Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
Yesterday, NOAA published its weekly update of the sea surface temperature data for the NINO regions (data here), and because the sea surface temperature anomalies for “a key region” of the equatorial Pacific (the NINO3.4 region) exceeded the weekly values in 1997, alarmists from around the world are claiming the 2015/16 El Niño is the strongest ever, exceeding the strength of the 1997/98 El Niño. Example: the LA Times headline reads El Niño temperatures in Pacific Ocean break 25-year record. The article by Rong-Dong Lin II and Roxanna Xia begins:
Temperatures in a key location of the Pacific Ocean are now hotter than they ever were in the record 1997 El Niño.
There are numerous other articles with the same underlying alarmism, including:
- The Washington Post: By one measure, this wicked El Niño is the strongest ever recorded: What it means
- Mashable: The 2015 El Niño just crossed into record territory
- UN News Centre: El Niño on track to be among worst ever, but world better prepared for fallout – UN
- Ars Technica: El Niño reaches record level for a single week period
- BBC News: ‘High impacts’ from globally stronger El Nino
- The Weather Channel: Strenthening [sic] El Niño Will Be Strongest on Record, WMO Says
The articles are focused on the sea surface temperature anomalies of the NINO3.4 region, which is bordered by the coordinates of 5S-5N, 170W-120W. See Figure 1. But as shown, the NINO3.4 region is only one of 4 often-used NINO regions.
Figure 1
The NINO3.4 region was created because it was better correlated to the “core of the ENSO phenomenon” than other NINO regions. See Barnston et al. (1996) Documentation of a highly ENSO‐Related SST Region in the Equatorial Pacific: Research Note. In other words, the NINO3.4 region better reflected the typical El Niño and La Niña.
But it will be obvious to you that the NINO3.4 region does not capture the full strength of the 1997/98 El Niño! Why? Because the 1997/98 El Niño was not at its strongest in the central Pacific. The 1997/98 El Niño was an East Pacific El Niño, and it was strongest east of the NINO3.4 region. The 1997/98 El Niño was unlike any El Niño that had been studied by Barnston et al. (1996). And the current El Niño is also unlike the one in 1997/98.
ALL THE HUBBUB IS ABOUT THE NINO3.4 REGION SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES
Figure 2 compares the evolutions of the weekly NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies for the years 1997 and 2015. The sea surface temperature anomalies in this east-central region are obviously higher in 2015 than they were in 1997. So from that one metric, the alarmists are claiming the El Niño in 2015 is strongest ever.
Figure 2
Unfortunately, NOAA does not provide the uncertainties associated with that data.
BUT THE 1997/98 EL NIÑO EXCEEDED THE GOINGS-ON IN 2015 EAST OF THE NINO3.4 REGION
Figure 3 includes the evolutions of the 1997 and 2015 sea surface temperature anomalies for the NINO3 and NINO1+2 regions, which are east of the NINO3.4 region. In 2015, sea surface temperatures in these eastern-most regions have not reached the values seen in 1997.
Figure 3
The farther east an El Niño is taking place, the greater impact it has on “normal” global weather patterns.
WHICH EL NIÑO LOOKS STRONGER TO YOU?
Figure 4 includes Hovmoller diagrams of equatorial sea surface temperature anomalies for the 1997 and year-to-date 2015 from the NOAA GODAS website. I’ve highlighted the longitudes of the NINO3.4 region on both Hovmollers.
Figure 4
The vertical (y) axis in the Hovmollers is time with the Januarys at the top and Decembers at the bottom. The horizontal (x) axis is longitude, so, moving from left to right in each of the Hovmoller diagrams, we’re going from west to east…with the Indian Ocean in the left-hand portion, the Pacific in the center and the Atlantic in the right-hand portion. We’re interested in the Pacific. The data are color-coded according to the scales below the Hovmollers. (Sorry about the different sizes of the Hovmollers, but somewhere along the line NOAA GODAS changed them, but they are scaled, color-coded, the same.)
In 1997, sea surface temperature anomalies east of the NINO3.4 region had reached 4.0 deg C as early as June, but we have yet to see those levels in 2015.
