Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I got to thinking about the well-known correlation of El Ninos and global temperature. I knew that the Pacific temperatures lead the global temperatures, and the tropics lead the Pacific, but I’d never looked at the actual physical distribution of the correlation. So I went to the CERES dataset, and Figure 1 shows the result.
Figure 1. Correlation of detrended gridcell temperatures with the global temperature two months later. Blue square shows the extent of the 3D section shown in Figure 2. Gray lines show the zero value.
The joy of science to me is wondering what the final map will look like. This map made me laugh when it came up on the silver screen. I laughed because it’s a very good map of the path of the warm water pumped from the equator to the poles by the magnificent El Nino pump. I didn’t expect that at all.
To understand why a map showing each gridcell’s correlation with the planetary temperature two months later should also be a great map of the path of the water pumped by the El Nino pump, let’s consider the action of the pump in detail. Figure 2 shows a 3D section of the Pacific showing the ocean before and after the power stroke of the El Nino pump.
Figure 2. 3D section of the Pacific Ocean looking westward along the equator. The area covered is the blue box at the equator in Figure 1. Click on image for larger size. ORIGINAL CAPTION: This is a view of the current El Nino / La Nina evolving in the tropical Pacific Ocean. You are looking westward, across the equator in the Pacific Ocean, from a vantage point somewhere in the Andes Mountains in South America. The colored surfaces show TAO/TRITON ocean temperatures. The top surface is the sea-surface, from 8°N to 8°S and from 137°E to 95°W. The shape of the sea surface is determined by TAO/TRITON Dynamic Height data. The wide vertical surface is at 8°S and extends to 500 meters depth. The narrower vertical surface is at 95°W. SOURCE: click on “Animation”.
Now, every intermittent pump has a “power stroke” when it does the actual pumping. For example, the power stroke of your heart is marked by the “beat” of your heartbeat. (The heart has two pumping chambers, so there are two power strokes, with their timing signified by the “lub-dub” of your heartbeat.) The power stroke is the time when the work is done—it is the portion of the cycle where the water is moved by the pump. Figure 2 shows the situation before and after the power stroke of the El Nino pump.
On the left of Figure 2, we have the condition prior to the power stroke of the El Nino pump. In this condition, there is a build-up of warm water on the surface. As you might imagine, this also warms the atmosphere above it, and a few months later the warmth spreads to the planet as well.
However, when the amount of this warm water reaches a critical point, the El Nino phenomenon emerges. The wind that powers the El Nino pump arises, and it begins to blow. This wind blows the warm surface water strongly westwards. Essentially, the wind skims off the warm surface layer and pushes it all along the equator until it meets up with continental arc. This movement of untold cubic kilometres of water is the result of the power stroke of the El Nino pump.
On the right of Figure 2, we have the condition after the power stroke, when the wind has already blown the warm surface water westwards. Note that the cooler subsurface layers have been exposed. These layers are up to as much as 10°C cooler than the surface was before the power stroke. Naturally, the exposure of this huge area of cool water cools the atmosphere and thus the planet.
So with that as prologue, why does the correlation map of Figure 1 show the track taken by the warm water? It’s all a matter of timing.
Consider what happens when the El Nino pump skims off the warm surface of the equatorial Pacific waters. When the cool subsurface water is exposed all across that huge tropical area, first the Pacific atmosphere and then the whole planet starts to cool.
But actually, that’s not quite true. The whole planet doesn’t cool … because the warm surface water moved by the El Nino pump has to go somewhere. This means that the previously cooler areas to which the warm tropical water has been pumped are warming, while the rest of the planet is cooling … and as a result, we get the lovely blue and green areas of negative correlation shown in the western Pacific in Figure 1.
These areas demonstrate that when the warm Equatorial water hits the Asian continent and the shallow-water arc connecting Asia to Australia, the water pumped by the El Nino splits into two parts. One part of the warm water goes north, and one goes south.
And of course, like the other emergent climate phenomena, the El Nino pump functions to keep the Pacific from overheating. When there is a buildup of warm water, the El Nino pump emerges, pumps the warm water to the poles along the path shown in Figure 1, and then disappears until it is needed once again.
