Consistently harping on the observation that the El Nino conditions have not been validated yet serves no purpose here other than to divert the discussion in a frankly irrelevant direction.

Fits the definition of pedantic to a T.

If you google a bit, you will see that my usage matches those of careful scientists. For example:

* Scientific America wrote “El Nino Has Arrived” on July 10, 2009. The body of the text says “NOAA scientists today announced the arrival of El Niño,”

* On July 9 NOAA“El Niño Arrives; Expected to Persist through Winter 2009-10″. Note: Present tense. As in: El Nino is here, rather than “there is a strong possibility that a full fledged El Nino event will manifest itself.”

If you google El Nino has arrived you will discover that the notion that El Nino has arrived or “is here” is rather wide spread.

The fact is: Nathan’s copy editing advice was incorrect.

I thought Nathan’s criticism regarding the comment “El Nino is still here.” was constructive. Your response seems inappropriately defensive.

am an editor, a geoscience editor… Copy editors are more generalized.

Apples are fruits. So, even though fruits are more general, apples are still fruits. You are a copy editor.

In a journal article, your point might make sense. But to avoid posting and reposting tedious nonsense, you might want to learn something about the importance of context in which language is used. I recommend you become a regular reader of “the language log” and learn to consider context in which language is used.

Calling an apple a fruit is not as precise as calling it an apple. However, it is not a mistake requiring correction. A small degree of ambiguity is not forbidden in conversation. As a copy editor of any variety, you should know this.

I was just making sure that you were clear about what you were saying. That’s all.

“El Nino is still here. ”

This is a poor, ambiguous sentence. As an editor I would recommend the scientist to change it and express precisely what they meant. In your case it would be better to say “El Nino conditions are present in the Pacific, as the weekly Nino 3.4 anomaly is…”

This is what NOAA published in their weekly update on August 3rd. (Visit climate prediction center.

So, yes, I consider El Nino conditions to be here. NOAA says so too. It is not a full-fledged El Nino. I already said that. NOAA also says that.

Are you going to come back and repeat a lecture on what is required to achieve a full-fledged recognized El Nino? And somehow insinuate that one can’t write a brief sentence “El Nino is here” to mean “El Nino conditions are in place.” as opposed to “We are experiencing a full blow, mind bending, sustained El Nino of the Baskervilles?”

To answer your question: Yes, when La Nina conditions are in place, I and many of those who criticized my conclusions about trend, said it was La Nina was still out there in the Pacific. When saying that, they did not mean (and I did not take them to mean) that there was a full blown La Nina still present and that they were certain it would continue long enough to make the April-June-July average qualify as El Nino. No one would have understood them to be saying that.

If you think any of this was unclear to anyone, you are the one who is mistaken.

When people talk of El Nino, typically they are talking about the long event, like the one in 1998. NOAA use the word’s “El Nino episode” to describe the long event and “El Nino conditions” to describe the weekly temp anomaly. So I take it when you say “El Nino is here” you simply mean that the anomaly is greater than +0.5, not that the world is experiencing weather conditions typically associated with “El Nino episodes”.

It’s always best to be clear with your terminology… It’s about precision, yes?

I’m ordinarily the last person to ask these types of things, but if you think about it, that makes the irony all the more deliciously illustrative…

Remember to be an El Nino the anomlies need to be sustained for a period of time. El Nino doesn’t just mean anomalous warmth in the Pacific, it means sustained warmth in the Pacific.

There have been many times in the past where there have been a few months of warmth in the Pacific, then it’s cooled down. They weren’t El Nino events. We cannot yet say we are in an El Nino, as we don’t know.

If the El Nino does occur, (in other words, we get five months of +.5 tri-monthly anomalies) then El Nino conditions will have had existed now. Amazing thing, tense.