Trouble brewing. Trouble brewing. Satellite observations show telltale signs of an El Niño returning (red and dark-blue zones).
Credit: TOPEX/Poseidon Team/CNES/NASA (APOD)
Posted on 07/10/2009 2:26:01 AM PDT by neverdem
Trouble brewing. Trouble brewing. Satellite observations show telltale signs of an El Niño returning (red and dark-blue zones).
Credit: TOPEX/Poseidon Team/CNES/NASA (APOD)
Batten down the hatches! The disruptive weather pattern known as El Niño has developed once again in the central Pacific Ocean, the first time since 2006, scientists announced today. Satellite instruments have recorded a band of telltale warming in surface waters of about 1°C. That could mean damaging storms this winter in California and across the southern half of the United States, as well as heavy rains in Central and South America, drought in Southeast Asia and Australia, and less productive fisheries in the eastern Pacific. On the positive side, El Niño's return also tends to moderate the Atlantic hurricane season and bring milder winters to North America.
For more than a century, ship captains and fishers have been aware of a recurring pattern in the weather in the eastern Pacific, which tends to repeat itself every 3 to 4 years. The pattern is known as El Niño--or "The Boy Child"--because its effects seem to be felt the most around Christmastime. Scientists now understand that an El Niño period begins when a narrow but well-defined band of surface water, at least 0.5°C warmer than normal, accumulates in the eastern equatorial Pacific and spreads westward during late spring and early summer (see diagram). Satellite data have now confirmed just such a pattern, report scientists at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
What isn't yet known is how strong an El Niño will eventually develop and how long it is likely to last. That's because the data collected so far are insufficient to determine those factors. But NOAA's Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Maryland, estimates that for the next several months the overall effect across the United States should be mild. Whether El Niño will stick around for longer and bring destruction remains undetermined.
The previous El Niño, which occurred in 2006–2007, produced relatively tepid effects. But one of its recent predecessors, in 1997–1998, was considered the strongest ever recorded. It caused the average sea-surface temperature in the central Pacific to rise as much as 5°C above normal and warmed average global air temperatures temporarily by about 2.5°C --some five times higher than an El Niño normally generates. That episode also more than doubled 1997–1998 seasonal rainfall over Southern California, washing out roads and bridges and causing landslides.
Hussein’s fault.
What a coincidence.
Incorrecto...............
I am El Niño! All other tropical storms must bow before El Niño! Yo soy El Niño! For those of you who don't "habla Espanol", El Niño is Spanish for.... The Niño!
The El Nino arrived last month. We had perfectly average temperatures globally. Looks like the next few months could be 0.2 degrees C above the 1979-2000 average. Then I wonder what the La Nina will be like.
Surely a few well placed humongous goregantic sized refrigeration units, immersed at intervals along the equatorial pacific will keep this catastrophic el-nino from destroying civilization. Surely we can spare another 10 $Trillion or so to stave this off...
The Pacific has a fever.
We have known for 100 years that “weather variability” is more during Sunspot Minimums and Sunspot Maximums than at other times.
The correlation was made possibly 200 years ago by inference to wheat crop yields.
This is not new.
The “Chicken Little Sky is Falling” bull is the most stupid scam ever perpetrated.
It is time to re-read a piece of classic literature:
“Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”
by Mackay, Charles, 1814-1889
—
The contents:
The Mississippi scheme — The south-sea bubble — The tulipomania — The alchymists — Modern prophecies — Fortune-telling — The magnetisers — Influence of politics and religion on the hair and beard — The crusades — The witch mania — The slow poisoners — Haunted houses — Popular follies of great cities — Popular admiration of great thieves — Duels and ordeals — Relics.
—
Free download at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/24518
(note- the HTML format version has all the illustrations of the original book)
just tote a couple of Icebergs up from the part of the Ross ice shelf that broke off
My first thought. My guess is a real hard winter.
YEAY!!! This means cooler/wetter weather for Texas!! We get another break from the drought! (I hope this one lasts.)
I'm all for that. Wonder if our Aussie friends will get a break as well.
Detailed crystal structure raises antibiotic hopes
Branded drugs’ competition-free days numbered
PCs Used in Korean DDoS Attacks May Self Destruct
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
99 degrees would be “cooler!”
We need the rain that El Nino brings. Hopefully we get a lot.
I remember a few el ninos ago, guys in california mortgaging their houses to buy fishing boats. Get this. When el nino comes it brings all sorts of fish into southern california waters that are normally unreachable. These guys were catching huge tuna for the japanese sushi market and made bank.
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