La Niña and a Cooler Earth May Be Coming Faster Than Predicted

Our WUWT ENSO meter in the right sidebar has ticked down twice in the last week, and the most important 3-4 region of the Pacific monitored for ENSO conditions looks like it is in freefall:

enso-34-on-4-4=16

In their weekly discussion posted Monday, April 6th, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center had this to say:

During the last four weeks, equatorial SST anomalies notably decreased in the central and east-central Pacific, while increasing in the far eastern Pacific.

nino3_4-on-4-4-16

Karen Braun, Reuters writes this article:


 

Not only is the atmosphere supporting a faster switch to La Niña, but so is a revised model prediction after an error that massively skewing the results was corrected.

The decay of El Niño and the onset of La Niña, the cold phase of tropical Pacific Ocean surface temperatures, are occurring more rapidly than it would appear.

The timing of La Niña’s arrival is important to commodities markets as La Niña has vastly different effects on global climate than its warm counterpart, El Niño.

For example, in agriculture markets, if La Niña moves in on the early end of the range by June or July, U.S. summer crops could face complications with dry and hot weather. But dry regions of Australia, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa could receive ample rainfall prior to the peak of their next crop season.

The lingering of extremely warm waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean has led to some flawed assumptions that El Niño is decaying at a slower pace than in previous years, and that the transition to La Niña will happen later than initially expected.

But the platform for La Niña’s entrance has been in the assembly phase since late last year, and new data suggests that construction is nearly complete.

There are a couple of key atmospheric and oceanic variables that we watch for to signal the switch from El Niño to La Niña, and now more than ever, these variables are pulling the final plugs on El Niño

The cold pool just beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean continues its rapid expansion, and it has nearly overcome the El Niño warmth on the surface, making remarkable strides in the final three weeks of March

The anomaly lost heat during March at the same rate as in February, and decidedly cool waters now dominate the subsurface Pacific Ocean

A slowdown or reversal in this cooling trend does not seem likely as the atmosphere is becoming increasingly supportive of it. The Southern Oscillation Index, a measure of pressure tendencies over the Pacific Ocean, made a massive leap out of El Niño-favoring territory last month and is now ahead of the pace of similar years 1998 and 2010 (tmsnrt.rs/1TwETSN).

Another key supporting variable, trade winds in the western and central Pacific, no longer favor El Niño though they are not definitively in the La Niña camp, either. But if the SOI continues on its upward trend, the winds might be encouraged to strengthen, moving the Pacific Ocean closer to La Niña (tmsnrt.rs/1N5eMMe).

A graph of sea surface temperature anomalies in the defining Niño 3.4 region suggests that yes, 2016 is decaying at a slower rate than the other years.

But given both the record peak it is coming from and the recent changes in the ocean and atmosphere, it would actually not be surprising to see the transition happen just as quickly as in 1998, if we truly are to enter into a stronger La Niña (tmsnrt.rs/1N5ek0p).

– See more at:  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-weather-lanina-braun-idUSKCN0X215F


More graphs and data at the WUWT ENSO Reference Page

 

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A C Osborn
April 7, 2016 8:36 am

See the question I asked at the end of the previous Post, how are the Satellites going to react to this, that lost heat has gone through the Atmosphere, but the Surface is much cooler.
How will NOAA/GISS handle it as they have been using the SSTs along with non existent Arctic results to bolster their Pause Busting records.

DaveK
Reply to  A C Osborn
April 7, 2016 8:43 am

The snarky answer is that they’ll just double-down and find another way to fudge the temperature record. If they can be successful in eliminating all records of what temperature was actually recorded in the past, they can mold the “official” record into whatever they want.

sysiphus /
Reply to  DaveK
April 7, 2016 9:51 am

Even a path paived with good intentions still leads no where good. Even in science. (I was going to say especially in science, but I can see that it is never good no matter the circumstance or subject ).

Mark from the Midwest
Reply to  DaveK
April 7, 2016 10:21 am

If Karl and Schmidt have obliterated or obscured the original data sets they’ve committed a Federal felony. In the odds-off chance that Cruz is the next President they would both spend from 18 months to 3 years in a Federal facility, as well as lose any Federal retirement benefits. For those reasons, alone, I suspect that original data is around somewhere, it’s just being very well hidden at the present time.

kenwd0elq
Reply to  DaveK
April 7, 2016 10:43 am

Under capitalism, the past is fixed and the future is wide open. Under communism, the future is fixed; it’s the past that is continually changing.

ScuzzaMan
Reply to  A C Osborn
April 7, 2016 11:30 am

Yes, I read an article in the local papers a while back, saying that 75% of the additional heat had been absorbed by the deep ocean. Very convenient.
But what concerns me about this kind of article is that, if there is a coincidence between the turning of El Nino/La Nina and a longer multi-decadal cycle, and it actually get suddenly precipitously colder, people will die.
It will be amusing to see the backflips and contortions of the professional scaremongers, but not to see the corpses of the old and infirm.

Reply to  ScuzzaMan
April 7, 2016 2:41 pm

In more than one year in the UK in the past decade over 20000 people died of cold related deaths, with other years well in excess of 10k. 23000 died a few winters ago in the UK. You can guess the main demographic in that number, old people on pensions who can’t afford to pay for energy. same for sick and disabled people.
So it is already happening, and all these modern buildings have no fireplaces too, so you cant go get some logs yourself

April 7, 2016 8:47 am

Point of information: Is GISS measuring El Niño by satellite, ARGO buoys, or a combination?

