Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
Bob Tisdale wrote an “April Fools” article about the extreme nature of the 1998 El Niño. It was clever and humorous, but also fulfills Shakespeare’s observation that,
“Jesters do oft prove prophets.”
It is widely accepted that global temperature rose in 1998, and the rise is attributed to El Niño. The problem is that the attribution cannot be confirmed. How much of the increase was due to El Niño? As I explained in another article, the forecasts for the 2015 El Niño failed because the mechanisms are not understood. Dr. William Kessler of NOAA provides a list of answers to questions about El Niño one of which asks, “What initiates El Niño?” Kessler’s answer,
It is necessary to state outright that we do not know why El Niño events begin. It’s not that the answer is obfuscated behind scientific jargon. It’s that we don’t know. Not only don’t we know, we’re not really that close to knowing.
Assuming that the peak in temperature in 1998 was caused by El Niño ignores all other changes in climate mechanisms, or, at least, assumes they remain constant. The issue is complicated by Kessler’s answer to the question, “Is the periodicity of El Niño events (every 2-7 years) the same as La Niñas?”
No! It is wrong to think of this as an oscillation, simply swinging back and forth. There can be several El Niños in a row, as we had in the early 1990s. Many scientists are coming to the view that there may not be such a thing as La Niña, or at least that it is not just the opposite of El Niño.
Whatever triggers El Nino is also triggering other changes in energy balance and the mechanisms of change. They are important and contributing to the total temperature change.
The public became aware of El Niño following the shift northward of the 1983 event, so it affected southern California. This took it out of what was assumed as its general area of impact along the western coast of South America and Central America as illustrated in Figure 1. The El Niño events became the latest fad in predictions as climate science became a political vehicle in environmental alarmism. For example, Environment Canada and other agencies made long-term forecasts based on El Niño and global warming, but they were wrong almost every time. As I explained to farmers in Canada, El Niño does not affect Canada. It only appears to because the weather patterns in Canada change at the same time but in completely different ways. The analogy I used was that it was like somebody studying a car and noting that every time the front bumper moved the back bumper moved. The “El Niño type” conclusion is that the front bumper was causing the back bumper to move. In fact, whatever was causing El Niño to change was also causing the Circumpolar Vortex to change. That same cause of the change was also affecting other changes of heat balance and redistribution by global wind patterns.
Figure 1
Heat Energy, Imbalance, and Redistribution.
The issue is the balance of energy and the transfers that occur to redress the imbalance. These transfers are little understood yet occur on a much larger scale than El Nino. One major mechanism attempts to redress the imbalance between the latitudinal surplus and deficit regions shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2
The transfer occurs along the line marked by the zone of Zero Energy Balance. In the atmosphere, it is delineated as the Polar Front (Figure 3).
Figure 3
Rossby or Planetary Waves that form along the Front are the major transfer mechanism.
The Waves vary in number, between approximatley 3 and 8, and in amplitude from Zonal (4a) to Meridional (4b). Each configuration creates different weather patterns in the middle latitudes between 30 and 70°.
Figure 4a Figure 4b
Features associated with a strong Meridional flow include a measurable increase in variability of temperatures and precipitation. There is also a shift from the Zonal wind pattern of southwest in the summer and northwest in winter to the Meridional pattern of more southerly and northerly winds throughout the year.
The second great transfer involves the Hadley Cell. Figure 5 shows the cell for the Northern Hemisphere, a similar cell occurs in the Southern Hemisphere.
Figure 5
George Hadley described the mechanism using wind records from ships logs and the effect of Coriolis force in 1735, with little knowledge or understanding added since. It is a major failing of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models because of lack of data and a grid size too large to accommodate the thousands of convective cells that form in the rising air along the heat equator.
A third great transfer mechanism is the monsoons, especially the one that impacts the Indian subcontinent and all the way into central Asia. Figure 6 shows the pattern of winds associated with the summer and winter monsoons.
