Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
In this post we can learn from someone’s mistakes. The author of the post at Slate clearly misunderstands many aspects of El Niño and their relationship with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation…so many that I’ve had to focus on just a few. To confuse matters more, mixed in with those misunderstandings are realities and quotes from ENSO researchers. But first…
ENTHUSIASM ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING
I first ran across the term “global warming enthusiast” in a June 2012 article in The Sunday Times written by the always-entertaining Jeremy Clarkson, who is best known for his antics in the BBC’s Top Gear. The article by Clarkson was Kaboom! It’s my turn to play fantasy climate change. (Paywalled.) Also see the ClimateRealists webpage here. There Jeremy Clarkson wrote:
Science fiction is thriving; only today it’s all being written by global warming enthusiasts.
I’ve used the phrase “global warming enthusiast” in numerous blog posts and in many more comments around the blogosphere since I found that Clarkson article. Occasionally, someone will respond to it with something to the effect of No one is enthusiastic about anthropogenic global warming. Bad things will happen because of it. That always sounded like more science fiction to me.
Well, a recent article indicates there are people enthusiastic about the return of global warming: See An El Niño Double-Dip? at the Slate.com. (A double-dip El Niño? That’s a very odd term. I’ll explain in a moment.) The article begins:
Global warming is about to get a boost.
As this year’s El Niño sets in, early signs are pointing toward the possibility of a rare occurrence: back-to-back El Niño years. If it happens, it would virtually guarantee a new global heat record in 2015 and could help usher in a decade or more of accelerated warming.
The author sounds awfully enthusiastic about the thought of “a decade or more of accelerated warming.” The only thing missing is an exclamation like Yippee!
But the author’s enthusiasm is overshadowed by his misunderstandings, conjectures and blatant errors. But good things can come from them. People who want to learn can learn, and those who don’t won’t.
ENSO DISCUSSION
The title of the article is very strange: “An El Niño Double-Dip?” Sorry. The phrase double-dip was applied to the La Niña events of 2007/08 and 2008/09 and the La Niña events of 2010/11 and 2011/12 because there were back-to-back dips (cooling) in the sea surface temperatures of the eastern equatorial Pacific, separated by off-season ENSO-neutral conditions. See Figure 1.
Figure 1
Or if you’d prefer data presented in tables, see the annotated screen cap of the NOAA Oceanic NINO Index (ONI) in Figure 2.
Figure 2
Double-dip would not apply to back-to-back El Niños separated by ENSO-neutral conditions, because those would be rises in the sea surface temperatures of the equatorial Pacific. If someone’s looking for alliteration, they could try repeated-rise El Niños, not double-dip.
I’m not being pedantic about the difference between multiyear and back-to-back El Niño events. El Niño events are tied to the seasonal cycle, also known as phase locking, and as a result they normally peak in boreal winter and decay into boreal spring. See the post Why Do El Niño and La Niña Events Peak in Boreal Winter? An El Niño that does not decay in boreal spring, but lasts through to a second season, defies the seasonality of El Niños.
To further compound the oddness of the headline, the author uses as a reference the NOAA CFSv2 modeled sea surface temperature anomaly forecasts for the NINO3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific, dated October 14, 2014. See Figure 3. The mean of the forecast (dashed black curve) remains elevated, above the El Niño threshold of 0.5 deg C, through May-June-July, which is the ENSO off-season. What’s missing? The return to ENSO neutral conditions in the off-season. It’s absence would suggest a multiyear El Niño, not a back-to-back one.
Figure 3
Also, the author must not be familiar with the “spring predictability barrier” for ENSO forecasts. See of Torrence and Webster (1997) The annual cycle of persistence in the El Niño/Southern Oscillation. The first two paragraphs of it read:
A spring ‘predictability barrier’ exists in both data and models of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. In statistical analyses this barrier manifests itself as a drop-off in monthly persistence (lagged correlation) while in coupled ocean-atmosphere models it appears as a decrease in forecast skill.