I can only stand in awe. This is a most ingenious method for temperature regulation. When the warm Pacific tropical surface waters get overheated, an emergent pumping system arises, which pumps the warm water polewards and exposes the cooler water underneath, and the cooler ocean waters in turn bring down the temperature of the whole planet … brilliant.
My regards to everyone,
w.
AS ALWAYS: If you disagree with something I’ve said, please quote the exact words you disagree with. That way all of us can understand exactly what you object to.
PS—It does strike me that with both a positively correlated and a negatively correlated area regarding the global temperature two months later, we should at least be able to forecast a few key climate parameters for a couple of months ahead …
Arno Arrak says: @ur momisugly February 27, 2014 at 4:59 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If you mention a book at least give the title. Otherwise it is very hard to locate.
TimTheToolMan says:
February 27, 2014 at 5:52 pm
Clearly, you misunderstand the import of Figure 1, which shows that very thing … in any case, the movement of the warm water resulting from El Nino/La Nina is well documented. Here’s a frame from the animated GIF posted by Bob Tisdale above …
This shows the aftermath of the big El Nino. You can see the warm water (high sea levels) in red on the left, and the cool residual water on the right … now take a look at Figure 1. See the same pattern?
I’ve never seen anything remotely resembling that. However, if you think that’s the case, then you should definitely dig up the data to support it. I’ve shown the observations that support my theory. You need to do the same.
w.
TimTheToolMan says:
February 27, 2014 at 6:30 pm
Manfred writes “After an El Nino, you will find tropical fish up to Alaska.”
I’m not doubting the warming effect of ENSO or its locations, its been well measured. Its the mass long range movement of that warm water that I’m sceptical of at this stage. There are indications its true but I’m not yet convinced and certainly not convinced its the only or even dominating factor.
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Bob Tisdale has shown the movement in temperature anomaly maps.
This is warm water from the warmest part of the Pacific and has the lowest density. Without a downwelling force it will stay near top whereever it is drifitng until it has cooled down.
Sir there is something I would like you to do if you could.
If I understand it correctly the Isthmus of Panama completely closed aprox 2.5M years ago and that appears to be when our current cycle of long periods of glaciation with short periods of inter-glacial warmth started. Could this isolation of the Atlantic/Caribbean from the Pacific be the cause? Perhaps if the warm waters from the Atlantic/Caribbean could still flow into the Pacific then this “power stroke” would send so much warmth to the poles that it would really bring our current iceage to a close.
So what I think would be interesting to do would be to create a computer simulation ( yes I know it would be a model and models are not always right but what harm would it do? ) to see what would happen if there was a big gap in the Isthmus of Panama that would let lots of warm water flow into the pacific. Perhaps it would warm the world enough to prevent the return of the ice?
Could you do this?
JimF says: @ur momisugly February 27, 2014 at 5:03 pm
Note this graph of changes in albedo has an inflection point at 1997-1998, same timing as the Super El Nino.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/earth_albedo_bbso.png?w=640
WUWT: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/10/17/earths-albedo-tells-a-interesting-story/
TimTheToolMan says:
February 27, 2014 at 6:30 pm
If you warm cold water, it doesn’t suddenly sprout tropical fish. The fish are up north because the warm water has been moved up there. Think about the Gulf Stream …
w.
Willis writes “If you warm cold water, it doesn’t suddenly sprout tropical fish.”
That is one of the indications…but it doesn’t preclude them from moving there with the warmth.
Willis Eschenbach: Now, you and Manfred are right that this is a simplified version of events. The lead-up to the pumping cycle is more complex than simple heating. In fact, there are bizarre things in the cycle like a very fast soliton wave (just one moving hump of water) that runs from west to east until it hits South America, and then reflects back as a different kind of wave … go figure. Emergent behavior.
Cool. (my sons say I over use that word.) Where can I read about it.
Bob Tisdale: There will come a day when researchers finally get around to analyzing each El Nino event independently.
Why? El Nino and La Nina emerge naturally from the ENSO. That is the view of Henk Dijkstra, in the book I mentioned earlier. It is the view that emerges naturally from reading your book “Who Turned on the Heat”, imo.
