Chinese Academy of Science physicists find link between solar peaks and strong El Niños
The Impact of Solar Activity on the 2015/16 El Niño
Global Warming Policy Forum, 10 September 2016
Wen-Juan Huo and Zi-Niu Xiao, two physicists at the Chinese Academy of Science, have published new research today suggesting that the strong 2015/16 El Niño event occurred right after the 2014 solar peak and may be directly linked to strong solar activity. The Chinese scientists found a significant positive correlation between sunspot numbers and the El Niño Modoki index, with a lag of two years.
Moreover, strong El Niño events were found within 1–3 years following each solar peak year during the past 126 years, suggesting that anomalously strong solar activity during solar peak periods may be the key trigger of such El Niño events.
These findings may help explain the rapid rise and fall of global temperatures over the last 2 years.
Figure 1. Annual mean Solar-Spot Numbers SSN (solid grey line) and El Niño Modoki Index EMI (dotted black line) from 1890 to 2015, with a lag of two years.
Wen-Juan Huo and Zi-Niu Xiao, Chinese Academy of Science
Abstract
Recent SST and atmospheric circulation anomaly data suggest that the 2015/16 El Niño event is quickly decaying. Some researchers have predicted a forthcoming La Niña event in late summer or early fall 2016. From the perspective of the modulation of tropical SST by solar activity, the authors studied the evolution of the 2015/16 El Niño event, which occurred right after the 2014 solar peak year. Based on statistical and composite analysis, a significant positive correlation was found between sunspot number index and El Niño Modoki index, with a lag of two years. A clear evolution of El Niño Modoki events was found within 1–3 years following each solar peak year during the past 126 years, suggesting that anomalously strong solar activity during solar peak periods favors the triggering of an El Niño Modoki event. The patterns of seasonal mean SST and wind anomalies since 2014 are more like a mixture of two types of El Niño (i.e., eastern Pacific El Niño and El Niño Modoki), which is similar to the pattern modulated by solar activity during the years following a solar peak. Therefore, the El Niño Modoki component in the 2015/16 El Niño event may be a consequence of solar activity, which probably will not decay as quickly as the eastern Pacific El Niño component. The positive SST anomaly will probably sustain in the central equatorial Pacific (around the dateline) and the northeastern Pacific along the coast of North America, with a low-intensity level, during the second half of 2016. […]
4. Conclusion
This study investigated the modulation of El Niño Modoki events by solar activity, and analyzed the possible impact of solar activity on the 2015/16 El Niño event. The 2015/16 El Niño event is more like a mixture of two types of El Niño; namely, EP El Niño and El Niño Modoki. The EMI has a clear decadal period, similar to the solar cycle, and demonstrates a significant positive correlation with sunspot numbers. Statistical analysis revealed that an El Niño Modoki event will most likely occur in the one to three years following a solar peak year. The solar cycle reached a peak in 2014—the 24th solar cycle since 1755. The evolution of the SST and wind anomalies are similar to the typical features found from historical data composites in peak years and the following one to three years after a solar peak. Therefore, the El Niño Modoki component of the 2015/16 El Niño event might also have resulted from high solar activity. Considering the impact of high solar activity, the El Niño Modoki component in the 2015/16 El Niño event may not decay as quickly as the EP El Niño event. It will likely sustain in the central Pacific, with a low-intensity level, in the second half of 2016.
Some not so enquiring minds here. You don’t throw away the hypothesis just because you see outliers. Particularly when there are multiple forces at play.
Take 1982/83 on the chart. Seems to be an outlier but a lot of the metrics suggest we were headed to an El Nino event until El Chichon. 82/83 would likely have been a fit otherwise.
Still the period that stands out as being out of step is from 1940-1970.
I’m not saying I support the hypothesis. Simply look a little closer at the parts that don’t fit before throwing it out.
David Williams on September 10, 2016 at 2:28 pm
Take 1982/83 on the chart. Seems to be an outlier
An outlier? Never and never was this ENSO event an outlier, except for those people – yes: they exist – who measure ENSO events on the scale of UAH anomalies. But you see here in a display of the Multivariate ENSO Index
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/160718/i5f8mjmw.jpg
that 1982/83 was as strong as 1997/98.
