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 …
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Someone recommended the World wind map to show the highs and lows that cause the winds around the world at work. It is beautiful, but is not this also showing the world working at divesting itself of heat to space?
GUIDOT says:
March 1, 2014 at 2:53 am
Thanks, GUIDOT, your paper is interesting, although the math made my head hurt. However, I fear I would side with the editors in this question. Part of the problem is that when you have emergent phenomena, the chain of causation often is far from clear.
For example. consider the daily emergence of tropical cumulus and thunderstorms. When the thunderstorms arise and the rain falls, if you say “why is it cool now”, everyone will point to the thunderstorm as the cause of the cool air and cool rain. From that perspective, they look like a forcing.
But the thunderstorms are created and caused by ∆T, the difference in temperature between the surface and the overlying air. As a result, it is fair to say that the thunderstorms are caused by the heating of the surface.
But of course, that leads us to an odd (but true) conclusion, which is that the cooling is caused by the heating …
The same is true of the PDO. When the world is a bit hotter than usual, the PDO reorganizes in such a way as to enhance the equator to polar transport of energy. And when the planet is cooler than usual, it reorganizes to slow the polar energy transport.
As a result, the same situation occurs, where when the temperature gets above a certain level, the heating causes the cooling, and vice versa …
So while you are right that the PDO is the cause of various changes in the temperature, if you look further back along the chain, it is the temperature which is causing the variations in the PDO … and that’s why I agree with the editors. Rather than being a forcing, I would describe the PDO, like the El Nino pump and the thunderstorms, as emergent responses to the forcings, rather than being forcings in their own right.
Best regards,
w.
Allan M.R. MacRae says:
March 1, 2014 at 3:00 am
Mmmm … that’s a terrible hypothesis, since we don’t have much evidence that CO2 drives temperature. Since we don’t know either if or how strongly CO2 drives temperature, saying that temperature driving CO2 is “much more than” that unknown amount doesn’t tell me much.
I’d have to see the numbers on that one to believe it. The temperature changes during the ice ages drove the CO2 changes, but if we apply the same factors to the tiny temperature increase since 1980, it is a long ways from explaining the changes in atmospheric CO2.
The problem is that during the glacial/interglacial swings, the CO2 concentration went up by about 8 ppmv per degree of warming … so this would only explain maybe 6 ppmv of CO2 increase over the entire 20th century.
How do I know that it’s 8 ppmv per degree? … The usual method. I went and got the estimated temperatures from Vostok and the CO2, and I ran the numbers myself. I encourage you to do the same.
This is not true at all. In fact, the atmospheric CO2 tracks the changes in human emissions very well, if we assume that there is the normal exponential response to the disturbance which we see in other systems.
w.
Hi Willis
“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.”
I thought it was La Niña that drove the water westward, exposing the cool water underneath.
I suggest you are misinterpreting what I said, Willis.
Please re-read what I wrote, not what others have written on the subject.
I am clearly NOT saying that temperature is the ONLY source of increasing CO2. Other sources of CO2 could be fossil fuel combustion and or deforestation, etc. However, this is essentially irrelevant because there is no evidence that CO2 drives temperature, and substantial evidence that temperature drives CO2.
I AM saying that CO2 lags temperature at ALL measured time scales, from ~9 months in the modern UAH Lower Troposphere record to ~800 years in the ice core record.
I am also saying that both sides of the mainstream climate debate, the skeptics and the alarmists, assume that CO2 drives temperature, they just disagree as to the magnitude of ECS, and I say they are both fundamentally wrong.
Allan M.R. MacRae says:
March 1, 2014 at 7:51 pm
I am not misinterpreting what you said, Allan, or at least I don’t think so. You said:
I showed that changes in temperature increased the atmospheric CO2 by about 8 ppmv per degree of warming.
That is far, far too small to “explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980”. The temperature change since 1980 is maybe 0.4°C, which would give us about 3 ppmv of CO2 increase … but the total increase in CO2 since 1980 is about 40 ppmv. So the CO2 from the temperature change is less than 10% of the total change in CO2.