THE DATA PRESENTED IS NOT BASED ON THE “OFFICIAL” SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE DATASET USED BY NOAA TO DEFINE EL NIÑO EVENTS
The data presented above and discussed in the linked articles are based on NOAA’s Optimum Interpolation sea surface temperature dataset (a.k.a. Reynolds OI.v2). However, NOAA uses their “pause buster” ERSST.v4 sea surface temperature data for their “official” Oceanic NINO Index. And as you can see there, this El Niño is running well behind the 1997/98 El Niño. Also see Figure 5, which was presented in the November 12, 2015 blog post by Emily Becker November El Niño update: It’s a small world at the NOAA ENSO Blog.
Figure 5 (Source here.)
Their caption reads:
Ranking of August-October average sea surface temperature departures from the mean for all El Niño episodes since 1950. This measurement, the Oceanic Niño Index, uses ERSSTv4 data. Figure by climate.gov, data from CPC.
And their introduction to it reads:
First, a quick update on the recent El Niño indicators
The average anomaly in the Niño3.4 region during August-October of this year was 1.7°C, second to the same period in 1997 (1).
CLOSING
Please do not misinterpret what I’ve presented in this post. I am not saying that the 2015/16 El Niño is not a strong event. By all measures, we are in the midst of a strong El Niño. I’ll provide a full ENSO update next week.
-However-
Contrary to all of the alarmism, the 2015/16 El Niño is simply is not as strong as the 1997/98 El Niño based on the sea surface temperature anomalies of the eastern Pacific, east of the NINO3.4 region.
FOR THOSE NEW TO DISCUSSIONS OF EL NIÑO EVENTS
I discussed in detail the naturally occurring and naturally fueled processes that cause El Niño events (and their long-term aftereffects) in Chapter 3.7 of my recently published free ebook On Global Warming and the Illusion of Control (25 MB). For those wanting even more detail, see my earlier ebook Who Turned on the Heat? – The Unsuspected Global Warming Culprit: El Niño-Southern Oscillation.
I saw the headlines this morning and I didn’t even bother clicking. They claimed this very same thing on the same false premise just a few months ago. As we know, it’s not about news, information, education, enlightenment, or truth, it’s purely 100% ORGANIC propaganda.
From my vantage point in Hawaii, I am of the opinion that the Great El Nino of 2015/16 has already peaked and is beginning to fizzle. I will not be surprised to see space heaters appearing at retailers like Costco, Loewes, Walmart, etc over the next few months. I remember having to use one back in the early 70s when I lived on the windward side of Oahu.
Already make liberal use of space heaters. Close to 100% efficient compared to a gas furnace (mine about 80% neglecting suction losses thru house air entry, air duct losses and unused room heating). Unfortunately if used abundantly, they require dis-assembly to clean the entry fuzz dust off the ceramic grid. And if in the country and on propane, they are a big money saver.
At the moment the current SOI is approx -20. That is still a long way off the -30s achieved in 1997-98. So yeah no where near stronger.
Steve look again now !!!
Steve B, the 30-day average for the SOI on 17 Nov 2015 is -8.49
https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/seasonalclimateoutlook/southernoscillationindex/30daysoivalues/
I looked at absolute values on the BOM charts not the running average.
The people yelling and shouting about this El Nino being the hottest ever clearly after scientists, because any scientist would have to discount the El Nino effect that tends to warm global temperatures and say that BECAUSE of the El Nino, it not possible to say if it has been warming or even colder.
Only someone with no science training as well as a desperate desire to manufacture false alarm could see this as “good” for the alarmist agenda.
3 million years ago the Panama Current was shut down when North and South America attached together at the isthmus. At the same time the ice cap on the Artic Ocean formed. Since El Nino is hot water butting up against the continents from the west, could this have been the heat that was flowing into the Atlantic through the Panama Current and keeping the Artic ice free before 3mya?
Interesting! +1
http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/how-the-isthmus-of-panama-put-ice-in-the-arctic
I had a look at the TAO Bouy at 0N 155W, right in the middle of the Nino 3.4 Index region and it is higher than the 1997 peak. So I tend to think this is a real Super-El Nino that could eclipse the 1997-98 one yet.
http://s12.postimg.org/dm6weu5i5/TAO_Bouy_SST_0_N_155_W.png
Data at (not sure if this link will hold up for long but anyway ..)
http://tao.ndbc.noaa.gov/tao/data_download/cache/201511/d18-694/TAO_T0N155W_M_SST_daily.ascii
Dear Bill Illis,
A man in a toga just ran in, picked up my pen, wrote this (I’d have published it sooner, but I had to work out the ancient Greek), grinned, and dashed back out into the night:
Fine data reporting!
