INTRODUCTION TO MY WUWT-TV PRESENTATION
First, I have to thank Anthony Watts for asking and allowing me to be a part of the inaugural WUWT-TV special. I’m honored, as I am every time Anthony cross posts one of my blog posts. And I really have to thank Anthony for allowing me to pre-record my presentation. I haven’t given a live presentation in about 2 decades and the thought of it did not make me happy.
I don’t recall any questions on the “Social Stream”. But of course there were the usual distracting nonsensical comments by trolls. Examples:
-“typical denier cherrypick”,
-“el ninos dont increases the heat content of the entire ocean! read the levitus papers on this”,
-“Tisdale’s work rests upon the unsupported assertion that La Nina creates heat. No mechanism given qed magic”, and
-“levitus et al puts all of this away.”
My presentation is The Natural Warming of the Global Oceans. For those viewers without scientific backgrounds, I’ve tried to make it as non-technical as possible.
The IPCC and other proponents of anthropogenic global warming have relied on the general public’s lack of understanding of the natural processes that cause the oceans to warm. The IPCC et al (I wonder if Al Gore thinks “et al” means “and Al Gore”) would have preferred of course that everyone remained in the dark.
Hopefully after watching my presentation, viewers will have a better understanding of those processes. And hopefully the viewers will be as amazed as I was at how blatantly obvious it is that the warming occurred naturally. It’s really tough to miss once you know how it works.
After about a 5-minute lead-in, there are 3 primary topics:
1. Introduction to El Niño and La Niña.
2. Long-term impacts of major El Niño and La Niña events on sea surface temperatures.
3. Impacts of El Niño and La Niña and other natural variables on Ocean Heat Content.
But the topics are so interrelated that you can’t provide a detailed discussion of El Niño and La Niña processes without explaining why the sea surface temperatures of the global oceans have warmed over the past 30 years. And you can’t discuss El Niño and La Niña without also explaining why the Ocean Heat Content of the tropics has warmed. Conversely, you can’t discuss the long-term warming of the sea surface temperature and ocean heat content without discussing El Niño and La Niña.
Due to the length of my presentation I’ve had to divide it into two parts. Part 1, which was the scheduled presentation, covers all three topics with the exception of the ocean heat content warming outside of the tropics. I’ve also included brief discussions of the natural warming of other metrics such lower troposphere temperature (TLT) and land surface air plus sea surface temperature datasets like those available from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).
Then, in part 2, there is a more detailed discussion of the natural warming of the Ocean Heat Content data outside of the tropics, and a good look at the problems with ocean heat content data.
Back to part 1: I used lots of illustrations from my book Who Turned on the Heat? including the cartoon-like annotated illustrations from Section 1. Of course, there are graphs of different data to confirm many of the topics.
Lots of graphs. And there are animations. In addition to those I’ve created, I’ve included a great animation from the NASA Scientific Visualization Studio called Visualizing El Niño. And there’s a look at a sea level animation from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to illustrate a portion of the ENSO process that is not visible in sea surface temperature or ocean heat content data.
Other than my book, see below, this is my most detailed presentation on the natural warming of the global oceans. I hope the viewers find it interesting and enlightening.
THE VIDEOS
Part 1 of the presentation:
And Part 2 (Note, during the animation of the NODC’s maps of measurement locations, I stop narrating for about 30 seconds, so don’t worry about you volume):
INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT THE EL NIÑO AND LA NIÑA AND THEIR LONG-TERM EFFECTS ON GLOBAL SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES?
Why should you be interested? The sea surface temperature record indicates El Niño and La Niña events are responsible for the warming of global sea surface temperature anomalies over the past 30 years, not manmade greenhouse gases. I’ve searched sea surface temperature records for more than 4 years, and I can find no evidence of an anthropogenic greenhouse gas signal. That is, the warming of the global oceans has been caused by Mother Nature, not anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
I’ve recently published my e-book (pdf) about the phenomena called El Niño and La Niña. It’s titled Who Turned on the Heat? with the subtitle The Unsuspected Global Warming Culprit, El Niño Southern Oscillation. It is intended for persons (with or without technical backgrounds) interested in learning about El Niño and La Niña events and in understanding the natural causes of the warming of our global oceans for the past 30 years. Because land surface air temperatures simply exaggerate the natural warming of the global oceans over annual and multidecadal time periods, the vast majority of the warming taking place on land is natural as well. The book is the product of years of research of the satellite-era sea surface temperature data that’s available to the public via the internet. It presents how the data accounts for its warming—and there are no indications the warming was caused by manmade greenhouse gases. None at all.
