2015 Global Temperatures

[StudentOfClimatology]

How about the notion of the -PDO being overwhelmed by SSTA from Greenhouse Gas Forcing? Having a mega ridge parked over the majority of the Pacific basin does not help either. Perhaps when adjusted for global SSTA, we are really in a neutral PDO.

Huh? The PDO represents SST contrast across the Northern Basin, not the SSTAs themselves. Unless you think AGW is leading to more frequent El Niños, there's no logical connection to the PDO.

[Msalgado]

Huh? The PDO represents SST contrast across the Northern Basin, not the SSTAs themselves. Unless you think AGW is leading to more frequent El Niños, there's no logical connection to the PDO.

 

Thats a really strong statement to make about the PDO considering we don't know much about how it functions.

[AvantHiatus]

Huh? The PDO represents SST contrast across the Northern Basin, not the SSTAs themselves. Unless you think AGW is leading to more frequent El Niños, there's no logical connection to the PDO.

It's all relative to the surrounding baseline, and that looks to have shifted on a semi-permanent manner. I don't think it is a true +PDO to be honest.

 

I was trying to get at there being a weaker contrast than a typical +PDO, it seems like the whole global ocean is torching. Yes I think AGW will lead to more frequent el nino events or a diminished number of la nina events over a given interval.

 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2100

Increasing frequency of extreme El Niño events due to greenhouse warming

 

 

 

El Niño events are a prominent feature of climate variability with global climatic impacts. The 1997/98 episode, often referred to as ‘the climate event of the twentieth century’^1, 2, and the 1982/83 extreme El Niño³, featured a pronounced eastward extension of the west Pacific warm pool and development of atmospheric convection, and hence a huge rainfall increase, in the usually cold and dry equatorial eastern Pacific. Such a massive reorganization of atmospheric convection, which we define as an extreme El Niño, severely disrupted global weather patterns, affecting ecosystems^4, 5, agriculture⁶, tropical cyclones, drought, bushfires, floods and other extreme weather events worldwide^{3, 7, 8, 9}. Potential future changes in such extreme El Niño occurrences could have profound socio-economic consequences. Here we present climate modelling evidence for a doubling in the occurrences in the future in response to greenhouse warming. We estimate the change by aggregating results from climate models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phases 3 (CMIP3; ref. 10) and 5 (CMIP5; ref. 11) multi-model databases, and a perturbed physics ensemble¹². The increased frequency arises from a projected surface warming over the eastern equatorial Pacific that occurs faster than in the surrounding ocean waters^13, 14, facilitating more occurrences of atmospheric convection in the eastern equatorial region.

[StudentOfClimatology]

Thats a really strong statement to make about the PDO considering we don't know much about how it functions.

How else could AGW impact it, if not through ENSO? Does AGW effect pressures over the NPAC independent of ENSO?

[StudentOfClimatology]

It's all relative to the surrounding baseline, and that looks to have shifted on a semi-permanent manner. I don't think it is a true +PDO to be honest.

Even if the baseline had shifted, what does that have to do with the PDO number? Do you know how the PDO is actually calculated?

I was trying to get at there being a weaker contrast than a typical +PDO, it seems like the whole global ocean is torching. Yes I think AGW will lead to more frequent el nino events or a diminished number of la nina events over a given interval.

Evidence of this? Contrast over the NPAC is high right now, and global SSTs have actually come down. So that explanation doesn't work.

You need to stop blaming every weather phenomenon on AGW, it's annoying and stupid. A +PDO features cold water over the central NPAC, with warmer waters closer to the North American coast. That is exactly what we have. A super torch across the basin would register as a neutral PDO.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2100 Increasing frequency of extreme El Niño events due to greenhouse warming

Odd, considering we've now seen the longest stretch in history without a strong/extreme El Niño. I'd call that a refutation. Not to mention the increase in La Niña frequency that is being blamed for the pause in warming.

