Are El Niños Fueled By Deep-Sea Geological Heat Flow?

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Is there evidence of a cause and effect connection between geological forces and El Niño generation? A look at one theory.

The Next Grand Minimum

El Niño and La Niña weather patterns have a significant impact on California climate. This illustration shows the drought impacts.

Long-term La Niña periods have been associated with long-term droughts in the southwest lasting 200, 90 and 55 years. More specifically severe droughts from AD1021 to 1051, AD1130 to 1180, AD1240 to 1265, AD1360 to 1365.

I often wondered what was the controlling mechanism that generated long-term La Niña conditions with few La Niño conditions. Plate Climatology Theory may be one possible answer, the generation of La Niña events by undersea volcanic activity.

I found this article on Plate Climatology most interesting.

Geologically induced “Eruptive” warm burst that helps generate 2014-2015 El Nino.

All El Ninos originate at the same fixed “Point Source” located east of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Fixed point sources are typical of geological features, and not typical of ever moving atmospheric or ocean…

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Human-engineered changes on Mississippi River increased extreme floods

Levee breach on the Mississippi river [image credit: Wikipedia]

This shows once again that glib claims about climate-related flooding due to ‘extreme weather’ should be treated with great caution, or even suspicion. The reality is that other factors are at work.

A new study has revealed for the first time the last 500-year flood history of the Mississippi River, as Eurakalert reports.

It shows a dramatic rise in the size and frequency of extreme floods in the past century — mostly due to projects to straighten, channelize, and bound the river with artificial levees.

The new research, led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), also uncovered a clear pattern over the centuries linking flooding on the Mississippi with natural fluctuations of Pacific and Atlantic Ocean water temperatures.

North Pacific climate patterns influence El Niño occurrences

Image credit: NOAA

Another attempt to shed light on this recurring but tricky to predict climate phenomenon.

For decades, scientists have observed the phenomena known as El Niño and La Niña, says Phys.org. Both significantly impact the global climate and both pose a puzzle to scientists since they’re not completely understood.

Now, a new study clarifies some of the obscurity surrounding El Niño and La Niña, which together are called the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

New study reveals strong El Niño events cause large changes in Antarctic ice shelves

Antarctica [credit: Wikipedia]

Some parts of the media may try to give a different impression, but El Niño/La Niña events are natural phenomena with a range of consequences.

A new study published Jan. 8 in the journal Nature Geoscience reveals that strong El Niño events can cause significant ice loss in some Antarctic ice shelves while the opposite may occur during strong La Niña events, reports SpaceRef.

El Niño and La Niña are two distinct phases of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a naturally occurring phenomenon characterized by how water temperatures in the tropical Pacific periodically oscillate between warmer than average during El Niños and cooler during La Niñas.

The research, funded by NASA and the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship, provides new insights into how Antarctic ice shelves respond to variability in global ocean and atmospheric conditions.

Is La Niña on the way?

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The latest assessment from the UK Met Office.

Official blog of the Met Office news team

During 2015 and 2016, the planet experienced one of the largest El Niño events in a century.  El Niño (Spanish for the boy) is actually the warm phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and climate scientists are now suggesting that this oscillation in tropical Pacific temperature is likely tipping towards its opposite cool phase, La Niña.

Ensemble members show an increasing likelihood of La Niña conditions developing during October and November. La Niña conditions are said to develop when the sea surface temperature anomaly goes below –0.5°C.

Perhaps less well known than its larger brother, La Niña (Spanish for ‘the girl’) is an event that can trigger significant impacts.  Professor Adam Scaife, head of monthly to decadal prediction at the Met Office, said: “During El Niño, temperatures in the equatorial Pacific can warm by as much as 3°C. La Niña tends to be smaller and rarely exceeds 2°C, but…

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How climate scientists mislead the world about the Great Barrier Reef

Coral reef [image credit: Toby Hudson / Wikipedia]

Reports by scientists that climate change has damaged the Great Barrier Reef beyond repair have been greatly exaggerated, says the GWPF.

Once again, climate alarmists have ignored the science of coral bleaching which is a regular El Niño-linked occurrence and regularly leads to post-El Niño recovery.

Optimism is rising among scientists that parts of the Great Barrier Reef that were severely bleached over the past two years are making a recovery.

Roy Spencer on ‘Santer takes on Pruitt’

US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt

As Dr Roy Spencer points out: ‘You can’t build a case for human-caused warming by relying on natural warming! (But, they did anyway.)’

A new paper in Nature: Scientific Reports by Santer et al entitled Tropospheric Warming Over the Past Two Decades begins with this:

After a recent Senate confirmation hearing, Scott Pruitt the new Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency received a written question regarding observed warming estimates. In response, Mr. Pruitt claimed that over the past two decades satellite data indicates there has been a leveling off of warming. We test this claim here.