Who Turned on the Heat? was introduced in the blog post Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about El Niño and La Niña… …Well Just about Everything. The Updated Free Preview includes the Table of Contents; the Introduction; the beginning of Section 1, with the cartoon-like illustrations; the discussion About the Cover; and the Closing.
Please buy a copy. (Credit/Debit Card through PayPal. You do NOT need to open a PayPal account.). It’s only US$8.00.
Bob Tisdale - Climate Observations 
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Don’t forget the envro-troll that kept saying “Why did Monckton run from pothead69”, over and over and over as if shouting the same thing 10,000 wil change anyones mind !!
You did well Bob !!!
Thanks, Matthew W.
You made no mention of the ARGO floats that apparently Josh Willis pulled when they were showing cooling because they couldn’t be right, or did I get the wrong end of the stick Bob?
Good clear videos, thanks.
DaveE.
David A. Evans: That would have been included in Part 2 under the general discussion of the ARGO-era corrections.
Thanks Bob. It’s just that it wasn’t explicitly mentioned as I recall.
Who was the nut who wrote this…
?
Didn’t they watch the video? I guess they missed that La Niña doesn’t actually create energy but redistributes it and allows the collection of energy from insolation.
DaveE.
DaveE: Sorry, I don’t recall who made a specific comment. I simply copied what they wrote. They made the comment early in the presentation, before the discussion of La Nina.
I guess in that case it would be one of those debunk Bob Tisdale cut ‘n’ pastes from SkS.
Perhaps they learned something if they watched that far but I wouldn’t bank on it.
DaveE.
Bob, great videos! I have a couple of comments/questions about the AMO, but I’ll keep them for now. Will come back to them.
The following is quite off topic, but I just wanted you to know:
Just for the fun of it I went over to that fabulous ‘skeptical toward skeptics’-site SkS and asked if they would care to try to pick your specific ENSO explanation for the global warming since the mid 70s apart. Their ‘ENSO argument’ being debunked is after all based on the notion that NINO3.4 represents ENSO in full.
Here is the exchange thus far:
Me:
“I would like to see an article where the ENSO argument of Bob Tisdale is being countered. The ENSO argument presented here is not the main skeptical argument on ENSO, after all. Tisdale is going further, claiming that the NINO3.4 index does not fully account for ENSO as a process. He purports to show that when the entire set of processes involved in the progression of the ENSO phenomenon is included, the ENSO IS able to explain global warming since the mid 70s.
I would like to see you tackle HIS argument to show specifically where it fails.
In my opinion, this site would not be complete without such an article.”
Sphaerica:
“Kayell,
If any real people took Tisdale’s argument seriously, then this site would tackle it. This site is not, however, required to tackle every bit of nonsense generated by every person on earth.
The fact that Tisdale’s cr@p gets play on WUWT is meaningless (and says a lot about WUWT and its readership). Those people are lost, and will stay lost.
For what it’s worth, however, Tisdale’s entire collage of nonsense fails on one basic point, the First Law of Thermodynamics. From where does the energy come that allows ENSO to heat the planet?
Put another way, ENSO has been around for thousands of years. Why, suddenly, now, does each successive El Nino warm the planet (which is actually the opposite, La Nina’s warm the planet), while La Nina’s have no counteracting effect? Why is heat suddenly accumulating now due to ENSO, yet never before today? What’s changed?
What is the physical mechanism at work?
And before you ask, no, I haven’t paid good money to read his cr@ppy theories, and I won’t. If you’d like to send a PDF of his nonsense, and if I decide I’m willing to waste a chunk of my life looking at it, then it can maybe discussed (although, really, I’d rather spend my time looking at real science that is going to affect the course of policy, not sideline nutjobbery that is really of no consequence to anything).
Short of that… no, I don’t see the need for SkS to debunk every bit of Galilean look-at-me-I’ve-got-it-I’m-a-genius nonsense that exists in the world.”
Response from moderator (Dikran Marsupial): “Please keep the discussion to the science and avoid inflamatory terms, regardless of the perceived provocation.”
Me again:
“Wow, that was really quite an aggressive response, I must say. Where did that come from?
You keep calling his ENSO argument ‘crap’ and ‘nonsense’. And yet you admit you haven’t actually read what he says, what his argument in full is all about. Sounds like pure reflexive dismissal to me.