So no, it’s not “substantial”, and I didn’t misinterpret what you said.
w.
CO2 emissions from the equatorial Pacific are a function of the rate of change in SST (not average temperature) as the water is warmed by the sun as it goes from east to west. Multipe wave-length cycles are observed in that rate of change. The amplitude of those cycles decreases with increasing wave length.
Willis, you are not quoting me, you are quoting the following paper:
The Phase Relation between Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Global Temperature
Global and Planetary Change
Volume 100, January 2013, Pages 51–69
by Ole Humluma, Kjell Stordahlc, Jan-Erik Solheimd
who said:
“Changes in ocean temperatures explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980.”
Your above point re ~3 ppmv of CO2 increase has been ably made by Ferdinand Engelbeen many times over the past years in debates on wattsup and elsewhere with the very capable Richard S Courtney.
That is why I did say:
I am clearly NOT saying that temperature is the ONLY source of increasing CO2. Other sources of CO2 could be fossil fuel combustion and or deforestation, etc. However, this is essentially irrelevant because there is no evidence that CO2 drives temperature, and substantial evidence that temperature drives CO2.
The question of what is driving the significant increase in atmospheric CO2 is scientifically interesting but has little or no relevance to the global warming debate. It is significant that Earth is CO2-deficient at this time and additional CO2 from whatever source is clearly beneficial.
Gail Combs says, February 27, 2014 at 5:44 pm:
“(…) there is more to the climate system than ENSO. The Polar Vortex this winter just made that very clear. You could say the ENSO is the governed heat intake for the planet and the poles (and vortex) are the exit. The position of the jets governs part of the ‘Cooling’
Of course there is a heck of a lot more to it than that.”
Yes, regionally, you’re right. When it comes to global temperatures, ENSO is IT.
One more misquote by Willis:
“”Changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human emissions.”
This statement is not mine, but is ALSO from the paper:
The Phase Relation between Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Global Temperature
Global and Planetary Change
Volume 100, January 2013, Pages 51–69
by Ole Humluma, Kjell Stordahlc, Jan-Erik Solheimd
I included the highlights from this paper because two of its conclusions were essentially identical to those I made in my January 2008 paper. These were:
Highlights
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 9.5–10 months behind changes in global air surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature.
The first three conclusions from the Humluma et al paper suggest a mechanism:
1. Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 11–12 months behind changes in global sea surface temperature.
2. Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 9.5–10 months behind changes in global air surface temperature.
3. Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature.
The fourth and fifth conclusions from Humluma et all are more controversial and may or may not be correct – these are the ones Willis objected to – but neither is essential to my above hypo.
4. Changes in ocean temperatures explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980.
5. Changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human emissions.
Best to all, Allan
Allan M.R. MacRae says:
March 10, 2014 at 3:53 am
Allan, were you born this unpleasant, or did you have to work at it? This is not a “misquote”, and it most definitely is not “one more misquote” (In that regard, I note that you don’t have the balls to cite or in any way identify my previous claimed misquote, you just wave your hands and hope the lurkers will swallow your allegations … sorry, not gonna happen).
The section was quoted directly and accurately from your post above. In that post above, it is not quoted, italicized, or in any manner indicated as anything but your own words. If you’d like people to know it’s a quote and not your own words … well, put quotes around it, duh …
And in fact, AFAICT it’s not from the paper either, just in the “Highlights” listed by Elsevier to try to get me to pay $39,95 for the study. Not impressed.
Yes, and I included it in my reply because it was hogwash. Nonsense. I pointed out that yes, the changes in atmospheric CO2 not only track human emissions, they track them almost perfectly. I’ve discussed this numerous time, here’s a reference for the statement.
Instead of actually dealing with my objections to the quoted section, you want to tell me where the quote came from? What difference could that possibly make?
I don’t care in the slightest where the quote is from, Allan, whether you wrote it or someone else wrote it is immaterial to me. You seem to think that it’s not nonsense because it was published somewhere, sometime. You seem terribly concerned with the SOURCE of your information … me, I’m totally unimpressed with the VERACITY of your information.
