New Paper Claims Extreme La Niñas to Become More Frequent under Global Warming

Guest Post by Bob Tisdale

The new 2015 paper by Cai et al Increased frequency of extreme La Niña events under greenhouse warming has been getting a lot of alarmist attention recently. Examples: see the CBS News story Climate change expected to bring more La Niñas, and the  BBC News article Study: Global warming ‘doubles risk’ of extreme weather,  and, for those of you who are multilingual, see the German journal  Bild der Wissenschaft post Mehr Besuche der kalten Schwester von „El Niño”.  [Thanks to bloggers Alec aka Daffy Duck, Paul Homewood and Werner Kohl for the heads-up.]  Also see Paul Homewood’s post BBC – Global Warming Doubles Risk Of Extreme Weather at NotALotOfPeopleKnowThat.<.

Cai et al. (2015) 14 co-authors are a who’s-who of climate scientists, including Michael McPhaden of NOAA’s PMEL, who’s written numerous papers about ENSO; and Eric Guilyardi, who’s the lead author of Guilyardi et al. (2009) Understanding El Niño in Ocean-Atmosphere General Circulation Models: progress and challenges.

We discussed Guilyardi et al. (2009) back in July 2012 in the post here. As you may recall, it was a study of how poorly the CMIP3-archived climate models simulated ENSO…that the models basically simulated no ENSO processes correctly.  Thus one of their conclusions was:

Because ENSO is the dominant mode of climate variability at interannual time scales, the lack of consistency in the model predictions of the response of ENSO to global warming currently limits our confidence in using these predictions to address adaptive societal concerns, such as regional impacts or extremes (Joseph and Nigam 2006; Power et al. 2006).

Cai et al (2015) Increased frequency of extreme La Niña events under greenhouse warming is a companion paper to Cai et al (2013) Increasing frequency of extreme El Niño events due to greenhouse warming.   We discussed the earlier paper in the post Our Climate Models Are Aglow with Whirling, Transient Nodes of Thought Careening through a Cosmic Vapor of Invention.  It included a link to and discussion of Bellenger et al. (2012), which described how poorly the CMIP5-archived models simulated ENSO.  Once again, the models simulate little if anything correctly.  The same arguments apply to the newer paper Cai et al (2015), so there’s no need to repeat them, so please see the “Climate Models are Aglow” post.

The following is from an update to the “Climate Models are Aglow” post about the earlier paper.  It should also apply to the newer paper:

Brian Kahn also covered Cai et al. (2013) in his ClimateCentral post Climate Change Could Double Likelihood of Super El Ninos.  (Thanks again Andrew for the link to the post at HockeySchtick.) Brian Kahn’s article included the following and a remarkable quote from Kevin Trenberth:

The core of Cai’s results, that more super El Ninos are likely, was disputed by Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Corporation [sic] for Atmospheric Research.

He said some of the models used in the study overestimate the past number of El Nino events by a wide margin and do a poor job of representing them and their impacts.

“This seriously undermines the confidence that the models do an adequate job in ENSO (El Nino-Southern Oscillation) simulations and so why should we trust their future projections?” he said in an email.

Trenberth also said that some long-range climate models also fail to adequately simulate other natural climate patterns that influence El Nino let alone how they might also shift in a warming world.

Trenberth asked,“…so why should we trust their [climate models’] future projections?”

The obvious answer is ____________________ [I’ll let you fill in the blank].

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AnonyMoose
January 28, 2015 8:13 am

Aren’t La Ninas associated with cooling?

SMC
Reply to  AnonyMoose
January 28, 2015 8:24 am

The CAWG faithful are just trying to cover all the bases. Not matter what happens, it’s all man’s fault by emitting the evil CO2 greenhouse gas pollution.

Reply to  SMC
January 28, 2015 11:31 am

CO2 is the most powerful molecule in the universe. It causes everything: More El Ninos, more La Ninas, more cold, more heat, droughts, floods. Truly amazing. It’s most pernicious effect, however, is on IQs.

Jaakko Kateenkorva
Reply to  SMC
January 28, 2015 12:36 pm

+10

Steve in Seattle
Reply to  SMC
January 28, 2015 1:21 pm

Amen to that … these are desperate times for desperate global warming, … wait …. climate change, … wait … “carbon pollution” loco ecos !

MattS
Reply to  SMC
January 28, 2015 3:43 pm

“CO2 is the most powerful molecule in the universe. It causes everything: More El Ninos, more La Ninas, more cold, more heat, droughts, floods.”
Earthquakes, sunspots, volcanoes, infertility….

Joe
Reply to  SMC
January 29, 2015 3:53 am

I’ve heard that CO2 can also turn gold into lead, leading to world wide financial collapse. See, it wasn’t the bankers after all!

Robert Wykoff
January 28, 2015 8:29 am

So, if we suddenly go into an “extreme” El Nino regime, will that be caused by global warming too?