However, remember, … one {buoy} does not a {super El Niño} make… .
Your friend,
Aristotle
************************
Oh, yes, indeed, Mr. Illis — Aristotle considers you a colleague and friend — he highly admires your intellectual abilities and integrity… and he likes my …… pens… took it with him (sigh).
At the moment, we are all merely speculating. Until this El Nino runs its course we will not know. I see no point in speculating, although I am conscious how these current temperatures will be spun in the run up to Paris.
Even IF this current El Nino causes temperatures to peak at a level higher than that of the Super El Nino of 1997/8, the test of this El Nino will be whether there is a long lasting step change in temperatures coincident with it, just as there was a long lasting step change in temperatures coincident with the Super El Nino of 1997/8 (I mentioned this in the Godzilla/Dudzilla article some weeks ago) .
I suspect that we cannot judge the impact of this current strong El Nino until 2019/20. The question to be answered at that date is whether this current strong El Nino merely produces a high temperature short term blip peaking high around late 2015/early 2016, but thereafter a following La Nina brings temperatures right back down, and following that La Niina temperatures then return back to around the 2001 to 2003 anomaly level (as viewed in the satellite data set)? IF (and that is an IF) that is the case, no matter whether this current strong El Nino peaks at a higher anomaly than the Super El Nino of 1997/8, this current strong El Nino will be a dud since it will not break the ‘pause’ and the ‘pause’ will in this scenario continue to be seen and will in this scenario have extended in duration to more than 21 years (it could be around 25 years in duration).
IF on the other hand, there is a long lasting step change in temperatures coincident with this strong El Nino, just like there was with the Super El Nino of 1997/8, then this will break the ‘pause’ and this current El Nino will become significant. Science will then have to consider whether the globe appears to warm in fits and starts coincident with the turn of ocean cycles and super El Ninos, and if so why that is the case.
The point is, of course, that this El Nino is the result of a natural phenomena, and not the result of the basic physics of the CO2 molecule. It is not the basic physics of CO2 that it causes and/or drives El Ninos, and there has been no laboratory experiment showing that that is part of the basic physics of CO2.
Whilst the info you set out is of interest, I agree with Janice. Further, whilst I can just visually see that the peak of 2015 is higher than 1997, we are talking here of fractions of a degree, probably not even a tenth of a degree, and that raises the issue of error margins. For example, could it simply be that 1997 has been measured too cool by about 0.05degC whereas 2015 has been measured too warm by 0.05degC?
Personally, I would want to see not simply data from more than 1 buoy, but also I would want to see the temperature being busted by more than the small fraction that appears in your plot before coming to any firm conclusions..
That said, your plot is of interest and the situation should be continued to be reviewed.
Bob,
Thank you for this timely and useful report!
No alarmism – the planet’s about to finish its second consecutive “warmest year in the instrument record” while this isn’t the strongest El Niño ever recorded. And while people here warn about the decreasing solar output that started a few years back.
So it proves carbon emissions are continuing to warm the climate, setting a dozen new ‘warmest year’ records, and well on our way to second consecutive “warmest decade” record since AFTER the biggest El Niño. After all, it’s not the sun, and this El Niño isn’t the biggest, yet still the records fall.
… it proves carbon emissions are continuing to warm the climate… .
Evidence provided: B. Fagan’s unsupported-by-proof conclusion at 7:21pm this evening.
That’s it.
Just: “Correlation = Causation.”
Just: “because B. Fagan says so.”
And, btw, you need to check your Almanacs from the 1930’s — that is where most of the temperature records still are.
Oh, and, B. Fagan? If you’re going to jump on the “correlation = causation” calliope, at least pick the one driven by the logical clowns:
CO2 UP. WARMING STOPPED.
Therefore: CO2 stops global warming.
It “proves” no such thing.
