprises of, the forcing associated with each and every constituent component, the direction of those forcings, and the upper and lower bounds of each and every constituent forcing, it is impossible to seperate the signal of CO2, from the noise of natural variation. Presently, we do not have sufficient knowledge and understanding of natural variation to do this, and hence any assessment of Climate Sensitivity is simply a guess, not an estimate. in my opinion, given the present state of play, it is highly disengenuous to talk about Climate Sensitivity estimates, when in reality they are nothing more than guesses.
If one looks at the satellite data set (on the basis that it is not polluted by UHI, poor station siting, station drop outs etc) as being the most accurate record of atmospheric temperatures these past 33 years, there is no first order correlation between CO2 and temperature. There is no linear rise in temperature. Merely a one off and isolated temperature shift in and around the Super El Nino of 1998. That is quite remarkable if CO2 is the dominant driver of temperature here on planet Earth.
Unless ENSO is in some way driven by CO2 (and no one has yet propsed a mechanism whereby this could be the case) one is left to conclude that from the satellite data set (which admittedly is only 33 years in duration but which covers a substantial proportion of manmade CO2 emissions), Climate Sensitivity is zero or so close to zero that presently it cannot be measured within the limitations imposed by the resolution, sensitivity and errors of our present day measuring equipment.

“The perception of this is that somehow tax avoidance is immoral”
I would submit that to be a corruption of the former neutral tone of the word.
Nonetheless I do appreciate that Bob did take the word in a manner that was not intended.
Note, though, that Bob expresses himself pretty robustly too and I could have taken more offence than I did at some of the things he has said to me.
For the future I would hope for more mutual tolerance of words that might have slightly different meanings to different people.

“Overall, the results imply that natural climate forcing associated with ENSO is a major contributor to temperature variability and perhaps a major control knob governing Earth’s temperature.” ”
It seems to me that several people are piggy backing onto what Bob Tisdale has been saying for years. Too bad Bob couldn’t patent all of the work he’s done and charge royalties.

Let’s consider La Nadas as Pamela Gray suggests.
The only way energy gets into the oceans without being offset by increased evaporation is via solar shortwave which is energetic enough to get past the evaporative layer.
We can’t ignore solar influences because that is the only source of energy available. Note that energy is being released all the time during El Ninos, La Ninas and La Nadas.
All that changes is the rate of that release.
So some of the time the oceans are holding on to solar energy a little longer (La Ninas) and the air above cools because energy to space is greater than energy from the oceans.
Sometimes the oceans release their energy a little sooner (El Ninos) and the air above warms because energy to space is less than energy from the oceans.
La Nada suggests the rates of energy loss and gain for the air are about in balance so a pause rather than warming or cooling.
But there is another factor.
If there is more global cloud cover the rate of recharge will be reduced from what would otherwise it would have been during any given La Nina.
If there is less global cloud cover the rate of recharge will be similarly increased.
That can skew the balance between El Nino and La Nina.
So we really do need another forcing element to account for the cloudiness changes and that has to be the top down solar effect.
If the oceans were controlling the cloud cover the ocean cycles would simply fade away to a bare minimum once the recharge / discharge process achieved equilibrium at a given level of cloud cover but that never happens.
The current observations implicitly reveal that some other factor altering cloudiness is destabilising the oceans’ attempts to achieve equilibrium with the air above.
The longer term (beyond the 60 year PMO) cycles we see are therefore the negative system response from the oceans serving to offset the destabilising influence of that separate solar forcing effect on global cloudiness.
Our CO2 emissions, in so far as they have an effect, would be indiscernible in comparison.

One item not to over look is visible solar light penetrates the ocean surface to a depth of 100 meters and it is this intensity of visible solar light which plays a significant role in the amounts of ocean heat content..

“As for patterns of frequent El Ninos and patterns of frequent La Ninas, this has always been a focus of data. But I am wondering if a pattern of El/La Nadas holds the key for coming coolness.”
Pam,
I have always wondered what ENSO looked like during the MWP (800-1300AD) and the LIA (1300-1850)? Is our global climate always determined by ENSO? Could the LIA been brought on by some anomaly that works against Nature’s Thermostat?