Stephen Richards
Reply to  Tom Halla
April 7, 2016 12:21 pm

Elbow like my mum did before putting me into boiling water

ShrNfr
Reply to  Tom Halla
April 7, 2016 12:28 pm

Ouija board.

jorgekafkazar
Reply to  Tom Halla
April 7, 2016 5:26 pm

Haruspices.

george e. smith
April 7, 2016 8:52 am

Now there is a weird pinwheel cold patch just out from the tip of the Baja, that looks really odd.
If I am not mistaken, that is the location of Clarion Island, and the other members of the Revilagigedo Island group. (Hope I got the speeling about correct).
That place is a smorgasbord of pelagic fishes, Like Yellowfin tuna and Wahoo.
Probably that colder water is from upwelling around the island bases that brings up the rich nutirents to feed the food chain.
G

Gloateus Maximus
Reply to  george e. smith
April 7, 2016 9:22 am

The archipelago is named in honor of Count Juan Vicente de Güemes Pacheco de Padilla y Horcasitas, segundo conde de Revillagigedo, last competent Viceroy of New Spain, 1789-94. The highest dome complex on the largest island, Isla Socorro is Mt. Evermann, named for American ichthyologist Barton Warren Evermann.
Volcanic activity there is quite recent, commencing just over 5000 years ago.

MarkW
Reply to  Gloateus Maximus
April 8, 2016 9:57 am

My youngest could spell her entire name by the time she was three. I wonder how old this guy was by the time he could do the same.

Gloateus Maximus
Reply to  george e. smith
April 7, 2016 9:30 am

The island in SE Alaska also named for the 2nd Count is locally called Revilla, pronounced Ruhviluh. The British, Russians, Spanish and Americans were all contesting the Pacific coast from the Russian River in California up to the Russian settlements in Alaska at that time.

george e. smith
Reply to  george e. smith
April 7, 2016 11:06 am

Thanx Gloat,
I always wanted to go on one of those long range fishing trips out of San Diego, that go down there to those islands. Wild fishing.
A world record 388 (I think) pound yellowfin was caught on one of those trips. The guy landed the fish in two minutes.
Actually, the fish at4e the live bait he had on his line, then swam under the boat and went on feeding on the school of bait fishes; didn’t even know it was hooked. A deckhand with a gaff snatched the fish and they hauled it out of the water. Just for good measure the same deck hand snatched a 200 + pounder that wasn’t even hooked, just feeding in the melee.
The IGFA still gave the guy the WR for that totally absurd catch.
g

Gloateus Maximus
Reply to  george e. smith
April 7, 2016 12:33 pm

De nada!
The most seasick I’ve ever been was on a smelly diesel boat out of Cabo into those waters.
Fishing around Revilla in Alaska was more fun. The North Pacific south of San Diego is a lot rougher than is commonly known.

April 7, 2016 9:00 am

Will be interesting to see whether the pause returns by yearend. If it does, the CMIP5 models will be truly busted. Except for Russia’s INM-CM4, which has lower water vapor feedback, lower ocean thermal inertia, is most closely tracking UAH and RSS, and has ECS in agreement with energy budget observational estimates.

Simon
Reply to  ristvan
April 7, 2016 11:57 am

ristvan
Highly likely temps will drop meaning there is another pause of sorts. But it will probably be temporary, unless the warming trend reverses and that is highly unlikely.

Ian W
Reply to  Simon
April 7, 2016 12:20 pm

I wouldn’t sell your coat just yet Simon. See Dr Norman Page (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/07/la-nina-and-a-cooler-earth-may-be-coming-faster-than-predicted/#comment-2184289) below who is not alone in forecasting a few decades of colder temperatures. Then it will not only be the climate modelers that have difficulties, it will be those in energy poverty due to paying ‘green taxes’ aka subsidies to subsidy farmers. Cold is far more dangerous than warm.

Simon
Reply to  Simon
April 7, 2016 2:23 pm

Ian W
With all due respect, are you gong to believe this Dr Norman Page’s predictions? If so, please tell me why?

Reply to  Simon
April 7, 2016 3:50 pm

Simon, you say a temperature drop will probably be temporary. How temporary do you think it will likely be? Also, in your estimation, at what point would cooling (or warming, or even a pause) exceed the boundaries of “temporary”?

Simon
Reply to  Simon
April 7, 2016 4:42 pm

A.D. Everard
Based on the recent pause/ temp increases, 20 years seems to be the upper limit. But even then putting a fixed time on it is irrelevant (within reason). Long term trend is all that matters and that is clearly up. You can wish for a downward trend, but that is not looking likely at this stage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming#/media/File:Global_Temperature_Anomaly.svg

catweazle666
Reply to  Simon
April 7, 2016 5:44 pm

Simon: ” You can wish for a downward trend, but that is not looking likely at this stage.”
Actually Simon it has already commenced. We are in the negative phase of the`60 year cycle correlated with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.
This will become undeniable even to a true believer like you in the next year or three.
Count on it.

Simon
Reply to  Simon
April 7, 2016 6:34 pm

catweazle666
Yes well don’t go selling your bikini any time soon.

Reply to  Simon
April 7, 2016 7:10 pm

Thanks for your answer, Simon. So you are saying that up to 20 years of cooling would count as temporary? So, presumably, 20 years of warming should also be counted as temporary. You do understand that we have natural cycles slightly longer than that that would account for both warming and cooling?
As for “wishing”, I’ve rather enjoyed coming out of the Little Ice Age. I would like it to get warmer. Unfortunately what I am experiencing is colder weather each year with more ice and more snow.

MarkW
Reply to  Simon
April 8, 2016 9:59 am

What warming trend?

TA
Reply to  ristvan
April 8, 2016 6:00 am

Thanks for that reference to the Russian model.
I did a search the other day when someone mentioned a “Russian model”, but the search results brought up Russian models I wasn’t expecting, and I got distracted.
The “INM-CM4” helped me refine my search. 🙂

Gloateus Maximus
April 7, 2016 9:12 am

What goes up, must come down. Especially on a self-regulating water planet.

Reply to  Gloateus Maximus
April 7, 2016 8:21 pm

Ultimately, the yellow H-burning star we orbit and our varying distance and obliquity to it are what really matters (given our current land mass arrangement, which takes about 5-10 million years to change appreciably).