If this is such a nutcase piece of hypothesizing, then it should be exceedingly easy to actually show specifically where it fails. Your 1st law of thermodynamics counter-argument is of course only based in you not having read what he says of the matter. You know, I know and he knows where the energy is coming from. You know, I know and he knows how the Pacific uptake of solar energy varies wildly between La Niña and El Niño conditions.”
Response from moderator (Dikran Marsupial): “Please can EVERYBODY keep the discussion even tempered, or I will start deleting posts.
Kayell: I suspect the tone of the reply was prompted by the rhetorical tone of your initial post “In my opinion, this site would not be complete without such an article. “. If you keep your posts purely scientific and avoid rhetoric you will find you get a much better response. If you want an argument addressed, then at least provide a link to where the argument is presented. If you know where the energy is coming from, then you ought to be in a position to debunk the argument yourself.”
Sphaerica:
“Kayell,
I’m not paying good money to Tisdale to read his nonsense. Period.
[snip]
[Why do you think it is that no-one except for WUWT regulars are paying any attention to his theory?]”
Response from moderator (Dikran Marsupial): “Discussion of motivations snipped. Please lets just keep this to the science, and wait and see if Kayell can come back with a more substantive description of the argument.”
doug_bostrom:
“Presumably Tisdale shows that ENSO’s influence has become far more extreme over the past few decades, that it is unleashing astounding quantities of formerly stored and hidden energy? Does he explain how that works? Or does the hypothesis only work if explained in isolation from other evidence?
For instance, the overwhelming balance of evidence indicates that Arctic sea ice is going through area excursions and persistent volume loss in a way that’s very unusual and likely not to have taken place for many thousands of years. For this to happen requires some input of additional heat energy to the Arctic Ocean and indeed other measurements confirm that’s the case. Given the timeline of Arctic sea ice behavior, integrating these observations of sudden change with Tisdale’s approach requires some mechanism that could sequester energy for many thousands of years and then suddenly release it. How does that work? As we all know, energy in the form of heat is very difficult to keep in one place. So what’s the storage mechanism for Tisdale’s energy?”
KR:
“Kayell – Tisdale’s argument appears to be that the ENSO is not symmetric, that La Nina absorbs more energy than El Nino releases, and thus the heat content of the Earth rises in ‘steps’.
Problems with his hypothesis:
* Why would the ENSO be asymmetric now, when it hasn’t been for the last few hundred years – effects require causes and mechanisms, and he has proposed nothing plausible in that regard.
* The oceans and the atmosphere have warmed, especially over the last 40 years – and given the Stefan-Boltzmann relationship of emitted power with temperature, if the atmosphere was radiatively unchanged we would have a negative (cooling) top of atmosphere (TOA) balance. The evidence shows a postive balance (less leaving than arriving), thus contradicting Tisdale. This is a major problem with any number of ‘skeptic’ theories.
* His evidence (what there is of it) consists of extremely short “step” changes of sea surface temperatures – and as has been discussed here and elsewhere (as in the Escalator graphic), those are artifacts of noisy data and statistically insignificant short term trends.
* Observed warming (25*10^22 Joules over the last 40 years in the top 2000 meters of the oceans) has occurred in a fairly steady rise. Not by “steps”.
* His statistics, if you can call them that, are terrible – he doesn’t know enough to numerically support his hypotheses, and what he presents actually contradicts his ideas if you actually know what the numbers mean.
—
In short, Tisdale’s hypotheses consist of handwaving over statistically meaningless short periods and changes. None of it has been peer-reviewed, he is clearly not familiar with the body of peer-reviewed science and data on the issue, it’s unsupported and unsupportable pixie dust.
And it’s rather frustrating to see such nonsense taken seriously by anyone, let alone be pushed repeatedly by Tisdale in his insulting and accusatory terms (multiple accusations of deception, conspiracy, data manipulation, etc). Hence the impatience from those who know anything about the ENSO and global warming…”
KR:
“Kayell – “…claiming that the NINO3.4 index does not fully account for ENSO as a process…”
I find this a very curious strawman argument. The NINO3.4 index is one measure (of many) of an acyclic process – consisting of wind driven changes in ocean overturn and hence heat exchange with the atmosphere.
That index is not the process. I cannot think of anyone who has claimed it is (hence the strawman). It is, rather, one measure of that process, much as GDP is one measure of economic activity.
If the ENSO index is insufficient to track the process, then what ENSO aspects does Tisdale think have changed in the 1970’s? And why? How would he measure that, in a statistically significant fashion – where is his evidence? His favorite measure, sea surface temperature changes in various regions, is actually part of the NINO3.4 index; he’s presented nothing new.
