UPDATE: Even Trenberth is critical of the Cai et al. (2013) study. See the update at the end.
# # #
My apologies to the writers of Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles for the title of the post.
Hedley Lamarr: My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.
Taggart: Ditto.
Hedley Lamarr: “Ditto?” “Ditto,” you provincial putz?
Blogger “Andrew” advises that the twitter-sphere is filled with discussions of a new paper claiming that the strengths of the late 20th Century El Niño events were caused by global warming. This argument has been around for years and keeps getting resurrected. Blogger “nevket240” provided a link to the Sydney Morning Herald article by Tom Arup Major El Nino events likely to double in next century, which appears to have initiated the discussions.
The new paper is Cai et al (2013) Increasing frequency of extreme El Niño events due to greenhouse warming. The abstract reads:
El Niño events are a prominent feature of climate variability with global climatic impacts. The 1997/98 episode, often referred to as ‘the climate event of the twentieth century’, and the 1982/83 extreme El Niño, featured a pronounced eastward extension of the west Pacific warm pool and development of atmospheric convection, and hence a huge rainfall increase, in the usually cold and dry equatorial eastern Pacific. Such a massive reorganization of atmospheric convection, which we define as an extreme El Niño, severely disrupted global weather patterns, affecting ecosystems, agriculture, tropical cyclones, drought, bushfires, floods and other extreme weather events worldwide. Potential future changes in such extreme El Niño occurrences could have profound socio-economic consequences. Here we present climate modelling evidence for a doubling in the occurrences in the future in response to greenhouse warming. We estimate the change by aggregating results from climate models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phases 3 (CMIP3; ref. 10) and 5 (CMIP5; ref. 11) multi-model databases, and a perturbed physics ensemble. The increased frequency arises from a projected surface warming over the eastern equatorial Pacific that occurs faster than in the surrounding ocean waters, facilitating more occurrences of atmospheric convection in the eastern equatorial region.
A REANALYSIS CONTRADICTS THE MODELS
These are similar to the claims in Power et al. (2013) Robust twenty-first-century projections of El Niño and related precipitation variability. We discussed that paper in the post Will Global Warming Increase the Intensity of El Niño? To save myself some time, I’ll copy parts of that post:
However, Ray & Giese (2012) Historical changes in El Niño and La Niña characteristics in an ocean reanalysis found that El Niño events had not become stronger, or lasted longer, or occurred more often (among other things) since 1871. And manmade greenhouse gases are said to have caused global warming during that time period. The Ray & Giese (2012) abstract ends:
Overall, there is no evidence that there are changes in the strength, frequency, duration, location or direction of propagation of El Niño and La Niña anomalies caused by global warming during the period from 1871 to 2008.
So one wonders how climate models could simulate a future change in ENSO when there have been no changes in almost 140 years.
MODELS CAN’T SIMULATE BASIC ENSO PROCESSES
Additionally, we know climate models can’t simulate ENSO. Here’s another portion of that earlier blog post:
Guilyardi et al. (2009), which is a paper I have referred to numerous times in blog posts (example here). Did Power et al. (2013) overlook one of the critical findings of Guilyardi et al. (2009)?:
Because ENSO is the dominant mode of climate variability at interannual time scales, the lack of consistency in the model predictions of the response of ENSO to global warming currently limits our confidence in using these predictions to address adaptive societal concerns, such as regional impacts or extremes.
In other words, because climate models cannot accurately simulate El Niño and La Niña processes, the authors of Guilyardi et al. (2009) have little confidence in climate model projections of regional climate or of extreme events.
Bellenger, et al. (2013) “ENSO Representation in Climate Models: From CMIP3 to CMIP5,” is a more recent confirmation of how poorly climate models simulate El Niños and La Niñas. (Preprint copy is here.) The section titled “Discussion and Perspectives” begins:
Much development work for modeling group is still needed in order to correctly represent ENSO, its basic characteristics (amplitude, evolution, timescale, seasonal phaselock…) and fundamental processes such as the Bjerknes and surface fluxes feedbacks.
“Amplitude” refers to the strengths of ENSO events.
“Evolution” refers to the formation of El Niños and La Niñas and the processes that take place as the events are forming.
“Timescale” can refer to both the how long ENSO events last and how often they occur.
“Phaselock” refers to the fact that El Niño and La Niña events are tied to the seasonal cycle. They peak in the boreal winter.
