Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
Many readers are keeping an eye on the sea surface temperature anomalies of the eastern equatorial Pacific. The latest sea surface temperature anomaly map from the CMC Environment Canada (Figure 1) shows cooler than normal sea surface temperature anomalies along the equatorial Pacific east of about 125W, indicating the tropical Pacific is heading toward La Niña conditions. (Note the odd base years for anomalies used by CMC Environment Canada, 1995 to 2009.)
Figure 1 (Source here.)
The following are updates of the two sets of graphs of NINO region sea surface temperature anomalies that have been part of the 2014/15 El Niño series and the 2015/16 El Niño series.
NINO REGION TIME-SERIES GRAPHS
Note: The weekly NINO region sea surface temperature anomaly data for Figure 2 and 3 are from the NOAA/CPC Monthly Atmospheric & SST Indices webpage, specifically the data here. The anomalies for the NOAA/CPC data are referenced to the base years of 1981-2010 so they will not coincide with the map in Figure 1. They also will not coincide with the data from Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), because BOM uses 1961-1990 as base years.
Figure 2 includes the weekly sea surface temperature anomalies of the 4 most-often-used NINO regions of the equatorial Pacific. From west to east they include:
- NINO4 (5S-5N, 160E-150W)
- NINO3.4 (5S-5N, 170W-120W)
- NINO3 (5S-5N, 150W-90W)
- NINO1+2 (10S-0, 90W-80W)
Figure 2
Note that the horizontal lines in the graphs are the present readings, not the trends.
The sea surface temperature anomalies for the easternmost NINO1+2 region have dropped well below zero (-0.6 deg C). Those in the NINO3 region have dropped to weak El Niño conditions and the NINO3.4 region continues to follow.
EL NIÑO EVOLUTION COMPARISONS FOR NINO REGION SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES
Using weekly sea surface temperature anomalies for the four NINO regions, Figure 3 compares the goings on in 2015/16 with the 1997/98 event. While sea surface temperature anomalies in the NINO4 and NINO3.4 regions peaked higher in 2015 than in 1997, the NINO1+2 and NINO3 regions lagged well behind the 1997/98 El Niño. This year, the sea surface temperature anomalies for the NINO1+2 and NINO 3 regions are also decaying faster than in 1998.
We also showed in the post here that the differences between sea surface temperature datasets and their uncertainties keep us from knowing which El Niño was strongest.
Figure 3
CLOSING
The full ENSO update for April is just a week old. See the post here.
It will be interesting to see how quickly those cooler-than-normal surface temperatures migrate westward. According to the map in Figure 1, they’re on the eastern-most part of the NINO3.4 region.
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The weather patterns look normal to me, from my viewpoint in Oklahoma.
Tomorrow, a classic “tornado alley” storm will set up just west of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, and will move east with the potential for very strong storms, large hail and strong, longlasting tornadoes.
The Jet Stream is lined up perfectly to enhance the strength of the storms in my area. If you get to see a picture of the jet stream, you will see the shape it takes when it packs extra energy. A little bulge.
In contrast, this same jet stream is arcing north into the northern U.S. and brought a few storms and small tornadoes to the area, but nothing like what is going to happen in Tornado Alley tomorrow.
One of the reasons for the difference in strength of the storms in the two locations on the same jet stream is because the jet stream will enhance the Tornado Alley storms, whereas the storms farther north did not have such an extra energy input due to the configuration of the jet stream in that area.
That is why it is so important to show the jet streams along with all other aspects of the weather. The Jet Streams will tell you where the strongest portion of the weather front is going to be.
In Spring, the weather patterns set up normally like they are setting up right now, with the strongest storms concentrated in Tornado Alley. Later in the year, the focus of the strong storms will move north and east and areas like Iowa and Indiana and Ohio will catch the brunt of the storms.
After that happens, a high pressure system will show up and come to call in Oklahoma, and it might stop and stay for a while, and, if it does, then the rain goes away, the tornadoes go away, and the hot weather arrives.
There have been occasional years when a high pressure system did not come to stay very long in the middle of the country, but that doesn’t happen often.
