Can you reconcile that with Bastardi’s acknowledgment of a first year El Nina’ that is much colder than normal and the correlation of polar shifts. (the complexity of solar activity certainly included).
Is that you Michio Kaku ? El Nina. A new construct. Just kidding :> La Nina has been colder then normal and wetter then normal within the US. Basically what just occurred, IMHO, was that we entered a solar driven cooling cycle. That is where we were in 2008 where we had just come off two back to back La Ninas. A multi-year La Nina. Then the 2009/2010 surprise El Nino caused atmospheric warming. So we had an El Nino after entering a long term cooling trend. So a short term blast of Atmospheric Heat, caused us to be within this very fast fall back to the long term cooling trend. Which is being compounded by the new possible multi-year La Nina and multi-year PDO switch.
Basically you increase the quantity and duration of the La Ninas during atmospheric cooling periods. You increase the quantity and duration of El Nino's during atmospheric warming periods. Overall, this tells you nothing about the total heat budget for the planet. But atmospherically speaking this summer will be one of the coolest since the 1970's. No El Nino coming in 2011. Now the good part of the La Nina is that the deep oceans gain heat, but that solar input is declining due to low activity. We are entering a ~ 30-40 period where La Ninas will dominate, but we may see an occasional El Nino give us some atmospheric warmth. Which is what occurred last year. So there are multiple oscillations at play with different cylce lengths.