As I said at the start, attacking the index is a Strawman Fallacy. The ENSO can be measured/tracked with trade winds, with atmospheric pressures (Southern Oscillation Index, SOI), or with sea surface temperatures (as in the NINO3.4 index). If Tisdale thinks these are insufficient, it is on him to present evidence of supportable process changes that have diverged from historic behaviors. He has not.”
Rob Painting:
“Sphaerica – “Put another way, ENSO has been around for thousands of years”
ENSO has been around for millions of years. There are enough people responding to Kayell, so I’ll stay out of this.”
It really shows they’ve got nothing on you or your argument. Only denigrating verbiage. They simply want it to disappear.
Thanks, Kristian.
And for those who wish to join Kristian over at SkepticalScience, the discussion is on their “Global warming and the El Niño Southern Oscillation” thread:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=57
Kayell/Kristian, whatever your handle is, what about coming back to SkS and explaining how this is supposed to work? You know , seeing as you seem to understand it so well. A previous contrarian commenter I challenged has failed to return to explain this.
Yes, Sphaerica has a hair trigger. I would have deleted, or seriously snipped, his comments if not for the fact another moderator had already become involved.
Rob Painting: It’s kind of odd–don’t ya think?–that you came to the source but have elected not to ask your questions. Feel free to ask them here. BTW, most of your questions and misunderstandings will likely be answered and corrected if you were to watch and attempt to understand videos linked above. Your questions and comments will display if you’ve made the effort to understand.
Rob,
I have posted another comment on the SkS thread.
Thanks, Bob. I forgot the link …
I hope you’re having fun at SkS, Kristian!! They frustrate me because they’ve made up their minds and have no interest in learning.
Bob, my time is precious, I don’t chase down every fringe hypothesis to refute. Can you sum up your idea in a few paragraphs? In what way does it explain the observations?
Rob Painting, you still aren’t asking questions. You’re making requests. I know you’ve read my posts because you’ve commented about them at WUWT, so there’s no reason for me to provide you a summary. Above, I suggested you watch the videos so that you could have a better understanding, but you apparently have no interest in spending a short time learning, so I have no interest in wasting any more time trying to educate you. Don’t forget, we’ve cross paths before and you came up looking rather foolish. You were incapable of refuting the topic of discussion then, and you apparently are still incapable now. If you’d like to learn, watch the videos and ask questions. If you’re not interested, please don’t waste any more of both of our times.
If and when I have time, I will be happy to dismember the nonsensical replies to Kristian at SkS, including yours. Your attempts and the attempts of others at SkS to refute my work clearly show you have a very limited grasp of the topics being discussed.
Have a pleasant day.
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Bob, I don’t have a hour and a half to waste watching your videos. What’s so difficult about summarizing your hypothesis?
This is a familiar theme; some contrarian turns up at SkS lauding your hypothesis and when they are asked to explain it, become all evasive. So far, no one seems to be able to explain what your grand idea is, including yourself.
Rob Painting, I have no trouble explaining it in a few paragraphs. All I have to do is cut and paste portions of my book.
I haven’t bothered yet for two specific reasons. The first is your portrayal of this as “my hypothesis”. It’s not a hypothesis. This is how the data accounts for its warming when it’s broken down into logical subsets. One simply has to understand ENSO in order for it to make sense. Second, you’ve expressed no interest in learning. In fact, your portrayal of watching the videos as a waste of your “precious” time highlights your lack of interest.
To prevent you from going back to SkS and saying I can’t explain it, the following is a response to your request:
El Niño and La Niña events are natural processes. They are phenomena Mother Nature has devised to vary the rate at which naturally stored thermal energy (in the form of warm water) is released by, and renewed in, the tropical Pacific Ocean. The strength of ENSO phases, along with how often they happen and how long they persist, determine how much heat is released by the tropical Pacific into the atmosphere and how much warm water is transported by ocean currents from the tropics toward the poles. During a multidecadal period when El Niño events dominate (a period when El Niño events are stronger, when they occur more often and when they last longer than La Niña events), more heat than normal is released from the tropical Pacific and more warm water than normal is transported by ocean currents toward the poles—with that warm water releasing heat to the atmosphere along the way. As a result, global sea surface and land surface temperatures warm during multidecadal periods when El Niño events dominate. They have to. There’s no way they cannot warm. Conversely, global temperatures cool during multidecadal periods when La Niña events are stronger, last longer and occur more often than El Niño events. That makes sense too because the tropical Pacific is releasing less heat and redistributing less warm water than normal then.
