The 2014/15 El Niño – Part 4 – Early Evolution – Comparison with Other Satellite-Era El Niños

Interesting. It seems the definition of “El Nino” evolves.

Based on some earlier studies I believe it will turn to La- Nina from June July.

El Nino is not a cause, it is a hindsight description. This coming winter should see plenty of rain for most Australian states except NT, parts of WA and TAS. For that and other reasons, particularly the still high solar count, El Nino is not set to start until July 2015, and continue at least until the end of 2015. After that, the next EL Nino is due around 2020. Also a major Australian drought is due 2019-21.
El Ninos are a function of lunar declination. The 1987 EL Nino occurred concurrent with maximum declination, 1997 EL Nino with minimum declination, 2006 EL Nino with maximum declination, and a 2015 EL Nino with the next minimum declination. For EL Nino to occur in 2014 would betray the pattern. Claiming it is imminent is just alarmist propaganda that sells newspapers and qualifies yet again as a funding grab.

kenmoonman says:
April 18, 2014 at 4:44 am
“El Ninos are a function of lunar declination. The 1987 EL Nino occurred concurrent with maximum declination, 1997 EL Nino with minimum declination, 2006 EL Nino with maximum declination, and a 2015 EL Nino with the next minimum declination. For EL Nino to occur in 2014 would betray the pattern. Claiming it is imminent is just alarmist propaganda that sells newspapers and qualifies yet again as a funding grab.”
———————
AH SO, ….. I see what you mean, to wit:
“The Moon’s maximum and minimum declination also varies because the plane of the Moon’s orbit around the Earth is inclined by about 5.14° to the ecliptic (the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun), and the direction of lunar orbit inclination gradually changes over an 18.6-year cycle, ………..
Then, 9.3 years later, during the major lunar standstill, the Moon will change its declination during the nodal period from +28.5° to −28.5°, which is a total movement of 57°, which is enough to take its culmination from high in the sky to low on the horizon in just two weeks (half an orbit).”
The following table shows some occasions of a lunar standstill. The times given are for when the moon’s node passed the equinox—the moon’s greatest declination occurs within a few months of these times, depending on its detailed orbit.[3][4] However, the phenomenon is observable for a year or so on either side of these dates.[1]
Times of lunar standstill
major standstill minor standstill
May 1988 February 1997
June 2006 October 2015
April 2025 March 2034[5]
September 2043[5] March 2053[5]
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_standstill
=====================
It’s always a good day ….. when one learns something new.

The 1972-73 El Nino is probably a good model since it occurred in the middle of a cool PDO period.
It was fairly large getting to +2.12C making it the 8th biggest El Nino (+2.5C being super category).
Global Temperatures responded to the 1972-73 El Nino as expected (lagging behind by 3 months) and we saw a temporary upswing and then a downswing as the El Nino ended and was then followed by an equally strong La Nina which got to -2.25C exactly one year later.
Zoom-in of 1970 to 1976 with Nino 3.4 (not lagged) and scaled to its usual impact on global temperatures of 0.08.
http://s4.postimg.org/kcb9jx6a5/1972_El_Nino.png

Many thanks Bob, excellent study as per usual.
I have been following but only comparing with 97/98 (major) and 09/10 (latest). It would appear (will stand correction) that the present, if it plays out, is starting from a higher global SST base. Approx +0.3c (Reynolds Wk 15) versus approx 0.15C for 97/98 and 09/10. Any thoughts on how this event may eventually effect global SST?

“In some respects, a short-lived El Nino would be nice. In other respects, I’d welcome a super El Nino…just to study it”
Looking at real events and data doesn’t work as they do not match the hypothesis. You do not need one to take place as there are a thousand computer simulations to show the nex super el-nino will fry us all. If that doesn’t get us farting cows will.

The next relatively distant period of average perigee is late 2015 through 2016. I would suggest it is a convincing case for the next EN to begin during the second half of 2015 and not before.

We don’t need no stinkin’ science. It’s all Bush’s fault. Debate over.
love,
Barack

I recommend Trader Joe’s marinara sauce with spaghetti. The big can.
Good work, Bob. Thanks.

With all this hot water….are the oceans rising? Are we seeing a spike in the sea levels as a result of this?