Figure 6
It is important to note that, just as with the Rossby Waves, the transfer of energy involves the movement of warm air from the surplus region in Figure 2, but also cold air from the deficit region. The IPCC does not deal with monsoonal mechanisms well as I explained in a previous article. They acknowledge the problem in the 2007 and 2013 Reports.
In short, most AOGCMs do not simulate the spatial or intra-seasonal variation of monsoon precipitation accurately.
The models, however, have significant problems in accurately representing its seasonal cycle because of the difficulty in capturing the asymmetric nature of the monsoonal winds over the basin, resulting in too weak a semi-annual harmonic in the local Ekman pumping over the ridge region compared to observations (Yokoi et al., 2009b).
Others are pithier in their assessment as this headline indicates “Climate Models Can’t Predict Squat: Latest IPCC Models Still Unable To Simulate Monsoons.”
In 2015, the Indian monsoon was considered below average, but that was concerning precipitation, not temperature. The anomaly was attributed to El Niño because a decrease occurred with the 2009 El Niño.
Indian monsoon rains were hit by El Niño weather pattern in 2009, when the four-month long monsoon season turned the driest in nearly four decades.
Figure 7 shows the Interannual variations of the Indian Summer Monsoon plotting floods and droughts against El Niño and La Nina events.
Figure 7
The accompanying text says,
It is interesting to note that there have been alternating periods extending to 3-4 decades with less and more frequent weak monsoons over India. For example, the 44-year period 1921-64 witnessed just three drought years; during such epochs, the monsoon was found to be less correlated with the ENSO. During the other periods like that of 1965-87 which had as many as 10 drought years out of 23, the monsoon was found to be strongly linked to the ENSO (Parthasarathy et al., 1991).
Likely because of this, they concluded that
Prediction of the future evolution of the monsoon activity, at least a season in advance, remains a difficult challenge.
Others confirm this finding. Tom Di Liberto, in an article titled “ENSO and the Indian Monsoon… not as straightforward as you’d think,” concludes
“So remember, not every El Niño event affects global circulation in the same way, which makes seasonal forecasting all the more important.”
Maybe the answer is that not every El Niño affects circulation in the same way because it is not the only factor changing global circulation.
A couple of years ago NASA finally acknowledged that the wind is a major factor in the pattern of Arctic sea ice formation and dissipation. If they studied climate history, that is go beyond the official instrumental record, they would know that this is not new. Mount Tambora erupted in 1815 in the middle of the cooling trend associated with the Dalton Minimum (1790 to 1830). In the conference and workshops on the impact of Tambora, we plotted temperature and precipitation patterns on world maps.[1] They disclosed that there was an extreme increase in the amplitude of the Rossby Waves in the Circumpolar Vortex (Figures 3, 4a and b). This year the situation is similarly a function of changing wind patterns. Patterns of weather occurring now are precisely what occurs when the world is in a cooling trend, and the global wind patterns change.
Dramatic cooling caused by the eruption of Tambora produced extreme examples of Meridional Flow. One of these included the shift in wind patterns that transported warm air and water to portions of the Arctic to combine with the wind for a dramatic impact on ice conditions. The conditions were recorded in a November 20, 1817, letter the President of the Royal Society proposed to the British Admiralty:
It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate inexplicable at present to us must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past inclosed (sic) the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years greatly abated.
Mr. Scoresby, a very intelligent young man who commands a whaling vessel from Whitby observed last year that 2000 square leagues of ice with which the Greenland Seas between the latitudes of 74° and 80°N have been hitherto covered, has in the last two years entirely disappeared.
The pattern of Arctic weather and ice conditions this winter is somewhat similar, albeit not as extreme. The Rossby Wave Meridional flow resulted in anomalous wind patterns, ocean currents and ice conditions. It is probable that this added heat raised the global average that was not a result of El Nino. Figure 8 shows the average pattern of Arctic winds and ocean currents.