“Bjerknes feedback,” very basically, means how the tropical Pacific and the atmosphere above it are coupled; i.e., they are interdependent, a change in one causes a change in the other and they provide positive feedback to one another. The existence of this positive “Bjerknes feedback” suggests that El Niño and La Niña events will remain in one mode until something interrupts the positive feedback.
In short, according to Bellenger, et al. (2013), the current generation of climate models (CMIP5: used by the IPCC for their 5th Assessment Report and by Power et al (2013)) still cannot simulate basic coupled ocean-atmosphere processes associated with El Niño and La Niña events–basic processes.
DATA CONTRADICT THE FLAWED MODELS
And, of course, to further contradict the models, ocean heat content data and satellite-era sea surface temperature data indicate ocean warming was caused by strong naturally occurring, sunlight-fueled El Niño events, not vice versa as claimed by the modelers…who still can’t simulate basic ENSO processes.
If the subject of the natural warming of the global oceans is new to you, refer to my illustrated essay “The Manmade Global Warming Challenge”(42MB). The way data portrays how the oceans warmed may come as a surprise to you, especially with all we’ve been told about human-induced global warming. If you like audio-video presentations, see my two-part YouTube video series “The Natural Warming of the Global Oceans”. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here. Also see An Illustrated Introduction to the Basic Processes that Drive El Niño and La Niña Events.
And a whole lot more information about El Niño and La Niña can be found in my ebook Who Turned on the Heat? which has been lowered in price to U.S.$5.00. A free preview in pdf format is here. The preview includes the Table of Contents, the Introduction, the first half of section 1 (which was provided complete in this post), a discussion of the cover, and the Closing. Take a run through the Table of Contents. It is a very-detailed and well-illustrated book—using data from the real world, not models of a virtual world.
Who Turned on the Heat? is only available in pdf format…and will only be available in that format. Click here to purchase a copy. Thanks. Unless I can find funding for my research, it will be book sales and tips/donations that allow me to return to blogging full-time.
NOTE: With my new job, I may be a little slow responding to questions. Sorry.
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UPDATE:
Brian Kahn also covered Cai et al. (2013) in his ClimateCentral post Climate Change Could Double Likelihood of Super El Ninos. (Thanks again Andrew for the link to the post at HockeySchtick.) Brian Kahn’s article included the following and a remarkable quote from Kevin Trenberth:
The core of Cai’s results, that more super El Ninos are likely, was disputed by Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Corporation [sic] for Atmospheric Research.
He said some of the models used in the study overestimate the past number of El Nino events by a wide margin and do a poor job of representing them and their impacts.
“This seriously undermines the confidence that the models do an adequate job in ENSO (El Nino-Southern Oscillation) simulations and so why should we trust their future projections?” he said in an email.
Trenberth also said that some long-range climate models also fail to adequately simulate other natural climate patterns that influence El Nino let alone how they might also shift in a warming world.
I’m beginning to enjoy Kevin Trenberth again. (sarc on) I’m sure he’ll be pleased. (sarc off)
OOPS, forgot to thank Andrew and nevket240. Thank you!
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Third time lucky, cant even read the numbers now. Nino 3 now shown above with the real Nino3.4 over here.
A moment for getting numbers mixed up, HADSST2 in original post not HADSST3.
“For Australia, this could mean summer heat waves, like that recently experienced in the south-east of the country, could get an additional boost if they coincide with extreme El Ninos,” said co-author, Professor Matthew England from CoECSS”
Still find heatwaves and droughts in Australia amusing, its like claiming might get blizzards at the north pole like in 2011. SO WHAT, there happen there all the time, Australia is mainly a desert that has occurred due to frequent heatwaves and droughts from the past. The north pole has blizzards because its so cold, nothing unusual is happening.
JJ says: @ur momisugly January 20, 2014 at 9:38 am
…Kevin Trenberth, founding member of the “Climate Rapid Response Team”, a closet skeptic?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Conmen don’t actually believe their own cons because that way lies disaster. If you believe then you lose control. The IPCC and the “Climate Rapid Response Team” have always been all about political propaganda. They just neglected to label the reports Pravda.
Dr. G.Combs
Engl.Pravda.ru is on your contrarian side today, as allways more or less. Just look for yourself.
Do you really want to destroy that situation for yourself?