The current Nino trends (3+4, 1+2) are not a million miles away from the 2006-2007 event. If this similarity (albeit very tenuous) were to continue, then a weak el Nino will unfold followed immediately by a much stronger reactive La Nina. Further, were this to take place, it might suggest a developing inversion of the ENSO asymmetry, i.e. for the last few decades el Ninos have ben bigger than the La Ninas, but this could change to the opposite with a change to the ENSO “ground state”.

This track and the previous track that you posted earlier for the bigger El Ninos tells me that there is nothing yet to indicate that the 2013/2014 potential El Nino will be very strong ( like 2082/2083 or 1997/1998 El Ninos) despite all the projections claiming a strong El Nino in the works

I always believed that El Nino was a colloquial term for a phenomenon observed by Chilean fishermen in which the ocean temperature was anomalously warm round Christmas time. (Very scientific term).
We now have ‘scientists’ measuring ocean temperatures in grids 8 thousand miles away on the opposite side of the Pacific, (or in the middle of the Pacific ocean) in April and casually assigning their cause to El Nino.
This whole business amuses me almost as much as the claim I read here the other day that ‘scientists’ had discovered that the temperature of ‘the North Atlantic’ varies by some .4 degrees C over a 15 year period…wow!!!!
You know, sometimes I think the Warmists are winning, not because their theory is correct, but their method and approach to ‘science’ is beginning to permeate our approach.
We have become pattern searchers, link makers, cause and effect junkies, desperately trying to impose some kind of order on the chaotic behaviour of our planet. It’s futile and immature and bound to fail.
Warmists predicted climate armageddon on the basis of a dozen years of rising temperature in the 80s and 90s and can be easily humiliated by reminding them of Gore’s Hurricanes or ‘snow a thing of the past’.
In ’97 we observed an El Nino and a possibly related atmospheric temperature spike…now all eyes are on Pacific. Everyone desperately trying to extrapolate and predict on the basis of the pitifully small amount of data we possess. Everyone wishing for their outcome to come true.
Well maybe it’s time to remind ourselves that we have no data on ocean temperatures going back more than a few years, then let ourselves off the Warmist hook.
Let us instead observe and gather data with the amazing tools we now have and enjoy some real science and leave the floundering and the wild claims to the alarmists.

Charles Nelson, I absolutely agree. El Nino is only a loose description, like “climate”. One was taught in school in a subject very loosely called “social studies”, (being a joining of geography and history) that e.g. the ‘climate’ of Jamaica was warmer than the ‘climate’ of Alaska. The emphasis was not on any quanitatiing of weather patterns themselves, but merely on how weather impacted on comparative cultures.
Our little Christmas baby boy El Nino started off life in the same way, being the cultural and vocational consequence of unusually warmer waters on Peru fishermen in 1982. Then in 1999, Don Rodbell of New York’s Union College discovered Peruvian records in the Andes dating back 15,000 years which demonstrated planning for El Nino-type rains.
But then suddenly El Nino funding appeared. Complexity will always arise from a careless comma or an off-the-cuff remark if well enough financed. Eventually the funding may get so large that the original concept gets lost in the murky mire of its own making, leaving it searching for meaningful identity.
Finding none, but not wishing to stop a gravy train, the concept renews in as many ways as there are funding sources. It is why some El Ninos are vague, some strong, powerful, super, light, or whatever adjective will look respectable next to them. Like Elvis impersonators they are all dressed up to look the same but there was only one original. The rest are wannabees.