After 17 years of no air warming, it’s not a surprise that earth should discharge pent up heat from the tropical Pacific.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with man-made GHGs.
b fagan, read a book. Maybe you’ll come to understand that there are natural causes for the warming we’ve experienced:
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/tisdale-on-global-warming-and-the-illusion-of-control-part-1.pdf
See:
General Discussion 2 – On the Claims of Record-High Global Surface Temperatures in 2014
And:
General Discussion 3 – On the Reported Record High Global Surface Temperatures in 2015 – And Will Those Claims Continue in 2016?
And all of Section 3 – Natural Variability
Coming here and claiming that greenhouse gases are responsible for the warming only makes us laugh.
Cheers
Thanks, Bob. I’ll pass, got a lot of other reading to get done. Partway through “The Sun’s Influence on Climate” by Joanna D. Haigh and Peter Cargill. It’s the latest of the Princeton Primers on Climate series and I recommend them all – though you’ve probably read them.
I also recommend “A Vast Machine Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming” by Paul N. Edwards. Great overview of the history of the global weather data collection and processing system. The Warming Papers is a great collection of the early work in the climate field.
Principals of Planetary Climate by Ray Pierrehumbert is a bit more than I can get through, but worthwhile sometimes.
But people said there’s no proof – I’ll just post a couple links starting from 1975 – short-term, I know, but that’s all the satellites can give so far. Not as short-term as the USCRN series, but gotta start somewhere.
Anyway – here’s surface – you might have to adjust the start time on the Options for trend, but since 1978 it’s been warming at a 1.5C per century rate.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/ytd/12/1978-2015?trend=true&trend_base=100&firsttrendyear=&lasttrendyear=
And here’s the satellite stuff – the “air” has been warming at a 1.22C per century rate, even with the recent slowdown. That’s why you have to look at longer stretches than just a decade or two.
http://images.remss.com/msu/msu_time_series.html
So the reason we’re having so many “warmest years in the instrument record” since the giant 1998 El Nino is that it never cooled down after it. Something’s keeping the heat in. Otherwise, where’d the heat for this run come from? You can’t spin up a hurricane from Category 1 to Category 5 without an awful lot of hot water.
Janice, the 1930s were warm in the lower 48, but globally the 40s were warmer. In fact prior to the 80s they were the warmest decade on record. Then the 80s were, then the 90s, then the 00s, and right now it’s 50-50 that we’re going to have a 4th consecutive warmest decade in a row.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record#Warmest_decades
And don’t forget, all this while solar output’s declined a little bit.
Seems there is a lot still to be learned about El Niño and the weather spawned by the great inscrutable Pacific Ocean.
In October the Climate Prediction Center put up a map suggesting WA, OR, & CA could expect warmer than normal temps in Nov. and equal or below precip.
See here.
One might ask how that’s working out.
Well, we’ve been cool, windy and wet.
Bob – could the Hovmoller for ’98 be “extended” downwards so we could see the evolution over following year? No real reason to constrain to 12 months (except convention). Would be interesting to see the entire event duration…
Sensorman, the NOAA GODAS website…
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/pentad.shtml
…only produces them in 1-year blocks. Extending it would require me to splice (cut and paste) the 1998 Hovmoller to the bottom of the one for 1997.
Cheers
Bob, where can I get data I can understand (hopefully) for Pacific temps below the surface overturning layer. So we can get some idea what is coming…..
Brett, the TAO website has subsurface temperature anomaly data for the equatorial Pacific to depths of 300 meters (aka T300 data) here:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/wwv/data/
300 Meters captures the vast majority of the ENSO-related variations.
Sorry but the ENSO 3.4 region is the main one that *defines* the El Niño and La Niña conditions and episodes. It is scientifically fallacious to claim that the ENSO 3.4 index doesn’t matter because “something else elsewhere”. Whatever happens “somewhere else” is not directly relevant for El Niño episodes in the scientific sense.
The ongoing El Niño’s peak has already exceeded the 1997-98 El Niño when properly defined.
I guess the argument here is that if you are correct, then Bob should be arguing not that the El Nino as defined is not bigger than 1997/8, but that the definition of El Nino is not a very good description of the energies involved in the phenomenon.
Lubos says, “Sorry but the ENSO 3.4 region is the main one that *defines* the El Niño and La Niña conditions and episodes.”
According to whom, Lubos? Are you aware that JMA uses the NINO3 region? Are you aware that the MEI uses NINO3 region along with numerous other metrics?