Willis Eschenbach: Now, is this the “watch implies a watchmaker” argument? Not at all. I’m simply pointing out how humans think. We infer purpose from observing the phenomenon at work.
Yeh. It’s almost irresistable.
Arno Arrak: What I said was true, Willis. It is not smart to make a virtue of ignorance as your reply does. But be that as it may be, thanks to me you now know how ENSO operates.
What is the title of your book? I looked for it on line, and couldn’t find a book about ENSO from you.
Manfed writes “Bob Tisdale has shown the movement in temperature anomaly maps.”
Bob has shown what appears to be warm water moving but could equally be water progressively warming further and further south (and north) with changing cloud cover as the wind patterns change. I’m too sceptical to accept long distance sloshing water theories without a bit more evidence 😉
Fish movement isn’t a bad one but they can still swim there by following the warmth.
Matthew R Marler says:
February 27, 2014 at 7:04 pm
Well … here’s my comment on it from 2011 …
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 11, 2011 at 7:10 pm
See also the video:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8zYKb2GoR4?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360%5D
Watch at about 0.:15, in 1997 before the big El Nino, you’ll see a very fast wave going from left to right. It was seeing this video that led me to research what was going on. When the wave hits South America is when the next step in the evolving El Nino kicks in … like Yogi Berra said, you can observe a lot by just looking.
w.
I can only stand in awe. This is a most ingenious method for temperature regulation. When the warm Pacific tropical surface waters get overheated, an emergent pumping system arises, which pumps the warm water polewards and exposes the cooler water underneath, and the cooler ocean waters in turn bring down the temperature of the whole planet … brilliant.
*****
So, what controls the energy of the cooler water underneath?
What happens if the the ‘cooler’ water underneath is well not so cool, or the other other extreme, is that it is too cool?
What are the boundary conditions for the upwelling water and how does that variance effect global temps.
I suspect an oscillation somewhere….
What would be nice would be a 3 dimensional cartoon of how the water flow through WestPac.
My understanding is that the Pacific Warm Pool (PWP) can be up to a metre higher than the sea level at the Eastern Pacific.
Looking at the size of the PWP compared to the size of the rest of the tropical Pacific, if all of this warm pool was to slosh back, how much higher would sea level be in the Eastern Pacific? Maybe 10cm? maybe 20cm? Hardly large enough to ‘expose’ cooler deep waters IMHO.
It seems to me that we have a fairly good understanding of El Nino. PWP waters spread out over a much larger area, hence warming a much larger area.
But theNino 1-2 regions are also at the tropics. It hardly seems likely that blowing 10-20cms off of the top of the Easter Tropical Pacific waters is going to expose waters much cooler than the original top water. I believe the Eastern Pacific can be up to 8DegC cooler than the Western Pacific. Is it really 8DegC cooler just 20cm down?
As one other commentor mentioned further up, what happened to the Humboldt Current?
IMHO, the speed of this Humboldt Current, and the amount of deep (much deeper than 20cm) cold water brought to the surface along Peruvian and Chilean coasts may explain the variability of the trade winds and the consequences (El Nino or La Nina or La Nada) thereof.
regards
dp says:
> February 27, 2014 at 5:25 pm
> But the energy that is doing all this radiating came
> from somewhere else nearby and that somewhere
> else is radiating at a lesser rate because of the la Niña
> power stroke. Care to do the math to include the total
> energy radiated for the entire affected area including
> the depleted area over a complete ENSO cycle?
Sorry; it’s *EXTREMELY* ugly. You basically have to do a time and area integral, using small chunks of water, and land/ice to cover the entire globe. Because the radiated energy flux is not linear with temp (it goes up as 4th power of temp K), you cannot use smoothed area average temperature.
> At this point it appears you have found the free lunch
> we’re all told doesn’t exist.