A comparison of a superposition of the 3 recent big El Niños
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/160817/vn4z9v3a.jpg
tells us everything.
Now look at a superposition of UAH and MEI:
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/160911/7xxvqkb9.jpg
Here you see not only the influence of El Chichon, but above all that of the Pinatubo…
since tropical SST is one of the components co MIE, the correlation to UAH tropical air temps is not too surprising. However, I like the volcanic angle.
Plotting the difference would be interesting, perhaps compared to tropical AOD.
Greg: I lack time to do.
Perhaps you move a while deeper into Santer & al: ‘Volcanic contribution to decadal changes in
tropospheric temperature’. There is a long version in front of the paywall:
https://dspace.mit.edu/openaccess-disseminate/1721.1/89054
There you see an analysis of relations between TLT temp, SAOD and SW reflection to outer space at TOA.
The problem with this is, it’s more to do with ‘Seance’ than science.
(A good source of income throughout the ages).
They tend to ‘Believe’ in their interpretation of Science.
This article is bad science from unknown scientists published in an obscure Chinese journal. Why are we wasting our time with it?
If the GWPF want to destroy their credibility by unearthing rubbish let them do it, but WUWT should have some type of filter to prevent awful posts like this one.
Javier September 10, 2016 at 4:35 pm
I am not critical of the paper because it is published in a obscure Chinese journal. Nor do I feel it should have been ignored. I feel the authors did not make their case and did not put their best foot forward.
I tend to agree with ” ristvan September 10, 2016 at 3:12 pm” We need to police ourselves so that the general public can have some faith in what we present. Many people do not have the time or skill to go through and verify the accuracy and truthfulness of a scientific article submitted as news.
The GWPF brought this paper to the public’s attention.
If someone from that organization examines the comments and observations made here they may adjust their views on this paper or any endorsements.
Self honesty creates trust and credibility in others; and makes them more willing to hear you out.
michael
Javier, as said to B above, I disagree. The review here ripped this nonsense to shreds in just a few hours. Bring it all on. It strengthens to core skeptical credibility to shred nonsense on both sides of the likely ‘true’ climate science. Both sides.
Well, there are literally tens of thousands of papers published every month. The great majority are not worth the time to read them. Most of them will get less than 10 scientific citations as they only interest to people working on the exact same issues, and some not even. There can be wonderful articles in obscure journals, but as all authors try to publish the best they can, a reputable journal already indicates some selection.
I can only read a handful of papers per week, so I rather get interesting papers and skip the rest. If WUWT is going to discuss irrelevant papers then it will be not worth my time either.
ristvan: The review here ripped this nonsense to shreds in just a few hours.
Where? frankclimate misread two of the references; Bob Tisdale and Leif Svalgaard agree with the authors that the R^2 is small. The one serious possibility (this may have been mentioned, but if so I missed it) is that they authors may have done much more statistical analysis than reported, and then reported only the “significant” effect that they liked — that is an extremely common error not recognized as an error by enough researchers.
Was waiting for that, Matt.
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Javier, it is quite an interesting subject, but as you say, it lacks credibility, not because it was by unknown scientists or because where it was published, but because the correlation is very weak in their own figures. Kind of the situation if you put two data sets against each other, stipulate a time period, you are likely to see some correlation by coincidence. In their particular case, they didn’t even stick to the 1-3 years they stipulated in the text.
It was an interesting read, thought, and hopefully it can inspire some further research by someone else.
Javier that has been my point with other articles so many of which are wasting are time. The articles that come over on this site however should be able to come because we need to see all of the various thinking.
So what I do is look at everything and start to read and determine within 5 min. if it is a waste of time or not. Even if I determine it to be a waste of time at least I am aware of it and one never knows if some articles we think today are a waste of time turn out not to be. I doubt it but never say never especially when it comes to climate. I may be 95 % sure on some things I feel strongly about but never 100% on anything.
ristvan said: “While it is true that correlation is not causation, it is also true that IF there is causation then there will ALWAYS be good correlation…”
Hmmm…that reminds me of something.
ristvan said: “While it is true that correlation is not causation, it is also true that IF there is causation then there will ALWAYS be good correlation…”
What even in a chaotic system?