Gloateus Maximus
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
April 7, 2016 9:10 pm

Trenchant, as always.
Yes. There was no massive glaciation in the Mesozoic, when the cosmological cycle should have produced one, because of the continental arrangement. Neoproterozoic, Paleozoic and Cenozoic ice ages however, were right on cue.
Interesting is the long Paleoproterozoic Gap between the Huronian and Marinoan Snowball Earth episodes. The missing ice ages are almost certainly cosmological in absence causation.

April 7, 2016 9:12 am

Here is my latest forecast from
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-imminent-collapse-of-cagw-delusion.html
“3.3 Current Trends
The cooling trend from the millennial peak at 2003 is illustrated in blue in Fig 5. From 2015 on,the decadal cooling trend is obscured by the current El Nino. The El Nino peaked in March 2016. Thereafter during 2017 – 2019 we might reasonably expect a cooling at least as great as that seen during the 1998 El Nino decline in Fig 5 – about 0.9 C
It is worth noting that the increase in the neutron count in 2007 seen in Fig 8 indicated a possible solar regime change which might produce an unexpectedly sharp decline in RSS temperatures 12 years later – 2019 +/- to levels significantly below the blue trend line in Fig 5.”
In addition I would note the unusually strong NGRIP flux count at about 1815 in Fig 5 at
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1004/1004.2675.pdf
This would suggest a possible Dalton/ De Vries minimum at about 2020 -2025 ( 210 year periodicity )

Scottish Sceptic
Reply to  Dr Norman Page
April 7, 2016 9:34 am
Reply to  Scottish Sceptic
April 7, 2016 5:05 pm

Like almost everyone else you continue to ignore the obvious millennial cycle which peaked about 2003. See Fig 1 and the post and forecasts at
ttp://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-imminent-collapse-of-cagw-delusion.html
” 3.1 Long Term .
I am a firm believer in the value of Ockham’s razor thus the simplest working hypothesis based on the weight of all the data is that the millennial temperature cycle peaked at about 2003 and that the general trends from 990 – 2003 seen in Fig 4 will repeat from 2003-3016 with the depths of the next LIA at about 2640.
3.2 Medium Term.
Looking at the shorter 60+/- year wavelengths the simplest hypothesis is that the cooling trend from 2003 forward will simply be a mirror image of the rising trend. This is illustrated by the green curve in Fig,1.which shows cooling until 2038 ,slight warming to 2073, then cooling to the end of the century.
3.3 Current Trends
The cooling trend from the millennial peak at 2003 is illustrated in blue in Fig 5. From 2015 on,the decadal cooling trend is obscured by the current El Nino. The El Nino peaked in March 2016. Thereafter during 2017 – 2019 we might reasonably expect a cooling at least as great as that seen during the 1998 El Nino decline in Fig 5 – about 0.9 C
It is worth noting that the increase in the neutron count in 2007 seen in Fig 8 indicated a possible solar regime change which might produce an unexpectedly sharp decline in RSS temperatures 12 years later – 2019 +/- to levels significantly below the blue trend line in Fig 5.”

TonyL
April 7, 2016 9:23 am

The famous north Pacific Blob appears to have reversed completely and is now a cold Blob. With the El Niño fading fast we expect UAH drop sharply anyway. The combined effect of the two, and the UAH change should be quite dramatic. A month ago, I did not think that the temp could plausibly drop fast enough to reestablish the Pause any time soon. Now it looks entirely possible.

george e. smith
Reply to  TonyL
April 7, 2016 11:11 am

That should be good for California. We can get back to our normal drought condition, so they can get to work on tearing down some of the surplus river dams we have.
Don’t need to dam a river unless it has water in it, so we can get rid of some of those anti-eco monstrosities, and replace them with green bird grinders, or working bird evaporators.
g

David A
Reply to  TonyL
April 7, 2016 11:18 am

I agree. I have thought for a while now that a strong La Nina, a PDO reversal and a blob cooling, and a cooling AMO, if syncronised would likely reverse all warming since 1979.

FerdinandAkin
April 7, 2016 9:24 am

Stand by for the Alarmists to proclaim the sudden onset of La Niña is further ‘proof’ of climate disruption brought on by Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.

April 7, 2016 9:25 am

Looks to me like a normal transition from El Niño to La Niña. Neither faster nor slower, neither more intense nor less intense, than previous transitions from strong El Niño events.
We probably won’t have any more record warm years until the next strong El Niño that could take 5-10 years to come. 2016 should still be warm due to an exceptionally warm winter, but 2017 and 2018 should be colder than running decadal average if a strong La Niña develops. If a significant warming does not return by 2019 the models are going to look really, really bad. The people that make them know this so I expect that CIMP6 will show less warming prediction than CIMP5, otherwise we might well be outside the 95% confidence range.

Editor
Reply to  Javier
April 7, 2016 3:05 pm

OK, predictions are dangerous but here goes : One climate model will be tweaked to show short term cooling. The warmists will then claim that temperatures have stayed within the model range, and that the model average is still an upwards 2 deg C per century.

climatologist
Reply to  Javier
April 9, 2016 9:32 pm

Probably, could, expect, should, if, might, would etc. are words we expect from believers in warming. Please don’t use them, otherwise it shows our ignorance of the future.

Marcus
April 7, 2016 9:36 am

…Ontario, Canada is STILL waiting for Spring !! It’s only a month late !!…AAARRRGGGG !

Russell
Reply to  Marcus
April 7, 2016 10:09 am

Warmer start to winter and cold end to winter. amazing how it all balance’s out. Montreal apparently it only warms up by the middle of next week, no golf until end of April LOL.

Reply to  Russell
April 7, 2016 11:57 am

You’re in a different geographical position to have noticed any man made global warming, this is due to satellites monitoring earths geographical equator where there is no seasonal change, therefore if the equator warms (even for a second) all evidence points to that man made the climate change done it (if you call variability that), if the colder polar regions that are not warming at a rate similar to what its seasonal temperatures are usually considered to be normal in the (made up) past, then the focus must change to the equator where there are no seasons.
In satellite data that no one has mentioned yet, there is a greater difference in this latest ENSO spike between polar cold and equatorial “warmth”, solar driven of course, having a colder background is making this El Niño stand out somewhat… think about this!!
Still where is La Niña going to take us? back to man made global warming levels? laughable and insulting, so try and enjoy your polar man made global warming at such harsh freezing temperatures while you can, some day we may have the ability to keep you and yours warm through harsh cold nights without driving you into poverty.
😉

Reply to  Russell
April 7, 2016 12:05 pm

Or living in that part of the world you could maybe learn how to build igloos and cover yourself and family in seal fat to save the planet.

emsnews
Reply to  Marcus
April 8, 2016 5:12 pm

It snowed three times this week in upstate NY and barely gets above freezing on the ‘warm’ days.