With respect to Ocean Heat Content:
The tropical Pacific, and the tropical oceans as a whole, warmed only during the 3-year La Niña events and the anomalous 1995/96 La Niña event. Between those La Niña, and after the most recent 3-year La Niña, the tropics cooled. The ocean heat content data for the North Pacific north of 24N cooled from 1955 to the late 1980s and then suddenly shifted upwards in 2 years. The shift likely resulted from a change in sea level pressure [which reflects a change in wind patterns]. Without that shift, the North Pacific Ocean for depths of 0-700 meters would have cooled since 1955. Last, a number of climate studies have shown the additional warming of the North Atlantic is natural and part of a multidecadal mode of natural variability.
Rob, the videos discuss it in more detail. If you’d like to learn, they’ll help. If you’re not interested in learning, don’t bother.
Have a nice day.
Rob Painting: Your willingness to lie in your comments at your beloved SkepticalScience doesn’t speak well of your blog posts there. In response to my reply to you above, you wrote in your 16:42 PM on 19 November, 2012 comment…
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=57#87830
…at SkepticalScience:
“Kayell/Kristian – I said I’d stay out of this, but I’ve changed my mind. Bob Tisdale himself is unable to explain his hypothesis, so maybe you can have a shot at it?”
I’ve come to a couple of conclusions, Rob. You lack reading comprehension skills and you cannot grasp the meaning of the wiggles in a number of graphs, both of which lead to your inability to understand complex discussions.
BTW, your introduction of the graph of Carbon Dioxide vs Temperature for the past 400,000 years in a discussion of the satellite-era sea surface temperature data is laughable. You, and other contributors at SkepticalScience, don’t seem to understand that readers can see straight through your willingness to lie and your need to redirect the topic of discussion. It clearly states to them that you, Rob Painting, and the other contributors at SkS, have no credibility. Then again, that’s been known for years.
Adios.
Rob Painting: PS, I note in your 00:39 AM on 20 November, 2012 at SkS… http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=57#87838
…you’re still attempting the nonsensical argument that “More importantly The ENSO-related energy fluxes balance out to zero in the long-term.”
If you’re not aware, this was disproved in “Chapter 7.3 A New Myth – ENSO Balances Out to Zero over the Long Term” of my book. Data contradicts your myth. But feel free to continue your fabrications. You’re simply drawing more attention to the failings of your arguments.
Rob Painting says:
November 18, 2012 at 8:59 pm
Not sure Bob has made an hypothesis.
He’s made observations from official datasets that appear to contradict the official line.
From my engineering view I see no flaws. Obviously you’ll find some, that’s what you’re paid to do.
DavrE
David A. Evans, I was wrong for singling out Rob Painting. Let me correct my earlier reply.
Rob PaintingNo one from SkS will never be able to find any flaws, becausehethey very obviously can’t fathom the subject matter.Regards
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Kristian: I just submitted the following comment at SkS.
KR, Philippe Chantreau, Rob Painting, Sphaerica, et al.: The basis of this discussion appears to have been this video that appeared on the WUWT-TV webcast. Since some of you have not watched the video, you would have missed the bases for it. Therefore, let’s start with satellite-era sea surface temperature data and let me then ask you to explain the following:
The East Pacific Ocean (90S-90N, 180-80W) has not warmed since the start of the satellite-based Reynolds OI.v2 sea surface temperature dataset, yet the multi-model mean of the CMIP3 (IPCC AR4) and CMIP5 (IPCC AR5) simulations of sea surface temperatures say, if they were warmed by anthropogenic forcings, they should have warmed approximately 0.42 to 0.44 deg C. Why hasn’t the East Pacific warmed?
The detrended sea surface temperature anomalies for the Rest of the World (90S-90N, 80W-180) diverge significantly from scaled NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies in 4 places. Other than those four-multiyear periods, the detrended sea surface temperature anomalies for the Rest of the World mimic the scaled ENSO index. The first and third divergences are caused by the eruptions or El Chichon and Mount Pinatubo. Why does the detrended data diverge from the ENSO index during the 1988/89 and 1998/99/00/01 La Niñas? According to numerous peer-reviewed papers, surface temperatures respond proportionally to El Niño and La Niña events, but it’s obvious they do not.
I’ve answered those two questions in the video. Can you answer those questions? The data is available in an easy to use form through the KNMI Climate Explorer. Feel free to confirm my results in the above graphs.
