NOAA’s National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center released its monthly El Ni±o/Southern oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion:
Synopsis: El Ni±o is expected to strengthen and last through the Northern Hemisphere Winter 2009-2010.
A weak El Ni±o was present during July 2009, as monthly sea surface temperatures (SST) departures ranged from +0.5°C to +1.5°C across the equatorial Pacific Ocean, with the largest anomalies in the eastern half of the basin. Consistent with this warmth, all of the Ni±o-region SST indices were between +0.6°C to +1.0°C throughout the month. Subsurface oceanic heat content (average temperatures in the upper 300m of the ocean) anomalies continued to reflect a deep layer of anomalous warmth between the ocean surface and thermocline.
A majority of the model forecasts for the Ni±o-3.4 SST index [Fig. 6, at the bottom] suggest El Ni±o will continue to strengthen. While there is disagreement on the eventual strength of El Ni±o, nearly all of the dynamical models predict a moderate-to-strong El Ni±o during the Northern Hemisphere Winter 2009-10.
This announcement is not surprising news — it mainly means the ENSO models are on track (see NOAA says “El Ni±o arrives; Expected to Persist through Winter 2009-10″³ “” and that means record temperatures are coming and this will be the hottest decade on record).
But this evolving story remains a big deal from the perspective of heating up global temperatures and cooling off denier talking points. After all, the La Ni±a conditions over the past 18 months helped temporarily mute the strong human-caused warming signal, allowing the global warming deniers to push their nonsensical global cooling meme with the help of the status quo media (see “Media enable denier spin 1: A (sort of) cold January [2008] doesn’t mean climate stopped warming“).
Remember, back in January, NASA had predicted: “Given our expectation of the next El Ni±o beginning in 2009 or 2010, it still seems likely that a new global temperature record will be set within the next 1-2 years, despite the moderate negative effect of the reduced solar irradiance.“
So I will continue posting at least monthly updates. Regular readers can skip the rest of this post (though it does have some new figues).
It is the warming in the Nino 3.4 region of the Pacific that is typically used to define an El Ni±o. The region can be seen in this figure:
How are El Ni±o and La Ni±a defined?
El Ni±o and La Ni±a are officially defined as sustained sea surface temperature anomalies of magnitude greater than 0.5°C across the central tropical Pacific Ocean. When the condition is met for a period of less than five months, it is classified as El Ni±o or La Ni±a conditions; if the anomaly persists for five months or longer.
You can read the basics about ENSO here. The following historical data are from NOAA’s weekly ENSO update
As the planet warms decade by decade thanks to human emissions of greenhouse gases, global temperature records tend to be set in El Ni±o years, like 2005, 1998, and 2007, whereas sustained La Ni±as tend to cause relatively cooler years.
Human-caused global warming is so strong, however, that as NASA explained, it took a serious La Ni±a, plus unusually sustained low levels of solar irradiance, to make 2008 as cool as it was. Yet, notwithstanding the global warming deniers and the status quo media, 2008 wasn’t actually cool. Indeed, 2008 was almost 0.1°C warmer than the decade of the 1990s averaged as a whole. And not that there was any realistic chance global temperatures would collapse this year, but now it is quite safe to say that “this will be the hottest decade in recorded history by far.” The 2000s are on track to be nearly 0.2°C warmer than the 1990s. And that temperature jump is especially worrisome since the 1990s were only 0.14°C warmer than the 1980s.
If we have a moderate to strong El Ni±o, then, as NASA says, record global temperatures are all but inevitable. The NCDC already reported June was the second hottest on record with ocean temperatures the warmest on record — a full 0.11°F warmer than the 2005 record. It typically takes several months for ENSO to impact global temps.
And this brings us back to NOAA’s updated prediction. Here were the model forecasts from June:
Figure 5. Forecasts of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies for the Ni±o 3.4 region (5°N-5°S, 120°W-170°W). Figure courtesy of the International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate and Society. Figure updated 15 June 2009.
Now here is the update as of July 16 [don't ask me why these are always 3 weeks old, ask NOAA]:
Note that the June models that predicted a strengthening were correct. Also, Nino 3.4 in July averaged more than +0.8°C, so again, we see the July models that had predicted strengthening seem to be more accurate.
A hot summer and fall “” how timely that would be for debating a climate bill?
Previous in TP Climate Progress
If we set a new temperature record this year, will the deniers flip flop and say “it’s not global warming – it’s just El Nino”?
Andrew: Of course they will. Then they’ll tell us fairy tales about all the times over the last few million years when it was hotter, how James Hansen personally hand-edited climate numbers to make recent years look hotter, and who knows what else.
When you make the decision, as the deniers have, to no longer recognize the limitations of reality, it opens up SO many possibilities for creativity…
“A hot summer and fall — how timely that would be for debating a climate bill?”
