El Niño and La Niña events are the dominant modes of natural climate variability on Earth, which is why the state of the tropical Pacific is continuously monitored. El Niños and La Niñas impact weather patterns globally. As a number of recent papers have argued, the dominance of La Niña events in recent years is responsible for part of the cessation in global surface warming outside of the Arctic, so by inference, those papers are also stating that a string of strong El Niño events were responsible for part of the long-term warming from the mid-1970s to the turn of the century. There’s nothing new about that; for years we’ve been discussing the naturally occurring, sunlight-fueled processes that drive El Niño events and cause long-term warming of global surface temperatures. If this subject is new to you, see the link at the end of this post for an overview.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) provides the following summary of their ENSO forecasts in their January 30, 2014 El Niño/La Niña Update:
- ENSO conditions are currently neutral (neither El Niño nor La Niña);
- As of mid-January 2014, except for a small possibility for weak and brief La Niña development during the next couple of months, outlooks indicate likely continuation of neutral conditions into the second quarter of 2014;
- Current forecasts indicate approximately equal chances for neutral conditions or the development of a weak El Niño during the third quarter of 2014, reflecting increased chances for development of a weak El Niño.
It appears no one is suggesting that a full-fledged La Niña will form for the 2014/15 season. As of the week centered on February 5th, the sea surface temperature anomalies of the NINO3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific indicated that the tropical Pacific was experiencing La Niña conditions, though not an “official” La Niña. See the monthly sea surface temperature update for January 2014.
What’s your prediction? Please provide links to the variables you monitor. Here’s what I predict.
I predict, if we see El Niño conditions, global warming enthusiasts will cheer, because they have forecast, in turn, that record high global temperatures will accompany the next El Niño. And I predict, if we see La Niña or ENSO-neutral conditions, skeptics will cheer, because global surface temperatures should continue to remain flat. (Other than that, I don’t make predictions.)
The ENSO wrap-up from Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) for February 14, 2014 provides a similar loose forecast. (For those who live north of the equator, keep in mind the BOM is discussing austral seasons.)
And NOAA’s CPC has a similar mix of possible scenarios in their Weekly ENSO Update dated February 10, 2014—though the NCEP’s models are forecasting El Niño conditions starting in April-June 2014. See page 27.
The WMO briefly mentions the problems with ENSO predictions during this part of the year. They write:
It must be noted that model outlooks that span March-May period tend to have particularly lower skill than those made at other times of year. Hence some caution should be exercised when using long range outlooks made at this time for the middle of the year and beyond.
ENSO predictions at this time of year are hampered by a problem called the Spring Prediction Barrier. See the discussion at the IRI website here. But a series of new papers claim to have overcome that hurdle.
The recently published Ludescher et al (2014) Very Early Warning of Next El Niño (paywalled) are predicting El Niño conditions by late 2014. The abstract reads:
The most important driver of climate variability is the El Niño Southern Oscillation, which can trigger disasters in various parts of the globe. Despite its importance, conventional forecasting is still limited to 6 mo ahead. Recently, we developed an approach based on network analysis, which allows projection of an El Niño event about 1 y ahead. Here we show that our method correctly predicted the absence of El Niño events in 2012 and 2013 and now announce that our approach indicated (in September 2013 already) the return of El Niño in late 2014 with a 3-in-4 likelihood. We also discuss the relevance of the next El Niño to the question of global warming and the present hiatus in the global mean surface temperature.
Global warming enthusiasts have already started cheering for an El Niño. See the Michael Slezak article in NewScientist titled El Niño may make 2014 the hottest year on record. And Andrew Freedman of ClimateCentral begins his post Study Sounds ‘El Niño Alarm’ For Late This Year:
A new study shows that there is at least a 76 percent likelihood that an El Niño event will occur later this year, potentially reshaping global weather patterns for a year or more and raising the odds that 2015 will set a record for the warmest year since instrument records began in the late 19th century.
Ludescher et al (2014) appears to be based on Ludescher et al (2013) Improved El Niño forecasting by cooperativity detection (paywalled). We discussed the earlier Ludescher et al paper in the July 2013 post El Niño in the News. I closed that post with:
DID GLOBAL WARMING CAUSE THE EL NIÑOS OR DID EL NIÑOS CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING?