[AvantHiatus]

 

 

Odd, considering we've now seen the longest stretch in history without a strong/extreme El Niño. I'd call that a refutation. Not to mention the increase in La Niña frequency that is being blamed for the pause in warming.

 

 

 

 

Those days are over, the oceans are fully saturated with heat in most regions and will become a net-positive source of heat rather than a sink. That is what happens when you apply a mid Pliocene atmosphere to a Holocene ocean.

 

Don't use those low resolution maps, it's stupid. Global SST has come down due to boreal winter, and SH warming more slowly than the NH.

 

[chrisf97212]

PDO cycles:

 

[chrisf97212]

How about the notion of the -PDO being overwhelmed by SSTA from Greenhouse Gas Forcing? Having a mega ridge parked over the majority of the Pacific basin does not help either. Perhaps when adjusted for global SSTA, we are really in a neutral PDO.

 

Do you understand how PDO is measured?

[AvantHiatus]

Do you understand how PDO is measured?

Yes, after doing some brief research. Was trying to point out the interaction between the PDO and the rest of the world would change rather than the nature of the PDO being inherently different due to interference from AGW.

 

 

 

The PDO is not calculated in the same fashion as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). NOAA ESRL calculates the AMO by detrending SST anomalies for the North Atlantic.

[StudentOfClimatology]

Those days are over, the oceans are fully saturated with heat in most regions and will become a net-positive source of heat rather than a sink. That is what happens when you apply a mid Pliocene atmosphere to a Holocene ocean.

What?

You clearly have no idea how ENSO works. Again, we're talking about thermal relativity. The CPC adjusts the baseline averages in the Nino regions to depict ENSO accurately in our warming world. If SSTs warm all around the globe, that alone will have zero effect on the calculation of the ENSO index.

If you don't understand something, ask about it instead of trying to sound smart.

Don't use those low resolution maps, it's stupid. Global SST has come down due to boreal winter, and SH warming more slowly than the NH.

Huh?

The NESDIS/OSPO maps are top quality and used heavily in research/analysis. What are you talking about?

Here's the list of OSPO products:

http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/ocean/index.html

Here's the SST data:

http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/ocean/sst/anomaly/index.html

This is the latest update. There will be another one tomorrow.

[StudentOfClimatology]

Yes, after doing some brief research. Was trying to point out the interaction between the PDO and the rest of the world would change rather than the nature of the PDO being inherently different due to interference from AGW.

That's not what you were saying. You suggested that AGW was forcing the PDO positive, of which there is no evidence of given that the dataset is detrended and largely unrelated to SST warmth itself.

Furthermore, how exactly would the relationship between the PDO and the rest of the world change as a result of AGW? That makes no sense to me.

[AvantHiatus]

50km vs 12km, no contest. You are insistent on being combative all the time no matter how much evidence is presented. I'm done for now.

 

Everything will change when you've been dumping 2-3 gigatons of GHG into the atmosphere every year, no need to elaborate. 

 

The global effect of the PDO changing is due to temperature contrast by laditude. The extratropical warming will begin to weaken the walker circulation. I don't know how it will change in great detail, just that change is an inevitability. 

[StudentOfClimatology]

50km vs 12km, no contest. You are insistent on being combative all the time no matter how much evidence is presented. I'm done for now.

The quality of a satellite suite is determined by a lot more than spatial resolution. Read the OSPO verification analysis.

I think the problem is that you're posting demonstrably false information. Your statement below is a perfect example of this:

The global effect of the PDO changing is due to temperature contrast by laditude. The extratropical warming will begin to weaken the walker circulation.

Where did you read this? It makes no sense.

The Walker Cell is a longitudinal circulation and it has strengthened significantly over the last 20 years in conjunction with the rapid warming the IO/WPAC relative to the EPAC. The Hadley Cells might be affected by a shift in the latitudinal temperature gradient, but not the Walker Cell.