It’s a well-known law of physics, explaining how an incandescant lamp filament works, when heated to high temperatures. Another interesting observation; ice cover is a negative feedback. During winter there’s no sunlight in the far north, and even in the summer, it’s weak due to a low angle. Let’s compare a square metre of salty water at freezing point 270 K (-3 C due to salt), with a square metre of ice at 250 K (-23 C) in the Arctic ocean…
A square metre of water at 270 K (-3 C) is constantly radiating away
5.67 * (270 / 100) ^ 4 = 301 W/m^2
A square metre of ice at 250 K (-23 C) is constantly radiating away
5.67 * (250 / 100) ^ 4 = 221 W/m^2
That’s an extra 80 W/m^2. Winters with low ice Arctic Ocean cover result in a lot more energy being radiated away.
The doldrums (aka Intertropical Convergence Zone [ITZ]) at +5°N to -5°S, sit right in the middle of this model (+8°N to -8°S— cf. fig 2). Classically, The trade winds don’t blow in the doldrums and there could be days of no wind that becalmed sailors. Couldn’t this band of calm surface air allow for an equatorial countercurrent to prevent (or at least diminish) any trade-wind-generated, west-pacific “pile up.” Even if the ITZ wiggles around the equator, wouldn’t it still act like a hose (not to mention the north and south pacific gyres and the Indonesian throughflow that are continually “leaking” any build up immediately from the onset of windier trades). My knowledge of this is scanty–a lot gathered from reading WUWT. Can anyone clarify how the doldrums would affect, or not affect, the model? Thanks.
Gail said:
It would have dumped the heat without going to the poles. I’m trying to find out what it is about the “power stroke” that causes global warming/cooling. Willis stated it happens as an emphatic function of the ENSO cycle but all I’m seeing is resident energy being moved from here to there with no particular process that moves it to space. Without that there can be no global cooling from ENSO, only a regional change where things heat up here but cool down there.
Yes surface heat will get into the atmosphere and no heat leaves the earth system without passing through the atmosphere, but the heat was already poised to enter the atmosphere where it was – it didn’t need to go the the poles to do that, and going to the poles, so far, is no guarantee that energy will leave the system. ENSO does not change the power density of the Earth system, but a global average temperature change requires that happen.
It has been suggested by some here that it is absorbed by colder water or that the 4th power law kicks in because the energy becomes concentrated by ENSO, ignoring that the concentration resulted in energy depletion elsewhere. WTF? I read that wrong or someone doesn’t know where energy comes from and where it goes. ENSO causes it to leave the system or it doesn’t. If it does, how, and how much, and how do we know? The consequence of ENSO pointed out in the article says ENSO cools the planet (it is impossible for ENSO to heat the planet – it doesn’t create heat. If ENSO diminishes albedo then fine, show how).
The implication of this article is ENSO creates new opportunities for energy to leave the ocean and head to dark voids between the stars. I don’t see these new opportunities yet. I only see energy moving around the planet and creating regional warming here, or preventing regional warming by depriving energy from going there.
I’m a skeptic – that used to mean something here.
http://ieor.columbia.edu/venkat-venkatasubramanian
(3) Complex Adaptive Teleological Systems: An important challenge facing the 21st century science is in understanding how complex adaptive systems composed of millions of relatively simple interacting entities produce complex emergent behavior. Such emergent behavior is seen in a wide range of problems such as the behavior of ant colonies, flocking behavior of birds, investor behavior in stock markets, consciousness in brain and so on.
Our group is interested in the modeling, analysis, control and optimization of such emergent phenomena in complex, adaptive, networked, teleological systems via self organization. Teleological systems are systems with a purpose or goal. They are specifically designed, or evolved, to achieve this purpose in some operating environment, often competitive or even hostile. They are different from ordinary thermodynamical systems, such as gas molecules enclosed in a container, which are governed by the laws of statistical thermodynamics. The molecules themselves are purpose-free.
Complex teleological systems may be human-designed, such as the ones in engineering (e.g., Internet, transportation networks, national power grids, etc.), economics (e.g., corporations, supply chain networks, etc.), sociology (e.g., governmental organizations), and so on. They can also be naturally evolved complex systems such as cellular and metabolic networks, protein interaction networks, food webs, ecosystems, etc. One may view the purpose or goal as a survival objective of teleological systems in some environment. For example, in biology, an organism needs to execute the functions of reproduction and growth, at some desired performance levels dictated by the environment, in order to survive, grow and propagate its species. In economics, a corporation needs to execute a variety of business and/or manufacturing functions efficiently, safely, and quickly in order to survive and grow in a competitive market for its customers. Professor Venkat’s group is exploring a deeper understanding of such networks using statistical mechanics, optimization, artificial intelligence, and artificial life models.
