Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
A quick ENSO update.
Meteorological agencies like NOAA use the sea surface temperature anomalies of the NINO3.4 region (5S-5N, 170W-120W) of the equatorial Pacific to determine if the tropical Pacific is experiencing El Niño, La Niña or ENSO neutral (not El Niño, not La Niña) conditions. Other agencies use the sea surface temperature data for the NINO3 region (5S-5N, 150W-90W). See the map on the NOAA webpage here for those locations.
Based NOAA’s weekly data for the NINO3.4 and NINO3 regions (data here), during the week centered on July 13, 2016, the sea surface temperature anomalies for both regions dropped to -0.6 deg C, which is a tick below the -0.5 deg C threshold of La Niña conditions. See Figures 1 and 2. If the sea surface temperature anomalies of the NINO3.4 region continue to stay depressed for a good number of months, NOAA will declare an “official” La Niña is taking place. Like El Niños, La Niñas typically peak in November through January, so there’s a long way to go.
Figure 1 – NINO3.4 Time Series and Evolution Comparison
# # #
Figure 2 – NINO3 Time Series and Evolution Comparison
The top graphs in Figure 1 and 2 include a time-series graphs of the weekly NINO3.4 region sea surface temperature anomalies from the NOAA/CPC Monthly Atmospheric & SST Indices webpage, specifically the data here. The base years for anomalies for the NOAA/CPC data are referenced to 1981-2010. And in the bottom graphs, the evolution of the NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies in 2015/16 are compared to 1997/98, another very strong El Niño and transition to La Nina.
According to NOAA’s weekly data (based on their Reynolds OI.v2 data), the transition to La Niña conditions in 2016 are lagging slightly behind those in 1998, while in the NINO3 region, they’re more comparable.
NOTE: When looking at any graph of sea surface temperature anomalies of the equatorial Pacific, keep in mind that the uncertainties of the data prevent us from knowing the actual sea surface temperatures. We illustrated and discussed this in the post The Differences between Sea Surface Temperature Datasets Prevent Us from Knowing Which El Niño Was Strongest According NINO3.4 Region Temperature Data.
In the near future I’ll be publishing a post, or a series of them, about how La Niña events are different than El Niño events. Until then…
WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT EL NIÑO AND LA NIÑA EVENTS AND THEIR AFTEREFFECTS?
My ebook Who Turned on the Heat? goes into a tremendous amount of detail to explain El Niño and La Niña processes and the long-term aftereffects of strong El Niño events. Who Turned on the Heat? weighs in at a whopping 550+ pages, about 110,000+ words. It contains somewhere in the neighborhood of 380 color illustrations. In pdf form, it’s about 23MB. It includes links to more than a dozen animations, which allow the reader to view ENSO processes and the interactions between variables.
Who Turned on the Heat? – The Unexpected Global Warming Culprit, El Niño-Southern Oscillation IS NOW FREE. Click here for a copy (23MB .pdf).
ALSO ANOTHER FREE EBOOK
I also published On Global Warming and the Illusion of Control (25MB .pdf) back in November 2015. The introductory post is here. It also includes detailed discussions of El Niño events and their aftereffects in Chapter 3.7…though not as detailed as in Who Turned on the Heat?
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Bob Tisdale, you’re a National Living Treasure. The Japanese actually award that title to those who have demonstrated excellence in their fields.
Bob for UN La Nina czar. I would also make him responsible for the last El Nino as well taking that away from Mary Robinson.
(see the most recent post about the UN, they actually have an envoy responsible for climate change and El Nino now).
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/07/18/un-accuses-germany-britain-of-betraying-the-paris-climate-accord/
Bill,
You deserve that post as well.
You are one of the few people here that knows what they are talking about.
Your recent point of view was than the La Nina will be quite weak – any updates on that?
The La Nina is not going to get much stronger. We’re going back to neutral within a few months.
So, extrapolating this trend, how long until the Earth will be a frozen tomb? Should I bother buying new socks?
Stay away from solar or any green energy stocks, those installations will be useless when/if the climate changes in those areas.
Damn: “Who Turned on the Heat?” now free. If i’d just waited for a couple of years I could have saved six Ozzie $.
If you haven’t downloaded it then get it. It’s worth a lot more than six Ozzie $.
The latest Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) El Nino wrap up is now out. Their most recent aggregation of weekly sea surface temperatures (to 17 July) shows little recent change in recent weeks for the Nino3, Nino3.4 and Nino4 regions. See: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/#tabs=Sea-surface
Their outlook analysis now states that “If La Niña does form, models suggest it will be weak, and well below the strength of the significant 2010–12 event.” See http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/#tabs=Outlooks
Many thanks Dave for this:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/wrap-up/archive/20160719.poama_nino34.png
Good info.
Whatever Nature is doing it’s making fools of the predictions of the climastrologists and their equally ignorant acolytes as Andrew Bolt reminds them-
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/flannerys_flop_shames_the_media_class_which_made_him_a_guru/
In the 1950’s a big El Nino was followed by neutral conditions, an El Nada (or La Nada) rather than a La Nina.
Much depends on the Easterlies. If some factor (the “Quiet Sun”?) slows them, there is less upwelling of cold water.
It is hard for a La Nina to get big with the PDO to the north still spiking warm. (I think this also happened in the 1950’s).
In the 1950’s a big El Nino ???
Could you please show me the guy in the picture visible in this comment, showing the Multivariate ENSO Index?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/07/18/say-hello-to-la-nina-conditions/comment-page-1/#comment-2260242
What we see is exactly the inverse: a huge La Niña followed in 1954 a weak El Niño.
The 57-58 El Nino was followed by basically neutral conditions, until the weak 63-64 El Nino, according to this particular chart (which I hope works).
http://p931z2nb6eo1jytzj2ufrzyoiz.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/08/oni.jpg
Thanks for making me look it up. Keeps me on my toes.
OK now I understand, we rely on two different sources (ONI >< MEI). MEI is quite a bit more complex, and thus might produce different outputs:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ts.gif
Global Temperature Report: June 2016
http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2016/june/1998v2016_temps.jpg
http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/index.html
And what, do you think, does that UAH plot mean?
I do not think I see.
I also see this:
https://weather.gc.ca/saisons/animation_e.html?id=year&bc=sea
Bob. there is no la nina yet. You need 3 months of such conditions for it to be a la nina. The fact is the SOI shows no such thing in the running 90 day total ( still within +/- .8) and the lack of a sustained positive SOI has been a real problem with linking this.. The statement that the evolution toward a forecasted La Nina, whether it be me, you, or the man on the moon, appears to be continuing in a still less than convincing manner ( I believe its coming on ,but to less an extent than I thought for various reasons I have covered on weatherbell.com) appears to be an accurate statement. But a cool ribbon of water, unless it is there for more than 3 months at less than -.5C is not a la Nina In addition the SOI should be considered as its a practical indicator of what the atmosphere in a vital source region of the planetary weather is up too. Keep up the great work, as this is just pointing out a difference in opinion and certainly does not intend to take away from the fantastic info you share with us.
“Bob. there is no la nina yet. You need 3 months of such conditions for it to be a la nina.”
I don’t get your point, Mr Bastardi . . the title is ‘Say Hello to La Niña Conditions’, not *Say Hello to La Niña.* This is just Bob’s version of being playful, it seems to me . .
Recent data from BoM, which is what I use to update WUWT’s ENSO meter, has a different baseline than other sources. So while we can bicker over whether we’re in La Niña conditions now, it looks like things aren’t heading there very quickly:
From http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/nino_3.4.txt :