By all means, feel free to join me at SkS. I will stick to my particular way of presenting your argument, though, which might deviate somewhat from your way of presenting it. Especially when we get to the OHC part, I will add some of my own findings.
By all means, Bob, feel free to join me at SkS. I will stick to my particular way of presenting your argument, though, which might deviate somewhat from your own. Especially when we get to the OHC part, I will add some of my own findings.
Bob Tisdale,
I have been following the back and forth with your presentation and Skeptical Science. I can no longer post on their site as I have been banned from posting there (as well as Tamino’s Open Mind).
I am certain by some of their posts that they did not make an effort to view your videos. They ask the question you clearly answered. “Where does the heat come from?” You stated it takes place during La Nina’s because they reduce the cloud cover and allow solar flux to penetrate down to around 100 meters of water. Under normal conditions, the warm water evaporates, turns into clouds and blocks solar radiation from warming the ocean below.
The good question they ask has not yet been answered (at least not in the first video I watched, well presented material on ENSO phenomena…thanks for the work) is what mechanism causes cooling?
ENSO is not new so the oceans would be much warmer if there were not some mechanism to cool things off (volcanoes are sporadic and short lived and would not help a very long warming trend since the direction of the ENSO warming is only neutral for years or postive, never negative.
I think the skin effect of IR theory can be ruled out (the IR does not penetrate into the ocean but alters the ocean surface from being able to release its energy into the atmosphere hence causing a continuous warming of the oceans) since you have 30% of the ocean surface not effected (no warming trend in 30 years). The skin effect would apply to all bodies of water but seems to have no effect on this part of the oceans.
test
Bob Tisdale,
I have been following the back and forth with your presentation and Skeptical Science. I can no longer post on their site as I have been banned from posting there (as well as Tamino’s Open Mind).
I am certain by some of their posts that they did not make an effort to view your videos. They ask the question you clearly answered. “Where does the heat come from?” You stated it takes place during La Nina’s because they reduce the cloud cover and allow solar flux to penetrate down to around 100 meters of water. Under normal conditions, the warm water evaporates, turns into clouds and blocks solar radiation from warming the ocean below.
The good question they ask has not yet been answered (at least not in the first video I watched, well presented material on ENSO phenomena…thanks for the work) is what mechanism causes cooling?
ENSO is not new so the oceans would be much warmer if there were not some mechanism to cool things off (volcanoes are sporadic and short lived and would not help a very long warming trend since the direction of the ENSO warming is only neutral for years or postive, never negative.
I think the skin effect of IR theory can be ruled out (the IR does not penetrate into the ocean but alters the ocean surface from being able to release its energy into the atmosphere hence causing a continuous warming of the oceans) since you have 30% of the ocean surface not effected (no warming trend in 30 years). The skin effect would apply to all bodies of water but seems to have no effect on this part of the oceans.
I do not think you will reach the Skeptical Science group unless you prove ENSO is caused by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Arthur asked, “…what mechanism causes cooling?”
An absence of major El Niño events, like the 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Niños.
Consider that the East Pacific would be showing cooling if the data was adjusted for volcanic aerosols:
Graph is from this post:
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/october-2012-sea-surface-temperature-sst-anomaly-update/
Consider also that the South Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific Oceans show they cool between the major El Niño events.
Graph is from this post:
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/the-warming-of-the-global-oceans-are-manmade-greenhouse-gases-important-or-impotent-2/
That leaves the North Atlantic and it has the AMO. Eventually, the sea surface temperatures there will flatten and cool less than the other ocean basins.
There may also be longer-term cycles in ocean basins where we have very little source data, like in the Southern Hemisphere, south of 40S, but there’s no reason to speculate about them since there’s so little data.
You concluded with, “I do not think you will reach the Skeptical Science group unless you prove ENSO is caused by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”
But there are others who visit SkepticalScience who can grasp reality once they’re exposed to it.
Norman, you write: “The good question they ask has not yet been answered (at least not in the first video I watched, well presented material on ENSO phenomena…thanks for the work) is what mechanism causes cooling? ENSO is not new so the oceans would be much warmer if there were not some mechanism to cool things off (volcanoes are sporadic and short lived and would not help a very long warming trend since the direction of the ENSO warming is only neutral for years or postive, never negative.”
Net ENSO warming is seemingly only occuring during epochs of positive mode in the Pacific, that is, extended phases where there is a climate regime favoring the global propagation of El Niños over that of La Niñas. When the Pacific mode is negative, the opposite happens – the heat sink process during main La Niñas is exaggerated globally relative to the East Tropical Pacific.