The main influx of warm water is the North Atlantic Drift. Figure 9 shows the percentage concentration of ice for April 2, 2016, and Figure 10 shows the ice cover for April 1, 2016, with a delineation of the anomaly from the average. The increased melting, especially in the Russian sector due to greater heat transport by wind and water from the Meridional Wave pattern is apparent. This heat is not due to El Nino but does add to the global average.
El Niño became a fad explanation for weather phenomena after the event moved outside of what was considered its normal area of impact in 1983. The science community did not understand the mechanisms involved or the long term variations in the patterns of weather created. The public was left with the impression that this was a new phenomenon entirely due to human activity as the global warming hysteria was exploited.
Climate science assumed the peak in global temperature was solely due to the El Niño that occurred in 1998. They also applied the other misleading concept of teleconnections, which evolved around the chaos theory notion that a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan, and California gets a severe storm several days later. If there are teleconnections, it is because the change that causes the El Niño wind, and subsequent ocean current reversals is an outside the atmosphere forcing that manifests itself in different ways at different latitudes and longitudes. The net result is an increase in global temperature due to several causes, not just El Niño.
[1] The maps were included separately in a pocket inside the back cover.
I see much confusion. First, lets clear the playing field. Get rid of the nice pictures of monsoons and polar ice extent, the multivariate ENSO index, the multifarious SSTs, the upper atmosphere happenings, and the El Nino — like Miocene. El Nino is a Pacfifc Ocean phenomenon and has no counterpart either in the Atlantic or the Indian oceans. It is basically a harmonic oscillation of ocean water from side to side in the central Pacific, powered by trade winds. If you blow across the end of a glass tube you get a tone that is its fundamental frequency. This fundamerntal frequency is determined by the dimensions of the tube. Trade winds are the equivalent of blowing across a tube and the ocean answers with its own fundamental frequency – one El Nino peak every four-five years or so. It starts with trade winds piling up warm water in the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool – the warmest water on earth. When the water level has reached a peak reverse flow by gravity starts, follows the equatorial counter-current and runs ashore in South America. There it splits and spreads out north and south along the coast. The warm water spreads out on the surface along the coast and warms the air above it. Warm air rises, joins the westerlies, and we notice that an El Nino has started. And so do the Europeans and the Japanese when the westerlies reach their land. But any wave that runs ashore mist also retreat. As the El Nino wave retreats water level behind it drops half a meter or so. Cold water from below fills this vacuum and a La Nina has started. As much as the El Nino warmed the air the La Nina will now cool it and the long term SST will not change. Normally, that is. There are special cases if something unusual comes up that mat block the eastward flow along the equatorial counter current. If that happens the blocked warm water will spread out in mid-ocean and create an El Nino on the spot. This is known as an El Nino Modoki or CP (Central Pacific) El Nino. While that El Nino itself is OK the formation of the La Nina that should follow is inhibited and there is a possibility that the heat balance just might be shifted as a result. Note that El Ninos and La Ninas are always created in pairs and there is an equal number of them. There are other things besides ENSO in the ocean and they are capable of influencing the ENSO frequency which makes El Nino prediction difficult. To get an idea of the extent to which this is happening look at ther sawtooth pattern on long global temperature curves. All the peaks you see are El Ninos and valleys between them are La Ninas. Together they take up the entire length of every temperature curve. The El Nino phenomenon started when the Panamanian Seaway closed and the Pacic current system of today was established.
Very good, clear explanation, Arno. Thanks very much.
I’ll echo your thanks to Arno, but there are notable exceptions, one of which was in 2014.
Arno states: “It starts with trade winds piling up warm water in the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool – the warmest water on earth. When the water level has reached a peak reverse flow by gravity starts, follows the equatorial counter-current and runs ashore in South America. There it splits and spreads out north and south along the coast. The warm water spreads out on the surface along the coast and warms the air above it. Warm air rises, joins the westerlies, and we notice that an El Nino has started.”
But in 2014 it decided not to.
Consider the Tisdale sourced graphic that clearly shows the equatorial counter-current heading eastwards towards the South American coast. You can find it towards the bottom of:
http://www.colderside.com/Colderside/Video_Clips.html
I detest using the word “always” when discussing climate, but there are “always” exceptions!!!