Lubos says, “The ongoing El Niño’s peak has already exceeded the 1997-98 El Niño when properly defined.”
Only with the Reynolds OI.v2 data and possibly the HADISST data. The ongoing El Niño lags the 1997-98 El Niño with ERSST.v3b, ERSST.v4, HADSST3, and the ICOADS source data.
Lubos says, “Whatever happens “somewhere else” is not directly relevant for El Niño episodes in the scientific sense.”
You have exposed your lack of understanding of ENSO and its impacts. Maybe you should study Ashok et al. 2007:
http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frcgc/research/d1/iod/publications/modoki-ashok.pdf
Cheers
tell that to the peruvian fishermen 😉
This statement in the article: “The farther east an El Niño is taking place, the greater impact it has on “normal” global weather patterns.” is incorrect. Strong tropical rainfall in the Pacific, which affects the jet streams in higher latitudes, follows the warmest water east and west along the equator, not the warmest anomalies of the water. This is a result of the nonlinear Claussius-Clapeyron relationship between air temperature and its saturation specific humidity. 4C anomalies off Ecuador may yield 27C water, barely warm enough for tropical deep convection. The water in the central equatorial Pacific is 29-30C now, yielding much greater convective potential energy, even with a much smaller warm departure from the long term average for this month. The warmest water in the central Pacificis where the strongest Pacific-North American atmospheric teleconnection is forced.
RL: The following are a few gif animations to help illustrate my statement.
Regardless of whether we look at NOAA’s Reynolds OI.v2 sea surface temperature data…
…or NOAA’s ERSST.v4 data…
…the sea surface temperatures (absolute) were warmer to the east during October 1997 than they are in October 2015.
As a result, the precipitation (and assumedly convection) was occurring farther to the east in October 1997 than they are in October 2015:
Cheers.
Excellent posting thank you BT
Trouble too is that now we cannot believe anything NOAA, NASA,NCDC, ect spew out including above data because it has been without doubt been doctored LOL
When is it not standard operating procedure for alarmists to jump to wild conclusions based on flimsy questionable evidence? They are like the plaintiff who sued a mechanic for causing their water-pump to break two years after the mechanic replaced the battery in their car. Yes that is a real small claims court case.
Rong Dong Wong again.
That’s funny. In just about every posting and publication that Bob has put together over the years, he always used graphs of El Nino 3.4 most often in comparison to global temperatures whenever he made his arguments against AGW. He placed so much more emphasis and importance on El Nino 3.4 in his comparison plots above all others choices.
But now all of a sudden when the El Nino 3.4 reaches new highs and begins to go beyond the normal “natural” upper bound of past events, all of a sudden he quickly diverts away and places some more emphasis on the other aspects of El Nino. Why?
Mainly down to our understanding of ENSO changes with time, the more data you collect. It has become apparent NINO3.4 doesn’t reflect Pacific tropical SST’s very well. Why some organisations prefer to use NINO3 instead. In fact if you look at the surface areas these grids cover, NINO3 has always been in the best position to deduce a strong El Nino or La Nina. The reason is down to region NINO4 hardly changes between different ENSO events and doesn’t reflect the strength of them accurately.
If you are still unsure I have made up a new NINO region called 4.321 and it covers all the surface areas to scale of all NINO4, NINO3 and NINO1+2.
11Nov2015 NINO4.321 +2.3
12Nov1997 NINO4.321 +2.4
These values reflect the mean surface temperature for all regions NINO4, NINO3 and NINO1+2. This shows that the 1997 El Nino was the strongest event at around the same stage of the year.
The reason NINO3.4 is not reflecting well is because of it using part of NINO4. NINO4 is a poor indication of ENSO full stop and could argue not worth including because it changes depending on the position of the El Nino or La Nina along the tropical ocean.
11Nov2015 NINO4 +1.7
12Nov1997 NINO4 +0.8
This just highlights how pointless NINO4 can be.
13FEB2002 NINO4 +0.8
The year 2002 must have had a strong El Nino then? No, there wasn’t an El Nino or La Nina.
13FEB2002 NINO1+2 (25.9)-0.1 NINO3 (26.2)-0.2 NINO3.4 (27.0)+0.3 NINO4 (28.9)+0.8
With NINO4 being a poor representative of ENSO, could even use the new NINO3.21. NINO3.21 represents averages surface temperatures in regions NINO3 & NINO1+2.
