The weather for 2016

[Catholicity]

What happens if in 3 or 4 years El nino retreats and winters become freezing cold and normal temperatures record for a few years. What then?

[shunyadragon]

What happens if in 3 or 4 years El nino retreats and winters become freezing cold and normal temperatures record for a few years. What then?

Average??? Hypotheticals do not contribute do help the cause. If we consider the El Nino/La Nina cycles over documented history over recent history, there is a warming trend throughout the cycles. Global warming occurs over the past 100+ years, and short term cooler or warmer years do not determine the long term pattern of warming. Review the data and the science behind the data to help understand what is happening to our climate.

Winters will likely be freezing cold regardless, because the trend in global warming is not as drastic nor sudden as many layman think.

[TheLurch]

What happens if in 3 or 4 years El nino retreats and winters become freezing cold and normal temperatures record for a few years. What then?

Fig.A2.gif

[stfoskey15]

Some of the effects of 2016's weather may be hard to monitor in the upcoming months.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/20...ily-suspended/

[shunyadragon]

The motivation for this and the previous thread is to compare the effect of El Nino on the increasing temperatures over recent history. What would be eventually compared is the average increase taking the effect of El Nino/La Nina cycle into consideration when compared to the history of temperature trends.

April weather data is coming in. This indicates that April is well above average, but the difference is not as great as March.

[TheLurch]

UAH data is satellite-based, and samples the entire lower troposphere (it also involves inferring the temperature, which we can't measure directly, from the emissions of specific molecules in the atmosphere). I'd hold off for the ground station temperature data.

[shunyadragon]

We will likely be going into a global cooling in an La Nina period. The purpose of this series of threads of each year is to follow these rends through the cooler La Nina years, and how this cyclic trend compares to previous cyclic La Nina/El Nino cyclic periods. Those that do not like the global warming trend enjoy the coming La Nina years as long as they last.

Of course, some have come out skeptically about the global warming trend and predict these years as the beginning of global cooling taking advantage of the normal trend to promote an agenda against human influence,

[TheLurch]

April's GISS numbers are out:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ta...LB.Ts+dSST.txthttp://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/

Which would seem to indicate we're likely to see a new record this year, probably significantly higher than last year (which was already a dramatic new record). It's also hard to see how it could not cool down a bit following this year. My bet is that we've set a new benchmark for the "no global warming since" arguments.

[sylas]

We will likely be going into a global cooling in an La Nina period. The purpose of this series of threads of each year is to follow these rends through the cooler La Nina years, and how this cyclic trend compares to previous cyclic La Nina/El Nino cyclic periods. Those that do not like the global warming trend enjoy the coming La Nina years as long as they last.

Why would you think we will go into global cooling? It's been a long time since there was anything like global cooling with an La Nina.

What you can expect is a fall back to recent normal as the El Nino ends; but it would be a bit odd to call that "cooling". It's rather an end to a sharp uptick of 2015/2016. A new record for 2016 is an increasingly good bet, and then (if La Nina kicks in) you can expect the global anomaly to drop back to about the levels of 2010...2014 or a bit higher. That is, not cooling; but an end to the strong uptick and back to values corresponding to the warming trend observed over the last fifty years.

Similarly, of course, the El Nino spike isn't "global warming". It's a hot year (or two).

Remember, La Nina/El Nino is a redistribution of heat within the climate system, rather than an actual change in Earth's net heat budget. It doesn't really heat or cool the planet, but rather shifts heat around a bit, in particular around the ocean.

We've had a couple of smallish El Nino boosts to global temperature this century; and we had the big El Nino of 1998. Take a look at that 1998 event. Global temperature anomaly set a very clear new record in 1998. Then 1999 and 2000 dropped back down again; but ONLY with respect to the extreme of 1998. By the year 2000, the second and third hottest years on record were 1999 and 2000, and everything after that was only hotter still. That is, after the El Nino the temperature came back to a bit ABOVE the pre-spike norm.

That is... La Nina didn't usher in global cooling. It merely marked the end of the El Nino spike. The post spike drop was still actually to HOTTER temperatures than the pre-1998 conditions. We might get something roughly similar this time. We won't get new records every year, and anomalies will drop back from the extreme of 2015 and likely extreme of 2016, but you can safely bet there will be no cooling trend. Just a return to what we've had recently over about 2010...2014, or a bit above.

(I'm using the GISS data. Other surface anomaly data sets give roughly similar results.)

Hi folks. TWeb has taken a very low priority for me recently, but I felt like dropping in briefly. Cheers -- sylas

[shunyadragon]

Why would you think we will go into global cooling? It's been a long time since there was anything like global cooling with an La Nina.

