Evidently, El Nino is coming! It’s a prediction, and it’s not here yet. But if it is, we’ll have a chance to see whether temperature do finally pierce the mid-plane of the AR4 predictions. Kim Cobb of GA Tech tells us
- An ocean that is primed for an event (enough time elapsed since the last major event).
- A strong burst of westerly winds along the equator in the west Pacific
The former, would, I guess mean that the heat that’s been hiding in the ocean will come out (or look at another way, heat previously able to jump into the ocean will be unable to do so.) The later would mean we have an indication this could happen now.
I’ve been waiting for something exciting to happen with temperatures (other than people finally admitting that there has been something of a “haitus” and that this requires “explanation” rather than continuuing to deny that the rate of warming was clearly below the mid-point of AR4 projections– and not even consistent with that. (And for those who think that “explaining” the fact that the warming was not consistent with 0.2C/dec means that it is somehow consistent: bunk. It has not been warming at a rate consistent with an ‘underlying’ or ‘expected value’ of 0.2C/dec, and that is true regardless of ‘the cause’ of ‘the pause’.)
That said: we’ve got a little time to watch. If this happens, the excitement will probably not begin for at least 6 months. So, we’ll see. Possibly by next march we might be able to better assess whether the papers “explaining” the haitus as natural variability are right or wrong. Presumably, at some point we expect all those volcanic aerosols to fall out of the atmosphere too.
I think given the prediction of an El Nino, and the fact that these tend to start in Winter means that we should create an unusual bet metric. That is: Bet on the GISTemp average for July 2014-Jun 2015 inclusive. This would be computed based on average of monthly values in July 2015. (This would include Jun 2015.) Or some other set of months? What do you guys think?
🙂 I’m shy of risking the precious hard earned quatloos that aren’t even mine since I last wagered and lost decisively, so I don’t have much input into that question right now.
If you don’t mind, probably off topic, but you said
Could you elaborate on this? How is this true regardless of what’s behind the pause?
Does this relate to what you were discussing with Tasmin on Twitter?
I’m not sure I followed this either.
Well, a Califernia ( and rest of the SW ) drought busting El Nino would be just what the Dr. ordered, so I would like to welcome our new ENSO overlord.
But the models still appear as numerous wandering spaghetti strands ( just a few days ago, the most recent were depicting a slip back to La Nina ):
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/imagesInd3/nino34Mon.gif
KCs description is quite informative.
But like a child with a perpetual why, we can ask why is there a westerly burst? A deep amplitude mid-latitude wave pattern would provide the energy – just a switch to a multi-stable chaotic pattern?
There are those that reject the identity of a ‘sub-tropical’ jet stream, such as the one depicted in the cartoon:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/209479main_elnino1_080128_HI.jpg
Rather, there are overlaps of the one pole to equator gradient caused by overlapping waves. This makes sense to me and fits nicely with a deeper wave pattern which brings rain giving waves to the SW.
Are we looking for calling the timing or extent of El Nino? Maybe bet on the SST anomaly at 120 degrees West? (See second figure in the link Lucia provided.)
Or, just a straight bet on a multi-month average of UAH Global Temperature?
How about a bet with three parts: SST peak month, SST Anomaly maximum, and Global Temperature Anomaly average.
Whoever gets the highest IPCC (Idiosyncratic Plackboard Correlation Coefficient) score, wins the quatloos!
Amac
I think timing is impossible to make a good bet on. The calls are made at best monthly so no fractions are permitted. In principle, we could call the three month average of some index during some particular three months. But it’s really easier to just do temperatures directly as even apart from the ability to predict El Nino, we kinda-sorta care more about whether “the hiatus” will end and/or whether temperature will ever reach or exceed the multi-model mean projection in either AR4 or AR5.
Mark Bofill
This post has nothing to do with anything I discussed with Tamsin on twitter.
Mark Boffill
More fully,
There are people “out there” who seem to think that “explaining” that the “cause” of the pause is something like “volcanoes”, “low solar”, “aerosols” etc somehow means it didn’t happen. But either (a) it happened and these things ‘explain’ it or (b) it did not happen.
This has nothing to do with the conversation with Tamsin. Tamsin published a paper and a blog post. In the blog post, she seems to suggest that if they can find a “pause” in the model run in Mannabe’s paper that means scientists “knew” that pauses “could happen during a long term warming trend” as far back as 1990. And her point– and Doug McNeals seems to be that the only “problem” scientists really had some someone “communicating” this possibility.
This would seem to suggest that the past “issue” was not that
(a) scientists either didn’t know or didn’t think that pauses like the one that is happening now and which is happening during a period when they projected ~0.2C/decade could happen, but rather that
(b) they “knew” this could happen but didn’t communicate it.
And the Mannabe paper is shows as evidence to suggest “b”.
But using the Mannabe paper as evidence of “b” is totally unpersuasive.