John M
Reply to  Robert Wykoff
January 28, 2015 9:23 am
Jimbo
Reply to  John M
January 28, 2015 9:33 am

Been there and done that too. Here are some observations.

Letters to Nature – October 2002
Variability of El Niño/Southern Oscillation activity at millennial timescales during the Holocene epoch
The variability of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) during the Holocene epoch, in particular on millennial timescales, is poorly understood. Palaeoclimate studies have documented ENSO variability for selected intervals in the Holocene, but most records are either too short or insufficiently resolved to investigate variability on millennial scales1, 2, 3. Here we present a record of sedimentation in Laguna Pallcacocha, southern Ecuador, which is strongly influenced by ENSO variability, and covers the past 12,000 years continuously. We find that changes on a timescale of 2–8 years, which we attribute to warm ENSO events, become more frequent over the Holocene until about 1,200 years ago, and then decline towards the present. Periods of relatively high and low ENSO activity, alternating at a timescale of about 2,000 years, are superimposed on this long-term trend. We attribute the long-term trend to orbitally induced changes in insolation, and suggest internal ENSO dynamics as a possible cause of the millennial variability. However, the millennial oscillation will need to be confirmed in other ENSO proxy records.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v420/n6912/abs/nature01194.html
============
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #PP51B-05
Assessing ENSO variability over the past millennium: a western tropical Pacific perspective
Khider, D. et al
Our results indicate that ENSO variability during the late 20th century was lower than during any other sampled intervals over the past millennium. There is no systematic difference in variability associated with warmer climatic conditions during the MCA or cooler climatic conditions of the LIA. ENSO variability at the peak of the Northern Hemisphere MCA was similar to that of the early 20th century but intensified between the 13th and 14th century, reaching a maximum at ~1400 A.D. These results agree with a recent reconstruction of El Niño and La Niña frequency from the eastern tropical Pacific. The MCA was also characterized by decades of stronger/more frequent La Niñas, in agreement with the relatively cooler conditions in the eastern and central tropical Pacific during this time period observed in other records. …
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFMPP51B..05K

george e. smith
Reply to  Robert Wykoff
January 28, 2015 1:58 pm

Izza Ice age a la nina, or is it too damn big for that ???

January 28, 2015 8:31 am

This is the first time I ever heard them mention increasing La Nina frequency due to global warming. It has always been increasing El Nino ‘s associated with global warming.

lee
Reply to  Salvatore Del Prete
January 28, 2015 5:59 pm

But that’s only in the Northern Hemisphere. El Ninos bring rain to California, La Ninas bring rain to Australia. I’m gonna drown.

Geologist Down The Pub Sez
January 28, 2015 8:37 am

How does these researchers reconcile increasing amplitude and decreasing wavelength in the ENSO cycle with the 20+ year decline in the piezometric surface of the Floridan aquifer? That is a real observation, which I observe in monthly measurements submitted to the IFAS database. We are just having weaker El Ninos than we did a few decades ago. Observation, not politics nor “interpretation”.

Geologist Down The Pub Sez
Reply to  Geologist Down The Pub Sez
January 28, 2015 8:39 am

OK, OK, so I can’t type this morning! “How do” etc.

looncraz
Reply to  Geologist Down The Pub Sez
January 28, 2015 10:58 am

Observation is irrelevant.

Frederik Michiels
Reply to  Geologist Down The Pub Sez
January 29, 2015 3:45 am

observations are not perfect for the “IPCC borgs” They need to be assimilated (adjusted) to fit into the collective CO2 hoax 🙂
it’s very similar to what i encounter in Belgium: i live near a town named Ghent (population 250.000) in a small rural place at 15 miles from it. The meteorological regional station here is located in Ghent. i often am in town, and this winter i observed the following: In ghent i saw often no frozen puddles, while here only 15 miles out of town every puddle was frozen solid and remained frozen solid whole day….
For information Ghent is at roughly 40 miles from the coast
We are at roughly 30 miles from the coast (thus more chance of influence from the sea)
when i point this out it is often told as “inconsistency because you have no thermometer like the meteorological institution has”. like if they do not even look at the fact that when puddles freeze that it must be below freezing point while when they remain open it must be above or near freezing point. either way a significant observation that on rural places it is significantly colder then in towns
same with our “record” warm winter of 2013-2014: they observed no freezing in Brussels, while here in our rural little town we had some nights with some very slight freeze.
but well we are insurgants that need to be assimilated into the IPCC borg collective.
“your observations will be assimilated, publishing your observed true facts are futile”
(couldn’t resist to give it a little dose of humor)

January 28, 2015 8:37 am

What they are really saying is the variability of ENSO is going to be more extreme rather then the more or less neutral conditions that have been the norm over the past few years.
My bet is they will be wrong once again. Look for less extremes in ENSO going forward.

george e. smith
Reply to  Salvatore Del Prete
January 28, 2015 2:01 pm

Well I they increase in frequency, doesn’t that make them more normal, so that makes them less extreme; or do I have that backwards ??

trafamadore
January 28, 2015 8:39 am

While the science world seriously tries to understand ENSO, WUWT decides that “Once again, the models simulate little if anything correctly. The same arguments apply to the newer paper Cai et al (2015), so there’s no need to repeat them”
You guys are pretty entertaining.