[chubbs]

NOAA was 0.77 in January. Second warmest January.

 

[skierinvermont]

Weatherguy you were clearly saying the PDO index would read more positive in a warmer world (hence your statement that this is really a neutral PDO given the warm world). 

 

This is false. The PDO is basically the difference in temperature between two regions of the Pacific. If both regions warm, there is no change in the index.

 

 

SOC - there is some theoretical evidence for a change in ENSO and PDO frequency. It is still debatable at this point of course.

[Isotherm]

I prefer statistical projections as well but that plume is from about a month ago.  I wonder how much of the developing down-welling wave was taken into account.  We'll see, last year's massive wave didn't account for much by the summer.

 

 

 

 

Latest update has an average of low-end weak nino through the warm season and heading into the next winter. Dynamical models a bit more bullish with a high-end weak Nino, and statistical guidance more towards warm-neutral. Not sure if this winter will be classified as a weak nino, but if so, we could have two consecutive weak nino's.

 

http://iri.columbia.edu/our-expertise/climate/forecasts/enso/current/

[ORH_wxman]

It will be interesting to see if the CCSM4 is correct in forecasting the end of the hiatus.

You can fast forward to 11:40 in the presentation to view the model forecast results

and hindcasts for previous warming decades and hiatus periods. This would be a great

breakthrough in decadal forecasting if this model is onto something in the next few years.

 

https://ams.confex.com/ams/95Annual/webprogram/Paper263902.html

 

https://ams.confex.com/ams/95Annual/videogateway.cgi/id/29266?recordingid=29266

 

Screen shot 2015-02-24 at 4.40.24 PM.png

 

 

It has the same cold N Atlantic as the HadCM3 model had too. Kind of interesting that both are showing it. This would be a weird PDO cycle if we stay pretty positive for the next 5 years...though all cycles are definitely not created equal.

[AvantHiatus]

I think the drop is more related to seasonal variability than a shift in the systematic oscillation. Notice how the largest January declines in AMO coincide with cold winter conditions in Eastern North America. January 1994 was a frigid month. The intrusions of said air-masses can reshuffle the deck and bleed heat from the ocean surface.

 

It is more appropriate to average all 12 months of any given year and derive a long-term trend from this data.

[chubbs]

That 2013 forecast looks surprisingly good. Do they publish forecasts anywhere?

[Snow_Miser]

+0.22 on the WeatherBell CFS with temperatures trending back upward again.

 

Unlikely to break a record on GISS/NCDC due to the obscenely warm February in 1998. But based off of the CFS-GISS conversion, we will probably see the second warmest February ever on record.

 

Off to a very warm start to the year.

[Isotherm]

The strong -EPO / +NAO / +AO trio has been very effective at keeping the cold air confined to the North American continent, specifically the central and eastern part of it. For the rest of the northern hemisphere to experience colder than normal temperatures, we generally need some NAO/AO help, which has not been present. In fact, this DJF period might be one of the strongest +NAO/AO couplets in many years.

[AvantHiatus]

 

The strong -EPO / +NAO / +AO trio has been very effective at keeping the cold air confined to the North American continent, specifically the central and eastern part of it. For the rest of the northern hemisphere to experience colder than normal temperatures, we generally need some NAO/AO help, which has not been present. In fact, this DJF period might be one of the strongest +NAO/AO couplets in many years.

 

True but a -EPO / -NAO / -AO would result in lowered expectations on all fronts and a more dispersed polar vortex. I still think it would of been a warm year simply due to the progression of AGW acting on the Earth System.

[chubbs]

 

The strong -EPO / +NAO / +AO trio has been very effective at keeping the cold air confined to the North American continent, specifically the central and eastern part of it. For the rest of the northern hemisphere to experience colder than normal temperatures, we generally need some NAO/AO help, which has not been present. In fact, this DJF period might be one of the strongest +NAO/AO couplets in many years.