What you can expect is a fall back to recent normal as the El Nino ends; but it would be a bit odd to call that "cooling". It's rather an end to a sharp uptick of 2015/2016. A new record for 2016 is an increasingly good bet, and then (if La Nina kicks in) you can expect the global anomaly to drop back to about the levels of 2010...2014 or a bit higher. That is, not cooling; but an end to the strong uptick and back to values corresponding to the warming trend observed over the last fifty years.

Similarly, of course, the El Nino spike isn't "global warming". It's a hot year (or two).

Remember, La Nina/El Nino is a redistribution of heat within the climate system, rather than an actual change in Earth's net heat budget. It doesn't really heat or cool the planet, but rather shifts heat around a bit, in particular around the ocean.

We've had a couple of smallish El Nino boosts to global temperature this century; and we had the big El Nino of 1998. Take a look at that 1998 event. Global temperature anomaly set a very clear new record in 1998. Then 1999 and 2000 dropped back down again; but ONLY with respect to the extreme of 1998. By the year 2000, the second and third hottest years on record were 1999 and 2000, and everything after that was only hotter still. That is, after the El Nino the temperature came back to a bit ABOVE the pre-spike norm.

That is... La Nina didn't usher in global cooling. It merely marked the end of the El Nino spike. The post spike drop was still actually to HOTTER temperatures than the pre-1998 conditions. We might get something roughly similar this time. We won't get new records every year, and anomalies will drop back from the extreme of 2015 and likely extreme of 2016, but you can safely bet there will be no cooling trend. Just a return to what we've had recently over about 2010...2014, or a bit above.

(I'm using the GISS data. Other surface anomaly data sets give roughly similar results.)

Hi folks. TWeb has taken a very low priority for me recently, but I felt like dropping in briefly. Cheers -- sylas

Good comments! Nice to here from you on occasion.

Comment: Some claim the predicted La Nina is the beginning of a cooling trend, but this likely not realistic. Some claim that changes in the Gulf Stream will lead to a cooling period, but I do not support this scenario. I will post some things concerning this view later.

[sylas]

Comment: Some claim the predicted La Nina is the beginning of a cooling trend, but this likely not realistic. Some claim that changes in the Gulf Stream will lead to a cooling period, but I do not support this scenario. I will post some things concerning this view later.

Quite so.

Changes in the gulf stream can certainly change the way heat is distributed around the planet; but it isn't a way of heating the whole planet. Just like the ENSO cycle of El Nino and La Nina.

We *are* seeing changes of this kind already. Specifically, the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) is slowing down. (This is sometimes called the "gulf stream system", the gulf stream is only one part of it.). The immediate cause of this is an influx of cold fresh water from the melting Greenland ice cap, which disrupts the crucial part of the circulation where cold water sinks... because the reduced salinity counteracts the sinking of cold water. This results in a "cold blob"; a region of ocean in the North Atlantic where ocean surface temperatures have fallen. At the same time, you get a hot blob, off the East coast of the USA, where ocean surface temperatures have increased much more than the global average of ocean warming.

So it isn't global cooling... it is regional cooling AND regional heating in two different locations, with both regional changes driven by the slowdown in the AMOC. This pattern is directly caused by the heating up of the ocean as a whole, and it does not reverse the overall global warming in the slightest.

Some recent work with a high resolution ocean circulation model has shown this effect very clearly; and it is backed up further by proxy studies of similar slow down or speed up of the AMOC which have occurred in the past. There was a good post on this just last week, at realclimate.org. See AMOC slowdown: Connecting the dots. There's a much simpler introduction in the wikipedia article Cold blob (North Atlantic)

Here are some pictures of ocean surface temperature anomalies:

16-008-NASA-2015RecordWarmGlobalYearSince1880-20160120.jpg
This shows measured anomalies for 2015, by NASA. The cold blob is very visible, in blue, just below Greenland. (The cool region in the Southern Ocean could be a topic for another post.) The warmth off the east coast of the USA is less clearly visible in the image. It is, nevertheless, an observed feature of this pattern. A recent paper in Science details the accelerated warming in the gulf of Maine and some of the consequences. See: Slow adaptation in the face of rapid warming leads to collapse of the Gulf of Maine cod fishery by Pershing et al, in Science 13 Nov 2015, Vol. 350, Issue 6262, pp. 809-812, DOI: 10.1126/science.aac9819.

Saba_Fig4.jpg
This shows the result of the high resolution ocean circulation model reproducing the effects on AMOC of a global warming of the ocean. The color scheme is different; and it is limited to ocean surface only. The cold blob and hot blob are both clearly visible.

All of this is driven by global warming. Any reversal of the global warming trend would also reverse the attendant AMOC change.