Thank you. Case in point wrt my earlier post, see below how TSI came up off the floor in 2009/10, at the onset of an El Nino. Later, the SC24 TSI peak in Feb/March 2015 happened at the onset of the 2016 El Nino. That was real, extra, additional energy from the sun over a period of time.
I just cannot condone the idea that heat can build up without additional outside energy in, and I can’t condone ignoring the fact that there was indeed ENSOs during/after additional energy times from the sun. The synchronicity of the high TSI times and El Ninos should not be ignored, but explored further.
http://climate4you.com/images/TSI%20LASP%20Since2003.gif
That was real, extra, additional energy from the sun over a period of time.
Yes, but you’re pointing to correlation between onset of increased TSI and emergence of El Nino. I don’t understand how you justify the cause and effect. For El Nino to work, energy must build up in the system for months prior to the TSI spike itself. So the TSI spik cannot be the course of the El Nino, it is correlation not causation.
But more importntly, your whole graph only shows a variation in TSI of about 1 w/m2. Corrected for albedo (30%) and normalized for curvature of earth and day night cycle, that leaves an effective change in TSI of 0.175 w/m2. Without a rather large feedback valie to rely upom, this is a much too small number to result in the changes observed in the El Nino cycle.
“For El Nino to work, energy must build up in the system for months”
It’s a remarkably easy thing to see from simple examination of the SST record that SSTs are very sensitive to short-term increases in TSI.
I am not claiming that energy build-up isn’t required for an El Nino – I am saying SSTs take off quickly when F10.7cm and TSI go up – that’s part of what “solar supersensitivity” is, and if there has been a build-up in TSI over time as there was in SC24 until the peak in Feb/Mar of 2015, the size of the temperature increase will be greater and of longer duration.
From the MEI graphic, all the major El Ninos had a similar spread in delta T from the bottom of the previous “blue” spike to top of the “red” spike. What does that tell you?
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ts.gif
” So the TSI spik cannot be the course of the El Nino, it is correlation not causation.”
Your scenario ignores the TSI build-up through SC24 that happened over the period 2008/9 to 2015/6.
“But more importntly, your whole graph only shows a variation in TSI of about 1 w/m2. Corrected for albedo (30%) and normalized for curvature of earth and day night cycle, that leaves an effective change in TSI of 0.175 w/m2. Without a rather large feedback valie to rely upom, this is a much too small number to result in the changes observed in the El Nino cycle.”
This is where everyone goes south, imo. Try examining the record first before attempting to apply IPCC “physics” methods or ideology. It’s the reason why we’re here – IPCC warmist physics & ideology is junk.
As long as people live in the IPCC’s tiny little mental TSI box without even observing what happens from variable TSI, as far as this engineer is concerned, those people as not truly being “scientific”. To whom else might that apply, unbeknownst to the afflicted?
Observations must match theory to even have a chance of a correct interpretation of reality.
This is where everyone goes south, imo. Try examining the record first before attempting to apply IPCC “physics” methods or ideology.
I’m one of the biggest critics of the IPCC there is, so don’t throw me into that junk pile.
You can possibly convince me of the correlation but without a causation to go with it, you convince me. Less than a quarter watt/m2 just doesn’t get you there as a credible causation. If you could show a link in which change in a particular flux drives a change (through a physical process) in cloud cover (for example) you’d have the means so amplify the change in TSI you are talking about. But basing it on the change in TSI alone just doesn’t get you there.
Sorry David, I get you on the IPCC – you are not part of that mess.
I just spent the interim shoveling 6″ of fresh snow thinking about this.
It seems like the observations that anyone can make about the solar influence should verify the results of the reductionist maths used, by whatever or whoever’s technique, but the observations don’t match those maths, and the reason I say that is because I’ve been observing every day and recording and monitoring and looking at data for two and half years, and at no time did the basic principles I’ve discussed ever fail to happen as time progressed, up to today. Reductionist math doesn’t explain observations.