Reply to  trafamadore
January 28, 2015 10:02 am

And you don’t think a paper claiming global warming is going to cause global cooling is pretty entertaining?

Reply to  BobM
January 28, 2015 10:13 am

It’s really entertaining seeing that folks like trafamadope actually believe that warming causes cooling. Entertaining… and scary, because they can vote.
Yikes.

Paul
Reply to  BobM
January 28, 2015 11:17 am

scary, because they can vote”…and breed.

Jimbo
Reply to  trafamadore
January 28, 2015 10:11 am

trafamadore, how many climate models have made correct predictions / projections since the setting up of the IPCC in 1988? Almost 30 years / almost climate. Papers or abstracts please.

Latitude
Reply to  trafamadore
January 28, 2015 10:11 am

Trying to understand???….No, they are saying they do understand…..and that’s what’s so funny!
“for a near doubling in the frequency of future extreme La Niña events, from one in every 23 years to one in every 13 years.”

Jimbo
Reply to  trafamadore
January 28, 2015 10:17 am

trafamadore, they have not tried to understand. They have carried out simulations and present the results as evidence.

Abstract“…..Here we present climate modelling evidence, from simulations conducted for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase…..”

Very poor show if you ask me.

Alx
Reply to  trafamadore
January 28, 2015 11:00 am

The purpose is not to further understand ENSO, the purpose is to say, “We got it all figured out to such an in depth degree that we can predict future ENSO behavior as far into the future as you want to go.” It would be nice it they did give more effort into understanding ENSO instead of setting up fortune teller booths.
BTW WUWT must be entertaining for you to keep reading, however it might be more appropriate for you to pursue kids entertainment.

trafamadore
Reply to  Alx
January 28, 2015 3:03 pm

I guess it would be equivalent, you’re right.

Reply to  trafamadore
January 28, 2015 1:27 pm

While the science world seriously tries to understand ENSO, WUWT decides that…

And here I was thinking that the science was already settled and all. At that stage in my opinion, even a less serious effort to understand is a giant leap forward.
P.S. Kurt Vonnegut hardly knew how much the intergalactical message from the supreme beings in the sirens of Titan was to entertain our generation.

Phlogiston
Reply to  trafamadore
January 28, 2015 6:39 pm

Why don’t they just see what happens? Why the obsession with models whose farsical performance brings the field into disrepute, also deep division with Trenberth coming out against Cai et al. Is Trenberth the climate Trotsky now (watch your back Kev!)
The models don’t even start in the right place with ENSO being a nonlinear oscillator (which follows inescapably from the Bjerknes positive feedback). From then on the models are doomed, dooooomed!

trafamadore
Reply to  Phlogiston
January 28, 2015 7:03 pm

“Why don’t they just see what happens? Why the obsession with models…??”
A model predicted the NE snowstorm. It wasn’t perfect, but a lot people stayed home and didn’t get hurt. Models are useful at predicting the future; you don’t need to be surprised all the time.

Reply to  Phlogiston
January 28, 2015 7:07 pm

,
I can write a model that predicts that the sun will rise in the east next Thursday. So what? Read Langmuir to undersatand the difference between a good model and a worthless model. GCMs have proven to be not worth even a small fraction of the $millions wasted on them.

Reply to  trafamadore
January 28, 2015 10:15 pm

trafamadore concedes that the models are based on junk science … that’s how skeptics have found CAGW predictions in the recent past as the protagonists have had no idea of the causes in warming and cooling … it’s a great pity that they made all of these catastrophic predictions and milked the world for billions $ before they made any attempt to fundamentally understand anything.

Latitude
January 28, 2015 8:39 am

oh noooooo…more warm cold

John
January 28, 2015 8:40 am

So… everything is caused by global warming, even ice ages (I expect them to say that soon).

pjbgravely
Reply to  John
January 28, 2015 8:51 am

I’m sure someone has, The idea for” The Day After Tomorrow ” came from somewhere

Ed Moran
Reply to  pjbgravely
January 28, 2015 10:52 am

OK! Stupid science but I really enjoyed that film! Were did the idea come from? Kim Robinson? He goes on about the Gulf Stream.