If you think that CO2 doesn’t track human emissions, then it’s your job to look at my citation, figure out where I’m wrong, and point it out. If you could refrain from unpleasant uncited accusations while doing it, that would be a bonus.
w.
Willis, with respect, you are being ridiculous. You routinely have a major fit in this blog when you are misquoted, and now you are having another fit when I politely pointed out that you misquoted me. I am not being unpleasant above, I am merely stating the facts.
Now to the science question:
I do not necessarily support all the conclusions of Humluma et al, but their first three points cited above are valid and interesting and suggest a mechanism.
Humluma points 4 and 5 above are more controversial and may or may not be correct. However, the source of increasing atmospheric CO2 is scientifically interesting but I suggest materially irrelevant to the global warming debate, because the only discernible signal in the data is that CO2 LAGS temperature at all measured time scales.
So I did not respond to your point as you requested above, because I suggest that it is materially irrelevant.
A decade ago, when I last studied this matter in detail, I found that atmospheric CO2 does NOT track human fossil fuel emissions all that well. As I recall, I concluded that society has had periods of economic stagnation when fossil fuel consumption flat-lined, and atmospheric CO2 just kept increasing.
I also wonder if deforestation is as or more significant than fossil fuel combustion – I recall that Murry Salby pointed out some satellite data that supported this hypo. .
Also, if CO2 actually did closely track human emissions from combustion of fossil fuels , it is unlikely that the CO2-lags-temperature signal would survive in all the noise, and yet it clearly does.
Repeating, Ferdinand Engelbeen and Richard Courtney have ably discussed your point (the “Mass Balance Argument”) in these pages and elsewhere. I used to participate in these discussions, but now I just do not think the point is significant.
Let’s end this discussion, which has gone badly off-topic.
Personal regards, Allan
Allan M.R. MacRae says:
March 11, 2014 at 4:20 am
Allan, please. You quoted Elsevier’s cover notes about someone else’s study, but you didn’t put any quotation marks or other indication that it was a direct quote.
As a result, I assumed (since it had no quotes or any other indication) they were was your words, and I quoted them as such.
Now you want to bust me because you were too careless in using another man’s words to use quotation marks … sorry, Allan, not buying that in the slightest. That’s on you, not me.
w.
Allan M.R. MacRae says:
March 11, 2014 at 4:20 am
Since I don’t have a copy of the Humluma paper and it costs $39.95, unless you’re willing to send me your copy we have nothing to discuss regarding Humluma. Unless, of course, you don’t have a copy either and you’re just quoting the Elsevier cover notes and not the study itself …
Without a citation to your work, this is just bragging.
Again, without links this is nothing but handwaving.
Huh? No foundation, no logic, no citation, no indication of what “CO2-lags-temperature signal” you are referring to or how humans affecting CO2 levels would destroy such a signal … sorry, Allan, but that’s as empty as the rest of your claims.
Repeating. Without citations, this kind of handwaving is less than useless.
Since I don’t have the Humluma paper you discuss, and I don’t have your own work that you discuss, and I don’t have the Murray Saxby citation, and I don’t have any source for your claims about the “CO2-lags-temperature signal” or even a description of where said signal might be found, and I haven’t a clue what Engelbeen and Courtney said about whatever you think my “Mass Balance Argument” might be … well, I fear there is no “discussion” to end. To date it’s just been you shoveling a heap of unverified assertions onto the page.
So yes, I’m happy if (as you indicate) you want to stop shoveling …
w.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/30/important-paper-strongly-suggests-man-made-co2-is-not-the-driver-of-global-warming/#comment-1070493
Hello Willis,
Some references you said were absent are included in my above post from 2012.
– Japanese satellite results and Salby re sources of CO2 from deforestation.
– CO2-lags-temperature by nine months – my 2008 paper.
– Some of the many decade-long exchanges between Richard Courtney and Ferdinand Engelbeen on the Mass Balance Argument are also on this thread.
