Could we be in for a Super El Niño this year like the one in 1997/98?
Dr. Ryan Maue is seeing hints of a beginning in ocean heat content satellite visualizations.
Maue writes on Twitter:
Quick look at 1997 TC Ocean Heat content anomaly for April 4 shows equatorial extreme + anoms … compare to 2014
And here is April 2014:
Maue writes on Twitter:
Here’s the April 4, 2014 TC Ocean Heat content e.g. depth of 26° isotherm. Like 1997
Certainly, some similarities exist, and it appears the warm pool is just a bit bigger than the one in 1997. If the forecast is to be relied on, we expect to see some sort of ENSO event this year:
![nino34Mon[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/nino34mon1.gif)
More at the WUWT ENSO page
Of course, there’s no doubt that should this build into a full-blown ENSO event, we’ll hear things like “Trenberth’s missing heat has returned, and it’s angry” and “the global warming pause that we didn’t admit existed before is now over”
If you look at ocean temperature records for 1997 there were two to three waves of temp increases. The first one looks similar to what is happening now, but there was a second (and third) kelvin wave which sent temperatures increasing further in the summer.
So while I see an inevitable el nino, I still don’t see evidence for a “super el nino” other than they have/are formed in a similar way.
The oceans are much colder today than they were in 1997 and we are in a cold PDO cycle, not to mention the three successive kelvin waves that hit us in 97 which everyone seems to be missing.
I guess we’ll see.
For those who are on WxBell professional (I highly recommend the site), you will also see Joe Bastardi’s take on the probable upcoming El Nino event. He is firmly in the camp that this will not be a super El Nino due to the cold phase of the PDO ….. but time will tell.
Remember that they changed how TCHP is calculated and represented in 2008. I dont believe we can compare them directly without reanalysis.
My call, close to Peak of warm is now and will flatten cello by September. TSI is dropping off from Freaky second solar cycle peak.
My call is off TSI data. I could be wrong [or] right.
Anthony, both twitter links are to 1997 tweet.
[fixed, thx -A]
There’s a lot more red across the Indian Ocean this time. No idea if it’s relevant!
It would be nice to see a non-El Nino year for comparison, too.
I am sure the AGWers have been praying to Mother Nature to do Her warming thing so we don’t slip further into the present cooling trend.
Just think of the good things a good El Nino will bring to Earth, a nice burp of CO2 for the world’s plants and trees and more rainfall to enhance their growth further. (1998 saw one of the largest year-to-year CO2 jumps in the past few decades)
We’re still trying to come out of two years of drought here (save for 15 inches in half a month last Summer), so a rainy year will be very welcome (I’m sure those in Texas and California feel the same way).
RSS shows March 2014 temperature anomaly at 0.214 C, up from 0.162 C in February.
http://data.remss.com/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_3.txt
If you follow the direction of the heat, an El Nino is actually heat leaving the Earth system: Ocean > Atmosphere > Space
I made a prediction for strong el nino around now based on periodic behaviour, the super el nino however would be in 2023
http://climategate.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/fig5_ml_forecast2.pdf
Also has anyone noticed the SOI numbers lately? They collapsed in March to -12.0 which seemed to strongly suggest el nino, but have since risen to +9.9.
P.S. Hunter, exactly. That also means that 2015-2019 should be pretty cold years since we will be entering the down side of solar cycle 24. The earth won’t really start warming again until the next el nino which won’t happen until around 2019-2020.
It will be interesting to watch the El Nino. It will be interesting to watch the physical aftereffects IF it turns out to be a strong El Nino. Maybe the ARGO buoys will serve their purpose.
It will also be interesting to listen to and read all of the misinformation that’s presented about it.
Hopefully, the NODC will update their OHC data for the first quarter of 2014 soon. I’d like to include the ocean heat content for the tropical Pacific in my next ENSO update. Unless they’re was a sudden spike over the last few months, the tropical Pacific ocean heat content now is lower than it was in the 1st quarter of 1997. That doesn’t mean the El Nino will be weaker. It’s just something to throw at the alarmists.
One final thing, what a lot of the “super el nino” advocates miss is that the issue is not whether an el nino is forming, it’s whether it can be sustained at 1997 levels. Those conditions are really where you see the difference.
Could we be in for a Super El Niño this year like the one in 1997/98?
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Like Os said already….they are not measuring them the same way
There was heavy and extensive flooding in Oklahoma during the 1987 El Nino. At one point, the I-35 bridges across the Cimarron River were damaged and nearly destroyed. Just a bit downstream from there, a huge empty propane tank broke free and hurtled along, taking out several bridges in it’s path. Lots of homes were lost, crops ruined, livestock destroyed and long detours were necessary. Now, parts of the state are in a drought as severe as anything recorded before, so if the rain returns at 1987 levels, “mixed blessing” will be a weak statement.
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/cyclone/data/method.html
Methodology v 2.1 started October 15th 2008.
I forgot to add, 1987 ENSO was just barely positive/El Nino.
Jeff says:
April 4, 2014 at 1:17 pm
Also has anyone noticed the SOI numbers lately? They collapsed in March to -12.0 which seemed to strongly suggest el nino, but have since risen to +9.9.
“P.S. Hunter, exactly. That also means that 2015-2019 should be pretty cold years since we will be entering the down side of solar cycle 24. The earth won’t really start warming again until the next el nino which won’t happen until around 2019-2020.”
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Do you have a link to work showing definitive climate response to TSI? Somewhat random correlation does not equal causation.
Jeff wrote:
The oceans are much colder today than they were in 1997
Except that thermal expansion resulting in higher sea levels proves you wrong.
.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/uc_seallevel_2009r2.png
If there is an El Niño, then one thing is for sure: all the man made CO2 in the atmosphere made absolutely no difference whatsoever to the intensity and timing of this event.
El Ninos are normally associated with a small rise in global temperatures, which in turns means the alarmist community crowing, “I told you so.”
Hopefully, this will prove to be a false alarm for a Super El Niño.
We might be headed toward an el nino condition but I don’t think it is going to be a “super” el nino. It will likely be a weak one for a couple of reasons. Most significant among them is a lack of warm water in the Western Pacific Warm Pool. Secondly, while there is some persistent eastward anomaly in the trades in the far western Pacific, the trades in the eastern Pacific are still nominal and the central Pacific is variable. I’m not seeing any significant trade wind trigger yet.
What would be really interesting is El Niño happens but the pause continues. Plenty of precedent for that in the WMO data from their 2014 summary, despite their verbiage. ENSO is superposed on longer deeper natural variations, whatever they may be. Those have apparently turned negative after 1998.ENDO did not markedly change the ‘cooling’ from about 1945 to about 1975. Could be the case again here if El Niño comes.
Not an expert at any of the ocean stuff, ‘but if the glove doesn’t fit you must acquit’.
Now contrary to how I view NOAA’s ENSO predictions, I definitely accept Dr. Ryan Maue and Joe Bastardi’s views of weather futures!
I’m looking forward to hearing their current takes as the seasons move on.
What’s with the first image? Text on the image says 1997. Caption below the image says its 2009.