April 7, 2016 9:38 am

Well, we went from double Nino 1913-15 (second half was a whopper) to double La Nina (whopper) in 1916-18. And we didn’t even get a lousy T-shirt.
We need to stop fretting and just live. At least for as long as this clement little Holocene lasts and the next Laki or Tambora holds off. Let’s wait for a real problem before we chew down to the knuckle and wet the bed.

Gary Pearse
April 7, 2016 9:45 am

As an engineer rather than an expert on ENSO, I noted a few months ago that the volume of significantly warm water from surface to 100m didn’t seem enough to sustain an El Nino for too long. I asked the question of Bob Tisdale if anyone calculates what energy there is for release from these things. I don’t know if I got an answer. I may have not gone back to the thread to see it. If Bob is reading this, perhaps he may have an answer. If not, it seems to me that it isn’t necessary to guess – you have so many cubic km of anomalously warm water down to 150km. If this is rising to the surface with cooling one should be able to calculate how long it could last before it peters out. I suspected it many weeks ago and NOAA was taken by surprise!! What does this tell you about the quality of science being practiced? If someone want to take this on, there is excellent data to work with and several El Ninos whose water temperatures, progressions and the time they lasted.

Pamela Gray
Reply to  Gary Pearse
April 7, 2016 6:17 pm

The MEI captures some of your observations. Unfortunately this indices does not include the depth of the thermocline, which by itself can help us determine how much energy is left. The caveat is that wind strength (or lack thereof) can also determine the depth of the thermocline across the equatorial Pacific.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/

coaldust
April 7, 2016 10:09 am

In spring 2014, the El Niño camp was shouting about what was about to happen, but it didn’t materialize until the atmosphere supported it in 2015. Let’s not make the same mistake. When the central Pacific easterlies strengthen we can be assured that the La Niña is coming. Until then we are waiting.
That said, the easterlies look to me to be in a transition. Certainly the NH easterlies are strong. If the SH comes around, then the goose is cooked. Perhaps when the cool subsurface water emerges the atmosphere will respond.

Unmentionable
Reply to  coaldust
April 7, 2016 10:49 am

Have a look, the south-west Pacific basin trade flow kicked in from about the second week of March:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-173.63,-17.43,536
We’re currently getting much cooler less humid air into NE Australia, since then, and Summers heat and humidity has faded-off around 4 to 5 weeks earlier than ‘normal’, and the central coral sea area’s SST rose sharply since the beginning of March.
If it quacks like a duck …

coaldust
Reply to  Unmentionable
April 7, 2016 11:05 am

Perhaps in Australia, but the central Pacific isn’t there…yet. Still a broad area of unsettled conditions (currently with westerlies blowing from the Solomon’s toward the ITCZ in the central Pacific). Also, the SOI hasn’t yet seen a solid block of positives.

Unmentionable
Reply to  Unmentionable
April 7, 2016 11:22 am

Yes, but look at the projection 5 days ahead of now, the easterlies are even more established in the central pacific than this week, and the low centers typical of El Ninos have all dissipated.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2016/04/12/1200Z/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-173.63,-17.43,325
Now go back to the 21stof Feb and step it forward in 1 week increment to 5 days ahead of now, and you can see the pattern begins to change shortly after Cyclone Winston loses its rotation identity off the north QLD coast.
Then do the same with SST and you can clearly see the thermal anomaly is propagating westwards and the trades and current begins to come back with it (chicken or egg?).

Unmentionable
Reply to  Unmentionable
April 7, 2016 11:25 am

Forgot to emphasize, that Anthony is correct, the change is happening surprisingly fast.

coaldust
Reply to  Unmentionable
April 13, 2016 7:47 am

It’s been over 5 days now. Still have westerlies. Still a broad area of unsettled weather in the central Pacific. 30-day SOI is falling and is back in El Niño territory. Conclusion: not so fast. The La Niña will come, but let’s not get carried away.

O R
April 7, 2016 10:17 am

The drop in Nino 3.4 and in top 300 m warm water content appears to be similar or slightly slower than that of 1997-1998 and 1982-1983. Thus, there is nothing spectacular with the decay of the present el Nino compared to the recent strong ones. It follows the plan more or less..

Stephen Wilde
April 7, 2016 10:26 am

This is what happens when a quiet sun increases global cloudiness so as to reduce the amount of solar energy entering the oceans. The reduced rate of recharge will gradually reduce the intensity of El Ninos relative to La Ninas and lead to a cooling world.
Mechanism here:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/is-the-sun-driving-ozone-and-changing-the-climate/

Reply to  Stephen Wilde
April 8, 2016 6:02 am

Earl happ blob called reality is best for ozone related effects IMO.

Stephen Wilde
Reply to  Macha
April 8, 2016 11:24 am

Erl is on the right track but I think he has a couple of elements wrong.
Furthermore he doesn’t seem to focus on multidecadal / multicentennial variability

KLohrn
Reply to  Stephen Wilde
April 9, 2016 7:55 am

Great illustrations of a primary mechanism. All others are but effectual in response.

Stephen Wilde
Reply to  KLohrn
April 9, 2016 8:21 am

Thanks KL,
My mechanism is gaining ground at several blogs.