Now, exactly how does one scientifically test a claim of “leveling off of warming”?

UK braced for drought after ‘excessively dry’ April

Credit: BBC / Met Office

Contrasting weather situations for the UK and the US, post El Niño. Even the wettest place in England is ‘bone dry’.

There are fears the UK could be braced for widespread drought this summer after “excessively dry conditions”, says ITV News.

The Environment Agency said the UK saw just 35% of its normal rainfall in April and farmers have been warned crops could fail.The unusual weather spell follows the driest winter since 1995-1996.

Minette Batters, Deputy President of the National Farmers’ Union, told ITV News: “I think many of my farming colleagues in East Anglia, in the south east are seeing excessively dry conditions.”

Farmer James Winslade told ITV News: “Arable farmers, grass farmers, dairy farmers – it doesn’t make any difference. They’re all worried. They’ve all cut grass earlier than they normally would have done and we haven’t had the rain to get the grass and crops growing back”.

How the recent El Niño saved climate models

Credit: livescience.com

Once the El Niño crutch is kicked away, what have climate models got left in terms of warming apart from ‘the pause’? Not a lot, according to this analysis.
H/T GWPF

El Niños can be used to make computer climate models look better than they are, for a short time at least, says Dr. David Whitehouse.

The message one is trying to get across when communicating science can depend much on what one doesn’t say. Leaving something vital out can make all the difference and when it’s done it can make scientists look like politicians, although not sophisticated ones.

As an example of what I mean consider the El Niño phenomenon – a short-term oceanographic weather event. The El Niño can be used to make computer climate models look better than they are, for a short time at least.

Forecasters predict El Niño may return by summer

The El Niño of 1997-8

The report says ‘the possible return of El Niño this year would present a unique situation’. Is there still excess heat in the system as sunspots go further into ‘quiet mode’?
H/T GWPF

The path to another round of El Niño in 2017 appears to be shortening, as tropical Pacific Ocean waters have been warming at a substantial rate. Several models suggest that El Niño could be comfortably in place as early as May.

Weather forecasters have been eyeing for a couple of months a possible return this year of El Niño, which normally comes around every two to seven years and last occurred in 2015/16.

El Nino to El Nino – no net global warming

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Comparing the actual data to the forecasts of climate models is also embarrassing for those obsessed with climate warming.

wryheat

The Earth experienced two super El Ninos recently: 1997/1998 and 2015/2016. It was expected that 2016 would be the hottest year in the satellite record which begins in 1979. It was, but by only 0.02°C over 1998. That is not statistically significant according to Dr. Roy Spencer, keeper of the UAH satellite system data. (The margin of error is 0.1°C, much larger than the difference between the El Nino years.) The graph above shows the UAH results. A separate satellite analysis by Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) came to the same conclusion.

Satellites measure the temperature of the lower troposphere, the portion of the atmosphere where weather takes place. These measurements give a more realistic picture of global temperature than do surface measurements. Essentially, global temperature now is the same as it was nearly 18 years ago.

The earlier El Nino had a sharp drop off as a strong La…

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Record drop in global temperatures as El Niño warming ends

Credit: NASA climatekids

Another round of claims and counter-claims about climate is underway as natural variation takes its course. Talk of records often relates only to the satellite era.
H/T GWPF

Global average temperatures over land have plummeted by more than 1C since the middle of this year – their biggest and steepest fall on record, reports David Rose in The Mail on Sunday. 

According to satellite data, the late 2016 temperatures are returning to the levels they were at after the 1998 El Niño. The news comes amid mounting evidence that the recent run of world record high temperatures is about to end.

Per Strandberg: The physical forces driving UAH global temperature

I presented here a while back my research using an Artificial Neural Network analyzing ENSO.

Learn more here http://www.coolingnews.com/the-cause-of-enso

I’m going to write here how it all started, but first I like to show my updated recent ENSO data and forecast which I presented at the recent climate conference in London.

Fig 1: ENSO result from my ANN. Training period is from 1979 and up to 2005. The testing period is from 2005 and up to the end of 2015. From 2015 and up to the end of 2022 it is a forecast. The red line is the real ENSO value and dark line is the result I got from the ANN. As you can see the dark line is from the average values from ensemble.

New Dawn Of Truth: London Climate Change Conference 2016

It’s finally happening. Thanks to Herculean efforts by Niklas Morner, we are presenting a two-day conference in central London on the 8-9th September. Speakers are coming from all over the world to present their work, and it is not to be missed!

Take the 8-9th September off work and join us for this historic event. The first UK climate conference in decades which will counter the scaremongering of the IPCC with a cool, rational approach to the study of climate change, presenting alternative explanations, new data, theory and commentary. Topics include solar-planetary theory, causes of ENSO, sea ice extent, sea level, ozone depletion, volcanos, regional forecasting, journal gatekeeping and many more.