Look closely at this composite graph:
(This is global (red curve) vs. NINO3.4 (pale blue curve) anomalies, 1948-2003, using the Kaplan SST dataset. I could show you why I choose this particular set, but it would only detract attention from the subject matter. The NINO3.4 data has been scaled down x0,1.)
Now, what do you see?
The vertical lines have been drawn to mark steps in the evolution of global SSTA as a response to specific ENSO processes. The steps are associated with so-called regime shifts in the Pacific. The 0 line follows NINO3.4. Step 1 and 3 correspond (one step DOWN). As do Step 2 and 4 (on level with NINO3.4). Step 5 is equal to Steps 1 and 3, only going the opposite way (one step UP). Step 6 has no equivalent (TWO steps away from the 0 line). Between Steps 3 and 4 runs ‘The Great Pacific Climate Shift’, that is, the last recorded ENSO phase shift. Across this major, fundamental and well-documented shift, which occured cirka 1976-79, the ENSO mode went from being La Niña-‘dominated’ (favoring negative/cold Pacific influence on the world) to being El Niño-‘dominated’ (favoring positive/warm Pacific influence on the world).
Notice how Step 2 goes the ‘wrong’ way within a generally negative ENSO epoch, causing Step 3 to become a one-level-down step only, like Step 1. The epoch 1945/46-78/79 thus never sees a three-step drop in global SSTA relative to NINO3.4 like the period 1979-2009(12) sees a three-step rise.
Observe how the global amplitudes during ‘cold’ steps appear to be larger than the ones during ‘warm’ steps – the global response to the ENSO signal seems more pronounced in both directions (?).
(Three intervals along the global curve are clearly impacted, to a lesser or greater extent, by massive stratospheric volcanic eruptions: ~1964-66 (Agung), ~1982-84 (El Chichõn) and ~1992-95 (Pinatubo).)
So what is the mechanism behind the Pacific climate regime shifts? No one knows for sure. That doesn’t mean they’re not there. We are not required to present the full physical mechanism behind a particular natural process in order for it to exist and to be easily observed to occur.
ENSO did not warm the world between 1945 and 1978. It didn’t warm it between 1878 and 1912 either. ENSO cooled the world during these periods. It warmed the world in two positive Pacific phases: 1913/14-45/46 and 1979-2009(12). Bob has shown why and how ENSO warms the world in a warm phase. Why shouldn’t the same mechanisms have been effective during the previous warming? And why shouldn’t the mechanisms that are observed to deepen the La Niñas globally relative to NINO occur whenever the Pacific is in a negative mode?
Thanks!
Bob, I made a simple operation: Take the Nino3,4 ( annual timeseries) from Hadsst1 from Climate explorer http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/ihadisst1_nino3.4a_mean1a.txt and the annual HadCRUT4 time series. Than please accumulate the Nino 3,4 data ( the accumulated value of the year x is the sum of the year x-1 plus Nino3,4 value of the yeax x ans so on).
When you plot the result you’ll see how good it matches to the globals. In scatter-diagram: R²=0,7 or 70% of the globals depending on the long-time ENSO.
PS: For the pictures look here: http://kaule.ath.cx:9001/uploads/Dok1.mht
Bob, by the way, have you noticed that the Kaplan SST dataset is no longer available on Climate Explorer?
That’s a real shame. I wonder why?
Kristian, the Kaplan based ENSO indices are still available through the monthly climate indices webpage at the KNMI Climate Explorer. Kaplan is an infilled version of an obsolete Hadley Centre SST dataset.
Regards
Frank says: “PS: For the pictures look here: http://kaule.ath.cx:9001/uploads/Dok1.mht”
Frank, your file won’t open for me.
Regards
And I just replied to some questions and comments at SkS:
IanC: Excuse the delay.
You replied, “You are comparing data with a particular realization of internal variability to data with internal variability filtered out. You are effectively comparing apples to oranges, so of course they look different.”
I assume this is a discussion of the East Pacific data. The appearances are not in question. The trends are.
You replied, “To actually make a sensible analysis, you will at the very least have to look into internal variability of each model run, which entail comparing a large number individual model runs.”
Not me. I’m done with my analysis. It is the responsibility of the party wishing to dispute my results to show the effects of the point that party wants to introduce to the discussion. With that in mind, the models do such a poor job of simulating ENSO you’d be better off trying to remove the effects of ENSO from the East Pacific sea surface temperature data. Then you won’t have to analyze each of the dozens and dozens of model runs. If you don’t want to do that, that’s okay, because the “Rest of the World” data still needs to be explored.