JST1
Reply to  pjbgravely
January 28, 2015 1:17 pm

I especially liked that during the worst that was going on outside, the help desk at the library was still being manned (or womanned). What would Jake have done otherwise?

george e. smith
Reply to  pjbgravely
January 28, 2015 2:08 pm

The idea for “The Day after Tomorrow” was generated by Art Bell who used to host the night time radio show “Dreamland”, which George Noory took over. I believe Bell actually concocted a lot of the story.

Reply to  george e. smith
January 29, 2015 5:08 am

I never heard Art Bell, but having spent many “change windows” (the only time change can be made to networks, midnight to 4am) during Noory’s tenure, I can see the connection with The Day After. beam me up ET! LOL!

Brandon Gates
Reply to  pjbgravely
January 28, 2015 2:30 pm

Ed Moran,

Were did the idea come from?

I’m guessing no single source, but rather general talk in the climate community about Gulf Stream, or even full-on AMOC shutdown. Apparently Gavin Schmidt thought the science of the movie was appallingly bad … which is not surprising because even this layperson thought it was preposterous. Some interesting notes here: http://climatesight.org/tag/the-day-after-tomorrow/

Reply to  John
January 28, 2015 9:47 am

They did a long time ago
Greenhouse Effect Culprit May Be Family Car; New Ice Age by 1995?…As the tropical oceans heat up (due to increased greenhouse gases), more of their moisture is evaporated to form clouds. The increasing pole-tropic wind systems move some of these additional clouds toward the poles, resulting in increased winter rainfall, longer and colder winters and the gradual buildup of the polar ice sheets. This phenomenon has come to be widely recognized by climatologists in recent years. What most of them do not recognize is that this process may be the engine that drives the 100,000-year cycle of major ice ages, for which there is no other plausible explanation….we may be less than seven years away, and our climate may continue to deteriorate rapidly until life on earth becomes all but unsupportable…. New York Times – Larry Ephron , Director of the Institute for a Future – July 15, 1988
One of the world’s leading climate experts warned of an underestimated threat posed by the buildup of greenhouse gases ‘ an abrupt collapse of the ocean’s prevailing circulation system that could send temperatures across Europe plummeting in a span of 10 years. If that system shut down today, winter temperatures in the North Atlantic region would fall by 20 or more degrees Fahrenheit within 10 years. Dublin would acquire the climate of Spitsbergen, 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle. “The consequences could be devastating,” said Wallace S. Broecker, Newberry Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University’s – Science Magazine Dec 1, 1997

Reply to  John
January 29, 2015 8:08 am

Two years ago I saw a program on NatGeo that claimed that global warming could cause an ice age. There is no ‘soon’ about it – they’re already there.

January 28, 2015 8:41 am

Why don’t these bozos make it easy on themselves (and us) by telling us what global warming will NOT be responsible for causing?

Eustace Cranch
Reply to  Kamikaze Dave
January 28, 2015 8:55 am

acne
bedbugs
bad smells
traffic jams
incontinence
mushy strawberries
chainsaw accidents
forgetfulness
albinism
broken milkshake machine at McDonalds…
It’s official. There’s nothing left NOT on the list.

CaligulaJones
Reply to  Eustace Cranch
January 28, 2015 9:31 am

For a rather larger list:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

GeeJam
Reply to  Eustace Cranch
January 28, 2015 9:33 am

Dilapidated bits of ceiling paper.
Cold coffee
Corroded batteries
Bits of stale toast
Crumpled Rizla packets
Mould
Leaking Highlighter Pens
Amphetamines
Stray Beard Hairs
Dandruff
So, if CAGW climatologists were only to look around their desks, they’ll see that, actually, there’s still plenty of inspiration left to blame global warming on.

MarkW
Reply to  Eustace Cranch
January 28, 2015 9:52 am

I saw a paper a few weeks ago blaming increases in bedbugs on global warming.

Reply to  Eustace Cranch
January 28, 2015 9:59 am

The heartbreak of psoriasis.

Alan Robertson
Reply to  Eustace Cranch
January 28, 2015 11:27 am

Tired, poor blood, but Geritol easily fixes that.

Reply to  Eustace Cranch
January 29, 2015 1:23 am

But I can’t find anything about the effect on cricket. How can we take this AGW seriously?

Reply to  Kamikaze Dave
January 28, 2015 9:53 am

The underlying cause of Climate Science going off the rails and into the ditch is a multi-factorial ensemble of dishonesty, rent-seeking, and ego-reputation saving. Everything else is the effect.

Joe Crawford
January 28, 2015 8:46 am

I wouldn’t knock ’em too much. The po’thangs is just trying to continue to justify their jobs and keep the fundin’ coming.

Ed Moran
Reply to  Joe Crawford
January 28, 2015 10:56 am

Joe, the problem is that they are helping the taking away of our democratic rights and wasting billions that could be better used.