Numerous datasets indicate that El Niño events are fueled naturally. Additionally, satellite-era sea surface temperature records indicate that El Niño events are responsible for the warming of sea surface temperatures over the past 31 years, not vice versa as Li et al (2013) have suggested. If this topic is new to you, refer to my illustrated essay “The Manmade Global Warming Challenge” [42MB].
The ENSO models have been proven to have little to no skill. They have been predicting an El Nino for a while now but the Pacific waters fail to deliver. I have a feeling that the latest predictions will fail to verify also. Instead of getting warmer the Nino 3.4 area continues to be cool.
My prediction: continued ENSO Neutral conditions with the potential for a weak La Nina. I’ll be VERY surprised if an El Nino forms in 2014.
I think we’re due for an extended period of La Nada, like in the early 60s and late 70s, with the overall trend tending toward La Niña. I base this on AO, NAO and Antarctic Oscillation tending negative.
I find it touching…and rather hilarious this welter of predictions, prognoses, causes and effects. We are becoming more and more like the Warmists every day, we see one pattern (or in this case non-pattern) emerging over twenty or thirty years, and suddenly we are attributing to it all kinds of irrelevant significance.
Firstly, important as they are…the La Nina – El Nino phenomena are not ‘the drivers of global temperature’, they are and can only be one part of a global circulation pattern (because over some timescale, hot and cold water has to ‘come’ from somewhere and go somewhere else yea?)
So perhaps we should try to identify and refine our knowledge of other large circulation patterns, North Atlantic, Indian, Southern Oceans spring immediately to mind…and then we should bear in mind that the not only do the oceans shunt energy round the planet, the atmosphere picks up and transfers energy from the oceans carrying it for thousands of miles in a matter of hours thanks to the Jet stream, tropical thunderstorms etc.
And as for ‘predictions’ the ‘wankers’ at the Australian BOM leapt onto the El Nino bandwagon a year or so ago when it looked like it might swing that way…then went strangely silent when it swung back again.
On a slightly more serious note there may well be a rhythm to these events but for us to even try and guess at it with so little data over such a short timescale is nigh on pointless.
surface temperatures, with a 2-month lag:
ENSO Correlation
Thought I might get away with pasting the picture as I do text. Nope.
What is really interesting to me is that is just a classic picture of what I call the Nino phase of the PDO.
http://geosciencebigpicture.com/2014/01/24/a-new-feature-of-the-pacific-decadal-oscillation/pdo_warm_cool3/
Here is another picture from Wikipedia where they “detrended” the anomaly by dividing it by the global anomaly, yet it produces the same pattern even though in 2012 the “trend” was strongly to a nina phase of PDO.
http://wp.me/a1uHC3-fN
Why these two statistical machinations converge to this pattern is a puzzle.
I predict that for the next two decades ninos will be shorter and weaker because they will be aborted and miscarried by cold water from the Humboldt and California currents. I predict for three decades after that they will progressively gain in strength and duration as the lobe of water in the north Pacific changes from most often warm, as it currently is, to cold, as the two pictures show.
For the same reason arctic outbreaks tend to follow continents, they follow the tongue of cold water from Eurasia during the nino phase, causing the Aleutian low.
Bob, minor typo. You got the title of Ludescher et al. wrong, it should be “Very Early Warning of Next El Niño” not “Very Early Warming of Next El Niño”
charles nelson says:
February 15, 2014 at 2:43 pm
“On a slightly more serious note there may well be a rhythm to these events but for us to even try and guess at it with so little data over such a short timescale is nigh on pointless.”
I’ll give you good odds that this sort of quasi pendulum like behaviour will continue, at least into the near future.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c274/richardlinsleyhood/PDOLowpass_zpsa9b3df25.png
Pamela Gray: Matthew co2 can only produce long wave re-radiation which has very little power to penetrate beyond mm depth into the ocean skin and is likely evaporated off almost immediately, therefor cannot warm the surface to a depth that can increase El Niño SST measures.