Let’s get to an example. Everyone can keep an eye on this. Yesterday it was pretty warm in the US except the Upper Great Lakes area where I live. There were warm temp records set yesterday in Culpepper County Virginia – the highest temperature there since 1964. Let’s look at the similarities of what happened yesterday, in 1964, and what I am saying happens during the solar minimums, like in 1878, when there was a monster ENSO.
Solar insolation at any location is a function of time of year due to the angle of incidence of sunlight, and the TSI (including UV), and cloud cover (albedo). If you watch water vapor/cloud cover off the Pacific every day along with TSI, eventually you’ll notice that higher evaporation ie more clouds stream off the subsolar point throughout the year, even on short time scales, when TSI spikes, where that energy and moisture then travels north in the NH, dumping on the US, creating floods and other extreme events. The converse is also true. Since TSI has recently tanked for the past few weeks, the cloud cover has dropped off, the skies have cleared, allowing for higher insolation under less windy and more stagnant skies, and the US UV index has risen lately, even though TSI has dropped recently.
Temps were hot yesterday near and northward from the areas of highest UV index, where the heat traveled through the day, that clashed with the polar vortex’s cold air, creating the low pressure system in our area, dumping all that snow I just shoveled. Temps were high yesterday where solar insolation (& UVI) were high.
This UV map is for today. Yesterday’s was not much different.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/uv_index/uvi_map.gif
http://i.imwx.com/images/maps/current/curtemps_600x405.jpg
The US UVI average over the 58 locations on their map was 5.5 last week, up from 3.8 on March 1, and it peaked at 6.2 yesterday. Solar flux yesterday was 82 sfu, expected to drop to 78 today by the USAF.
In 1964, when Culpepper had last record set, the solar flux averaged 72.4 sfu/day, and in that summer, it was down to 67, solar minimum conditions. I think the conditions could have been very similar in 1964 as yesterday: high insolation with relatively high UV accompanied by low evaporation and mostly clear skies, allowing heat to build rapidly in one day.
In 1878 there was a monster El Nino during solar minimum conditions, when the v2 SSNs only averaged 14 per month from May of 1875 to Dec of 1879, exceeding 30 in a month only three times during that span. Same effect, different years.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei.ext/table.ext.html
That’s why I think there are two kinds of solar ENSOs – post-solar minimum and post-solar maximum, and in some cases of high solar activity, a couple ENSO events are possible after the cycle peak, as was the case in SC23.
The warmists will claim CO2 did it. What kind of ‘math’ do we need to calculate what I just illustrated?
To be clear, it was warmer in Iowa yesterday than Texas because the wind from Texas blew that hot air northward straight into the low pressure system, and from the other surrounding areas.
What kind of ‘math’ do we need to calculate what I just illustrated?
I’d say you first need data. A lot of data. Data that backs up the correlations that you observed.
As far as the math…. above my pay grade.
But you also still need causation. So if your observations are born about by the data, you still need a physical mechanism to drive them. Also above my pay grade.
“I just cannot condone the idea that heat can build up without additional outside energy in, and I can’t condone ignoring the fact that there was indeed ENSOs during/after additional energy times from the sun. The synchronicity of the high TSI times and El Ninos should not be ignored, but explored further”
I believe that we should not ignore any correlation e.g. TSI could be a trigger that changes air and ultimately water currents. Earth’s systems are a web – not lineal pathways involving few components
Thank you and that should be slightly modified to say
“I just cannot condone the idea that heat can build up without additional outside energy in, … unless the skies are clear enough, which appears to often occur under low solar activity conditions.
“Corrected for albedo (30%) and normalized for curvature of earth and day night cycle, that leaves an effective change in TSI of 0.175 w/m2..”
Actually it’s 0.0175 w/m^2.
And denizens … The PDO/ENSO cycle has been going on for millennia, err without it driving continued warming.
