Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
The sea surface temperature anomaly maps from Unisys had many people thinking there had been a drastic cooling of the surface of the extratropical North Pacific. But as discussed in this weekend’s post On The Recent Unisys Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly Maps and Cooling of Northern Hemisphere Ocean Surfaces, there were other sea surface temperature anomaly maps that were showing much less cooling there. On Monday, Harold Ambler reported in his post UNISYS pulls down map showing dramatic ocean cooling that Unisys was suspending their sea surface temperature anomaly maps while they remedied some problems. Later that day, Unisys then followed that up with a post at their news blog that they were suspending those maps.
The NOAA ERSST.v3b sea surface temperature dataset is the first to be updated every month (that’s especially true now that the preliminary monthly Reynolds OI.v2 SST data are no longer available from the NOAA NOMADS website, which is being modified), and the ERSST.v3b data are in for October 2014. They can be accessed at the KNMI Climate Explorer.
The good news is, the blob (hotspot) in the eastern extratropical North Pacific has dissipated. See Animation 1, which cycles between the September and October ERSST.v3b sea surface temperature anomaly maps. That blob was associated with a ridge of high pressure there, both of which were contributors to the California drought.
Animation 1
Will the blob return next year? I hope not, but I suspect it might. Will the blob’s recent weakening help to allow some more rain to fall in California? I hope so.
Now the bad news: the sea surface temperature anomalies for the extratropical North Pacific have dropped, as shown in Figure 1. (For the extratropical North Pacific, think the latitude of the big island of Hawaii at about 20N then northward to the Bering Strait at 65N.)
Figure 1
But, the sea surface temperatures of the tropical North Pacific, Figure 2, still look as though a moderately strong El Niño is taking place…when, at best, the sea surface temperatures of the equatorial Pacific have only been tickling the threshold of an El Niño since the boreal summer.
Figure 2
As a result, there has been some cooling of the surfaces of the North Pacific as a whole, Figure 3. But there is still a long way to go for it to return to its “normal” of the period of 1989 to 2012, a 24-year period when there was little to no warming of the surface of the North Pacific. See the post On The Recent Record-High Global Sea Surface Temperatures – The Wheres and Whys.
Figure 3
In turn, the sea surfaces of Northern Hemisphere and global oceans are only showing minor downturns from their peaks last month. See Figures 4 and 5.
Figure 4
# # #
Figure 5
The October 2014 Reynolds OI.v2 sea surface temperature data should be available at the KNMI Climate Explorer sometime next week. I’ll provide a full update then.
In closing, thank you, Unisys, for pulling those maps.
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I also noted at the bottom of the last thread that the Climate Explorer appears to be using an old dataset from the NCDC or that the NCDC is using different numbers in its Official SST temperature records than the Climate Explorer is using.
The Different versions of each for 20N to 90N. 1981 to Oct 2014.
http://s8.postimg.org/nq8dw3bx1/NCDC_Monthly_ERSST_v3b_1981_20_N_to_90_N_Clim_Exp.png
And then back to 1880.
http://s30.postimg.org/7o00inaip/NCDC_Monthly_ERSST_v3b_20_N_to_90_N_Clim_Exp.png
Sorry everyone, it looks like I screwed up entering one of the fields in the Climate Explorer. They are the same. But there is still something wrong with the seasonality/climatology.
http://s23.postimg.org/fhvqt7ne3/NCDC_Monthly_ERSST_v3b_1981_0_N_to_90_N_Clim_Exp.png
Even though the Eastern Hot Spot is dissipating, the Western [Japanese region] is cooling. This is producing the same cool West warm East ocean conditions. I would expect the Jet Stream to continue its same path: dip in the West, pop in the East. I also expect the Jet Stream to move further South as it always does during Winter in the Northern Hemisphere.
One can compare the Weekly anomaly maps of August 27 to October 29 to see how the Ocean SSTs have changed, particularly in the northern hemisphere.
Week of August 27
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/wksst/wksst.20140827.gif
Week of October 29
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/wksst/wksst.20141029.gif
Interesting. Usually warm water off the west coast would lead to a wetter climate inland. (Cold ocean currents are associated with deserts due to the lack of moisture escaping from the ocean.) But not in this case. What’s the reason for the high pressure system over “the blob”? And why does it prevent moisture transfer from the ocean to the air?