You replied, “To answer your question, a far more plausible explanation is internal variability (e.g. PDO).”
Unfortunately, that explanation doesn’t work for a number of reasons. (a) The PDO represents the standardized leading Principal Component of the sea surface temperature anomalies of the North Pacific north of 20N after the global temperatures have been removed, not the sea surface temperature anomalies. (b) The standardization of the PDO exaggerates its actual variability by a factor of about 5.6, if memory serves. In other words, the standardization exaggerates the importance of the PDO. (c) The PDO is actually inversely related to the sea surface temperature anomalies of that portion of the North Pacific on decadal timescales. (d) The PDO is an aftereffect of ENSO and the sea level pressure of the North Pacific. The sea level pressure of the North Pacific causes the difference between the PDO and ENSO. (e) The dominant component of the PDO is the sea surface temperature of the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension, in the western North Pacific, not the East Pacific.
You asked, “What scaling and time shifting have you applied to the NINO3.4 data?”
The scaling factor is 0.12 and there’s a 6-month lag.
You asked, “Can you provide references?”
Yup. Every study that attempts to remove the effects of ENSO from the surface temperature record by scaling an ENSO index and by subtracting the scaled and lagged ENSO index from surface temperatures assumes surface temperatures respond proportionally to El Niño and La Niña events. Examples in alphabetical order:
Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) “Global Temperature Evolution 1979–2010”
And:
Lean and Rind (2009) How Will Earth’s Surface Temperature Change in Future Decades?
And:
Lean and Rind (2008) How Natural and Anthropogenic Influences Alter Global and Regional Surface Temperatures: 1889 to 2006
And:
Santer et al (2001), Accounting for the effects of volcanoes and ENSO in comparisons of modeled and observed temperature trends
And:
Thompson et al (2008), Identifying signatures of natural climate variability in time series of global-mean surface temperature: Methodology and Insights
And:
Trenberth et al (2002) Evolution of El Nino–Southern Oscillation and global atmospheric surface temperatures (See note 1)
And:
Wigley, T. M. L. (2000), ENSO, volcanoes, and record-breaking temperatures
Note 1: Trenberth et al (2002) included the following caveat:
“The main tool used in this study is correlation and regression analysis that, through least squares fitting, tends to emphasize the larger events. This seems appropriate as it is in those events that the signal is clearly larger than the noise. Moreover, the method properly weights each event (unlike many composite analyses). Although it is possible to use regression to eliminate the linear portion of the global mean temperature signal associated with ENSO, the processes that contribute regionally to the global mean differ considerably, and the linear approach likely leaves an ENSO residual.”
The divergences shown in brown are those ENSO residuals.
Moderator DB asked, “Do you have a link to the specific dataset(s)?”
The Reynolds OI.v2 data is available on a gridded basis through the KNMI Climate Explorer:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere
And through the NOAA NOMADS website:
http://nomad3.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh?ctlfile=monoiv2.ctl&varlist=on&new_window=on&lite=&ptype=ts&dir=
The coordinates of the NINO3.4 region are 5S-5N, 170W-120W. The coordinates for the East Pacific is 90S-90N, 180-80W. And the coordinates for the Rest of the World are 90S-90N, 80W-180. I provided a brief introduction to the KNMI Climate Explorer here:
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/very-basic-introduction-to-the-knmi-climate-explorer/
And DB asked, “Is the NINO3.4 data processed in anyway? and if so, how?”
The NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies were scaled by a factor is 0.12, lagged 6 months, and both datasets in the graph of the detrended Rest of the World data were smoothed with 13-month running-mean filters.
Regards
Sorry for the confusion with the pictures. Please try this: http://www.dh7fb.de/ninos/ensoaccu1.gif and this one shows the scatter.diagram: http://www.dh7fb.de/ninos/ensoaccu2.gif .
Regards Frank
Frank, thanks for reposting the graphs. If you were to include a few more factors, the fit should become even better:
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/reproducing-global-temperature-anomalies-with-natural-forcings/
Regards
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Does your blog have a contact page? I’m having trouble locating it but, I’d like to shoot you an
email. I’ve got some suggestions for your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great blog and I look forward to seeing it grow over time.
urin79.com says: “Does your blog have a contact page?”
Nope. Your phrasing makes me believe you’re spam. though. Feel free to ask your questions here. Otherwise I’ll delete your comment.
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