kenmoonman says:
April 18, 2014 at 9:26 am
“Everything in science has a source, and the SOI is not an exception. The trick, as ever, is to find what it [El Nino] correlates well with. The correlation to lunar perigee distance and declination is rather easy to see. ”
—————–
Now, in reference to the following statement of, to wit:
kenmoonman previously said: “El Ninos are a function of lunar declination.”
Thus, I extracted the following from, to wit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_standstill
—————
The Sun’s declination changes from +23.5° N to −23.5° S to the plane of the earth’s equator.
At major lunar standstill (maximum declination) the moon is farthest (28.5°) from the plane of the earth’s equator.
At minor lunar standstill (minimum declination) the moon is nearest (18.5°) to the plane of the earth’s equator.
The two points at which Moon’s path crosses the Sun’s Ecliptic are known as the nodes. Due to precession of the lunar orbit the nodes take 18.6 years to complete one cycle
When the nodes align with the Earth’s equator is when a standstill occurs, or every 9.3 years.
———-
Now given the above it appears to me there are per se Mini-Milankovitch cycles occurring therein.
And if so, my question is, ….. is there any correlation between the “start” and/or ”intensity” of past El Nino events ….. and the alignment of the earth and moon to the Sun’s Ecliptic?
If the above parameters (or more exact parameters) were input to a computer program it should easily plot a “sine wave” graph that would show said “correlation” if one existed. And/or would predict when the next El Nino event(s) would occur.
You can not discredit the potential affect the Moon has on the origin of El Ninos unless you have legitimate scientific reason(s) for doing so.
Now I have personally witnessed a dozen or so times when the temperature of an extended “winter cold spell” of 8 to 10+ days of below freezing temperatures would suddenly terminate and the temperatures would rise within say 12+- hours of when the Moon reached “Full Moon” status ….. but I don’t have a clue as to why it occurred. And my learned background in/of the Physical Sciences offered no clues either.

kenmoonman says:
April 19, 2014 at 5:36 pm
“I think the problem, Samuel, is in deciding what an El Nino is, before one commits to when the next is due to start.”
———————-
kenmoonman, you have put the cart before the horse. We know what an El Nino is. The problem is that we don’t know what causes it, …… when the next one will happen ….. or how severe it will be when it does happen.
El Ninos are like tornadoes. Everyone knows what a tornado is ….. but not everyone knows what causes a tornado, …. when the next one will happen ….. or how severe it will be when it does happen.
=============
“Oceanic oscillation rules and that there are roughly 4x El Nino-type events each declination cycle, making them average 4.5 years. The longer the sample the closer the average, but we lack oceanic archival temperatures and we have to get to the next level. The declination cycle is 18.613 years. The perigee cycle is 8.85 years and two are 17.6 years. Averaging these yields a little over 18 years which takes us from 1997 into 2015. Other factors such as the SSB, Jupiter-Saturn Synod and sunspot cycle decline from peak to minimum, would also suggest El Nno starts late in 2015 and extends into 2016.”
——————–
Now the above is all fine and dandy but me thinks you are mixing apples n’ oranges together and then trying to “reverse engineer” the cause of an El Nino event and it aint gonna work.
kenmoonman, forget about “averages”, …. average events, average temperatures, average years, average cycles, etc., …… because they reflect “past events” and thus they serve no purpose whatsoever other than “reference data” … and the fact that “averages” change every time one does a re-calculation of the data.
Now if oceanic oscillation rules the “birth” of an El Nino-type event in the western Pacific then the primary factors for causing said are: 1) the location of the earth’s Equator; 2) the amount of solar energy being received at the equator; and 3) the gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon on the ocean waters at the Equator. All said factors are asynchronous to one another. And except for the Equator, said factors have different “cycle-time” periods and thus their combined (maximum) effect on oceanic oscillation at the Equator is determined by their alignment to each other.
The Sun’s cycle is 365.25 days which means the Sun crosses the Equator 2 times per year or once every 182.625 days which is when the maximum solar energy is being received at the Equator …. and it has the maximum gravitational pull on the ocean waters at the Equator.
The Moon’s cycle is 27.212 days which means the Moon crosses the Equator 2 times per year or once every 13.606 days which is when it has the maximum gravitational pull on the ocean waters at the Equator. Also, the moon’s declination changes from a max of +-28.5° N/S to a min of +-18.5° N/S to the plane of the earth’s equator which also affects it gravitational pull.
The Moon’s maximum and minimum declination also varies because the plane of the Moon’s orbit around the Earth is inclined by about 5.14° to the ecliptic (the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun), and the direction of lunar orbit inclination gradually changes over an 18.6-year period.
kenmoonman, there are two (2) graphics on this web site that explains what I attempted to say above, to wit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_standstill
Now one needs to create a “sine wave” graph via the above factors with the Equator being the base line of 0° (zero degrees) …. and with the +-° (degree) positions of the Sun and Moon plotted according their respective cycle positions.
Like this Biorhythm graph, to wit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biorhythm
One has to start with the current “date-time” positions of the earth, moon and Sun and plot the graph in reverse to see if anything correlates to past El Nino events.
Ya gotta see iffen that “duck” is gonna do any quacking for you.