Sun Spot
April 7, 2016 10:55 am

As per the previous post “No Statistically Significant Satellite Warming For 23 Years (Now Includes February Data)”, a La Nina and the sudden natural cooling after a super El Nino is going to make Nick Stokes head explode !!

commieBob
April 7, 2016 10:57 am

The arctic is also interesting. All winter it has been running about 7 deg. C. above normal. Now, when it should be warming up, it isn’t. Another week like that and it will be below average. Verrry Interesting! link (source of the graph from the Sea Ice Page)

RWturner
Reply to  commieBob
April 7, 2016 12:38 pm

This also happened last year iirc.

commieBob
Reply to  RWturner
April 7, 2016 1:37 pm

You are right. Last year the temperature touched normal at about day 100 then zoomed up. The next week should be interesting.
This year so far has been quite a bit warmer than last year, and 2012, and 2007. If you like ice, things aren’t looking good. On the other hand, if you paid upward of $30k for a northwest passage cruise you are less likely to be iced in.
Personally, I’m cheering for it to stay cool for a bit longer. 🙂

April 7, 2016 11:15 am

I was under the impression that anthropogenic contributed co2 was the driving force in global temperature and everything else was merely a minor contributor. So now we are to believe that co2 levels are in fact not in control of the earth’s thermostat? How can this be? We have been told if we cut back on fossil fuel consumption we can save the planet! How can we save the planet from climate change if it changes without our help?

April 7, 2016 11:23 am

If ‘El Popo’ blows up big in Mexico we may get really cold.
http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/el-popo-explosion-strongest-in-3-years/

john
April 7, 2016 11:46 am

The only heat I am seeing is the imminent bankruptcy of Sun Edison ala Enron.
Green Energy Chronicles: SunEdison Enters Death Spiral

ozspeaksup
Reply to  john
April 8, 2016 5:53 am

whoooeee what a nest of nasties!
the way they chop n change management ceos etc
youd think their chairs at least were working electrically
not much else seems to be though..
odd isnt it?
how oreskes and the rest of her bestbuddies ALL manage to NOT see the subsidies n tax breaks TO big green
at least the coal oil gas mobs DO give something in return

April 7, 2016 12:19 pm

a Cooler Earth May Be Coming Faster Than Predicted
That is an admirably circumspect title. “May be” is my favorite phrase in this discussion. The 2016/2016 el Nino, like the 1997/1998, “may be” followed by a step increase in the global mean temperature.

RWturner
Reply to  matthewrmarler
April 7, 2016 12:49 pm

Admirably circumspect? Obviously Tony, nor anyone else, really KNOWS whether it will or not. So saying it will or won’t would be misleading. Is the honesty where your admiration stems from or are you a troll in training?

RWturner
April 7, 2016 12:37 pm

A few predictions:
PDO will flip back negative with this La Nina and there will be another double dip La Nina like in the early 50s/mid 70s. We won’t hear much about the “global average temperature” for a while with the propaganda focus instead on the brutally hot summers in North America, flooding in SE Asia, and a major hurricane will finally hit the U.S. The hiatus will be back on track by 2017 and more talk of global cooling by the end of this decade.

Cam
April 7, 2016 12:55 pm

Last year, it was the warm blob in the North Pacific that was blamed for the unusual weather that we had in the North West and was speculated to be a reason the El Nino rains never fell in Southern California. Now it’s been replaced by a cold blob, how long until that’s blamed for some weather phenomenon blamed on climate change?

April 7, 2016 1:17 pm

I hope La Niña gets here soon, here in Chile it means more rain (which we need, some parts of the country are suffering with drought) and more snow in the Andes. As a matter of fact today one of the biggest newspapers in Santiago ran a news about it: http://goo.gl/ZFRZX5: it says that more snow is predicted to fall in the ski centers around the city, because El Niño is finally receding. The ski resorts are happy of course!

geran
April 7, 2016 1:30 pm

“A slowdown or reversal in this cooling trend does not seem likely as the atmosphere is becoming increasingly supportive of it.”
If only we had more CO2 in the atmosphere….

catweazle666
April 7, 2016 1:31 pm

Funny thing, after the big 1998 El Niño spike, all the Warmists were frothing and screeching about “tipping points” and predicting boiling oceans and all sorts of other claptrap.
I haven’t seen a single reference to “tipping points” after the last one.
Does indicate that they are losing confidence in the more apocalyptic aspects of their alarmist obsession?

Paul
Reply to  catweazle666
April 7, 2016 1:36 pm

“Does indicate that they are losing confidence in the more apocalyptic aspects of their alarmist obsession?”
Nope, they’re just busy campaigning for Bernie.

Patrick B
Reply to  catweazle666
April 7, 2016 7:08 pm

People like Richard Alley have talked about an tipping in Arctic sea ice dating to around then….
Ocean heat content has also been on a tear for at least 2 decades:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/

Reply to  Patrick B
April 7, 2016 7:58 pm

Patrick B,
NOAA has been caught red-handed “adjusting” parameters to show purported global warming. They now use the “adjusted” ARGO numbers to make your scary charts.
When the ARGO array was first commissioned, every one of the thousands of submersibles was calibrated and approved.
But the gov’t bureaucrats didn’t like what they found:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/Argo_Heat_Content.jpg
So now the ‘problem’ is fixed — and ARGO shows what they want it to show.
You can believe them. I don’t; I’m not that credulous. When our scientifically illiterate president issues their marching orders, the message is clear: the department heads are at-will appointees who can be replaced without cause. So when the president says, “It’s my way or the highway,” it’s not surprising that they do it his way.

Patrick B
Reply to  Patrick B
April 7, 2016 9:20 pm

dbstealey: Adjusting raw data is absolutely necessary in order to control for biases, and is done in every scientific field.
This is an old subject by now. Best article I know of on this is
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/thorough-not-thoroughly-fabricated-the-truth-about-global-temperature-data/

Richard G
Reply to  Patrick B
April 8, 2016 12:26 am

The bias in the adjustments are a feature, not a bug. The temperature anomalies are man-made but not in the physical sense.