Max Hugoson says: @ur momisugly January 20, 2014 at 1:31 pm
…..If it wasn’t for the fact that IT WILL HURT ME TOO..I’d say, “Let them completely have their way, and throw us back to a 19th century life style…!!”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Being retired and without children I often have the same thought at times or as Doreen put it Let them Eat Grass!
Perhaps it is time to scrub out the gene pool. So the question really begs to be asked. Will it take another (let’s call it the next, since its actually time for the next one now) ice age to “smarten us up” some more?
(Zombies of the Gene Pool by Sharyn McCrumb immediately comes to mind.)
AH says, “Bob @4.40am, as I said above @4.00am Guilyardi et al., and many other studies including Bellenger et al., defined ENSO based on the Nino3 (or Nino3.4) index which is essentially an area average of SST anomalies in the eastern equatorial Pacific”
Are you trying to spin this, AH, and put climate models in a good light?
I think you had better go back and read Guilyardi et al (2009) again. I think you’ll find the discussions of ENSO failings in that paper are much more detailed than simply a discussion of sea surface temperatures. It’s hard to find any portion of the coupled ocean-atmosphere processes of ENSO that climate models simulate properly.
With respect to Cai et al using precipitation, here’s a quote from the ScienceDaily article to confirm what you’d written earlier:
“To achieve their results, the team examined 20 climate models that consistently simulate major rainfall reorganization during extreme El Niño events. They found a substantial increase in events from the present-day through the next 100 years as the eastern Pacific Ocean warmed in response to global warming.”
In other words, Cai et al found 20 models that performed one aspect…let me repeat that, one aspect…of ENSO properly, precipitation. In the real world, during an El Niño, warm waters from the west Pacific Warm Pool flood into the eastern tropical Pacific, and the convection, clouds and precipitation accompany it. So in some models (but apparently not all models), the precipitation accompanies the warm water into the eastern tropical Pacific during a poorly simulated El Niño. What’s remarkable is that somehow that serves as the basis for a scientific study!
In order to come to their conclusions, Cai et al (2014) had to overlook the fact that the models can’t simulate the basic, fundamental processes that drive ENSO events…or their frequency, or their magnitude, or their duration, or their evolution, or their feedbacks, or their teleconnections, etc. That is, Cai et al have had to ignore that the models have no relationship to real world El Niños and La Niñas.
Regards
Matt G: Regarding NINO3.4 trends. NOAA’s ERSST.v3b is the only sea surface temperature dataset to show a positive NINO3,4 region trend since 1900. HADISST is basically flat and Kaplan shows a slight cooling since 1900.
Regards
Robert W Turner says: “And it appears we are currently going into another La Nina?”
You’re correct that weekly NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies have dropped below the threshold of La Nina conditions. But it’s awfully late in the season for it to turn into a real La Nina–it’s also way too early to be thinking about the one for next season. Also NINO1+2 sea surface temperature anomalies have recently ended their almost year long “cold” spell and they’re now about +0.6 deg C.
I just posted the mid-January 2014 SST update:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/mid-january-2014-sea-surface-temperature-sst-anomaly-update/
Sorry about my delay in responding to comments and the late posting of the update.
Bob Tisdale says:
January 20, 2014 at 3:04 pm
Thanks, but because none of them agree with the same trend how do we know which one is correct?
All have very restricted data and different techniques from the earlier periods, so cant be too confident with any of them. I don’t think I will be convinced which one is correct until get longer period of data from much better observations over recent decades. Covering a future full negative PDO phase should do it.
Tilsdale says “Did Power et al. (2013) overlook one of the critical findings of Guilyardi et al. (2009)?”
First off, the Guilyardi paper is a commentary and a bit of a review; how can it have “findings”. They are only opinions. (Sort of like a blog article)
But really, am I looking at the same paper you are seeing? The one sentence summary (one sentence, Bob!) of the Guilyardi paper is “New community strategies to improve understanding and modeling of El Niño in state of the art climate models provide opportunities for more accurate tropical climate predictions”. Not only is Guilyardi on the Power paper but the Power paper is exactly what the Guilyardi review was suggesting that we need.
In any case, the Power paper makes a prediction, and they use data to make their suggestion. We can only wait to see if they are correct or not.