It is tuned to the Earth’s orbital characteristics re TSI absorbed, LWIR emitted and atmospheric opacity (in and out).
It does not, cannot, cause overall, chronic warming.
It is merely a storage radiator for the atmosphere and what it disgorges to it in the short term it will necessarily absorb to stabilise. You cannot lift yourself up by your own braces.
It’s energy comes from the Sun. Full stop.
The Sun has been cooling (overall) for 50 years.
The thermal capacity of the oceans is vast.
If there were any other source of energy warming ocean currents we would bloody well know about it, not least via vast convective overturning over any sea-bed hot-spots.
EN/LN SHOULD be a harmonic on top of a neutral trend. That they are not is because of the background and increasing attenuation of the out part of the equation …. And science knows what is causing that.
Toneb
Much if this is true and important.
However the point being made is not that “warming is always and only caused by ENSO”, but rather, that there exists a mode of natural variability and oscillation in climate and global temperature, associated for instance with PDO and AMO oscillations. And that ENSO is an important part of the mechanism by which these oscillations change global climate, naturally with no human involvement.
The PDO and AMO are actually part of a global oceanic oscillatory system c.f. Wyatt and Curry’s “stadium wave” ( https://judithcurry.com/2013/10/10/the-stadium-wave/ ) plus Bob Tisdales analysis in which they are two sides of the same coin. The role of the oceans in climate is to move heat from the equator poleward. The oceanic oscillations represent flips between alteriative modes or attractors in the ocean circulation which causes poleward heat transfer – making this transfer alternately faster (warming period) and slower (cooling). Since the major el Nino-La Nina episodes cause a substantial pulse of poleward warm water transfer (e.g. 1997-1999) then it makes perfect sense for ENSO to be at the heart of this natural oscillatory system.
The thermal capacity of the oceans is vast.
If there were any other source of energy warming ocean currents we would bloody well know about it
Yes there is and we do know about it. You yourself know about it. You said it yourself in the preceding sentence. “The thermal capacity of the oceans is vast”. You answered your own question just before you asked it. The heat resident in the ocean is quite sufficient to serve up centuries and millennia of climate change, primarily by changes in vertical mixing combined with poleward transport, without there needing to be any change whatsoever in the total climate (atmosphere-ocean) heat budget.
This is the central point that despite your considerable erudition in these matters, your CAGW community somehow fails to see. On timescales as long as century, the climate system can almost be considered as adiabatic. Due – as you correctly say yourself – to the vast heat capacity of the oceans.
“Science” needs to join the dots and get the bigger picture.
“The heat resident in the ocean is quite sufficient to serve up centuries and millennia of climate change, primarily by changes in vertical mixing combined with poleward transport, without there needing to be any change whatsoever in the total climate (atmosphere-ocean) heat budget.”
This sounds plausible from a purely energy point of view. The surface could warm if energy from the oceans were transported to the surface for decades or centuries. If this is the mechanism for recent warming, we should see the ocean heat content reduce as the atmosphere warms. I do not believe we are seeing this. Is this because we are not measuring in the right places?
“The Sun has been cooling (overall) for 50 years.”
That’s kind of a loaded statement. TSI in SC19 was the highest in our time, and we can know that by understanding the relationship between the solar indices F10.7cm radio flux and TSI, and applying that relationship to the F10.7cm record which goes back to 1947.
The years 1956-60 endured the longest and strongest stretch of high F10.7cm in the record. That’s how I know TSI was higher then. So technically yes, the sun has been ‘cooling’ compared to that, but…
The problem with most analyses thus far is the failure to recognize that high TSI x (times) Time builds energy into the system, clearly evident in the data. SC21-23 through 2003 were plenty potent enough to drive warming, as was the peak of SC24, even though the sun wasn’t as active then as it was during SC19.