Cheers -- sylas

[sylas]

More on El Nino and La Nina

With the massive boost in surface temperatures seen in 2015 and 2016, there is quite a renewed interest in the El Nino La Nina cycle.

Let me just emphasize one point right from the start. El Nino and La Nina are not contenders as an explanation for global warming. They are a whole different kettle of fish; they correspond to a short term cycle of changes within the ocean, involving a redistribution of existing heat, and not any direct introduction of additional heat to the whole climate system.

A substantial part of this redistribution is a shift in heat energy between water on the ocean surface, and the greater mass of water in the deeper ocean that is not in direct contact with the atmosphere. Changing ocean surface temperatures has a major effect on atmospheric currents and weather patterns.

It looks probable that La Nina is on the way. Here's a pretty picture (animated gif) showing what seems to be going on below the surface at present.
SubSurfTemp_2016Mar14-May3_620.gif

The image is taken from . This article is from NOAA: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

From the article:


If a La Nina does develop, we can expect to see a drop in global temperatures from the records currently being set. It won't bring about any major long term cooling below what we've had this century already. Best bet (as I suggested above) is that we will see a drop off back to something like what we had in the La Nina of 2010-2012, though probably a littler bit warmer. Past experience suggests that the La Nina after a big El Nino does not actually drop global temperatures below what was in place before the El Nino. The net trend will continue upwards.

There's a good reason for confidence on this point. The weather or climate that we directly experience is a surface phenomenon. It is subject to all kinds of short term variability, and it is highly chaotic. It is also tightly constrained by the energy flows. The variability may involve sloshing of heat around between regions, and all kinds of turbulent patterns as the masses of air circulate around the planet. But it cannot sustain a large net increase or decrease in temperature without some major change in the total energy budgets of the planet.

The largest store of heat energy on the planet is the deep ocean. By far the majority of additional heat being absorbed by the Earth at present goes into the ocean. That is, after all, the planet's heat sink. Good measurements of ocean temperatures though the depths of the ocean are a comparatively recent development. The measurements we have show a steady increase in the heat content of the ocean... far more steady than the chaotic up and down of surface temperatures. You need 20 or 30 years of surface temperatures to get good statistical significance for trends, because it jumps around so much in the short term. The ocean is much harder to measure, but it is also more steady. The steady increase in ocean temperatures absolutely requires a massive long term source of additional energy from somewhere. Earth's only significant source of energy is the Sun. There are really only three ways to get the kind of energy needed to heat up an entire ocean.

• You need to increase the solar input. Not happening in the present epoch, though it is significant on very long time scales. The Sun (fortunately!) is a very stable star.
• You need to increase the atmospheric greenhouse effect, so that the solar input is trapped more effectively. The additional energy goes into heating up the planet until temperatures are warm enough to radiate the all the solar energy back out and achieve energy balance again. This is happening in the present epoch, in a big way.
• You need to decrease the planetary albedo, so that less of the solar input is reflected. This basically means we would absorb more of the light arriving from the Sun, and again, this additional energy goes into heating up the planet until it is hot enough to radiate all the energy being absorbed. This is also happening, to some extent, though mainly as feedback effect of increasing temperatures. For instance: as the planet heats up, ice retreats, and ice is a strong reflector. Reduced snow and ice cover means we absorb more energy. There is also an effect on planetary albedo from smog and aerosols. This is a cooling influence; though this kind of change in the atmosphere washes out pretty quickly by comparison with the long residence times of greenhouse gases. That is, the greenhouse effect is cumulative, and persistent, whereas the aerosol effect depends only on what's being emitted at a given time.

Anyhoo... yes, there is a big blob of cooler waters below the warm ocean surface which is likely to break through to the surface and bring in the La Nina. But it's only cooler with respect to the surface. The ocean as a whole is heating up steadily, and that cool blob is definitely not as cold as would have been seen ten years ago. We are still in global warming for the rest of this century at least, and probably more. That's the simple physics of it.

Cheers -- sylas

[shunyadragon]

May temperature results are in.

[stfoskey15]

May temperature results are in.

Global Temperature Report: May 2016

May 2016 was 2nd warmest May in satellite record
Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.12 C per decade

I wonder why it was colder than May 1998. Both Mays occurred at the end of strong El Ninos, so I would expect given the warming trend that this past May would have been warmer.

[shunyadragon]

I wonder why it was colder than May 1998. Both Mays occurred at the end of strong El Ninos, so I would expect given the warming trend that this past May would have been warmer.

I would not use the word 'colder.' The simple normal variability over the years will allow for this difference. It is the trends over the years that is the evidence. Actually, we appear to be ending the El Nino, based on recent temps, and I will post an article on this.