In 1947 an unidentified object crashed at a ranch near Roswell, with controversy ensuing about the identity of the object. While official explanations at the time centered around a secret military balloon, rumours to the contrary although met by official denial were confirmed when coupled models of interplanetary travel and civilization interactions gave strong theoretical underpinning to the conclusion that the Roswell object was indeed an alien spacecraft. First contact between civilizations has grave potential to destabilise and irreversibly transform established civilizations which are contacted by xenoplanetary intelligent beings, not to mention the severe and indeed intolerable threat posed by intelligence in general to the proud edifice of human science. Here we develop further interplanetary interactiion models to show incontrovertibly that all complex human technology particularly that emitting CO2 and having connections however indirect with Republican congressmen is likely to approxximately double the risk of a xenoplanetary invasion of earth within the next century. The solution proposed to mitigate this risk is a carefully planned and coordinated return of human civilization to the stone age with special priority in putting an end to blogging and any radio or other communication technology.
Here we present climate modelling evidence for a doubling in the occurrences in the future in response to greenhouse warming.
==============
OK, so how many El Niño’s have there been since 97/98? Double the number previous? I don’t think so. So, even with the advantage of knowing the future (because it is now the past) the models still get it wrong!!
The pulse is in the toe he’s stepping over the set-up line.
===========
Steven Mosher says:
January 20, 2014 at 9:28 am
kim. another bot is on the thread
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kim and steven are bots?
phlogiston says: @ur momisugly January 20, 2014 at 3:45 pm
In 1947 an unidentified object crashed at a ranch near Roswell….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Are you channeling Al Gore?
“We currently experience an unusually strong El Niño event every 20 years. Our research shows this will double to one event every 10 years,” said co-author, Dr Agus Santoso of CoECSS
—————–
2014-1998 = 16 years and counting. So your research prediction of 10 years is a fail. Thus, your hypothesis is WRONG.
If we get an unusually strong El Niño in 4 more years it will simply be normal climate, though Climate Science will see it as Armageddon. If we don’t Climate Scientists will be running around with their heads on fire, solving the problem of the missing heat.
Carbomontanus on January 20, 2014 at 8:18 am
Ladies and Gentlemen including Moderator
Your pompous diatribe of doggsdickery makes you the ideal spokes-err-something for the AGW establishment, as does the grating pomposity of giving yourself a name derived from one of the Renaissance founding fathers Regiomontanus. Crappomontanus would be closer to the mark one feels. Your kind are the anti-renaissance attempt to undo the scientific method and all that has been achieved by the systematic application of honesty.
Your attempt to discredit Bjerknes is quite understandable. His insight into the intermittent positive feedback between Peruvian upwelling and trade winds lies at the core of any understanding of ENSO. It points inescapably to the nature of ENSO as an intermittent nonlinear oscillator. You are of course in good company being uncomfortable with this conclusion, many are nervous of Bjerknes and where his discovery leads and shy away from mentioning his name.
Bjerknes means that you cant have an ocean driven climate that is passively driven, either by CO2 or astrophysical cycles or volcanos or any other trivial externality. It has its own dynamic and drives itself.
Bob @3pm, no I was just trying to point out your tendency in cherry picking quotes which can in effect misrepresent the message that others are trying to make. Just be careful not to swing too much to the other side. Otherwise it would reflect badly on you and those who just blindly support whatever point you are trying to make.
Pippen Kool says: “First off, the Guilyardi paper is a commentary and a bit of a review; how can it have ‘findings’”.
You can’t spin this, Pippen Kool. Guilyardi et al cited about 100 papers and were quite explicit in the presentation of the failings of climate model depictions of ENSO. If you had any comprehension of ENSO you’d understand the significance of the paper.
Pippen Kool says: “Not only is Guilyardi on the Power paper but the Power paper is exactly what the Guilyardi review was suggesting that we need.”
Eric Guilyardi is not listed as a contributor to Power et al, Pippen Kool.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature12580.html
Power et al focused on precipitation, just like Cai et al. The lead authors of both papers are affiliated with CSIRO, so one might assume the papers are linked. That is, one paper is an attempt to reinforce the other.
With respect to precipitation in the tropical Pacific, Guilyardi et al (2009) cited earlier papers, but states:
The “double Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ)” problem, in which a symmetrization of the circulation across the equator leads to a spurious Southern Hemisphere ITCZ and is associated with excessive precipitation
over much of the tropics, remains a major source of model error in simulating the annual cycle in the tropics (Lin 2007a), and it can ultimately impact the fidelity of the simulated El Niño (Guilyardi et al. 2003; Sun et al. 2009).