Joe Crawford
Reply to  Ed Moran
January 28, 2015 5:31 pm

Ed,
I was being a little sarcastic in my post… guess I should have used the /sarc tag. However, thanks to Steve Mac’s site, Judith Curry’s, this one and several others people are finally starting to notice what is actually going on with “Climate Change”, or what ever it is currently being called.
There is a good post over at Judith’s Climate Etc.(i.e.,http://judithcurry.com/) called “Climate change as a political process”. It refers to a recent Ph.D. thesis from Finland by:

Eija-Riitta Korhola is a rare politician. She was a long-serving member of the European Parliament from Finland as a member of the European People’s Party, the largest block in the legislature. She has also recently completed an academic dissertation for a PhD in a policy field that she specializes in – climate policy.

It is a good read. Evern some of the politicians are finally catching on.

Sciguy54
January 28, 2015 8:50 am

“It appears that we have a very good case for suggesting that the El Ninos are going
to become more frequent, and they’re going to become more intense and in a few years,
or a decade or so, we’ll go into a permanent El Nino. So instead of having cool water
periods for a year or two, we’ll have El Nino upon El Nino, and that will become the
norm. And you’ll have an El Nino, that instead of lasting 18 months, lasts 18 years,”
he said.
-Dr Russ Schnell, research scientist at Mauna Loa Observatory, BBC November 7, 1997
Oops… reverse that. He must have meant La Ninas and cooler. Or did he really just mean that mankind is terrible and we are taking the planet to h*ll with us? Details to be disclosed at a later date… perhaps after Dr. Schnell has retired. In any case TRUST THEM, THEY KNOW!

January 28, 2015 8:51 am

This Chicken Little cartoon sums it up.
http://www.maxphoton.com/chicken-little/

climatologist
January 28, 2015 8:56 am

Absolute BS

FrankKarr
Reply to  climatologist
January 28, 2015 9:18 am

The biggest scam and fraud in the history of the world.

FrankKarr
Reply to  FrankKarr
January 28, 2015 9:30 am

Foxy Loxy’s at work again for the Paris roundup.

Sun Spot
Reply to  FrankKarr
January 28, 2015 10:42 am

@FrankKarr, I haven’t seen that cartoon since 1967. I was shown it as a lead to another movie in my grade 7 class.
From the cartoon “undermine the faith of the masses and their leaders”, the metaphorical “Chicken Little” seems to be the willing dupes, our leaders, the scientists who are falsely panicky, the MSM etc. etc. etc who are crying the cAGW sky is falling. How would you define Foxy Loxy, as in the cAGW narrative Chicken Little and Foxy Loxy seem to be knowingly colluding to stampede the chicken masses ?

GeeJam
January 28, 2015 9:00 am

AnonyMoose, obviously no, not anymore, apparently. During a typical La Niña, even though you are correct in knowing that sea surface temperatures across the equatorial Eastern Central Pacific Ocean historically dip by about 3–5 °C below normal, from now on it will SCALD you when you stick your toes in the water – oh, and an El Niño will evolve into a fire-breathing serpent causing FIRST DEGREE BURNS. Allegedly.

RWturner
January 28, 2015 9:01 am

The abstract has no mention of the PDO or any other natural climate variables that may affect ENSO, such as solar variables.
Just by reading the abstract is seems like they have fully accepted “modeled evidence” of the increase of extreme El Ninos as truth and used those models to determine what La Ninas will do. They conclude that extreme La Ninas will increase and that 75% of those will occur after extreme El Ninos, that will also increase. In other words, climate disruption is caused by changing the atmospheric CO2 from 300 ppm to 400 ppm. But who needs to verify these models with historical data when you’re on the AGW gravy train?
In my opinion there is a connection between ENSO and the PDO.
http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/645fall2003_web.dir/Jason_Amundson/enso.htm
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei.ext/ext.ts.jpg
http://images.intellicast.com/App_Images/Article/126_5.gif
http://cses.washington.edu/cig/pnwc/compensopdo.shtml

TRM
Reply to  RWturner
January 28, 2015 9:50 am

Very interesting. I’d be glad to get Dr Easterbrook’s take on this as well. Those of us old enough to remember the 1970s can verify it was not caused by global warming. While I hope “past performance is not indicative of future results” I’m also insulating and getting wool socks ready.
Excellent graphs by the way. 83 & 98 really stand out on the warm side as do 55 and 74-5 on the cold side.

redress
Reply to  TRM
January 28, 2015 1:41 pm

TRM ………..very interesting I agree……….of note is that in Australia, 1955 was very wet and 1956 were very big flood year……….as was 1974- 5 period.

Reply to  RWturner
January 28, 2015 6:39 pm

The phase to cool/La Nina dominance was in 2006. That is why temps have continued to stay flat. The last cool trend was between 1946/47 and 1876/77. Although it was a weak cool trend. That is what gave the next 30 year warm trend 1976/77 to 2006/07, a leg up on the temp chart. The last warming started from a higher base. The question is “how weak or strong will this cool phase become?”, and “what affect will solar related changes have during a cool trend?”.