That determination is only possible if it is known exactly how much TSI is necessary to just maintain the temperature in equilibrium…
ftp://ftp.geolab.nrcan.gc.ca/data/solar_flux/monthly_averages/solflux_monthly_average.txt
I hate to keep harping about this but please, it only takes a second but can you please, please tell us to whom you are addressing answers, it gets ( to me anyway) really confusing. Thanks
Bob Tisdale April 3, 2016 at 4:56 pm
“Great big assumption on your part, vukcevic, that the redistributed warm waters following an El Niño are limited to the surface.”
Mr. Tisdale, thanks for the comment. However it still doesn’t explain process of continuous global warming by el Ninos.
Any El Nino associated currents flowing away from the Equator, same as in case of other major currents e.g. Kurosiwo (Japan current), Gulf and N. Atlantic drift Current keep globe warmer than it would be without their presence.
To make globe increasingly warmer these currents need to increase the heat transport (volume or temperature) moving more heat away from the Equator pole-ward.
Ergo, equatorial seas are absorbing more heat from the sun (apparently sun is ‘constant’ another fallacy) or the currents are getting stronger (I am not aware of direct evidence of that being so).
El Nino and la Nina are short lasting events which may temporarily intervene in the heat transport process, but are unlikely to contiguously power it (el Nino) as it is in the case of 1930s or ‘modern warming’ or interrupt it (la Nina) as in case of number of global cooling periods such as LIA, 1900s and 1960-70’s cooling.
There is a more fundamental physical process governing N. Hemisphere’s warming and cooling, the fact is the science isn’t settled as yet.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CruTempNH.gif
About Indian southwest monsoon precipitation versus El Nino & La Nina — Dr. B. Parthasarathy and his group published the precipitation data at sub-divisional level for 12 months, seasons and annual and finally for India. This data covered upto 1994. A copy this book was sent to me by Dr. B. Parthasarathy, a close friend of mine. Based on this data, I analysed for all-India Southwest Monsoon precipitation; Andhra Pradesh [a state in India comprises 3 sub-divisions] precipitation data for Southwest Monsoon and Northeast Monsoon were also analysed and presented them in my book “Andhra Pradesh Agriculture: Scenario of the last four decades in 2000.
The All-India Southwest Monsoon precipitation presented a 60-year cycle; by 1987 two full cycles have been completed. In the above the average 30-year period more wet years and less dry years and vice versa with the next 30 year below the average period were observed.
In the case of Andhra Pradesh precipitation, the two monsoons presented 56-year cycle but in opposite direction. The frequency of occurrence of cyclones in Bay of Bengal followed northeast monsoon 56-year cycle. However, annual data series presented 132 years cycle. The present cycle ended in 2000 and started the below the average part of 66-year cycle in 2001 — since then on majority of the years dry conditions were seen [including the last two seasons — water availability in dams also reflected this].
The data after 1994 was built by other new group as Dr. B. Parthasarathy retired and staying in Hyderabad. He helped me getting the extension data from 1995 onwards but I found something wrong in that data. Neither it followed La Nina or 60-year cycle clearly. I brought to the notice of Dr. B. Parthasarathy the same.
Here, after brought out the 60-year cycle, my self and Krishna Kumar has an opportunity to be on the same floor to talk in Mumbai on an invitation. He was associated with IPCC. Also, few others from this institute [friends of Dr. Shukla] were members of IPCC reports.
Also, individual state governments disputed with the IMD on drought conditions in their states.
There is a need to re-look in to the precipitation data of IITM after 1994.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Reality shows climate is self regulating – no exaggeated need for climate prediction.
On the other hand ever refined, enhanced weather forecast leads to better understanding of climate. – in the long run
Most of the weather related Physics here is beyond my detailed understanding, But you used the Chaos Theory and I had my own corollary. If a nuclear bomb explodes over Japan it has no effect on the weather in California. In other words you can make huge changes which will have no effect on the final outcome.
Explanation: from Chaos theory they often used as an example is the Butterfly wings which represent a small input perturbation, the result in a chaotic system is a huge perturbation on the output. Conversely in a chaotic system a huge input perturbation can result in a small to none output perturbation.