Of course everyone “knows” that a pause can happen in a very slow warming trend. For example: if it was warming at 0.02C/dec, long periods of no warming would be totally unremarkable. At the other extreme, I think scientists would be very surprised to see a 15 year long warming pause if the ‘expected’ rate of warming was 2C/decade. So, the question is: back in — say 2007– when the AR4 was written, did scientists “think” or “know” that one might see a ‘pause’ of 15 years given that they mean projected warming was 0.2C/dec? But that they merely failed to say so?
I think the answer is absolutely not. And the reason Mannabe’s paper would not have caused them to “think” or “know” this is that the long term trend in Mannabes paper was only ~0.13C/dec over 50 years– not 0.2C/dec. And while this might not sound hugely different, it is a material difference with respect to estimating the duration one might expect for ‘pauses’.
Thanks Lucia.
Lucia –
I haven’t been following the Twitter exchange, so I’m guessing here. [Perhaps it merits a post?] You refer to a model run by Manabe — is this the M3 model with ECS=2 K mentioned in the Charney report (or one of its scions)?
“…other than people finally admitting that there has been something of a “haitus†and that this…”
Grammar Nazi Moment:
The word you are looking for is hiatus, not “haitus”.
If we have an El Nino in this year, and we don’t get record temps in 2014 or 2015, I imagine some “skeptical warmists” will be converted. (speculating based on Climate Etc. comment section)
There is an ENSO region movie here. There is what could be the beginnings of a warm plume just in the last few days.
They release the El Nino diagnostics monthly. Why not just bet on which month the diagnostics will switch to El Nino conditions?
Like Nov. 2014?
Rick A
Too many ties.
HaroldW–
The exchange was short. I have no idea if this was in the Charney report. Tamsin’s post linked to the manabe paper. I looked at a graph.
I posted the following at CA in response to Al Bedo March 5, 2014 at 5:42 pm El Nino is coming, El Nino is coming!
http://cobblab.blogspot.com/2014/03/all-eyes-on-tropical-pacific.htm
lEl Nino coming ? the answer is blowing in the wind not showing in the wind.
Bit like predicting a stock market crash, it will happen, eventually.
It works like this.
It is 50/50 whether we will have an El Nino or a La Nina next.
If you follow the graphs the trend is down so we are currently far more likely to have a La Nina type event next.
If you follow the reversion to mean then the pattern will turn back to neutral giving a trend heading to El Nino.
If you take a random walk, nobody knows, even money bet.
Trade winds are there all the time sometimes fast,sometimes slow, but as Paul S says, they are both indicators of global warming [no contradiction allowed] even though they do not mean a thing with respect to predicting El Nino, nil, zip, etc
” An ocean that is primed for an event (enough time elapsed since the last major event).”
No priming is due to a forcing somewhere, more heat from the sun, less clouds, etc not elapsed time.
People forget that ENSO is a reflection of the energy in the system, not a cause.El Nino while associated with widespread events is an event in itself, not the cause.
Read above, past performance is no guarantor of future performance.
” A strong burst of westerly winds along the equator in the west Pacific”
Ho Hum here we go again.
The guy’s article is practically begging for more funds to help monitor the “fast” winds better.If we cannot measure it well enough now then how can it be accurate?
If it is accurate, what a surprise! winds have speed!
We could always refer him to Vecchi who’s analysis showed that the trend in these winds is slowing in speed over the last 130 years [great measurements back then, and likely to get slower in future unless the run into England [joke].
really it is a pure guess and the likelihood current trend wise is for more of a La Nina given it is down in that direction already
Unfortunately, funding agencies are ill-equipped to meet the needs of such “rapid response” science. foundation support and/or access to ships of opportunity (yachts or for-hire research vessels) may allow some of the most pressing and low-hanging science to go forward. Such a coordinated observational campaign is all the more pressing because the TAO array – the only source of direct observations of the tropical Pacific atmospheric winds and subsurface ocean temperature so critical to El Niño’s evolution – is losing buoys at an alarming rate because the ship that serviced them has been sidelined by NOAA’s funding gaps. Data return has dropped to 36% (M. McPhaden, pers. comm.) – the plots you see above are heavily infilled using the few buoys that remain. Just today, the TAO homepage posted a disclaimer warning of poor data quality.
Wasn’t the El Nino coming 2012?
http://www.almanac.com/blog/weather-blog/dreaming-el-ni%C3%B1o-winter
Yes, it was.
The AGW believers are acting more like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acXfUGO1f5c
Here is another problem for the AGW community:
The pause is not erased if/when it ends. The fact is that for over 17 years the AGW predictions of warming were shown to be wrong, and this period of time, not its mere existance, shows the models were wrong.
Even if warming resumes, the models are still flawed.
And if warming resumes due to the development of a strong el nino event, the evidence based observation would be that perhaps the late 90’s heating panic was due to an el nino event as well.
Nick Stokes,
You truly earn your accolades as a contortionist.
The highly scrubbed bit of computer generated video you link to shows more blue forming up in the El/La region.
The 97/98 event didn’t start to present off the SA coast until April, so we’ll see.
i’m going to throw in the negative phase of the PDO as a modulator for no particular reason
A bet on what the average by GISS for july14 through jun14 might be sorted into ENSO predictions.