The ‘persistence barrier’ for ENSO indices is investigated using historical sea surface temperature and sea level pressure data. Simple statistical models are used to show that the persistence barrier occurs because the boreal spring is the transition time from one climate state to another, when the ‘signal-to-noise’ of the system is lowest and the system is most susceptible to perturbations. The strength of the persistence barrier is shown to depend on the degree of phase locking of the ENSO to the annual cycle.
References to the “spring predictability barrier” can be found in papers from the early 1990s, and the barrier still exists for forecasters.
Bottom line: ENSO forecasts are notoriously unreliable through boreal springtime.
Q: Are back-to-back El Niño events possible, with ENSO-neutral conditions separating them?
A: Yes, according to NOAA Oceanic NINO Index (ONI), a pair occurred in 1957/58 and 1958/59 and another pair happened in 1976/77 and 1977/78.
Q: Are multiyear El Niño events possible, without a return to ENSO-neutral conditions during what would normally be considered the ENSO off-season?
A: Yup, the 1986/87/88 and 1969/70/71 El Niño events are examples.
Q: Has the NOAA CFSv2 model shown any skill at predicting back-to-back or multiyear El Niños?
Nope, sadly it’s too new to have a track record. The NCEP Climate Forecast System Version 2 (CFSv2), according to the linked webpage, “became operational at NCEP in March 2011.” And according to the NOAA Oceanic NINO Index (ONI), there have been no El Niño events, of any kind, since the CFSv2 became operational.
I don’t recall. Was the CFSv2 one of the models that forecast an El Niño for the 2012/13 season? If that’s the case, it highlights one of the problems with ENSO forecasting. The events can be far and few between, so if you miss one, it’s not good for your batting average. Hmm. I wonder what Bob Eucker would say about stats like that. (Sorry, Uke.)
THE PACIFIC DECADAL OSCILLATION
On the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the author of the Slate post writes (my boldface):
Even if there’s not a second El Niño, a longer-term climate signal is beginning to point in the direction of more frequent bursts of warming over the next several years. Over the next few years, a natural climate oscillation known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is poised to kick into gear. Historical data has linked the “warm” phase of the PDO with a 15- to 30-year temporary surge in global temperatures. A new paper even shows this sort of natural variability could trump long-term human-caused climate warming in localized areas like the Pacific Northwest.
The PDO can be thought of as the atmospheric manifestation of a stretch of frequent El Niño events. If El Niño is the spark that ignites a months-long transfer of heat between the ocean and the atmosphere, the PDO is an indicator of how much fuel is in the gas tank.
The author of the Slate post clearly has no idea what the PDO is all about.
We recently discussed the Pacific Decadal Oscillation in minute detail in the post The 2014/15 El Niño – Part 5 – The Relationship Between the PDO and ENSO. The PDO Index is a numerical representation of the spatial pattern in the sea surface temperature anomalies of the extratropical North Pacific (northward of 20N), where a positive PDO spatial pattern has warmer sea surface temperature anomalies in the eastern extratropical North Pacific (along the coast of North America) than in the central and western North Pacific (the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension). That spatial pattern is typically created by strong El Niño events. A positive PDO index value basically represents how closely the spatial pattern of the sea surface temperature anomalies of the extratropical North Pacific matches those created by strong El Niños. The higher the number, the closer the match. Conversely, a negative PDO Index value relates to the pattern created by La Niñas. The PDO Index values have different variations in time than those of an ENSO index (like NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies) because the spatial patterns in the surface temperatures of the North Pacific are also impacted by the sea level pressures (and related wind patterns) there.
Contrary to the mistaken beliefs of the author of the Slate post, the PDO cannot “be thought of as the atmospheric manifestation of a stretch of frequent El Niño events”. The PDO index is derived from sea surface temperatures.
And the PDO is definitely not “an indicator of how much fuel is in the gas tank…” for El Niños. For that one must refer to the ocean heat content data for the tropical Pacific. See Figure 4, which is from the post The 2014/15 El Niño – Part 2 – The Alarmist Misinformation (BS) Begins.
