Pacific Ocean Warming Continues

The warming in the Nino 3.4 region of the Pacific is typically used to define an El Niño — sustained postive sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies of greater than 0.5°C across the central tropical Pacific Ocean. Writing for Reuters Jonathan Standing (with editing by Michael Perry) relays a report from Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, “Central Pacific Ocean surface temperatures are now at their warmest level since the El Nino of 1997-98, exceeding temperatures observed in both the 2002-03 and 2006-07 events.”

NOAA also reported recently* that El Niño had strengthened from October to November 2009. And, in predicting that more likely than not 2010 will be the warmest year in the instrumental record, beating the previous record year which was 1998,the UK’s Met Office (originally the Meteorological Office),attributed the cause in part to a phenomenon known as El Niño.

“Similarly, cloudiness and rainfall near the equator remains enhanced, while eastern Australian rainfall remains low; all typical of a mature El Nino event,” the bureau said.

The last severe El Nino in 1998 killed more than 2,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damages to crops, infrastructure and mines in Australia and Asia.

The weather bureau said earlier this week that Australia could face a dry start for its summer crops as the El Nino pattern affects rainfall, raising the possibility of lower harvests of sorghum, sugar and cotton.

* Note: A “full-fledged” El Niño episode, according to the NOAA, is when there is a 3-month running mean SST departure to exceed 0.5°C “for a period of at least 5 consecutive overlapping 3-month seasons.”

This year ‘in top five warmest’ (news.bbc.co.uk)
2009-2010 El Niño Indicators Strong, Pacific Ocean Warming Continues (greencarcongress.com)

This entry was written by jcwinnie, posted on 2009-12-23 at 8:47 pm, filed under agriculture, climate, environment, forecast, world and tagged climate, drought, food, oceans, thermodynamics. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

One Comment

jcwinnie

Posted 2010-1-4 at 5:01 pm | Permalink

For those, who deny the planet is unequivocally warming and humans are probably the cause of most of that warming, and for FEG-ers alike, it’s cold in early January in our Nation’s Capitol.

[Imagined in some DC ER: a harried, sleep derived intern from Virginia; a blonde buxom nurse Ellie Driver w/o eye patch); and a balding, edgy climate scientist, just brought in by two security guards...]

That isn’t news, says Joe Romm. “It’s the friggin’ winter!”

“Easy, Joe, we all agree with ya. (Nurse is the sedative ready yet?)”

Oh wait, you say we’re setting records for cold over parts of the country. But if you accept the temperature station data going back over a century that says we’re setting records for cold over a small part of the globe over a short period of time, then you have to accept this very same data over the entire globe over a long period of time, no?

“Hey, Joe, did you see Steve Martin in “It’s Complicated“? Pretty good, huh? (There now, we’ll just let that take effect.) Look at the pretty pictures you brought, Joe. Aren’t they sumptin’?”

Yes, the 2000s were the hottest decade in the temperature record by far, though this decade is all but certain to surpass it easily (see here).

Barring a last-minute cancellation, I’ll be on FoxNews with Neil Cavuto at around 4:20 pm ET to talk about the weather and the climate. There’s never a bad time to talk about climate science and human-caused global warming, is there?

“No, Joe, it’s always a good time. (Dang, that sedative should have started working, better prepare another, Nurse.)”

Anyway, here’s what most of the globe is doing right now, temperature-wise, according to NOAA:

“Uh-huh”

Yes, it’s anomalously hot in many places, most importantly in the tropical Pacific (see Australian weather bureau: “Central Pacific Ocean surface temperatures are now at their warmest level since the of 1997-98?).

“Anomalously, my, that’s a big word. It said in your chart that your are a science writer.”

And unless this El Niño ends unexpectedly soon, it is more likely than not to augment the inexorable march of human-caused global warming and make 2010 the hottest year on record (see “Hansen predicts better than 50% chance 2010 will set new record” and UK Met Office: Global warming plus El Niño means it’s “more likely than not that 2010 will be the warmest year in the instrumental record”).

“(I think that we’ll go with that second dose now, Nurse.) O.K., Joe, just take it easy now.”

For the record, the scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) reported in November “Record high temperatures far outpace record lows across U.S.“:

Still, it’s unequivocally cold outside (some places).

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, just try and relax, Joe. (Nurse, let’s just get the restraints on him, I’ll do the paperwork later.)”

Enjoy it while you can, because if the anti-science, cold-weather-means-the-climate-ain’t-warming crowd keeps blocking action, then here’s how things are likely to end up (see Our hellish future: Definitive NOAA-led report on U.S. climate impacts warns of scorching 9 to 11°F warming over most of inland U.S. by 2090 with Kansas above 90°F some 120 days a year — and that isn’t the worst case, it’s business as usual!):

See also Skeptical Science’s “It’s freaking cold!“

After Gutenberg