I expect a high pressure system to sit down on top of us in the near future, and then the question will be how long will it be before it moves on.
Watching these tornadic storms develop and advance is a fascinating exercise for me. I’m getting to the point where I can kind of tell what they are going to do before they do it, if you can believe that. Of course, I have a lot of help from all those storm chasers who dog the tornadoes relentlessly The tornadoes can’t make a move without us knowing it. 🙂
There are two possibilities:
1. A mild La Nina (still too much water vapor in the air to allow for a clear dry sky) that will only partly replenish the heat lost in the most recent El Nino. This will leave us still at the peak of an interstadial as the ocean continues to disgorge stored heat. Let’s hope that we can stay there, and maybe even get warmer and that the AGW theory is right.
2. A global climate knee occurs whereby the oceans are so depleted of stored heat that there is no stored energy left to drive the oceans to cough up life giving heat for a while, thus putting us on the long jagged slide down (irradiance is deeply stored due to cold clear sky conditions interspersed with weak El Nino’s) to a cold stadial, just like we have seen happen in the past 800,000 year reconstruction.
Because we do not have a global metric of total stored ocean heat capacity, and we don’t have a metric for current total stored heat and how much was lost to the atmosphere during El Nino’s, we don’t know how much of that capacity has been depleted in the current interstadial warm period. Thus, projections 1 versus 2 is a dart throw. With this as a caveat: It is time for a cold jagged slide down to a stadial period of misery where few humans will survive.
Pamela not sure if we are ready to slide into a full ice age, but the cycle time between LIA’s is up and the sun is doing what it did last time, having a sabbatical. People in the northern climes of the northern hemisphere may have trouble growing crops in the not to distant future. Those that disregard history and cycles from the past may soon be in for a rude awakening, ice fairs on the Thames anyone.
Ice fairs, and people will learn to love potatoes, Brussels Sprouts and leeks.
Bob – Many thanks for your very informative posts. I have an El Niño query, but it isn’t directly related to this post: In http://www.ucar.edu/communications/gcip/m12anchovy/m12html.html (El Niño and the Peruvian Anchovy Fishery) it says in Ch.3 “During the 1953-1981 period moderate El Niños occurred in 1953, 1965, and 1976, and severe El Niños occurred in 1957-58 and 1972-73. Above-average natural mortality did occur during the El Niños of 1953, 1957-58, and 1976, but only the 1976 deaths can be attributed to actors other than predation. Furthermore, the lowest rate of natural mortality occurred during the severe El Niño of 1972-73, and natural mortality was below average during the 1965 event. What is the explanation for this pattern?“. I wonder if any of your detailed data re different El Niño zones etc, could provide a clue to these differences between the various El Niño years.
I live in Southeast Asia, north of the Equator, right in the line of fire of El Nino. But this monster event seems definitely to be waning.
We have had a few heavy downpours at night during the last couple of weeks, which caused a rise in humidity did not reduce daytime temperatures. Some attributed this as the tail end of a Pacific Ocean typhoon. But I thought it more likely the beginning of the monsoon season.
We have had two days with mostly overcast skies and some moderate rainfall. That has cut the daytime temperature a couple of degrees Celsius, enough for me to get a shirt ready to put on in case it gets cooler this evening..
I have lived in the tropics for most of the last 45 years and have observed that after three overcast days the temperature drops enough even at sea level for me to wear a long-sleeved shirt.
No surprise then that I am partial to the theories of the cosmo-climatologists.
I am wondering if there have been studies of the effects of the strength and timing of monsoons on the strength and timing of ENSO events. Must have been because so obvious.
ENSO definite seems to go the way of my ENSO predictions which is based on ANN analysis I have made. This analysis is based on the hypothesis that ENSO variability is driven mainly by variations in the lunar cycles and in the sun’s electromagnetic variability. I’m currently working on improving my forecast with more up to date information and by improving signal to noise ratio of the solar wind data and data on variations in Earth’s magnetic field.
http://www.coolingnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/ENSO-forecast-Oct-2015-2020.jpg
Be careful that you don’t include data combinations that result in autocorrelation.