Reply to  goldminor
January 28, 2015 6:42 pm

Made an error in the above…” between 1946/47 and 1876/77. ” should have read as …1946/47 to 1976/77.

Sue Deacon
January 28, 2015 9:01 am

OK, let me get this right – we’re dammed if it does and we’re dammed if it doesn’t? Make your minds up guys.
Climate Change? Yeh, it does that – the climate changes – it always has! As for Global WARMING, all I can say is Bring it on, I’m b****y frozen!

January 28, 2015 9:06 am

Warmer warms
Colder colds.
On average they won’t balance out
Over time a slow secular trend.
The concept isn’t hard to grasp.
Will it happen?
Different question. But the concept is not rocket science as
Anyone who studies time series can tell you.

mebbe
Reply to  Steven Mosher
January 28, 2015 10:08 am

Yeah, why didn’t they just ask you?
This study thinks it’s coming up with something new but it’s, like, so obvious!!

Reply to  mebbe
January 28, 2015 10:21 am

I get tired of the oxymoron “rocket science” – there is no science in rocketry, its engineering – the only technical discipline that HAS to keep its head above the nonsense.

Sciguy54
Reply to  Steven Mosher
January 28, 2015 10:16 am

Steven:
The devil of time series will always be to pick the correct time frame. Are we in a cooling trend for the past 8,000 years? Are we in a warming trend for the past 100 years? Are we in a flat trend for the past 15-20 years? Yes. The key question is, does anyone KNOW the causes for these trends and methods for altering them going forward? No.

FrankKarr
Reply to  Steven Mosher
January 28, 2015 10:50 am

Another cliché from Mosher. At least rocket science is an exact science while current so called “climate science” as practised by alarmists is a dogs breakfast of unsubstantiated “make it up as you go along if things don’t fit the data” excuses.

DirkH
Reply to  FrankKarr
January 28, 2015 11:40 am

Well it is rocket science, because rocket science is pretty much hit and miss.

Reply to  Steven Mosher
January 28, 2015 12:22 pm

I thought the data shows not warmer warms but warmer colds which results in warmer averages…

Latitude
Reply to  Steven Mosher
January 28, 2015 12:47 pm
mrj
Reply to  Latitude
January 28, 2015 2:56 pm

So the graph is the interglacial warm period with cooling trend and thenterglacial is over run anyway. We are slowly cooling towards the next major ice age?

Reply to  Steven Mosher
January 28, 2015 2:05 pm

Just like more tornadoes that aren’t happening and more hurricanes that aren’t happening and increasing drought that isn’t happening and increasing extreme cold that we found out would happen after it happened last Winter in the US.
Now, when the cycle features more La Ninas then the previous 2 decades(80s-90’s) we find out that climate change also makes these more extreme.
Let’s face it, the only thing that makes sense, if you believe that increasing CO2 will cause dangerous warming and want legit evidence of it is the occur acne of dangerous warming.
In the absence of dangerous warming(+0.04 C in 15 years on thermometers is evidence of no dangerous warming) all this other stuff makes no scientific sense.

BFL
Reply to  Steven Mosher
January 28, 2015 2:52 pm

And it always helps when the data is adjusted to assist the models………….

January 28, 2015 9:06 am

OK, now the Climate Activists and the AGW crowd have truly and utterly lost me. I get the El Nino part that comes with global warming. No questions there, thermodynamics wise, that makes complete sense. More heat stored = more heat emitted from the biggest freaking heat sink on the planet, aka the Ocean.
But more La Ninas?! As in massive cooling mechanisms growing with more warming?! WTF?! What, are these the warmest La Nina’s ever? Like the fact that we’re getting more global snow cover, much more sea ice, but hey, it’s the WARMEST snow and WARMEST ice ever?! I’m beginning to wonder if climate skeptics just need to step aside and watch the AGW crowd shoot themselves in the foot over, and over, and over again.

Jimbo
Reply to  SABicyclist
January 28, 2015 9:56 am

Here are some observations of the past.