I personally believe this reflects the true strength of El Nino’s and La Nina’s over recent decades in the tropical oceans.
11Nov2015 NINO3.21 +2.8
12Nov1997 NINO3.21 +3.7
This isn’t the first time, so do try to keep up.
Also, others use broader or other measures to try to understand
the great inscrutable Pacific Ocean [GIPO].
Good luck to all of them.
Matt G, thanks for replying to Dennis Hlinka. If you’re not aware of it, he’s a troll.
Dennis Hlinka says: “That’s funny. In just about every posting and publication that Bob has put together over the years, he always used graphs of El Nino 3.4 most often in comparison to global temperatures whenever he made his arguments against AGW…”
That’s right, Dennis. And when I do, I usually include the text that the sea surface temperature anomalies of the NINO3.4 region are a “commonly used” index for the strength, frequency and duration of El Niño and La Niña events…or something to that effect. The phrase “commonly used” does not mean it’s an ideal index for determining the differences between strong El Niño events.
Have a good day.
Is your ENSO meter updating correctly? It seems to have been on 2.4 for a couple of weeks. Should this be on 3 now, or is it indicating something different?
Can anyone tell me where the ocean heat for an El Nino comes from please? Is it global warming or wind blowing away the cool upper water?
The upper ocean 300 m fuels the surface regions of ENSO, caused by solar energy warming the tropical regions more when the trade winds ease.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/mnth_gif/xz/movie.temp.0n.mon.gif
When the trade winds are strong, cold upwelling water reaches the surface and solar energy is mixed within in it’s increased flow.
The difference between the two enable energy to be lost much quicker from the ocean to the atmosphere than the other. Energy in the other instead is retained in the world ocean currents during La Nina, originally from the upper Tropical Ocean and both natures way of circulating excess solar energy around the planet.
Littleoil: ENSO is a sunlight-fueled process. For an overview of those processes using cartoon-like graphics, see the post:
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/an-illustrated-introduction-to-the-basic-processes-that-drive-el-nino-and-la-nina-events/
Also, I go into much more detail in Chapter 3.7 of my recent book, which is free:
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/tisdale-on-global-warming-and-the-illusion-of-control-part-1.pdf
Cheers.
Matt G, thanks from Australia for your very fast reply!! Will send you some oil funding.
“The Uk37 signals of individual El Niño events were substantially attenuated in the sediments we examined, and periods of frequent ENSO activity (e.g., 1870–1891) were more readily identified than isolated ENSO events in periods of less frequent ENSO activity.”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0016703790903996
“Here we present a high-resolution marine sediment record from the El Niño region off the coast of Peru spanning the last 20,000 years.”
“The onset of stronger El Niño activity in Peru started around 17,000 calibrated years before the present, which is later than modeling experiments show but contemporaneous with the Heinrich event 1. Maximum El Niño activity occurred during the early and late Holocene, especially during the second and third millennium B.P. The recurrence period of very strong El Niño events is 60–80 years. El Niño events were weak before and during the beginning of the Younger Dryas, during the middle of the Holocene, and during medieval times.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2004PA001099/full
According to the latest data for October the MEI ENSO index is now turning around.
This fit well with my MEI ANN forecast which is based on lunar cycles, Kp, Ap and solar wind data which are the main underlying dominant drivers of ENSO.
http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/images/ENSO-forecast-Oct-2015-2020.jpg
I have also looked at the NINO3+4 temperature anomaly to see if I could get similar correlation and forecast. This didn’t work. Of course there are correlations between MEI and the temperature anomaly at NINO3+4, but this doesn’t mean that the lunar cycles and variations in solar electromagnetic activity can directly be analyzed through my ANN. I think the reason is that the MEI index includes other parameters which are better linked to these factors.
[For the other readers, please explain what MEI is abbreviating. .mod]
Sure, sorry about that.
MEI is abbreviating of Multivariate ENSO Index which is an ENSO index from NOAA which uses a combination of several parameters to calculate a monthly ENSO value.
After this Strong Hybrid El Nino. We will likely see a very strong La Nina next fall and probably will last for 3-5 years.