From the DOE/PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY
El Nino and global warming work together to bring more extreme weather
RICHLAND, Wash. – In the future, the Pacific Ocean’s temperature cycles could disrupt more than just December fishing. A study published in Nature Communications suggests that the weather patterns known as El Nino and La Nina could lead to at least a doubling of extreme droughts and floods in California later this century.
The study shows more frequent extreme events are likely to occur. Other research shows the Golden State’s average precipitation increasing gradually, but not enough to account for the occurrence of extreme events. A better understanding of what gives rise to El Nino and La Nina cycles — together known as El Nino-Southern Oscillation — might help California predict and prepare for more frequent droughts and floods in the coming century.
“Wet and dry years in California are linked to El Nino and La Nina. That relationship is getting stronger,” said atmospheric scientist Jin-Ho Yoon of the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “Our study shows that ENSO will be exhibiting increasing control over California weather.”
Rain’s range
California is experiencing one of the most severe droughts in its history, but it’s not clear if a warmer world will make droughts worse, more frequent or perhaps even improve the situation. After all, warmer air can hold more water, and some research suggests global warming could increase California’s average rain and snowfall.
However, research also suggests future rain will come down more as light drizzles and heavy deluges and less as moderate rainfall. Yoon and colleagues from PNNL and Utah State University in Logan, Utah, wondered if droughts might follow a similar pattern.
To find out, the researchers looked at what happens to California in global climate models. They simulated two periods of time: 1920 to 2005 using historical measurements; and 2006 to 2080 using conditions in which very few efforts are made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They chose this future scenario to examine the most extreme case.
To understand how well the simulations worked, they used two tactics to show reproducibility: In one tactic, they used a compilation of 38 different models. In the other, they re-ran a single model 30 times. The more similar the results, the more sure the researchers were of the finding.
Weather pendulum
The models showed that in the future, assuming emissions continue to increase, California seasons will exhibit more excessively wet and excessively dry events. These results suggest that the frequency of droughts could double and floods could triple between the early 20th century and late 21st century.
“By 2100, we see more — and more extreme — events. Flooding and droughts will be more severe than they are currently,” said Yoon.
But why? Yoon suspected the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. Every two to seven years, El Nino comes in and warms up the tropical Pacific Ocean a few degrees, increasing winter rain and snowpack in California. On a similar schedule, La Nina cools things off. Both disrupt regular weather in many regions around the globe.
To explore El Nino’s connection to California precipitation, Yoon and colleagues ran a climate model with and without El Nino. In both simulations, they ramped up the concentration of carbon dioxide by 1 percent every year for 150 years. In just one of the runs, they removed El Nino’s cyclical contribution by programming the sea surface temperatures to reflect only steady warming.
Without El Nino and La Nina, the frequency of extreme precipitation in California stayed constant for the simulation’s century and a half. With ENSO, simulated California experienced wide swings in rainfall by the end of the period.
The results suggest that even though researchers expect rain and snowfall to increase as the climate warms, the manner in which the water hits California could be highly variable.
The El Nino-Southern Oscillation is still a bit of a mystery, said Yoon. Scientists only know El Nino and La Nina years, named for the Spanish terms for boy and girl, are coming by sea surface temperatures and other weather hints. Studies that investigate what controls the unruly children could help scientists predict unruly weather in the future.
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This work was supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science.
Reference: Jin-Ho Yoon, S.-Y. Simon Wang, Robert R. Gillies, Ben Kravitz, Lawrence Hipps, and Philip J. Rasch. Increasing water cycle extremes in California and relation to ENSO cycle under global warming, Nature Communications, Oct. 21, 2015, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9657.
I love these. Make a prediction about something that will happen so far in the future, nobody will even remember when the time comes and people are supposed to listen to it like it is worth something.
The people are supposed pay taxes to prevent that “something” that’s far off in the future. If none of those taxpayers are around to remember what is supposed to happen, who will play with that pile of money? Oh, of course, money attracts, like flies to honey.
Was the big mudslide near Tehachapi, California last week exacerbated by the areally extensive earthworks associated with the big windfarm that straddles Highway 58 at that location?
Well Tehachapi is actually at the top of the pass, so don’t see how anything would come down on top of it.
All of the news bulletins I heard on the radio and TV seemed to imply it happened on highway 5, 40 miles north of LA, which would be somewhere around Magic Mountain.
Didn’t here about highway 58 till way later. Gose from Bakersfield to Mojave; but also right on out to the coast in the other direction.
A pass, pretty much by definition, means a saddle in the mountains. That is, the hills rise on either side of the road, even if that is the highest point that the road reaches.
By 2300, California will/may separate from mainland U.S. I’ve studied past earthquake in U.S. and planetary alignments for the last 4,000 years of data. See, I can make a prediction or maybe it is a projection.
I don’t think any of the climate models account for California sliding into the Pacific and heading west, kokoda, but I could be wrong. Right now, I’m fairly certain that they assume that California will be in the same place in 150 years, but that means their rainfall projections are for where California is now and not for where California might actually be.
Not to worry, though. Throw another shovel or two of grant money their way and they can re-run the simulations with California located somewhere west of its current location. Then we can pretend we know what the rainfall on California will be while we pretend we know where California will be.
I would love to see these modeled rainfall events in 2100. “Oooh, here’s a sprinkle on June 12th! Ooooooooh, it’s an intense one on August 28th!”
Um, they didn’t happen to know next week’s lottery numbers by any chance, did they?