Reply to  Patrick B
April 8, 2016 4:16 am

Patrick B, not once in the article you linked to is ARGO mentioned. You have to adjust satellite data, of course. And by the way, they l1e by omission.

taxed
April 7, 2016 2:01 pm

l have been warning for awhile now, that the recent warming may come to a end sooner then many may think. lts the way the weather has been behaving over the winter and spring that has been giving me the clues. First the extending of the Russian highs to the south during the winter that were sending large amounts of warm air into the Arctic. lf the climate system was wanting to lose heat in a hurry, then this is one of the best ways of doing it. Also with the Arctic been running much warmer then average during the winter. that in itself must have been taking a fair amount of heat out of the system, and this heat had to have been coming from somewhere. Plus the fact that while the Arctic has been running warm this winter. The Hudson Bay area has not been joining with this warming. Given this area’s climate history then l would have wanted to see it joining in with this warming. The fact that it bucked this warming trend, suggested to me that this warming was not for the long term.

Reply to  taxed
April 7, 2016 4:00 pm

I agree. The North Pole was like a chimney with the damper left open last winter. The planet wasted a lot of perfectly good warmth. Also the surges of Atlantic air pushed the ice up towards the Pole rather than allowing it to be flushed south. The Russians are having a hard time establishing their yearly base up at the Pole because the ice is so crisscrossed with pressure ridges.
https://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/arctic-sea-ice-video-of-jet-landing-on-cracked-sea-ice/

bit chilly
Reply to  Caleb
April 7, 2016 5:02 pm

great analogy caleb,a chimney with an open damper. it always makes me smile when people get excited about the arctic being warmer than usual in the winter, apparently forgetting that is where so much warmth leaves the planet permanently.
we are very close to seeing a negative pdo, amo and la nina all coinciding . interesting times.

Reply to  bit chilly
April 7, 2016 7:42 pm

Interesting indeed. We have no modern records of the details of what a “Quiet Sun” entails. Expect the unexpected.

Patric B
April 7, 2016 2:31 pm

You’re seriously jumping the gun — it’s far from clear there is going to be a La Nina.

goldminor
Reply to  Patric B
April 7, 2016 3:38 pm

Every strong El Nino on the MEI is followed by a La Nina. Why do you think that this time around might be different?

Patrick B
Reply to  goldminor
April 7, 2016 7:04 pm

That’s clearly not true, if you look at the data. Examples: 1957, 1958, 1965, 1976, 1977, 1991, 2002.
Here’s the data:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/table.html

Richard G
Reply to  goldminor
April 8, 2016 1:37 am

There doesn’t seem to be a pattern in the data. I saw 9 El Nino followed by La Nina, 8 followed by Neutral and 2 followed by El Nino.

geran
Reply to  Patric B
April 7, 2016 3:49 pm

Patric, is the opposite of “jumping the gun” being “slow”?

David Williams
April 7, 2016 2:36 pm

One observation I would make comparing this El Nino with the 97/98 event is that this has occurred just after solar maximum whilst the 97/98 event occurred shortly after solar minimum. I recall a research paper advising that temps during solar max are approx 0.2C higher than solar minimum. When you take this into account the global temps, as measured by UAH would not have exceeded the 97/98 had they occurred at similar points in the solar cycle.

goldminor
Reply to  David Williams
April 7, 2016 3:34 pm

I think similarly. This upcoming La Nina/negative ENSO conditions will be followed by a solar minimum, which in itself is always a cooler period. This could mean that we will not see an upward step change in the years afterwards. After the 1998/2000 La Nina the Sun was rising to a maximum in the years that followed.

April 7, 2016 3:02 pm

Not according Seth.
http://wowway.net/news/read/article/the_associated_press-another_study_says_warming_may_be_worse_than_exper-ap
Talk about “worse than we thought!”.
The models are wrong (at best unreliable when it comes to policy effecting the welfare of the people that call this little rock home) because because they overestimated temps vs observations, which is ignored or denied by CAGW adherents.
This is the first time I’ve noticed one of them admitting the models are wrong…. but because they underestimate future temps.
I wonder if the Hansen and Borenstein family trees cross somewhere?

Marcus
Reply to  Gunga Din
April 7, 2016 3:17 pm

..Instead of trading Carbon Credits, how about trading NOAA / NASA thermometer readings ?? They are both imaginary any ways !

James at 48
April 7, 2016 3:24 pm

Dropping like a rock and here goes a brick or three into the toilet tanks.

Pop Piasa
April 7, 2016 3:32 pm

Remembering that cold is merely the absence of heat, these “belches” of heat from the oceans into the atmosphere are seemingly much underappreciated. After close to 60 years in the St. Louis MO region, I’m grateful for mild winters whatever years they do happen here.

April 7, 2016 3:50 pm

The alarming warming of Antarctica is there for all to seecomment image
It’s worse than we thought. We must act now! (O wait – we’re actors already) /sarc

db
April 7, 2016 4:47 pm

El Nino is gone. Went surfing yesterday at Pacifica, south of San Francisco. It was cold. The last couple years it was obviously warmer than normal. I’ve surfed there 30 years, sometimes with a wrist thermometer (not this time). Yesterday, it was colder than normal. I got ice cream head. I just looked it up the temperature data from the NOAA buoy. After reading on this site about the other messed up data, I should have known it would be off.
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=46012
Yesterday was no where near 57 degrees (f). in the water, shown on their chart. It shows a drop in temp today to 54. Yesterday it could have been 54 or less. Who knows for sure if it was colder than normal, maybe it was the swell bringing up colder water. But El Nino is definitely gone.

bit chilly
Reply to  db
April 8, 2016 11:09 am

i think there has to be a large amount of interpretation going on with sea surface temp readings ,many areas in the north east atlantic were off by several degrees c last year and there was a lot of cold water around the sea of cortez that never showed up on the charts either.