 

 Nothing to indicate that this is going to change either. Eurasia has already gone from very high snow cover extent in the Fall to below average in late winter. If this continues will be an early Spring melt out

[AvantHiatus]

Northern Hemisphere cold retention has been horrible this year. Regardless, the deviation is not yet large enough to significantly decline snowcover in the heart of winter.

 

[StudentOfClimatology]

NH Fall/Winter snowcover has actually increased since the late 1960s. It's Spring/Summer snowcover that had dropped off cliff.

[ORH_wxman]

NH Fall/Winter snowcover has actually increased since the late 1960s. It's Spring/Summer snowcover that had dropped off cliff.

 

The middle latitudes have had a significant winter cooling trend over the past 20-25 years...which is obviously where the snow cover increase would come from.

 

Cohen argues this may be due to increased Eurasian snow cover in autumn biasing the AO negative...and that the increased snow cover in autumn may be due to less sea ice in the Atlantic sector...though he doesn't go deeply into the cause of the autumn Eurasian snow increase.

 

 

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/1/014007/pdf/1748-9326_7_1_014007.pdf

[The_Global_Warmer]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/02/25/even-as-the-eastern-u-s-freezes-theres-less-cold-air-in-winter-than-ever-before/

 

 

The cold pool continues to shrink.  Probably larger anomalies with Eurasia being warmer than normal.

 

But it's still records for even this kind of pattern so it goes.

 

 

Just gonna be warmer and more consistently warm once our side is back into warm regimes during winter.

 

Going to be a huge contrast from the last few years.

 

 

[AvantHiatus]

NH Fall/Winter snowcover has actually increased since the late 1960s. It's Spring/Summer snowcover that had dropped off cliff.

That was not being refuted. Read TGW's post, the cooling trend in the Northern Hemisphere winter has recently reversed. Clearly snowcover and temperature are not as directly correlated, as one may expect. We started out with record high snowcover and ended up torching, at least outside North America.

 

We need more years to solidify the trend but it looks like winter 2014-2015 will be warmer than 2013-2014 in the 850mb layer and on the surface in the Northern Hemisphere. A warming trend in Northern Hemisphere middle laditudes is likely to resume during the winter going forward, especially if the hiatus ends. According to recent papers, it only has a 15% chance of persisting for 5 more years.

 

The bar graph is measuring the aerial extent of the cold pool and the line graph is measuring the surface temperature average. I did make an error in my post tho. Was trying to say snowcover has not declined in response to the smaller cold pool. I think it is just lagged tho and there resides a tipping point in there somewhere between balancing snowcover and temperature.

 

We most likely will not encounter major winter snowcover decline for a decade or so but it can still become warmer. Researchers should focus on how much warming is required to send snowcover into the abyss, and the resulting albedo effect.

[ORH_wxman]

That was not being refuted. Read TGW's post, the cooling trend in the Northern Hemisphere winter has recently reversed. Clearly snowcover and temperature are not as directly correlated, as one may expect. We started out with record high snowcover and ended up torching, at least outside North America.

 

We need more years to solidify the trend but it looks like winter 2014-2015 will be warmer than 2013-2014 in the 850mb layer and on the surface in the Northern Hemisphere. A warming trend in Northern Hemisphere middle laditudes is likely to resume during the winter going forward, especially if the hiatus ends. According to recent papers, it only has a 15% chance of persisting for 5 more years.

 

The bar graph is measuring the aerial extent of the cold pool and the line graph is measuring the surface temperature average.

 

There likely won't be a resuming of warming in the middle latitudes in winter unless +AO establishes itself as the dominant mode over the next 5-10 years.

[AvantHiatus]

There likely won't be a resuming of warming in the middle latitudes in winter unless +AO establishes itself as the dominant mode over the next 5-10 years.

So what will a -AO in 2035 look like? There is going to be some upward movement regardless of what the AO does. Unless you are putting all of the warming from AGW into the warm season, which would lead to insanely warm summers.