A hot summer and fall globally might not translate into a hot summer and fall in the U.S. (an area that is less than 2% of the Earth’s surface). As we saw last month, while parts of the South and Northwest had their top 1 or 2 hottest months of July on record, the upper midwest and northeast was very cool. Some lawmakers in the “cool” areas might just use their cool weather to dispute the global mean temperature readings and claim the government is fabricating data. Since so many individuals confuse their own regional weather with global climate, it is likely to be an effective propaganda technique.
In another thread, Dave writes:
“A number of commenters were complaining that the data must be mistaken because it was cool in their backyards last month! How quickly those “skeptics” turn on their own (Christy & Spencer)!”
Have you ever noticed it always seems to be cool in the backyards of global warming deniers? If it happens to be cool in South Korea some global warming denier from South Korea will surface and claim “AGW is a hoax”. It’s like there’s a cold front that follows them everywhere. Selective memory is a powerful tool for deniers.
As for the poor followers of Watts and other inane blogs, one could point out to them (requires immense optimism in their abilities to think critically) the TLT satellite map for July (select “Anomaly”). Indeed – it was well-below normal for a good chunk of the U.S.. What’s notable is how warm the southern hem. oceans were. I think that’s a shattered record for July.
http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_monthly.html
Here’s another data set that shows warming, even in recent years:
Tallies as of 7/21: Record Highs Record Lows
Since 1/1/2000 288,783 140,072
Since 1/1/2009 9,257 5,101
So high temperature records are doubling low temp records by about 2:1 in a data set that is quite large and so not subject to losing a signal in the noise. These numbers were reported by the Weather Channel and compiled from NWS data from the NCDC site for the United States. I saw them reported on TV and had somebody send me an email with them, but otherwise you would have to go to NCDC and search the databases to get them.
I’m assuming “low temp records” are nighttime lows. Would be interesting to see if night-time high records (“high lows”) can also be searched and counted.
Here in the PNW, with our recent heat wave, many cities set records for all-time highs, but even more set records for all-time night-time highs, which is exactly what the models would predict.
Do you remenber the WUWT June post about record low RSS tropospheric temperatures?
Now go to the RSS website and see the recent July spike in low and middle troposphere temperatures. The spike come a month after the ENSO-caused spike in SST anomalies.
This answer my earlier question about if there is delay between surface temperatures and tropospheric temperatures: of course YES!
But isn’t WUWT reporting that the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) is entering a cool period and therefore it will get cooler for the next decade, according to some geologist who published some paper (Here’s a link to a blogger for one of our local rags here in DC – http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Scientific-evidence-now-points-to-global-cooling-contrary-to-UN-alarmism-52455392.html (The article links to the Watts article).
Any chance you could explain the PDO, is it related to the El-Nino/Nina phenomena? Does it sync with them or always go opposite? The PDO is being brought up by deniers now, can you bat it back down or have you and I missed it?
Keep up the good work Joe!
“Do you remenber the WUWT June post about record low RSS tropospheric temperatures?”
It wasn’t exactly “record low”. TLT was +0.08 C above their 1979-1998 baseline.
MarkB wrote:
Have you ever noticed it always seems to be cool in the backyards of global warming deniers?
This note made me laugh because it’s right on the money. Every one in awhile, I venture into conservative lairs to engage people… It’s an intellectual exercise where I try making different points or use new phrases in an effort to see what might get conservative thinkers to join the cause. It never works.
Last December and January, after the Canadian coalition started to falter, and we seemed unlikely to have another election, I went to the official Conservative Party of Canada Facebook page to make my case, wondering what might make this government take climate change seriously. And there was one holy conservative Aussie there who argued until he was blue in the face that global warming was a hoax, it had been unseasonably cool and rainy for 18 months throughout Australia, and on and on…
Of course, he was living in Melbourne when this hit…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/10/australia-bush-fires
And I’ll bet he still doesn’t get it.
I’m curious. Why headline a “forecast”?
[JR: Uhh, in case you hadn't noticed, his blog is about climate science, solution, and politics. Thus, many of the posts are about projections of what will happen in the future. Admittedly, most of them are long-term forecasts, but I believe I explained in the post why this shorter term focus is relevant. Also, yes, I think it annoys the deniers....]
gtrip, If you read the post from the last headline of a forecast Joe tells you “because it drives the deniers crazy”
So you are saying that Joe does things to cause a reaction as opposed to doing something that causes production? That’s odd.
Deniers are going to tell El Nino is the primary source for global warming, and the status quo media (nicely coined) goes on drumming the brilliant new discovery for the cause of climate warming. El Nino melting the Arctic ice and so on, you know the song.
Hey Jorleh: I am a “Denier” and I think ENSO is BS. My temp in Phx is 6 degrees(F) less than last night but daily weather was the same. why do you think that is?
gtrip -
I’m unsure what you’re asking.
Are you wondering why you are so poorly informed about difference between climate and weather?
Your historical chart (SST since 1990) may be a little misleading, since it apparently cuts off before the current warming.
Meanwhile, the analysis for July is now in, and it was indeed a cool month on average in the U.S. (record-setting in some places), but Jan-July are still above average.