Per Strandberg reckons lunar tidal force is the main ENSO driver and who am I to disagree.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0469(1995)052%3C0293:IALTTS%3E2.0.CO;2
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0469(1997)054%3C0061:MOSEI%3E2.0.CO%3B2
Driver, I’m not so sure but trigger yes. This is something I have been saying for several years.
The temp anomalies seen in the vertical equatorial section of the Pacific can disperse without the ‘anomaly’ ever reaching the surface. This means that they reflect equatorwards and equator-fugal, north-south movements of water mass.
Glad to see this is getting some thought.
More specifically, it is a combination of the combined tidal gravitational force of the Moon and the Sun during Lunar Perigee which is the main force or trigger for changes of ENSO. Because both the strength and latitudinal angle vary greatly and seemingly chaotic, this pressure fluctuation which vary on a near global scale is the main driver of ENSO and most likely also the main driver of both QBO and JMO. Electromagnetic variations of the Sun also affect ENSO, but to a lesser degree.
The blue line is the average of recent forecast based on the average of 9 ensembles on my ANN with real solar values up to the end of 2015. The other forecast was based on earlier forecast with real solar values up to the end of 2012 and 2014. As can be seen, currently the ENSO is currently in a hiatus of a weak La Niña, but my indication is that this La Niña is going to strengthen in the coming months in contrast to what other forecasts indicate. Time will tell!
http://www.coolingnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/ENSO-Calc-variations.jpg
SOI shows that El Niño could develop in 2014.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/icpc_soi_1997:2016.png
It does? How’s that work?
Good one!! The sun’s polarities have already struck the earths oceans as they rotate and reverse, are you saying that the sun did not cause the recorded increase energy escaping from our planet? because it is actually observed.
Can I simply say, Duh!
Any discussion of phenomena related to ocean temperatures and convection-driven currents is pure BS unless stochastic heat inputs from ocean floor vulcanism and tectonic spreading centers is considered in detail. Applying such large amounts of heat at the bottom of a body of water must inevitably lead to local convection currents that WILL affect surface stream flows.
This solar interaction with the Earth is very important. the climate diabolical is not, there are so-called professionals paid and bought for, just for their position.
The Sun has a magnetic core and it is magnetically locked into Uranus, the sun’s core and Uranus behave as if they were two magnets rotating in space. (Fact)
The timing of the suns polarities as they rotate and reverse are the cause of Earth’s weather and over time, its weather patterns.
I want to discuss a specific “natural” process that occurs and will occur on the sun.
every statement is unadulterated nonsense.
Feel free to elaborate Lief? give some insight for a change.
Leif;
Obviously by “unadulterated” you meant ‘complete and absolute’ but then you added “nonsense” on the end of your sentence.
Please Elaborate!
Magnetic activity on the sun affects JETSTREAM. That is why El Niño in 2015, has not developed quickly since circulation was unfavorable. Similarly it is now with La Niña. Low solar activity (JETSTREAM) inhibit its development.
In mid-September JETSTREAM will move back more to the south.
http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/ocean/nino34.png
Seen on the chart above the waves arise from the waves in the south.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/temp50anim.gif
Question for Leif.
Coronal Holes I know are more common after the maximum of a sunspot cycle as the sun heads toward minimum conditions. Why?
How prevalent are coronal holes during prolonged solar minimums such as the Maunder or Dalton?
And why ?
thanks
Coronal holes form from the magnetic debris from decaying sunspots. For a hole to open up, the magnetic areas with uniform polarity must be large enough. If there are many sunspots, they will inject mixed polarities [sunspots are bipolar] and so destroy the uni-polarity of an area. So, as the cycle declines this destruction will also decline [the survival rate will increase] so the chance of a hole will increase. On the other hand, as the cycle declines, so will the number of sunspots and hence the amount of magnetic debris, so that the chance of a hole will decrease. You can see the result of those two opposing trends here:
http://www.leif.org/research/CH-Chances.png
There will be a ‘sweet’ spot [oval] somewhere during the declining phase.