Figure 4
Sorry to disappoint the author of the Slate post, but the warm water available for El Niños has dropped in recent years.
And the author of the Slate post gets something kind-of right, but obviously has no grasp of reality (my boldface).
Even if there’s not a second El Niño, a longer-term climate signal is beginning to point in the direction of more frequent bursts of warming over the next several years. Over the next few years, a natural climate oscillation known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is poised to kick into gear. Historical data has linked the “warm” phase of the PDO with a 15- to 30-year temporary surge in global temperatures.
It’s very odd that a global warming enthusiast would parrot something that skeptics pointed out about a decade and a half ago. Unfortunately, there is no mechanism through which the PDO (as represented by the JISAO definition of the PDO) can cause global surface temperatures to warm. The PDO index is actually inversely related to the sea surface temperatures of the region from which it’s derived.
The processes that cause the PDO are the same processes that cause natural (sunlight-fueled) global warming or suppress it, and those processes are the ones associated with El Niño and La Niña events.
In the past I’ve written: The strength of ENSO phases, along with how often they happen and how long they persist, determine how much heat is released by the tropical Pacific into the atmosphere and how much warm water is transported by ocean currents from the tropics toward the poles. During a multidecadal period when El Niño events dominate (a period when El Niño events are stronger, when they occur more often and when they last longer than La Niña events), more heat than normal is released from the tropical Pacific to the atmosphere and more warm water than normal is transported by ocean currents into adjacent ocean basins and toward the poles—with that warm water releasing heat to the atmosphere along the way. As a result, global sea surface and land surface air temperatures warm during multidecadal periods when El Niño events dominate. They have to. There’s no way they cannot warm.
Maybe it’s easier to think of the long-term impact of ENSO another way. During multidecadal periods when El Niño events dominate, atmospheric and ocean circulation become hyperactive, leading to a long-term, naturally caused, sunlight-fueled global warming.
Also, during multidecadal periods when La Niña and El Niño events are more evenly matched, as they have been for the past decade, atmospheric and ocean circulation become more balanced, leading to the cessation of the long-term, naturally caused, sunlight-fueled global warming.
CLOSING NOTE
Focusing on the mean again, the most recent forecast for NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies from the NCEP CFSv2 model, Figure 5, shows a decline in the temperatures there over the next few months, meaning no El Niño this season, which would mean no back-to-back El Niños and no multiyear El Niño. See the NOAA Weekly ENSO Update (page 26).
Figure 5
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Of course the Global Warming Enthusiasts would be jumping for joy at an El Nino because the plateau in global temperature is so inconvenient. A burst of warming before the Paris GWE bunfest would have them all saying ‘see, told you it was a pause’ and a scientific explanation for a small blip in the flat-lining temps would never make it to the lame media.
If Nino 3.4 stays positive over Christmas then it might bring about a strong La Nina in early 2015.
The threshold for el Nino / La Nina should be +/- 1 degree anomaly of Nino3.4 not 0.5 degrees.
The sad fact is, we are unquestionably in Negative PDO land, and El Nino will always be running uphill and against the wind (both figuratively and literally). I’m danged glad Prop 1 passed (queue brickbats from would be State of Jefferson Founding Fathers). For California (at least for the next 20 – 40 years) it is a brave new world and a dry one at that.
Here is a piece of the arguments made by opponents, “”It’s a retread of previously discredited programs that allowed speculators to reap millions in profit selling the public’s water back to the public. “”.
You think that this sounds like a great deal?
I don’t like the term “repeated-rise El Niños”. how about Teton El Ninos after the peaks.
As usual a highly informative article by Tisdale, who seems tireless in exposing gross ignorance, and faulty reasoning related to climate science.
Slate politically is what I call a Neanderthal site. Some of the articles and reporting is very interesting. Their political reporting, or any issues viewed left vs. right has the rigor of thought equivalent to cavemen beating their chests and exclaiming, “We good, them bad”. Not quite as Neanderthal as The Guardian whose climate reporting reaches cosmic levels of incompetence mixed liberally (pun intended) with desperate attempts at melodrama. Salon politically became a brainless water carrier for the DNC and lost any capability for investigative journalism or intellectual relevance a while ago.