Were we where. http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19830404,00.html
And were we are now. http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19830404,00.html
Even if all human emissions ceased, catastrophic weather would not. And even if we were able to eliminate all human emissions, alarmists would find something else humans do to blame.
Wouldn’t GLOBAL warming dampen ENSO (e.g. by making the cold phase less cold) meanwhile making El Nino like conditions more common, at the expense of La Nina?
Bummer Man. What about 2525?
Ha ha ;-P
Cut and paste forecasting for the year 2100 that has been going on for decades now. It is curious that the forecast horizon has remained at 2100 and has not moved forward with time even though we have made no progress toward the forecast condition.
Pick a year. Here’s one: 1862
The Great Flood of 1862 was the largest flood in the recorded history of Oregon, Nevada, and California, occurring from December 1861 to January 1862.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862
If they really want to test the reality of their models, I would suggest that they produce a three month forecast for us so that we can see how accurate their thirty modes are!
S/b thirty models are!
Any thoughts on the rather cold BLOB in the eastern Pacific ocean wrt the el nino?
My thought is, we’ve been in a PDO mode that is biased negative for several years. El Nino has a difficult time getting established in this environment. The past few El Ninos were duds that died out prior to the core portion of the rainy season. If the current one fails to sustain past December it too will be a dud.
By 2100…the great Earthquakes should have destroyed Seattle and Portland(if nor southern Cal). Man does not control.
I weep silently. How the somewhat reasonable at PNNL have fallen.
For a few years some decades ago, I worked in the meteorological department at Hanford Laboratories, Richland Operations Office of the Atomic Energy Commission (thence becoming PNL, then PNNL after Hanford ceased being a defense programs operation). I arrived there only 16 years after the “original sin” of Enrico Fermi’s activation of B Reactor.
Back in those days, dinosaurs were rare, although General Electric was in fact the prime contractor for the laboratory operations in Richland. JFK was not to be found on the political radar.
The research in atmospheric physics we did at Hanford then was VERY data intensive. I earned an MS while I worked there. That fairly ordinary piece of arduous work included a few pages of calculus and algebra, then a lot of work to show how the calculus actually fit real life data. Those data came from many intense hours of data collection, and many more hours of tedium known as “analysis,” which amounted to converting analog signals into numeric symbols. No computers, only Marchant calculators, magnifying glasses, pencils, paper, and erasers (no delete key, you see).
Real data, published in a real journal. No models. Merely a beginner’s attempt to put real life together with real (but difficult) measurements. Not very important, but clearly data driven.
Yoon’s paper sounds nothing like the work I did there.
Yoon and colleagues apparently point to a contemporary infatuation with handwavium. This well-known element is wildly popular in DC today. Among other things, it can convert political connections into pocket money for a few people. Especially with the utterly magic (anti-science, that is) incantation, “global warming.”
What will PNNL meteorologists discover next? Poetry? I would like to be (or see) a peer reviewer for that. /sarc/
wth
At that point, I stopped reading.
It’s not the researchers who are ultimately making these predictions, it’s the models. Let’s bear that in mind.
Having read prior PNNL stuff, I would have filed this in the round file before reading. This appears to be the same old same old from this group. They have traction amongst their wet (sic) coast followers and many believers. Rightly or wrongly, I am not one of them. Too much bad advice.
” the manner in which the water hits California could be highly variable”
OMG, highly variable rain? That sounds horrible! Somebody better open a 3 or 4 letter international group to do something.
‘in the year 2100’
Your should always give credit where it is due , and it think that despite their many, many faults climate ‘scientists’ have learnt one thing , to make their prediction for so far ahead in time they will not be around to be reminded of them and asked why they got it so very wrong ‘again ‘
Meanwhile my models tells me by 2100 their will be a president of the USA whose name beings with the letter ‘D’ , given my prediction is as good has their I look forward to my fat grant cheque, anyone know when it will be posted ?
“in the year 2525 …”
That’s an easy prediction. California droughts and floods were worse in the past, long before the evil and toxic pollutant CO2 was emitted by disgusting human beings. To predict a return to that is easy, and blaming it on CO2 emissions is simply how they operate.
True. We really could be entering into a mega drought similar to ones that manifest in the paleo climate indicators.
” re-ran a single model 30 times. The more similar the results, the more sure ”
Another group of fools who don’t know the difference between accuracy and precision.
I have two models for the addition of 1+1. One of the models gives the answer 2, the other an answer of 10. By combining the outputs of the two models I can be certain that 1+1=6.
I don’t think I have made any mistakes but please post any corrections.
p.s. sarc by the way.
We still don’t know what causes the ENSO cycles, but we know with great certainty that CO2 will make them more intense.
Sheesh, these guys are getting desperate.
Apparently running the same model 30 times and getting the same results is an example of reproduciblity. Kind of like the more times you enter 2+2 into a calculator makes the calculator results more reliable. Imagine how accurate your calculator would be if you entered 2+2 60 times!
Using different models is an improvement.but the problem is the same. Like the calculator programmed to produce 2=2=4, the models can be programmed for a certain result. Models are programs, programmed by humans, computers are stupid; they just do what you tell them to do. Reproducibility is really irrelevant until real world results prove the hypothesis and assumptions that go into the models.
Since the computer models and computer model runs don’t correctly forecast the future, and don’t agree with each other, the article’s claims are exactly equivalent to the following.
It’s strange how closely post-modern science resembles pre-modern non-science.
Study, Research, Global Climate Models… One of these things is not like the others.