“teleology”
Find myself agreeing with Mosh. It’s ok to marvel that we live in this verdant paradise while all the universe as far as we can see is a godforsaken hades or frozen desert, but it is not science.
The “power stroke” is a sleeper wave, a harmonic of the Rossby, Kelvin, and likely other unidentified waves bouncing around the ocean basins. It does not happen because it is too cold.
The trade winds that pile the water against Indonesia do not arise because the planet is “too hot”. The ENSO cycle has existed at some level during both warming and cooling trends. We have index for it in tree rings, coral, and cave carbonate right through the little ice age.
The trade winds seem modulated by the PDO, which spans several ENSO cycles.
At some point we all give in to the sense of purpose.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8zYKb2GoR4?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360%5D
Thanks Willis. That looks amazingly informative. I’ll have to spend some time replaying it.
It’s a shame you did not post your code this time. You did reply to a request for different lags but I think it may be informative to run at least 18 months in both directions. If you want prediction, like you suggested may be possible one would need to look at more than just on lag value that shows a pronouced patter.
I’d run it each direction at least until I saw the first negative correlation in each direction.
All these regions that are linked at the same lags seem too widely dispersed for it to be simple unidirectional causation. It looks more like common cycles that are at different phases in different parts of the globe. That is to say common causation, though there is clearly a lot of effects propagating around the oceans, this could be part of cycle patterns too.
What Willis is describing (and Bob Tisdale in his books) is the way the chaotic surface flows fluctuate within certain parameters before ultimately feeding into the thermohaline conveyor belt at the poles.
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/currents/06conveyor2.html
I’m a little surprised that some people doubt that masses of water can move or slosh around the ocean. Anyone who has swam in California can attest to the fact that cold water moves down the west coast, progressively warming as it goes. The water here is much colder than the equivalent latitude on the east coast where the warm water is flowing north from the Gulf of Mexico. The oceans have immense currents moving warm masses of surface waters to the poles. They continuously dump some of their heat as they meander, eventually reaching the poles and freezing temperatures. As the ice forms, the remaining water is dense from both temperature and elevated salinity. The ocean deeps are incredibly cold, being filled with super cold salt water. The warm surface currents flow around on top of the dense cold deep ocean basins.
It makes perfect sense to me that the steady trade winds can accumulate warm surface waters. I do think we still have a lot to learn about the sources of the warm water. Maybe it’s all sunlight fueled, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was also some subterranean volcanic or tectonic component.
TimTheToolMan says:
February 27, 2014 at 7:35 pm
Manfed writes “Bob Tisdale has shown the movement in temperature anomaly maps.”
Bob has shown what appears to be warm water moving but could equally be water progressively warming further and further south (and north) with changing cloud cover as the wind patterns change. I’m too sceptical to accept long distance sloshing water theories without a bit more evidence 😉
Fish movement isn’t a bad one but they can still swim there by following the warmth.
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Agree with most of that. Though the warm water is not sloshing to the poles but transported by the usual dynamo ocean currents.
Fish movement isn’t a bad one
Gravity isn’t a bad one either, warm water will not sink down, once it leaves the warm tropical waters.
A third one are step function temperature increases which last for multi years after each El Nino. These are explainable by huge close to surface layers of warm water transported out of the tropical region, but not by thin layers of sea surface heated by weather.
ARGO may be able to measure this.
Bob, that mean sea level anomaly animation is very interesting. How about you give credit to whoever created it and a link to source rather than dumping it in a dropbox?
One thing I find odd is if you watch the Indian Ocean as well as Pacific. Much of the time I.O. is in phase with central Pacific with the indonesian area in anti-phase.
Do the trade winds blow in opposite directions in the Indian Ocean?