Editor
April 7, 2016 5:45 pm

Our WUWT ENSO meter in the right sidebar has ticked down twice in the last week,

I’ve been thinking it’s about time to explain how the WUWT ENSO meter gets updated, and this is a fine opening.
First, my computer updates it. Once a week. (Or less often if the source is broken.)
Currently I’m using http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/nino_3.4.txt as my data source, I figure the Australians are closer to it and they look after the related SOI index too. That file gets a new line every Monday morning, here’s what they’ve added starting with the peak anomaly last November:

20151116,20151122,2.48
20151123,20151129,2.41
20151130,20151206,2.35
20151207,20151213,2.32
20151214,20151220,2.34
20151221,20151227,2.30
20151228,20160103,2.20
20160104,20160110,2.16
20160111,20160117,2.15
20160118,20160124,2.08
20160125,20160131,2.10
20160201,20160207,2.09
20160208,20160214,1.99
20160215,20160221,1.79
20160222,20160228,1.73
20160229,20160306,1.58
20160307,20160313,1.51
20160314,20160320,1.44
20160321,20160327,1.35
20160328,20160403,1.25

A monotonic decline except for one blip before Christmas.
The program takes that data, and if the last line is new, rounds the temperature to the nearest 0.1, picks out the matching meter image and copies it to my web site’s wuwt/elninometer-current.gif where the web host’s cache may not show it for another day or so.
Another source I’ve used is the less reliable http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst8110.for . Their data looks like:

Weekly SST data starts week centered on 3Jan1990
                Nino1+2      Nino3        Nino34        Nino4
 Week          SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA     SST SSTA
 03JAN1990     23.4-0.4     25.1-0.3     26.6 0.0     28.6 0.3
...
 11NOV2015     23.5 2.0     27.9 3.0     29.7 3.0     30.3 1.7
 18NOV2015     23.8 2.1     28.0 3.0     29.7 3.1     30.4 1.8
 25NOV2015     24.4 2.4     28.0 3.0     29.6 3.0     30.3 1.8
...
 02MAR2016     27.3 1.0     28.6 1.8     28.9 1.9     29.5 1.4
 09MAR2016     27.7 1.2     28.6 1.6     28.9 1.8     29.6 1.5
 16MAR2016     27.5 1.0     28.8 1.7     28.9 1.7     29.6 1.4
 23MAR2016     27.2 0.9     28.6 1.4     28.8 1.5     29.5 1.2
 30MAR2016     27.5 1.5     28.9 1.6     29.0 1.5     29.5 1.1

Yes, the data are different. I don’t know if one set is better. At least they track each other pretty well.

Joe Bastardi
April 7, 2016 5:56 pm

Quicker than predicted? Anyone following what Joe D and I have been up to have known this was coming from back in spring ( and longer than that, its part of a long term stand I have been alluding to for years as to what happens after the ensos).. It depends on who was predicting what.

Patrick B
Reply to  Joe Bastardi
April 7, 2016 11:27 pm

The Nino 3.4 temperature anomaly is still bigger than in 1998:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst8110.for

Tony
Reply to  Patrick B
April 8, 2016 2:46 pm

Phil Jones the world’s # 1 climatologist admitted it stopped warming in 1998 and that in fact it was slightly cooler since then; in 2005, when he told scientist John Christy he would never let the scientific community find out about it,
in his Feb 2010 BBC don’t go to jail interview,
and his employer Met Office admitted the same thing in 2013 when they published their press release named
”The Recent Pause In Warming” wherein they published three reports about the ”15 year pause in global warming since 1998.
So you’re just another ”Pot’s like Heroin” class chemistry reader who thinks because government officials say something, that means it’s real.

Patrick B
April 7, 2016 at 11:27 pm
The Nino 3.4 temperature anomaly is still bigger than in 1998:

MRW
April 7, 2016 6:56 pm

Joe Bastardi’s free Saturday Morning Summaries are great, and Joe is right. weatherbell,com. Haven’t missed them for almost three years He’s been calling it correctly for MONTHS. Not days. Not weeks. MONTHS and months ahead of everyone.

MRW
April 7, 2016 6:57 pm
April 7, 2016 7:29 pm

The connection between the departing El Nino and the arriving La Nina is this: both are part of an harmonic oscillation of Pacific ocean water from side to side in the Mid-Pacific. If you blow across the end of a glass tube you get its fundamental tone which is determined by the dimensions of the tube. Trade winds are the equivalent of blowing across the end of a rube and the ocean answers with its own fundamental tone: one El Nino peak every four-five years or so. First, trade winds pile up warm water in the Indo-Pacific Warn Pool, the warmest water on the planet. When the water there has reached peak height reverse flow by gravity starts. An El Nino wave forms, crosses the ocean from west to east along the equatorial counter-current, and runs ashore in South America. The Nino3.4 observation post sits right on top of that equatorial counter-current and watches the El Nino waves go by. It records them before they have reached South America, hence the delay before the El Nino gets to us. When it reaches South America it spreads put north and south 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 these westerlies reach their land. But any wave that runs ashore must also retreat. When the El Nino wave retreats the water level behind it drops around half a meter, cold waster from below fills this vacuum, and a La Nina has started. As much as the EL Nino warned the atmosphere, the La Nina will now cool it and global temperature remains the same.. El Nino has been active ever since the Panamanian Seaway closed and thereby established the current system of Pacific currents. There is no counterpart to El Nino in the Atlantic or Indian oceans because there is no place there to pile up water as happens in the Pacific. And forget Hansen’s fantasy of an El Nino-like Miocene.

Samuel C Cogar
Reply to  Arno Arrak (@ArnoArrak)
April 8, 2016 5:39 am

Thank you.
That was the most logical and sensible explanation of the El Nino and La Nina events that I have ever read.
Common sense reasoning can explain MOST ALL of the “magical events” that so many people are constantly claiming are occurring in the natural world around us.
Their nurtured obsession with said “magical events” ……. is religion, not science.
There is nothing in the natural world that is truly “cyclic”….. either inter-yearly or multi-yearly, ….. other than the changing of the equinoxes.

Samuel C Cogar
Reply to  Arno Arrak (@ArnoArrak)
April 8, 2016 5:58 am

Thank you.
That was the most logical and sensible explanation of the El Nino and La Nina events that I have ever read.
Common sense reasoning most always provides the best explanation for all of the “magical events” that the miseducated populace claim are occurring in the natural world around them.
There is nothing in the natural world that we inhabit that is truly “cyclic”, ….. be it inter-yearly or multi-yearly, …… other than the “changing of the equinoxes”.