As I wrote, you state one side in a debate I am having. If you have evidence that the extra energy in a slight increase in downwelling LWIR is “likely evaporated off almost immediately”, I would like to see it. Also in dispute is whether the increased water vapor in the atmosphere is a net positive feedback or net negative feedback mechanism to CO2-induced atmospheric warming. If the net effect is an increase in the duration of daytime cloud cover in the summertime, then it is a net negative feedback.
Your phrase “very little power” is insufficiently precise. The effect of doubling of CO2 is predicted to be about a 0.7% – 1% increase in the baseline mean temperature of 288K. What you call “little power” might be enough to produce some of that warming.
@pokerguy-I did not misspeak. Post hoc ergo propter hoc is “after this, therefore because of this” whereas “cum hoc ergo propter hoc” means “with this, therefore because of this”
The claim of bogus ENSO effects is not even post hoc, it’s cum hoc..
Bob, excellent post. I like to add that in spanish, it is gramatically incorrect to say “La Niñas” or “El Niños”. In this case the correct form “Las Niñas” or “Los Niños” should not be used; it is better to stick to “El Niño events” or “La Niña events”.
@Henry, My motivation is that I believe between, some fundamental cloud/rain/water vapor mechanism, ENSO, aresols, and Solar variation the majority of climate variation is found. Not knowing how the clouds and water vapor work, nor where the aresols will end up at; I am looking at decreasing solar activity, in conjunction with a bunch of strong trade winds: a cooling atmosphere will kick those winds up more and cause a profound La Nina.
RE: Retired Engineer John says:
February 15, 2014 at 8:20 am
Thanks for pointing out that interesting gyre made of slightly less salty water. Salinity seems an important component to the mysterious dynamics that govern the ebb and flow of currents, though mostly you see it discussed in terms of arctic sea ice. At times I fear people may be over-focused on temperature.
I have always wondered if the up-welling might have a power most don’t see, coming from down deep. Most assume the cold water is dragged up by trade-winds blowing away from shore, (or the earth’s rotation.) Their focus is on the winds, the amount of cloud cover, and the warming and piling up of the surface waters, and the eventual back-wash when a counter-current exists.
I have never been able to find the slightest evidence of the cold depths being able to turn on and turn off a sort of nozzle of cold water, but for some reason I can’t keep from searching for signs. To imagine the thermohaline circulation is a semi-stagnant flow, without waves and swirls of its own, just goes against my intuition somehow.
http://www.climategeology.ethz.ch/publications/2013_Cobb_et_al.pdf
Taken together, the Line Islands fossil coral
data suggest that much of the observed differences
in ENSO variance over the past 7 ky reflect strong
internal variability. The fact that we detect no dis-
cernible influence of orbitally induced insola-
tion forcing on ENSO is noteworthy, given that
the effect of insolation forcing on global mon-
soon circulations is well documented (27,28).
Relatively robust 20th-century ENSO variability
may reflect a sensitivity to anthropogenic green-
house forcing, but definitive proof of such an
effect requires much longer data sets than are
currently available, given the large range of nat-
ural ENSO variability implied by the available
fossil coral data.
http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/enso-and-tidal-forcing.htm
ENSO forecast based on tidal forcing with an Artificial Neural Network
Caleb says:
February 15, 2014 at 3:43 pm
“I have always wondered if the up-welling might have a power most don’t see, coming from down deep. Most assume the cold water is dragged up by trade-winds blowing away from shore, (or the earth’s rotation.) Their focus is on the winds, the amount of cloud cover, and the warming and piling up of the surface waters, and the eventual back-wash when a counter-current exists”
The tides move a lot more energy than people give them credit for. Internal Tides, not that trivial bouncing up and down you see at the surface.
http://s29.photobucket.com/user/richardlinsleyhood/media/TheInternalTideatHawaii_zps7c7d5dbf.png.html
And all completely out of sight as well.
Caleb says:
February 15, 2014 at 3:43 pm
I have always wondered if the up-welling might have a power most don’t see, coming from down deep.
==================
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_tide
It is now known that most of the internal tide energy generated at tall, steep midocean topography radiates away as large-scale internal waves. This radiated internal tide energy is one of the main sources of energy into the deep ocean, roughly half of the wind energy input . Wunsch and Ferrari (2004) “A number of lines of evidence, none complete, suggest that the oceanic general circulation, far from being a heat engine, is almost wholly governed by the forcing of the wind field and secondarily by deep water tides.”