The list of contributors is long, we are packing a huge number of presentations into this two day event. Speakers include Niklas Morner, myself, Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller,  Nicola Scafetta, Per Strandberg, Jan-Erik Solheim, and thats before lunch on day one! Piers Corbyn will be there! So will  Christopher Monckton! See the full programme and the extended abstracts in this 35 Megabyte document for full details. There are also some travel and booking details on the geoethic.com website. An updated version is available on reseachgate

Temperature Variation Due to ENSO

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Useful comparison of ENSO and (supposed) CO2 influences on climate by kenskingdom. ENSO correlations look significant, whereas CO2 – nothing to report really.
H/T Climate Depot

kenskingdom

In this post I use the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) supplied by NOAA at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/index.html and lower tropospheric temperature data supplied by UAH to show how much of temperature variation over the past 20 years is due to ENSO and how little is due to CO2.  I will keep words brief and let graphics do the talking.

Firstly, here is the MEI data from 1950:

Fig. 1:  Monthly MEI from 1950

As an aside, this is how it compares with SOI data.  The SOI is inverted and both are scaled for comparison.

Fig. 2:  MEI compared with SOI inverted

Now compare scaled MEI with Global UAH:

Fig. 3: MEI (scaled) and UAH

Notice tropospheric temperatures appear to lag the MEI by some 5 months:

Fig. 4: MEI advanced 5 months and UAH

Notice both datasets are noisy, and there is a clear discrepancy in the early 1990s.  12 month running…

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Big Drop In June Temperatures According To UAH

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We’re supposed to believe that CO2 levels determine global temperature, but here in plain sight is obvious evidence that they don’t.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Roy Spencer has news of a big drop in satellite temperatures last month:

NOTE: This is the fifteenth monthly update with our new Version 6.0 dataset. Differences versus the old Version 5.6 dataset are discussed here. Note we are now at “beta5” for Version 6, and the paper describing the methodology is still in peer review.

The Version 6.0 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for June, 2016 is +0.34 deg. C, down 0.21 deg. C from the May value of +0.55 deg. C (click for full size version):

This gives a 2-month temperature fall of -0.37 deg. C, which is the second largest in the 37+ year satellite record…the largest was -0.43 deg. C in Feb. 1988.

In the tropics, there was a record fast 2-month cooling of -0.56 deg. C, just edging out -0.55 deg. C in June 1998 (also an El Nino…

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RJ Salvador: Predicting El Niño predicts the climate

We’re pleased to say: Rick Salvador has been busy again.
[This graphic has been added by the Talkshop mainly for entertainment value]

Credit: Wikipedia

RJS writes:
The following demonstrates that Metoffice Hadcrut4 is a restatement of the NOAA El Nino index. It’s based on the conjecture that not only do El Nino events have an immediate effect on world temperature but also the clustering of El Nino or La Nina events have a cumulative effect on the worlds temperature. Ian Wilson and Paul Vaughan have provide the frame work to show that El Nino events are governed by the interaction of the Sun and Moon coupled with the hemispherical asymmetry of the Earth’s surface properties. The climate variation is driven by the ratio in strength and frequency of El Nino to La Nina events.

Temperatures Falling As El Niño Fades Quickly

ENSO trend [credit: NOAA]

How much of recent El Nino-backed warming was ‘man-made’, if any? NOAA has issued a La Niña watch so we may well see average temperatures going into reverse before too long.
H/T GWPF

El Niño is quickly fading. Sea surface temperatures are coming down in the tropical Pacific, and winds in the region have weakened. History tells us, and forecast models predict, that La Niña conditions will be quick on its heels.

Modellers of El Niño events get cloud data surprise

Send in the clouds [credit:NASA]

Adding cloud data to climate models must be long overdue if it’s considered to be a new technique. Scientists were surprised to find that doing so accounted for over half the strength of El Niños, as Phys.org reports:

A small team of researchers from the U.S., Australia and Germany has found evidence that suggests cloud formation may have a much bigger impact on weather patterns associated with El Niño events than has been thought.

In their paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the team describes they differences they found when they input cloud data into computer models that simulated weather patterns associated with El Niño events and why they now believe that all such models should include such data going forward.

Per Strandberg: ENSO caused by tidal pulses during Perigee and by solar activity

My thanks to Per Strandberg for this update on his ENSO modelling effort. This is looking good, and is based on a neural network which uses lunar and solar data for its input.

There are two main drivers of ENSO. ENSO stands for El Niño Southern oscillation and is Earth’s most influential weather phenomena after seasonal changes. When ENSO changes it causes changes in currents and of temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

The most important ENSO driver is linked to variations in gravitational tidal forcing associated with Moon’s Perigee. Moon is in what is called Perigee, when the Moon is at it closest point during its elliptical orbit around Earth. This is also when the tidal force caused by the Moon is at its strongest.

The second most important forcing is linked to variation in solar activity.