What might be the impact on land areas of the dropping SST temperatures in the Nino region of the Pacific Ocean? Using the post 1997/1998 E l Nino pattern as a guide , it would appear that global winter land temperatures during the post 1998 period started to decline but did not drop significantly until 2001 or the third year after the El Nino peak of 1998.
However the longer term or decadal trend of the winter temperatures continued to decline globally especially in Northern Hemisphere and North America after 1998 . The exception was the winters of 2015/2016 when due to the North Pacific Ocean SST ” Blob” and the 2014-2016 El NINO the winters warmed in many regions .
Canadian winter temperatures seemed to drop the most during 3 years after 1998 El NINO, dropping as much as 4.8 C(8.6 F) in the Prairie regions and 3.6 -3.7 C in Eastern Canada . Northern Hemisphere land temperature anomalies declined between 1998 and 2014 at -0.33C /decade . North American Winter land temperature anomalies have continued to decline since 1998 at -0.69 C /decade. Contiguous US winter temperature anomalies have been declining at -0.78F/decade since 1998.
So it would appear that historically winter temperatures may decline for decades after a major El Nino although other climate factors could also come to play.
( All temperature data per NOAA climate at a glance web data and Environment Canada data)
Simon sez:
…skeptics don’t seem to get the severity of the problem ahead.
That comment shows why no climate alarmist is a skeptic of ‘dangerous AGW’. Simon is a perfect example of being closed-minded. He presumes things not in evidence.
There is no evidence that anything unusual or unprecedented is happening. We have just been through more than a century of the most benign global temperatures ever recorded.
There is no indication whatever that any ‘severe problems’ are approaching. Since the 1880’s global temperatures have remained within ±0.7ºC. That is hardly a wiggle. For all practical purposes, global temperatures over the past century and a half have been absolutely flat — flatter than anything found in the geologic record.
But people like Simon look at that, and conclude against all possible evidence, that ‘severe problems’ lie ahead. To put it simply, that’s crazy.
The only honest kind of scientist (or commenter here, for that matter) is a skeptic. Without skepticism, science becomes politics. It becomes religion. It is dishonest, but science must be about finding truth. But the climate alarmist crowd has no interest in the truth.
That’s what we’re dealing with here. Simon is no skeptic. No climate alarmist is a skeptic. They don’t even understand skepticism. Rather, they are absolutely certain they are right, just as Simon is certain that severe problems are right around the corner.
Simon is getting thrashed in this thread, just like he gets demolished in every other thread he comments in. The reason is because he has no skepticism about anything he believes in. Simon believes. That’s enough for him.
Commenters who lack skepticism are simply True Believers. No one can teach them anything, because they’ve made up their minds. All the contrary evidence in the world is insufficient to change their Belief.
Simon is the fly in the ointment of science; the turd in the punchbowl. By being unwilling to entertain the possibility that he might be wrong, he’s merely a Lysenkoist.
Time and Planet Earth will tell who is right. With Simon’s rigid and uncompromising attitude, there’s little doubt that Planet Earth will hand him his head — as it has been doing so far.
dbstealey
“Time and Planet Earth will tell who is right.”
________
May we apply this maxim to the already failed predictions of Don Easterbrook and David Archibald?
Let’s remind ourselves that Don predicted ~30 years of cooling centred around 2000, due to fluctuations in the PDO. It’s already clear that there has been further warming since 2000. That’s true in both the surface and satellite data sets.
David Archibald’s prediction of widespread global cooling from 2008 onward, following the onset of solar cycle 24, is even more risible. The period from 2008 to the present is one of the fastest warming on record; again in both surface and satellite data.
Planet earth has been speaking loud and clear. Not everyone is listening though.
You need to include references to those predictions.
DWR54,
Your beliefs do not reflect reality:
It’s already clear that there has been further warming since 2000.
And:
The period from 2008 to the present is one of the fastest warming on record; again in both surface and satellite data.
I guess you missed the ‘pause’ of the past 20 years. And “the fastest warming on record” is nonsense. Just prior to the current Holocene, global T rose by TENS of degrees, within only a decade or two.
When you cherry-pick “the record” you can show almost anything.