For example, Richard at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/30/important-paper-strongly-suggests-man-made-co2-is-not-the-driver-of-global-warming/#comment-1068368
and Ferdinand at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/30/important-paper-strongly-suggests-man-made-co2-is-not-the-driver-of-global-warming/#comment-1068377
My analysis of atmospheric CO2 vs fossil fuel consumption is unpublished – if I can find it quickly I will email it to you.
Willis, there is no justification for your anger in this discussion. Please try to be calm, for your own sake.
Regards, Allan
Allan M.R. MacRae says:
March 12, 2014 at 1:32 am
So what? While it’s good of you to offer them now, they were definitely absent from this discussion. Your attempt to cover this up by pointing out that in the past you cited them sometime somewhere in a galaxy far away … well, that’s less than impressive.
(In passing, I do love how you refer to them as “resources [I] said were absent”, as though I’d been wrong in that claim … I didn’t just “say” they were absent, Allan. They WERE absent. However, as a wordsmith I have to give credit where credit is due, and that’s a particularly clever way to try to obscure that fact.)
Allan, let me note that you accused me twice of misquoting you, when in fact I quoted exactly what you had put down on the page. I go to some lengths to quote people very exactly, and I had quoted you precisely.
I don’t like being accused of “misquoting” anyone, it’s an accusation of deliberate deception.
In fact, the problem was the you were inadvertently passing off someone else’s ideas as your own, by not bothering to put quotation marks around them. I didn’t “misquote” a damn thing … in fact, you quoted another man’s words as though they were your own. Not deliberately, mind you … but that’s what you did.
Now, that’s bad enough. But for you then to blame me for your cockup, and say that I misquoted you??? Sorry, Allan. Perhaps you can slide that kind of misdirection past your friends without them pointing it out. Me, I notice it and you are right … I find it unpleasant.
To add insult to injury, you go on to say there is “no justification for anger” … Allan, you’ve accused me twice of deliberately misquoting you. I don’t do that, it’s a matter of principle with me. You’re less wise than you appear if you expect that the world will receive that kind of insult lightly.
For me, at the end of the day it’s not a question of anger. It just moves you down the list of folks whose links I’m willing to take the time to follow …
w.
Nonsense Willis. I never said you were deliberately doing anything. I just said you misquoted me, which you did, twice.
You are grasping at straws, and your anger, real or feigned, is unjustified.
Read this exchange again in six months and you will feel foolish.
Regards,
Allan M.R. MacRae says:
March 12, 2014 at 8:36 pm
Allan, if you meant to say I accidentally misquoted you, you should have said so.
And even if so, I’d have though you would have dropped it after the first time I explained that I hadn’t misquoted one letter, period, or comma.
In fact, I quoted exactly and precisely what you wrote. I didn’t add, remove, or alter a single word. Your continued claim that I “misquoted” you, whether deliberately or not, is a total fabrication either way. That’s bs and you know it. You can’t point to one thing I said that was something you didn’t write in your comment, I copied and pasted your text. The claim of misquoting is totally untrue.
Egads, my dear fellow, setting yourself up as Nostradamus now, predicting my future are you? Folks have been saying the same thing to me for years … and despite their well-meant advice, I haven’t felt foolish yet.
Why won’t I feel foolish looking back on this exchange? Because I know that I’m doing the best I can at the time. Having done my best, I move on. I don’t live my life looking in the rear view mirror, I look through the front windshield instead.
Let me see how I can explain this, Allan. It’s a question of honor for me. I’m scrupulous about quoting people. I have to be, because I ask the same of people quoting me. As a result, an accusation that I am misquoting you impugns my honor. It is an accusation that I am asking something of others that I’m not doing myself. Not nice at all.
But in fact, I hadn’t misquoted you. Ever. You can’t point to one thing that I misquoted.
Instead, the problem was that you inadvertently used someone else’s words without indicating that in any manner (italics, quotes, indentation, asterisks, etc.).
Rather than you saying something like “Ooops … I forgot the quotes, my bad”, you have continued to repeat your unpleasant and untrue allegation that I misquoted you. I did not misquote you, Allan. You forgot the quotation marks … not my problem.
Regards,
w.
“Ooops … I forgot the quotes, my bad”