BTW not saying there are not similar sites on the right. It is just more irksome when the left does it, since they are the self-described “smart” ones, pro-science, rational thought, tolerance and all that.
Agree. It seems like irresponsible reporting to interview a couple of experts and then disagree with everything they have to say.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/new-paper-finds-huge-false-physical.html
This article makes the strong case that the sun is the ultimate controller of ocean surface temperatures and ocean heat content.
I’m not looking forward to the next La Nina.
The trade winds are turning south-westerly along the east Pacific equator.
If Nino peaks within a couple of months it will be perfect timing to trigger a big reactive La Nina.
As far as the atmosphere goes I think the atmospheric circulation is a very big player when it comes to climate . A great example of this will be the extreme cold in the eastern half of the U.S.A over the next several days.
The oceans I think are driven by the atmospheric circulation rather then the atmospheric circulation is driven by the oceans. The oceans in time will be responded to the prolonged minimum solar activity as the article in the above alludes to.
In addition if the atmospheric circulation is meridional it will promote more clouds and snow cover which will promote cooling.
A more meridional atmospheric circulation ties in quite well with prolonged minimum solar activity and a negative QBO.
When the intensity of EUV light is low(in response to weak solar activity ) the atmospheric circulation has always tended towards a more meridional atmospheric circulation pattern in response to changes in ozone distribution and concentrations in the lower stratosphere.
You know that the volumetric heat capacity of water is roughly 3000 times that of air, right?
I want to back track some and say I think it is more of a give and take as to what drives what when it comes to the atmosphere versus oceans.
A prime example has been and still is the warm pool of water off Western North America which has been promoting the atmosphere to ridge in the Western U.S.A and trough in the Eastern U.S.A and giving the extreme cold winter weather in that part of the country.
Can anyone answer: Is the pacific in a warm of cold phase what’s happening with the Atlantic . Its like trying to get the answers out of politicians .
By most accounts the North Pacific is in a cool phase of the PDO. Some say it more unstable and has bounced around so it can argued it’s between a cool phase and indeterminate. The PDO index uses relative values I believe. It is possible the North Pacific SSTs would be warmer and in a cool phase. The Western SSTs would be warmer than the Eastern ones.
http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/fe/estuarine/oeip/figures/Figure_PDO-01.JPG
There are always counter-trend years. So far the PDO cool phase that started in 1998 doesn’t look much different from the cool phase that began c. 1948 & lasted until 1977, which shift year I so well recall.
Read Bob Tisdale’s explanation here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2014/04/20/the-201415-el-nino-part-5-the-relationship-between-the-pdo-and-enso/
Oh FFFFFF
Can anyone answer: Is the pacific in a warm or cold phase and what’s happening with the Atlantic . Its like trying to get the answers out of politicians .
Try this:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/guest-post-atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation-and-northern-hemisphere%E2%80%99s-climate-variability-by-marcia-glaze-wyatt-sergey-kravtsov-and-anastasios-a-tsonis/
Many things are happening with the Atlantic, and it looks like we are still trying to figure it all out. Maybe this would help:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/ocean-page/
It really depends on who you ask. Here’s my take. The PDO is generally used to denote the “phase” of the Pacific. But, it really is an average of ENSO variability and can be specifically set up in the warm configuration during the cold phase when El Nino conditions are present (which is the current situation). I believe the most recent cold phase started around 2005-2007. The last warm phase started somewhere between 1975-1977.
The AMO is a little less ambiguous as it is truly a measure of temperature. It is currently in its warm phase which started around 1995 and should last until around 2025. However, it peaked around 2010 and should be decreasing in influence even though it is still in a warm phase. In addition, it can also have cool periods during a warm phase and vice versa just like the PDO. It turns out the AMO trend (warming or cooling) appears to be in sync with the PDO phase (at least recently).
