Posted on 08/28/2010 10:42:19 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
From the Jet Propulsion Lab:
NASA/NOAA Study Finds El Niños are Growing Stronger
Deviations from normal sea surface temperatures (left) and sea surface heights (right) at the peak of the 2009-2010 central Pacific El Niño, as measured by NOAA polar orbiting satellites and NASA's Jason-1 spacecraft, respectively. The warmest temperatures and highest sea levels were located in the central equatorial Pacific. Image credit: NASA/JPL-NOAA - Click for a larger image
A relatively new type of El Niño, which has its warmest waters in the central-equatorial Pacific Ocean, rather than in the eastern-equatorial Pacific, is becoming more common and progressively stronger, according to a new study by NASA and NOAA. The research may improve our understanding of the relationship between El Niños and climate change, and has potentially significant implications for long-term weather forecasting.
Lead author Tong Lee of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Michael McPhaden of NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, measured changes in El Niño intensity since 1982. They analyzed NOAA satellite observations of sea surface temperature, checked against and blended with directly-measured ocean temperature data. The strength of each El Niño was gauged by how much its sea surface temperatures deviated from the average. They found the intensity of El Niños in the central Pacific has nearly doubled, with the most intense event occurring in 2009-10.
The scientists say the stronger El Niños help explain a steady rise in central Pacific sea surface temperatures observed over the past few decades in previous studies-a trend attributed by some to the effects of global warming. While Lee and McPhaden observed a rise in sea surface temperatures during El Niño years, no significant temperature increases were seen in years when ocean conditions were neutral, or when El Niño’s cool water counterpart, La Niña, was present.
“Our study concludes the long-term warming trend seen in the central Pacific is primarily due to more intense El Niños, rather than a general rise of background temperatures,” said Lee.
“These results suggest climate change may already be affecting El Niño by shifting the center of action from the eastern to the central Pacific,” said McPhaden. “El Niño’s impact on global weather patterns is different if ocean warming occurs primarily in the central Pacific, instead of the eastern Pacific.
“If the trend we observe continues,” McPhaden added, “it could throw a monkey wrench into long-range weather forecasting, which is largely based on our understanding of El Niños from the latter half of the 20th century.”
El Niño, Spanish for “the little boy,” is the oceanic component of a climate pattern called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, which appears in the tropical Pacific Ocean on average every three to five years. The most dominant year-to-year fluctuating pattern in Earth’s climate system, El Niños have a powerful impact on the ocean and atmosphere, as well as important socioeconomic consequences. They can influence global weather patterns and the occurrence and frequency of hurricanes, droughts and floods; and can even raise or lower global temperatures by as much as 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.4 degrees Fahrenheit).
During a “classic” El Niño episode, the normally strong easterly trade winds in the tropical eastern Pacific weaken. That weakening suppresses the normal upward movement of cold subsurface waters and allows warm surface water from the central Pacific to shift toward the Americas. In these situations, unusually warm surface water occupies much of the tropical Pacific, with the maximum ocean warming remaining in the eastern-equatorial Pacific.
Since the early 1990s, however, scientists have noted a new type of El Niño that has been occurring with greater frequency. Known variously as “central-Pacific El Niño,” “warm-pool El Niño,” “dateline El Niño” or “El Niño Modoki” (Japanese for “similar but different”), the maximum ocean warming from such El Niños is found in the central-equatorial, rather than eastern, Pacific. Such central Pacific El Niño events were observed in 1991-92, 1994-95, 2002-03, 2004-05 and 2009-10. A recent study found many climate models predict such events will become much more frequent under projected global warming scenarios.
Lee said further research is needed to evaluate the impacts of these increasingly intense El Niños and determine why these changes are occurring. “It is important to know if the increasing intensity and frequency of these central Pacific El Niños are due to natural variations in climate or to climate change caused by human-produced greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.
Results of the study were published recently in Geophysical Research Letters.
What’s happening with Iceland right now? I quit paying attention once my DH got back from Europe.
... darn, just when I was getting used to global warming. Oh me, dig in the closet and get the jackets out again.
At any rate, Bastardi is predicting a Monster La Nina.
Bastardi has a decent explanation for why the land temps were so high after this El Nino. My theory is that the sensors are biased and degraded. No way can the atmosphere be warmer then the last bigger El Nino. Which the story you linked above conveniently attempts to explain (The recent El Ninos are more central and deeper, blah, blah, blah.).
The latest I could find, from last weekend >>>
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2010/08/22/iceland-volcano-has-cooled-enough-for-snow-to-settle/
Do they mean those climate models that don't even predict the PAST correctly, when known data is inserted?
Dr. Tim Ball really whacks the IPCC.
Shutting down here till later this PM!
Any study of El Nino/La Nina that does not look at the pressure differentials between the Eastern and Western Pacific and changes in cloud albedo, might as well be voodoo science.
Thank you. Will check it out.
And earth-climate changes and cycles have been a part of earth-climate history, for how long? Eons.
Yet, these "scientists" weigh some averages of this data, in the tiny time-span of 1982-present, as representing a "normal", and anything above those averages as above that "normal"?
Who told them they were "scientists"?
On ALL AGW reports:
“Never have so many predicted so much based on so little!!!!” ©Wuli
In the middle of “summer”? In California? Certainly in March or April and maybe the beginning of May. But July and August?
No, the solution is to drive more SUVs and burn more coal!
“We can’t be 100% certain that this interpretation is correct because the data are limited and the models are imperfect. But it provides us a plausible working hypothesis for further investigation into the nature and impacts of a changing face to El Niño.”
So what does this say about AGW?
In other words, it is only as useful to practical climate predictions as string theory is to space exploration.©Wuli
PATTERSON: Al Gore's global-warming crusade shrinks
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Global Warming on Free Republic
Okay; #7 is what I remember reading about here & there, recently.
So just who killed La Nina, when; and stuck her brother in to sub for her?
Hope I’m not the only one confused by seeing this new article.
I was in Michigan this week while we had some heat in the bay area. My Michigan customer was selling tomatoes at his store and because of their hot humid weather those tomatoes looked bodacious. A woman came in and bought a basket and commented this year's crop has been one of the best in memory.
Hey, I’m doing that already... ;^)
Agreed.
And what's this I hear about Karl Rove's hurricane machine being fired up again?
Tisdale rebuttal to JPL’s “Study Finds El Niños are Growing Stronger”
We are definitely square in the middle of the Progressive Dark Ages.
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