Paper – June 2004
Helen V. McGregor
Western Pacific coral δ18O records of anomalous Holocene variability in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation
….Our results show that the ENSO system has the potential for more extreme variability than that observed in the modern instrumental record. The reduced El Niño frequency and amplitude during the mid-Holocene, and a shift to strong El Niño events at ∼2.5–1.7 ka, is similar to the pattern observed in modeling and paleo-lake studies. However, the coral records for ∼2.5–1.7 ka show evidence for El Niño events more severe than the 1997–1998 event, and longer than the multi-year 1991–1994 event…..
Geophysical Research Letters Vol 31, L11204,
doi:10.1029/2004GL019972
http://business.uow.edu.au/sydney-bschool/content/groups/public/@web/@sci/@eesc/documents/doc/uow057057.pdf
———————
Abstract – August 2000
Thierry Corrège et al
Evidence for stronger El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Events in a Mid-Holocene massive coral
We present a 47-year-long record of sea surface temperature (SST) derived from Sr/Ca and U/Ca analysis of a massive Porites coral which grew at ~ 4150 calendar years before present (B.P.) in Vanuatu (southwest tropical Pacific Ocean). Mean SST is similar in both the modern instrumental record and paleorecord, and both exhibit El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) frequency SST oscillations. However, several strong decadal-frequency cooling events and a marked modulation of the seasonal SST cycle, with power at both ENSO and decadal frequencies, are observed in the paleorecord, which are unprecedented in the modern record.
Paleoceanography – Volume 15, Issue 4, pages 465–470, August 2000
http://tinyurl.com/ob443sz
———————
Nature Article – March 2003
Kim M. Cobb et al
El Niño/Southern Oscillation and tropical Pacific climate during the last millennium
…..The most intense ENSO activity within the reconstruction occurred during the mid-seventeenth century. Taken together, the coral data imply that the majority of ENSO variability over the last millennium may have arisen from dynamics internal to the ENSO system itself.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v424/n6946/abs/nature01779.html

SAMURAI
January 28, 2015 9:15 am

The PDO just entered its 30-yr cool cycle in 2005, so it’s likely there will be fewer strong El Niño cycles for another 20 years.
During the 15 years between 1983~1998, there were SIX El Niño events, including the 97/98 Super El Niño. It’s no coincidence that the last 30~yr PDO warm cycle was from 1979~2005.
During the 15 years between 1999~2014, we’ve only had 2 El Niños plus the weak El Nada event last year….
The CAGW Chicken Littles won’t have much to squawk about for the next 20 years as we should eventually start seeing some cold La Niña events during this current PDO cool cycle.
To further exacerbate the Warmunists, the next 30-yr AMO cool cycle will start in a about 5~7 years. To make matters even worse, we’re in the weakest solar cycle since 1906, which peaked last year and starts its downward slide until the next solar cycle starts around 2022… To put a nice little cherry on top of all this, the next solar cycle is predicted by some astrophysicists to be the weakest since 1715, and could mark the start of a new Grand Solar Minimum that could last 80 years.
If all these cooling factors aren’t enough, with all the recent seismic activity taking place all around the globe, there also seems to be a high probability of a major volcanic eruption taking place in the next 5~10 years.
That’s a lot of potential cooling factors all coming together at the same time…
I love the smell of desperation in the morning… It reminds me of victory…

Scotth
Reply to  SAMURAI
January 28, 2015 9:25 am

Not knocking on the natural cycles explanation. IMO, that is what we are seeing & not any “human fingerprint” on climate. But, PDO = Pacific Decadal Oscillation. How does a 30 year cycle fit into that? I know that many natural cycles are thought to be 30 or 60 years in duration. I just never thought the PDO was one of them. Thanks!

SAMURAI
Reply to  Scotth
January 28, 2015 11:18 am

Scotth– Since 1850, there has been a 100% correlation between 30-yr PDO warm/cool cycles and global warming/cooling trends:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/to:1880/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/to:1880/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1880/to:1921/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1880/to:1921/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1921/to:1943/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1921/to:1943/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1943/to:1977/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1943/to:1977/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1977/to:2005/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1977/to:2005/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2005/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2005/trend
CAGW is screwed… In about 5 years, CAGW projections vs reality should be close to 3 standard deviations off, with almost a quarter of a century of no global warming trend…

Reply to  SAMURAI
January 28, 2015 9:29 am

Well on a global scale, the skeptic view is winning policy wise. China artfully negotiated a “sure, we’ll cut emissions, after we’ve peaked in emissions.”, India did the right thing, “we place a priority on helping our poor.” Australia and Canada have that anti Obama carbon coalition going, Germany woke up to its Energiewende disaster, and the EU is dismantling and consolidating their green energy commissions. That’s what, most of the world’s population right there? And global warming, aka climate change obfuscation, is the lowest of all the concerns no matter which poll you take, from Pew to whomever. And that’s globally.
I’m willing to pay the price of having to see or hear neurotic AGW crowd freak out about AGW for those victories. After all, at the end of the day, for most of us, it’s really just a bunch of smack talk. End results are what count, and that’s what matters to me. I personally witnessed a lot of people starve and get hammered by the food to biofuel policy initiative greenlit by the IPCC back in 2007. That also started the Arab Spring. It took seven years for the IPCC to figure out that wasn’t smart and to stop it, and the AGW crowd still hasn’t accepted their role in it and the blood on their hands. As long as skeptics can keep that kind of insanity from becoming public policy, that’s what matters most.