To be called an El Nino bet, a minimum average temp, say 0.9 for the period might be considered. Lower numbers might be bets on neutral or La Nina conditions.
My opinion YMMV.
But I might bet on El Nino.
hunter (Comment #126144)
“The highly scrubbed bit of computer generated video you link to shows more blue forming up in the El/La region.”
Not sure what you mean by “highly scrubbed”. It’s satellite AVHRR on a 1/4° grid. And almost up to date, so there isn’t time for scrubbing anyway.
The data is there – you can make your own judgments. I think the warm equatorial jet is the one to watch. But I wouldn’t bet on it (yet) – they don’t always last.
I actually tried one of those Holy Grail analyses recently — working out the anharmonic/inharmonic components of ENSO, using the SOI record as a training interval. The physical process that I based it on has been known since at least before 1929.
http://contextearth.com/2014/02/21/soim-and-the-paul-trap/
FWIW, I project a max El Nino at the exact halfway point of next year.
I’ve found amusement by regularly looking at the following ENSO forecast these past few years- http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/imagesInd3/nino34Mon.gif
Such prescience! Or should it be pre-science? By comparison, the ENSO forecasts make the GCM projections and even Hansen’s 1988 projection seem a model of extrasensory premonition.
Maybe they’ll be right this time, but like the MET forecasts, one could probably usually win by taking the other side.
That’s where betting comes in!
An interesting aspect of Kim Cobb’s piece is the focus on “Big Ones”. That essentially three events in the past has led to the expectation (within the ENSO community) that this is the norm and more should follow. It’s certainly good that the next couple of el nino events might test scientists assumptions about this. The past super el ninos have been linked to AGW through the idea that AGW is causing more intense events. I think looking back further in the ENSO record it looks more as though stronger El nino are associated with the positive phase of the PDO while the negative phase seems to favour intense La Nina.Given we’ve slipped back into -ive PDO phase again I think it’ll be interesting to see how this all works out.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei.ext/index.html
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/
In terms of predictions and betting both the size of the event and it’s impact on GMT are both of interest. I’ll be honest, I don’t know I could predict what will happen but what I’d LIKE to happen is an el nino that doesn’t reach the level of Big One and therefore doesn’t break us out of the hiatus and is followed in the next few years by a super La Nina.
From my detailed investigation of temperature response to ENSO events for UAH data, the impact of an El Nino is usually hardly felt at all until December (maybe a little in November) with a rapid climb to a peak in January, and the only a slow decline in temps up until a faster return to normal conditions around Jun-Sep that year. In 97/98 temperatures were not far of the typical El Nino curve in January, but shot up even further to a peak in February, and temperatures for the 98/99 La NIna event were still significantly above the typical La Nina curve in early 99.
I’d measure the temperature impacts of this El Nino if it forms either as either the first 6 months of 2015, or the entire year.
In the days of sail the RN ships logs kept information about general location, speed, wind direction and wind strength.
The Admiralty in London probably has warehouses full of ships log books, packed with daily weather information.
Pity we can’t access it.
Perhaps National Geographic might get the honor of being the contrarian ‘magazine indicator’ on California’s drought situation.
Here is a history of Uah response to all the significant (in my opinion) El Nino events since UAH started
[url=http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1982/to:1984/plot/uah/from:1986/to:1989/offset:-0.072/plot/uah/from:1991/to:1993/offset:-0.1162/plot/uah/from:1994/to:1996/offset:-0.216/plot/uah/from:1997/to:1999/offset:-0.27/plot/uah/from:2002/to:2004/offset:-0.36/plot/uah/from:2006/to:2008/offset:-0.432/plot/uah/from:2009/to:2011/offset:-0.486/plot/uah/from:2013.8/offset:-0.576]Wood for Trees Chart[/url]
I correct for an assumed AGW trend of 0.18 deg/decade. 82/83 looks like a typical El Nino, but was affected by El Chicon. 86/89 I’ve done 3 years instead of 2. The 91/93 starts a long way ahead of the trend, but instead of going higher, takes a big dive due to Pinatubo. 94/95 is then below the trend, presumably due to after effects of Pinatubo. 97/98 is the big one, and interestingly starts the furthest behind the trend of any of these events. 02/03 is odd in that it starts quite high, but goes down a little as the typical peak time at the end of the first year arrives. 06/07 then starts low and barely gets as high as the Pinatubo affected 94/95, and is also the weakest El Nino I’ve included.
The El Nino events since 98 are lower compared to prior El Ninos, suggesting a little ground on the 0.18 deg/decade trend may have been lost, however these El Nino events were also weaker. The strongest and most recent 09/10 El Nino is the closest. I’ve started a line for 14/15, and it seems to be starting about as close to the trend as any other year. Early indications seem to have this event developing at a similar pace to 97/98, but there is plenty of time between now and the end of the year for things to change. If it is a major El Nino event it will be interesting to see how it matches up temperature wise to the 80s and 90s.