BOB
“But, the sea surface temperatures of the tropical North Pacific, Figure 2, still look as though a moderately strong El Niño is taking place…when, at best, the sea surface temperatures of the equatorial Pacific have only been tickling the threshold of an El Niño since the boreal summer.”
I only see NINO 3 in the El Nino range . The other nino regions 4, and 3.4 are barely in the Nino range and 2+1 region is well below at near 0. I do not share your optimism yet.
http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/ocean.html
Glad to see this post and discussion. I had been looking at UNISYS SSTs more often than I should admit for the past 7 or 8 years and asked Joe Bastardi a question about cold water that UNISYS was showing in Hudson Bay a couple of weeks ago. He let me know then that NOAA products were more accurate. UNISYS’ transparency, though, including a couple of comments in the thread at talkingabouttheweather.com, about the situation has been admirable.
Very useful confirmation from Bob that global warming continues. The global SST anomalies plot shows warming at a rate comparable with that of both satellite and land surface measurements ie 0.15C per decade, maybe a bit less.
And its not “bad news” for sceptics. Its simply what is happening.
As a Skeptic, all I want is the proper use of science.
.Although I believe any human effect on the atmosphere though CO2 production to be unlikely, I would love to be proven wrong and look forward to a few decades of warmer weather. The human race will do what it does best, and that is to adapt. To believe that 2 degrees C is a crisis is sophmorish and unscientific.
If it really just “is what it is” then why the collective desperation for an el Nino – 20 posts from Bob on an as yet technically nonexistent event.
Remember also that SST is only a few cm at the surface. There is a lot more ocean beneath.
It’s more gruesome than that. Initial measurements of SST from ships is from 1-10 meters below the surface. From buoys, it is (typically) 20 cm to 1 m. From microwave satellites, about 2 cm. And from infrared (AVHRR, VIIRS, GOES, …), it is about 10 microns.
Most places that provide only a single SST are providing a buoy-equivalent temperature. That’s definitely the case for the RTG HR and the Reynolds quarter degree OIv2.
Current forecast is for the !$!# Rex Block to set up and keep CA dry through the weekend. Hopefully the warm water will defeat it prior to Thanksgiving.
It has been very pleasant so far in upper California. This time last year was at least 20 degrees colder. My tomatoes have new growth and new blooms on. The local 10 day forecast is for continued above average temps.
Bob may me glad that the Unisys graphics have gone, but I am not. I liked them, and I felt that they were perhaps independent to some extent. Possibly they have some issue with their data analysis, but I rather fear that they are being “got at”. There’s so much peer pressure in big corporations. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what Unisys come back with – or whether they just fold completely.
Rich.
When they stopped posting earlier this year, I switched to Weather Zone and Tropical Tidbits, plus I also look at NCEP. I like the first 2 the best. Their resolution is very good, and their color scheme let,s me easily follow the shifts in temp. NCEP floods their chart with too much red. I liked the seamless borders that Unisys uses on their map. I would tile that on my widescreen and get a great full screen map of the global oceans.
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/
Bob thanks for showing me this product. I think it is great.
My only point re UNISYS SST anoml product was / is that UNISYS finally got around to realizing that the color bar for the product was wacko and they DID address it, with white/lite grey for the zero T anoml , before they pulled the plug.
Hopefully, when the product reappears it will still have these items as they have been changed to.
The UNISYS SST color bar was never the issue. They changed the wrapping palette to a simple linear one and it made no change to the overall picture of apparent cool SSTs in the high latitude NH.
We are not being given the full facts here. Something strange is going on and it relates to base period. Not color palette.
Color palette is and always has been a (possibly deliberate) red herring. It’s irrelevant.
Bill Illis is I think closest to what is really going on in his posts about games being played with seasonality.
Bob
Your graph #2 is covers areas outside of the usual four El Nino areas .You are at 100 E. Should you not start at 160 E? . Also you cover 0-20N .Should you not use -5S to +5 N?. Graph # 2 is of interest but does not really reflect the usual four Nino areas . What would the graph look like for the changes that I mentioned .? Any comments ? I see signs of a weak El NINO developing this first week of November but its far too short a period .to call it anything yet .