Madman2001
Reply to  SABicyclist
January 28, 2015 12:33 pm

Er, so the biofuel initiative caused starvation which triggered the so-called Arab Spring? Not sure that all this fits together.

Editor
Reply to  SABicyclist
January 28, 2015 12:47 pm

It’s good that the scepticview is winning policy-wise, but the AGW grip on climate science has still not been broken.

Rhoda R
Reply to  SABicyclist
January 28, 2015 1:52 pm

Worse, Mike Jonas, the AGW grip on the POLITICIANS has not weakened.

James at 48
Reply to  SAMURAI
January 28, 2015 10:20 am

If this Negative PDO is a grand minimum, we will see a repeat of past US SW Megadrought conditions. Cold begets drought in many mid latitude areas.

Reply to  SAMURAI
January 28, 2015 12:52 pm

Exactly, Samurai. It’s the beginning of the end for the CO2 cultists. The sun rules our climate. I wouldn’t be surprised to see all of the warmth we gained since the end of LIA lost in the coming years.

January 28, 2015 9:23 am

This is more of their double talk , just like they did with their original more zonal atmospheric forecast (less extreme in the climate due to global warming) only to change it when they saw they were wrong. Same thing is going on here.
They are phonies.

January 28, 2015 9:30 am

The obvious answer is they do not work. At least on this planet.

Sciguy54
January 28, 2015 9:31 am

to SAMURAI:
I believe you are correct. Certain “climate scientists” see the same things you have listed and are staking their claims on the next 20 years turning cooler.
They have simply put their money down on a bet that it MIGHT be cooler, and if they guess correctly and CLAIM that the downturn is caused by AGW, then they will have adequate funding for the rest of their working lives. That’s how it works it climate-world. After all, in the worst case they can be totally wrong today and all will be forgiven/forgotten before they need to apply for another grant.

Jimbo
Reply to  Sciguy54
January 28, 2015 10:01 am

Exactly! They are covering their bases knowing that any cooling will be blamed on global warming. Good stuff indeed. They have mortgages to pay, and they never predicted cooling back in the day. Oh wait….

RWturner
Reply to  Jimbo
January 28, 2015 10:39 am

It would be interesting to see these guys play craps. You win [something] every time if you’ve hedged all your bets, but you are guaranteed to lose in the long run.

Jimbo
January 28, 2015 9:42 am

So here is the ‘evidence’ presented. Good job boys.

Wenju Cai et al 2015
Increased frequency of extreme La Niña events under greenhouse warming
………..Here we present climate modelling evidence, from simulations conducted for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (ref. 13), for a near doubling in the frequency of future extreme La Niña events, from one in every 23 years to one in every 13 years. This occurs because projected faster mean warming of the Maritime continent than the central Pacific, enhanced upper ocean vertical temperature gradients, and increased frequency of extreme El Niño events are conducive to development of the extreme La Niña events. Approximately 75% of the increase occurs in years following extreme El Niño events, thus projecting more frequent swings between opposite extremes from one year to the next.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v5/n2/full/nclimate2492.html

don Anderson
January 28, 2015 9:42 am

The more technical solar cycle observers might confirm that the sun was very [quiet] during the little ice age and that the southwest was in extreme drought during that period. It seems to me that relating cool
periods to the low sun cycles is more accurate to these super computer models. Am
way off in this thinking?

Mike the Morlock
Reply to  don Anderson
January 28, 2015 9:51 am

don Anderson. The problem is .. just because two things happen at the same time does not mean they are linked no matter how rational such a link would appear. for now its is just an observation. And yes a possibility. We will know more in the years to come.
michael

Reply to  don Anderson
January 28, 2015 8:14 pm

There is another element that may enhance the cooling period. I can’t help but think that there is also a connection between heightened quake and volcanic events during a grand minimum. There is also a similar correlation around the years of a Gleissberg cycle. The large eruption at Colima Mexico last week could well fit the pattern. That volcano erupted 7 times during the Dalton GM. The Icelandic volcanoes show some of their highest levels of activity during a grand minimum period, as well as during the intermediate period. Look at what is currently underway in Iceland at this time. Mt Lassen In California shows similar periodicity. The New Madrid fault shows similar periodicity with events in early 1900s, the Dalton, and the Maunder. In the last 6 months or so, quakes striking at Anthony Kansas have become a regular feature on the USGS quake map. There were very few to none striking Kansas in the 3.5 years prior. Is this a possible first sign for the New Madrid fault?
If there is a connection, and a grand minimum is just around the corner, then the odds are increased that there will be some strong seismic/volcanic events during the next 20+ years.

Mike the Morlock
January 28, 2015 9:43 am

comment image%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.nationalww2museum.org%252Flearn%252Feducation%252Ffor-teachers%252Flesson-plans%252Fdr-seuss.html%3B550%3B494
Hope this works .
More cartoons these by Dr Seuss during ww2 enjoy
michael

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