Samuel C Cogar
Reply to  Samuel C Cogar
April 8, 2016 6:07 am

OOOPS, sorry bout the 2nd post. My Internet Explorer “terminated” when I hit the “post message” tab …. so I tried to re-key my commentary ……. and … my new Dell CP w/ System10 is FUBAR.

MRW
Reply to  Arno Arrak (@ArnoArrak)
April 8, 2016 8:37 am

Interesting. When did the Panamanian Seaway close?

Samuel C Cogar
Reply to  MRW
April 9, 2016 4:41 am

MRW, a long, long time ago, to wit:

Differences accumulated more rapidly in the South Atlantic than in the North Atlantic, because a land connection between Europe and North America remained until the Cenozoic era (66 million years ago). The opposite happened when North and South America became connected at the Isthmus of Panama. In South America, there were many different marsupials and few large predators. After the isthmus emerged, many large herbivores migrated south. They adapted well to the new environment and were more successful than the local fauna in competing for food. Large predators also moved south and contributed to the extinction of at least four orders of South American land mammals. Only a few species, such as the armadillo and the opossum, migrated in the opposite direction. Many of the invading northerners, such as the llama and tapir, died out in North America and are now found only in the south.
Source: http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/continental_drift.aspx

lee
April 7, 2016 8:20 pm

No, No it is the clouds.
” Global warming may be far worse than thought, cloud analysis suggests
Researchers find clouds contain more liquid – as opposed to ice – than was previously believed, threatening greater increase in temperatures”
“One of this paper’s authors, Dr Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said research has already shown “major errors in climate simulations associated with clouds”.
Trenberth said there is “some art” to working out the role of clouds, given their annual cycles and distribution, with uncertainty over whether climate sensitivity is significantly changed.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/07/clouds-climate-change-analysis-liquid-ice-global-warming
Some “art”, not science?

eyesonu
April 7, 2016 8:48 pm

Without reading the comments yet, let me ask what is going on in the north pacific. Where did the ‘cold blob’ come from? A couple/few of years age a ‘warm blob’ started in the same place. Nino has the spotlight but what about the north pacific?
Just sayin’.

Claude Harvey
April 7, 2016 8:54 pm

Let’s say global temperature does, indeed, take a dump. Does anyone imagine the climate change industry will simply fold its tent and slip off into the night? No siree! The same players would be milking “man-made global cooling”. You’d see horror stories of the coming Ice Age, Photoshop images of port cities stranded miles from the nearest ocean and great academic tomes plotting the predicted North American glacier paths.

Baz
Reply to  Claude Harvey
April 9, 2016 4:45 am

What they’ll do is to move on to something else. The Greens/Left have done this for decades. I strongly suspect they will highlight the unnatural level of radio waves in the air. We have, after all, filled the lower troposphere with microwave radiation. Some ‘scientist’ will announce a paper saying that it causes cancer…just watch, wait, and see.

Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
April 7, 2016 8:55 pm

One thing is clear that in general when El Nino is intensive so also is the La Nina; when El Nino is weak so also the La Nina — peak and depression.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy

Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Reply to  Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
April 7, 2016 9:47 pm

Vice versa is not true — weak/intensive La Nina may not lead to weak/intensive El Nino. This is also true in the Indian Southwest Monsoon rainfall. Deficit rainfall in El Nino leads to surplus rainfall in the next year. On the contrary, surplus rainfall in La Nina year may not lead to deficit rainfall in the next year.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy

April 7, 2016 10:10 pm

The Reuters article concludes with this: “Now the model predicts a healthy La Niña by July, further dismantling the delayed La Niña theory.”
That appears false. Neither the current CFSv2 model mean nor the average of models in the IRI/CPC plume predict a La Nina by July.
This week’s CFSv2 output barely predicts -0.5 in the Aug-Oct quarter.
The mid-March plume gives 52% odds of a La Nina (barely) starting in the Nov-Dec-Jan quarter.
The IRI/CPC consensus of analysts gives 50% odds in the Aug-Oct quarter, slowly rising afterwards.
http://iri.columbia.edu/our-expertise/climate/forecasts/enso/current/
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

Editor
Reply to  Editor of the Fabius Maximus website
April 8, 2016 6:11 am

OTOH, that cold subsurface water sure looks like it’s ready to bust out all over. Guess we’ll find out soon enough.

jlurtz
April 8, 2016 2:13 pm

Solar basis for everything:
1) Since 1650 the Sun has essentially been on average increasing in output as indicated by the Sunspot record.
2) The Solar Cycle 24 is the smallest in recent record [last 100 years][1913 was about equal].
3) The Earth has warmed for the last 300 years.
4) The Oceans, as an integral of energy storage are the warmest ever.
5) As Solar output decreases, based on the Solar Flux Proxy [energy actually reaching the Earth], we will have warm oceans and cool land masses, This is due to the land masses not retaining as much heat as the oceans.
6) Since the El Nino/La Nina are both about stored ocean heat [cold], reduced Solar output means less Trade Winds and a reduced Hadley Cell.
7) Reduced Hadley Cell means that the Jet Streams will move further South in the North and further North in the South. Basically, the cold will arrive.
8) Calculations show about 0.1C/2 years.
9) In 10 years, the Global temperature could be down 0.5C.

Baz
Reply to  jlurtz
April 9, 2016 4:42 am

I have a problem with 4 (or rather, you do). You cannot say “ever”. Apart from anything else, it’s incorrect.

jlurtz
Reply to  Baz
April 9, 2016 5:39 am

You are correct. Oceans “warmest ever” refers to the last 350 years.

April 11, 2016 10:20 am

Its been cooling in Northern Europe this past 10 years. Springs are later and winter sets in earlier. It all adds up tong winter. Day light hours does not change. Hopefully it sill not last more than 40 years, but it may last several hundred years. Happened before