Geomagnetic activity will maximize during that sweet spot.
For the Maunder Minimum, the situation is interesting. Some people claim that the sun was one big coronal hole and other people claim that there were no coronal holes. We know from cosmic ray proxies that the modulation of the GCRs was strong and healthy during the MM. Also that comet tails [produced by the solar wind coming from coronal holes] were clearly present, so perhaps coronal holes were common. If so, geomagnetic activity should have been significant.
This was very helpful. Thanks.
Is it possible that there is a series of interconnected variables that create the warming earth conditions that we can’t study due to either lack of knowledge or weak computer processing ability?
As a total lay person with a science background I yearn for honest and open discussion around what we know and don’t know. That seems like a trick question to some however in my head I think of ways to disproved a theory…in the absense of that debate one can think the only truth is in the media.
I was contemplating…why does the Earth have El Niños? When I remember the saying…the simplest answer is likely the right answer my first thought is as a way for the Earth to cool and release heat to the atmosphere and out into space.
In that case…what has been changing or not changing for the past 13,000 years to have warmed us up to the point glaciers shrunk hundreds of miles? Solar winds? Sun phases? It seems what system would be designed in nature to have all the carbon lost to sinks never to be used again?
All the media reports fail to say what has been causing warming for the past 13,000 years. To say that we are warming faster now than ever fails to address how we know that given we can’t narrow down any 30 year period 12,000 years ago.
We keep using computer models that frustrates me as a scientist because how do you disprove a model? Time tells all I suppose but in the meanwhile people make up their minds on a computer guess.
We keep hearing how data is getting normalized, cleaned, corrected, refined, limited, extrapolated…but I want to know what that all means. Why have many measurement sites been removed? Who decides what data is changed and how much? When we talk about such small incremental changes in temperatures we can easily have issues with data integrity.
I would love a site that has all the pros and cons theories. A site that allows for debate. Open minded scientists that participate. Maybe even some financial reward for the collaboration of good “science” and not just science that captures funding and pays the bills.
All the media reports fail to say what has been causing warming for the past 13,000 years
Actually, it has been cooling the past 13,000 years [with minor fluctuations up and down on the way].
Good to have a comment like that as it poses questions and questions lead to more questions and we see that all is not as black and white and some hope. Common perception is that since the last ice age we have been warming.
Temperatures since last ice age, slow cooling down to the next ice age some 50,000 years from now:
http://www.leif.org/research/Global-Temp-Since-Ice-Age.png
I would not even bother to calculate a correlation coefficient for this supposed relationship. In my view, a far more likely candidate for the most recent El Nino was the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Bardarbunga between August, 2014 and February, 2015. This was the largest basaltic eruption since that of Laki in 1783. Being non-explosive, it did not inject material into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight, and hence had no significant cooling effect. What it did produce was a large quantity of chlorine and bromine in the form of HCl and HBr, which would not have been rained out, as typically happens with explosive, cloud-producing volcanoes, but would have mixed into the atmosphere to become dissociated in polar stratospheric clouds, releasing chlorine and bromine to deplete ozone catalytically. This would have admitted increased irradiation by solar ultraviolet-B, which would produce global warming. This would have been an effect similar to the release of anthropogenic CFCs from the ’70s until CFCs were banned by the Montreal Protocol in the ’90s. This time interval saw an upswing of global temperature similar to but more extensive than that of 2015. CFCs were banned because of concern over sunburn and genetic damage, and apparently no one thought of the warming effect they would cause, but in fact UV-B is 48 times as intense as Earth’s IR that is absorbed by CO2. The warming effect of ozone depletion by chlorine and bromine, whether released from CFCs or non-explosive volcanism, has unfortunately not been considered in the theoretical press of concern over the possible effect of CO2 on global warming.