Analysis shows tidal forcing is a major factor in ENSO forcing
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/20/analysis-shows-tidal-forcing-is-as-a-major-factor-in-enso-forcing/
This radiated internal tide energy is one of the main sources of energy into the deep ocean, roughly half of the wind energy input . Wunsch and Ferrari (2004)
==============
but, but, but, didn’t Trenberth say it was all due to the missing heat?
I would like to see what the albedo is doing now. It decreased until ~1997/1998 around the time of the Super El Niño and then started increasing again. The question of course is has it continued to increase and where has it increased.
WUWT had this graph HERE
Climate 4 You has a page on clouds and graphs up to 2009 for cloud cover showing a slight increase in cloud cover since ~2000. High level and middle level clouds have increased while low level clouds decreased. They also have a graph of tropical cloud cover and global air temperature and again it is the high level cloud cover that is increasing during this century.
(wwwDOT)climate4you.com/ClimateAndClouds.htm
Data from: isccp(DOT)giss.nasa.gov/products/onlineData.html
(GISS has not up dated since 2009.)
The other more recent graph I found is HERE which looks like a reanalysis of the first graph with perhaps another year of data. They really changed the shape.
From a draft of the paper: Inter-annual variations in Earth’s reflectance 1999-2007.
Also of interest: (wwwDOT)spacearchive.info/news-2004-05-27-cit.htm
If the same pattern has continued, increasing or level cloud cover especially in the tropics, I doubt we will get much of an El Niño if we get one at all but think we are looking at La Nada. There is just not enough energy going into the oceans.
Tisdale says, “As a number of recent papers have argued, the dominance of La Niña events in recent years is responsible for part of the cessation in global surface warming outside of the Arctic, so by inference, those papers are also stating that a string of strong El Niño events were responsible for part of the long-term warming from the mid-1970s to the turn of the century.”
But, of course they are not saying that, that is your inference not theirs.
A more plausible way to look at it is that during La Niña the delta T from air to water is high, and more energy than normal ends up going into the water, warming the water in the Pacific and then that warmer water wanders into the Indian Ocean and elsewhere. During El Niño conditions, the delta is small and less energy ends up going into the water and ends up remaining in the air. In either case, the warming is the same; the only thing that is different is where the energy ends up going. In the end, the amount of energy in the system increases.
As the tide comes in, waves make the water surface momentarily higher and momentarily lower. So it is with ENSO.
Matthew R Marler says: @ur momisugly February 15, 2014 at 12:49 pm
…If it be true that “El Niño events are fueled naturally”, what is the “fuel”? If the fuel is the heat in the climate system, and if it is true that extra CO2 in the atmosphere results in extra heat in the climate system…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The energy for the climate system comes from the sun. Clouds modify how much energy enters the surface, especially the oceans.
CO2 has nothing to do with it. GRAPH: Solar radiation at various Ocean Depths note on graph:
“What’s your prediction?”
We’re doomed.
ferdberple says:
February 15, 2014 at 4:13 pm
“but, but, but, didn’t Trenberth say it was all due to the missing heat?”
Nah. It’s bouncing up and down on the trampoline around Hawaii.
http://s29.photobucket.com/user/richardlinsleyhood/media/TheInternalTideatHawaii_zps7c7d5dbf.png.html
On holiday.
I think there will be an El Nino, by the way. One reason is that I believe the kind of winter we’ve just had (in the US) is a “precursor” to El Ninos, generally.
Another potential precursor: precipitation in the part of Florida I happen to live in!
I’ve noticed that we get the wetter or drier conditions typically associated with El Nino or La Nina here, sometimes before the event is declared. Well, so far we’ve had what seems like a lot of rain for the dry season.
Up here in Northern California, in Anthony and my neighborhood, La Niña conditions should persist through the winter of 2015. I have seen over the last 25 years that our drought/precipitation levels follow the drought/precipitation levels of southern California by one year, and the southern part of our state is currently receiving below normal levels of precipitation.
It should be noted that the 1998 ElNino caused a step of about 0.3C after it settled down. Start of 2000)
It should then be noted that the smaller 2010 ElNino did not cause any step up in the global temperature at all.