In other words, the model simulations of precipitation in the tropical Pacific during La Niña and ENSO-neutral conditions times are flawed. So both Power et at and Cai et al had to focus on something that the models seemed to simulate properly.
I’m going to cut and paste part of my earlier reply to AH for your Pippen Kool:
…Cai et al found 20 models that performed one aspect…let me repeat that, one aspect…of ENSO properly, precipitation. In the real world, during an El Niño, warm waters from the west Pacific Warm Pool flood into the eastern tropical Pacific, and the convection, clouds and precipitation accompany it. So in some models (but apparently not all models), the precipitation accompanies the warm water into the eastern tropical Pacific during a poorly simulated El Niño. What’s remarkable is that somehow that serves as the basis for a scientific study!
In order to come to their conclusions, Cai et al (2014) had to overlook the fact that the models can’t simulate the basic, fundamental processes that drive ENSO events…or their frequency, or their magnitude, or their duration, or their evolution, or their feedbacks, or their teleconnections, etc. That is, Cai et al have had to ignore that the models have no relationship to real world El Niños and La Niñas.
“rumours to the contrary although met by official denial were confirmed”
Following the basic and universally accepted principle (supported by years of experience) that one should never believe any rumour until it has been officially denied.
phlogiston says: @ur momisugly January 20, 2014 at 4:40 pm ….
>>>>>>>>>>>
A talk delivered as a tribute to J. Bjerknes on the 100th anniversary of his birth
“Pippen Kool says: “Not only is Guilyardi on the Power paper but the Power paper is exactly what the Guilyardi review was suggesting that we need.”
Eric Guilyardi is not listed as a contributor to Power et al, Pippen Kool.”
My mistake. Guilyardi is on the Cai paper. Did you know that when you corrected me? Why didn’t you just correct the statement?
Anyone spins reviews as “findings” is not a scientist, 100 refs or 1000 refs. Reviews are cool, students like them, and they are often done in conjunction with submitting a grant, since you can get a publication out of your work for the grant application. But Cai’s work and Powers for that matter need to be based on primary literature not reviews. In point, the Guilyardi paper is not referenced in the Cai paper, I think because it is just a review and somewhat dated. (My respect for Guilyardi, he doesn’t use it to pad his citation index).
The thing about this review is that it really doesn’t come out with anything particularly insightful, it just identifies now old problems that were current problems 5 years ago. So not only is it just a review, but it’s a dated review. I personally don’t know why you so taken with it.
In terms of your problem with the narrow focus of the Cai or Power papers, just exactly how do you think that science is done? The whole thing at once? No, you focus on a small part of the problem and solve it before moving on. in the Guilyardi review, they said that models (I assume the ones that existed at the time) had flaws, and that people need to work them out. So I can’t imagine why you can’t imagine that the Cai or Power Power papers are what Guilyardi was referring to when he wrote “New community strategies to improve understanding and modeling of El Niño in state of the art climate models provide opportunities for more accurate tropical climate predictions”.
So much as for “spin”.
Pippen Kool, you miss the obvious. The models do not properly simulate the basic processes that underlie El Nino events or La Nina events. Therefore, every subsequent feedback, aftereffect, teleconnection, seasonal component, etc., is flawed. I find it hard to believe you can’t grasp that.
Are you aware that in many models El Nino and La Nina events occur in the wrong part of the year? Are you aware that their amplitudes are wrong, which means they presently don’t simulate strength properly now? If they can’t simulate the current strength of ENSO events, then any forecast of future strength is worthless.
Have a good day.
Bob Tisdale says: “Pippen Kool, you miss the obvious. The models do not properly simulate the basic processes that underlie El Nino events or La Nina events. Therefore, every subsequent feedback, aftereffect, teleconnection, seasonal component, etc., is flawed.”
Well, 40 years ago the national weather service couldn’t have told me the high and low temps for 5 or 6 days in the future, like they do now. So I guess we should have just given it up there, it was ‘obviously’ hopeless!
What I think is that now we consider ENSO weather noise super imposed on the climate…but it will be figured out some day. There just aren’t enuf people working on it now, so progress seems glacial. Cheer up.
To all andeveryone exept Dr Phlogiston
Q1: How many promillers and/ or what kind of cocaine is that?
Q2, How does he draw out his cash?
Pip at 6:50 says “What I think is that now we . . .”
Who is “we”?
Who are “we”?