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Post by hairball on Jan 9, 2010 5:38:42 GMT
Yeah, for some reason I thought there'd be a strange looking cold spot if the anomaly wasn't there, but looking at shots from earlier years it doesn't look so out of place as I'd imagined.
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Post by icefisher on Jan 11, 2010 18:43:18 GMT
Seems like the El Nino is pooping out. This for the farmers who are already getting worried about the upcoming spring planting - It appears all the models are unanimous on the tri-month peak being NDJ or DJF. NASA is still predicting a massive bump for DJF before cooling JFM. They are far more agressive than others with only 2 other models showing a modest increase and the other 20 models all showing a drop for DJF
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Post by aj1983 on Jan 11, 2010 21:20:48 GMT
You know what's funny about this topic? If you wait long enough we will see a new La Nina, so that the people who have voted for La Nina will be right! (Just forget the 2009 number, only the year is slightly off, who cares anyway.)
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Post by nautonnier on Jan 12, 2010 10:53:59 GMT
You know what's funny about this topic? If you wait long enough we will see a new La Nina, so that the people who have voted for La Nina will be right! (Just forget the 2009 number, only the year is slightly off, who cares anyway.) Well it was started in Oct 2008 so sometime ago. If you want to be amused then the common misconception is that El Nino's are warming and La Nina's are cooling when the reverse is the case. An El Nino is the escape of ocean heat into the atmosphere by smearing the hot pool of surface water (that had piled up in the West Pacific raising its sea level) over the entire Pacific allowing more of its heat to escape into the atmosphere and from there to space. Ocean heat content is reduced. In contrast a La Nina is the trade winds blowing warm surface water to the West letting it pile up as a pool of hot water sequestering the warmth while causing an upwelling of cold water to the surface where it can be warmed. Ocean heat content is increased. As is often the case people are measuring the incorrect value and jumping to the incorrect conclusion.
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Post by glc on Jan 13, 2010 9:17:40 GMT
As is often the case people are measuring the incorrect value and jumping to the incorrect conclusion.
Not really. There is clearly more heat in the oceans currently than there was say, 30 years ago, so, although we might be measuring the escaping heat that still tells us that the world is warmer. Note that even when all this heat escapes temperatures may drop but will still remain above the long term average.
We were supposed to have lost the heat in 1998, but it seems there is still an awful lot more.
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Post by hairball on Jan 13, 2010 10:03:14 GMT
Indeed. It's a travesty that so much heat's not showing up in the atmosphere since 1998. It's hypnotic watching the AO seem to drain into AAO. Like a lava lamp but less boring. That anomaly's been there for 2 months now. They should give it a catchy name. Has RealClimate discussed it?
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Post by walterdnes on Jan 26, 2010 4:42:28 GMT
For the first time in a while, my composite ENSO index (sum of all 4 anomalies) has dropped out of the narrow range it's been in for the past several weeks. You can download my spreadsheet from www.mediafire.com/file/txxw4hmnnmj/tracker.xls Select the "ENSO_weekly_graph" tab. This may not be the beginning of the end for El Nino, let alone a sign of La Nina to come, but it is suggestive.
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Post by jurinko on Jan 26, 2010 13:11:14 GMT
AMO for December is 0.135. Now the big portion of Atlantic is blue cold (per Unisys graphic). The last time AMO licked the zero level in early 2009, the winter was pretty tough. Looks like the cold Atlantic attracts arctic air coming here.
See New Zealand in deep blue cold sea, experiencing a year without summer. Also the heatwave in August 2003 has the Atlantic SST extremely high. There is obvious connection.
The warm leaking pipeline east of NZ somehow weakens.
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Post by walterdnes on Feb 2, 2010 6:02:07 GMT
Updated graph of my crude ENSO index at www.mediafire.com/file/m3jnz2vtfhy/tracker.xls The "ENSO_weekly_graph" tab shows this week's value is down very slightly at 3.6, versus 3.7 last week. For comparison, the late 1997, early 1998 super El Nino was approx +12, and the late 2007, early 2008 super La Nina was approx -6.5. The pseudo-monthly value is down slightly, because this week and last week are below the narrow range of the previous 11 weeks. Also included in the spreadseet are extent data and graphs are based on JAXA.
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Post by neilhamp on Feb 3, 2010 8:12:39 GMT
ENSO wrap-up out for February
Central Pacific Ocean temperatures remain well above El Niño thresholds, with significant areas east of the date-line continuing to exceed their average by more than 2°C. However, the central to eastern Pacific has continued to cool since the peak of the El Niño warmth in late December and early January. The sub-surface of the equatorial Pacific has also cooled over the last month, which historically indicates that a return to neutral conditions may be under way.
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Post by norpag on Feb 3, 2010 16:22:53 GMT
Latest unisys sst anomaly chart for feb 2 - looks like El Nino is fading fast. http//weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html.
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Post by woodstove on Feb 3, 2010 20:42:03 GMT
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Post by neilhamp on Feb 4, 2010 7:57:12 GMT
I quite agree woodstove. I was just about to direct everybody to the SOI 5 days now below -50. We haven't seen this for months It doesn't quite square with the February ENSO wrap up statement
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Post by Ratty on Feb 4, 2010 10:19:41 GMT
I quite agree woodstove. I was just about to direct everybody to the SOI 5 days now below -50. We haven't seen this for months It doesn't quite square with the February ENSO wrap up statement Any idea what this means for Eastern Australia where we've been having good rains lately?
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Post by poitsplace on Feb 4, 2010 12:16:44 GMT
This is one of those annoying times when we actually have to learn what the heck it means. It appears there may be a difference between the El Nino/La Nina behavior of the warm/cold parts of the longer ocean cycles. I believe they had expected an overall MILD winter to be associated with an El Nino.
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