Ulric Lyons, I appreciate you efforts, keep posting your thoughts going forward.

Pamela Gray says:
September 4, 2013 at 8:22 am
The null hypothesis is internal variation, of which this thread is focused on.
…With neutral ENSO, the oceans are not getting recharged to the degree they should…”
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Pamela
What recharges the oceans?
Is this by any chance the sun and the solar energy that it radiates? If not this, what is it?
If “the oceans are not getting recharged to the degree they should”, is this because total solar energy (which is not necessarily TSI) is less, or is it because less solar gets through to the ocean surface due to changes in the atmosphere, notably changes in cloudiness?
If the latter, ie., changes in cloudiness, are the changes to cloudiness simply the result of energy changes going into the atmosphere (including differing amounts of water vapour) driven directly by the various ENSO states theemselves, or is due to some change brought about by an atmospheric reaction to changes within the sun (eg., perhaps something along the line that Svenmark postulates upon), and/or perhaps the earth’s own magnetic field?
Clarification of your views on internal variation would be appreciated.
PS. I do not disagree that there is a potentially a third state to consider that you call La Nada.

What’s “mind-blowing” to JC, and me, is that the paper acknowledged a major role for oceanic cycles. I’m waiting for the next shoe to drop, attribution of ENSO to CO2.

Irrespective of what drives the PDO, ENSO, AMO, etc, if the downward leg of changes in the balance between nino and nina conditions is to be blamed for the stagnation in temperatures, the upward leg must have contributed commensurately to the most recent warming phase as well.
That further constrains the estimates of climate sensitivity to CO2, since half of the warming previously assumed to be due to CO2 would actually have been due to natural factors.

phlogiston (September 4, 2013 at 6:47 pm) wrote:
“It seems necessary to remind ourselves that ENSO is an oceanic phenomenon, not an atmospheric […] one.”
Atmosphere & ocean are coupled.
Temperature, mass, & velocity are coupled.
I’m particularly concerned that your knowledge base is crucially deficient in the area of wind-driven ocean surface currents.
The strongest ocean surface temperature gradients are oriented along an equator-pole axis. These steep gradients drive the westerlies.
The westerlies in each hemisphere vary with the annual insolation cycle.
There is a more subtle amplitude variation caused by the solar cycle. THIS IS OBSERVED. (To suggest otherwise is darkly ignorant &/or deceptive denial that untenably asserts violation of the law of large numbers &/or the law of conservation of angular momentum. If you can’t see this independently, your foundations are deficient and you should go away to spend some time filling in background knowledge gaps before attempting serious discussion and wasting the time of the few who are prepared for serious discussion.)

IMO the correlation with ENSO is real but the idea that this makes it a “driver” of climate, largely an illusion.
Willis has shown how tropical storms act as what he calls a ‘governor’ of tropical climate.
I think have demonstrated it is stronger than a governor and infact is a strongly non-linear negative feedback that preserves the degree.day integral in the tropics. (This closer to an industrial PID controller).
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=310
Such a reaction cannot be the result of a linear feedback, it implies a strongly non linear one.
Because TS events are well below the spacial resolution of climate models they are reproduced by cloud “parameters” that are fed into linear feedback models and thus can not reproduce such behaviour.
I think the apparent ENSO driver is simply the difference of the REAL non-linear negative climate response in the tropics, from the linear model.
ie if you model a linear neg. f/b and you really have a non linear climate there will a residual variation that correlates to tropical temperatures. This may _appear_ to be an additional climate “driver”.

@ Alec Rawls (September 6, 2013 at 9:07 am)
Chris de Freitas appears tired of (and submissively timid of) the illogical sociopolitical acid attacks Joanne Nova underscores in her 50:1 interview (Joanne Nova 50:1 Interview (42:41) — well-worth careful attention start-to-finish).
However, Chris is right to call out the thoroughly egregious methodological gamesmanship. There is no method no matter how robust that will not be maliciously sprayed with acid. Quantitatively clueless members of the audience will buy strictly-illogical acid attacks if they like the attacker. Such is the darker side of human nature — and ultimately that’s what we’re really up against, so it’s naive to expect facts to be a deciding factor in courts (both high & low) of social injustice.