Thanks Dr Ball for another great post. In my view the central comment you make comes very early in your piece and it is this: ‘whatever was causing El Niño to change was also causing the Circumpolar Vortex to change. That same cause of the change was also affecting other changes of heat balance and redistribution by global wind patterns.’
Another way of representing this phenomenon of ‘heat balance and redistribution by global wind patterns’ is via what is known to Climate Science (even of the IPCC variety) as the ‘Annular Modes’ that were known to earlier observers as the Arctic Oscillation and the Antarctic Oscillation including the North Atlantic Oscillation as a local variant.Those who best documented these modes of natural climate variation DAVID W. J. THOMPSON AND JOHN M. WALLACE have no idea of what causes them but they have clearly established that change in the stratosphere precedes change at the surface.
These are ‘annular or ring like modes of surface pressure variation’ whereby atmospheric mass departs high latitudes under the influence of an intensification of polar cyclone activity driven by extremes in air density between ozone warmed air and air that remains cold because its ozone deficient. There is a layer in the atmosphere between about 8km and 15km in elevation in the high and mid latitudes where these extreme differences in air density are responsible for very strong winds called jet Streams. The Circumpolar Vortex in Antarctica that forms up with great intensity in winter marks the boundary between ozone deficient air descending from the mesosphere over the Antarctic continent and ozone rich air on the margins of the continent. The Antarctic situation is the classic mode, the Arctic bastardised by the distribution of land and sea that plays havoc with pressure relativities in winter.
ENSO too is a surface pressure driven phenomenon that relates to the strength of the planetary winds that introduce cold up-welling waters into the tropical circulation. Change the wind intensity and you change the composition of the waters by introducing more or less cold water on the eastern perimeter of the ocean basin. If you introduce more cold water by intensifying the circulation you also hasten the exit of warm waters to higher latitudes on the western perimeter of the ocean basin. Result is a cooling of the equatorial stream. This phenomenon manifests most strongly in the Pacific because of the intensity of the large, almost stationary high pressure cell that sets up on the western side of South America strongly reflects mass transfer dynamics in the atmosphere. That means when pressure falls at 60-70° south on the margins of the Antarctic continent it rises very strongly in this zone. Surface pressure on the western margins where the waters are warmest varies little. But if you plot equatorial surface pressure against sea surface temperature in the tropics the two fit like a glove.
The amount of warm versus cold water present in the tropics is soon reflected in the global temperature statistics because the tropics have a very large surface area. Think of it this way. A woman changes from a blue dress to an red dress. Is she the same woman underneath?
The real action in terms of energy entering or being excluded from the system relates to cloud albedo and it happens in the mid latitudes. I describe it here: https://reality348.wordpress.com/2015/12/29/3-how-the-earth-warms-and-cools-naturally/
The key insight in this dialogue is the connection between the ozone content of the air and surface pressure that was noticed as soon as Dobson started using his spectrophotometer to measure total column ozone in the 1920’s. TCO on the margin of a high pressure cell is 25% greater than at its core. In high latitudes ozone maps atmospheric temperature, geopotential height and surface pressure.In the mid latitudes the descent of ozone in high pressure cells raises geopotential height at 500 hPa and we observe that surface temperature rises with it. Albedo changes with 500hPa height.
Surface pressure drives the planetary winds.that takes us back to Dr Balls ‘global wind patterns’. You open your front door in the morning and notice the wind direction and the temperature of the air varies together. If it has an equatorial origin its warm and moist, a polar origin and its cold and dry.
RM Goody wrote that ‘The idea is now gaining ground that , from the dynamical standpoint, the stratosphere and the troposphere should be treated as a single entity’. Page 125, Chapter 5, Winds and Turbulence in THE PHYSICS OF THE STRATOSPHERE. Cambridge University Press 1954.
Unfortunately, the successor of Dobson and Brewer at Cambridge, a fellow named Sir John Houghton took climate science down a very different path. His ideas better fitted the temper of the day and he was rewarded accordingly. Entirely natural, no funny business, just natural selection at work.