Hope this helps.
Waiting for el Ninot, Episode 10.
Estragon:
Its Halloween again, here we are waiting for the great el Ninot to rise from the pumpkin patch and shower presents on us … Vladimir, what are you doing
Vladimir:
I’m trying to look make our patch sincere, so that el Ninot comes to our patch and not someone else’s.
Estragon:
How can it look more sincere?
Vladimir:
The colour gradients must be simple and uniform – not too many contrasts or wrapping colour palettes.
Estragon:
Well – do what you have to. Hell, its cold.
Vladimir:
No its not.
Estragon:
Is too.
Vladimir:
No – your feeling cold was just an artifact of the cluttered color scheme of the pumpkin patch. Now I’ve fixed that – so its not cold anymore – see?
“Enthusiasm”?….
They really are lost….Truly lost.
We are just in neutral territory for the ENSO. 0.1Cs, 0.6Cs, -0.5Cs are just normal minor variations.
The impact on the global climate is about 10% of the Nino 3.4 index so a 0.6C El Nino is only going to impact the global climate by 0.06C, nothing to get worked up about.
It needs to get to into the +/-1.5C category to start talking about its impact.
I don’t see enough energy building for any type of El Nino to develop. Atmospheric conditions are also neutral (except for the SOI which follows the ENSO conditions more than it is a driver).
Most of the agencies monitoring El Nino have been forecasting every month from the beginning of 2014 that an El Nino would begin in the next two months. Nothing has materialized as yet and we have completed 10 months of 2014 with no month having ONI index equaling or exceeding +0.5.
El Niño: characterized by a positive ONI greater than or equal to +0.5ºC.
La Niña: characterized by a negative ONI less than or equal to -0.5ºC.
By historical standards, to be classified as a full-fledged El Niño or La Niña episode, these thresholds must be exceeded for a period of at least 5 consecutive overlapping 3-month seasons.
Graph for ONI Index for Seasoal period NDJ 2013 to ASO 2014
http://www.gujaratweather.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/oni_ASO_2104_1.jpg
“global warming enthusiast” works well for AGW believers. It’s similar to UFO & Alien enthusiasts.
But for the authoritarian hierarchy and icons of AGW “Global Warming Theorists” sounds better.
They are like those “Ancient Alien Theorists” who find alien ways to explain historical unknowns.
On another note, how the heck does Bob Tisdale produce so much analysis and why don’t any of the government funded Global Warming Theorists produce anywhere near the amount Bob does?
Writing fiction is hard slow work.
Classic Namias type PNA+ Winter.
Very cold in the the U.S.
“The author sounds awfully enthusiastic about the thought of “a decade or more of accelerated warming.””
Actually, forget “the thought of”. I think the more worrisome thing is that we on track for a record warm year and there is is no El Niño.
Seriously, where the frack are you that it is too hot?
Bob, the latest from the AGU….
http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2014/11/07/el-nino-threat-diminishing/
“The author sounds awfully enthusiastic about the thought of “a decade or more of accelerated warming.””
Should say: I think the more worrisome thing is that we are on track for a record warm year and there is no El Niño.
Maybe I shouldn’t write things on the bicycle trainer…
Obviously can’t be too hot if you are on the bike. No risk of heat stroke then? Time to lose the training wheels.
Bob, you describe the Medieval Warm Period…and its end. It was likely the result of a long period of heat transfer from a sun-fueled ocean to the atmosphere, resulting in a time of plenty. Naturally, it eventually ran out of gas. Then bad luck happened. Just when the oceans were about to refuel, a veil was spread over the equatorial band, plunging the world into a very cold season.
perhaps, but it is hard to see how this would work, because you cannot transfer net energy from a large cold sink to a small warm sink, without a pump of some sort.
what would work is a slowing of the rate of overturning of the oceans. if the oceans were today to stop overturning completely, there should be no doubt that the surface would warm. And it the rate of overturning was to increase, the surface would cool.