monoloco
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Registered: 7-13-2009
Location: Pescadero BCS
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¿El Niño en 2014?
From Bloomberg:
If Ocean Heat Pump Switches On, Expect to Feel It
By Eric Roston Feb 10, 2014 4:36 PM MT
Scientists are chipping away at a question that has dominated public climate change discussions in the U.S. the last few years: Where's the heat?
Despite unchecked carbon pollution, warming felt on the Earth's surface has slowed since 1998.
Clues keep pointing to the Pacific Ocean, and a new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) predicts that the temperatures
will rise again toward the end of this year.
More specifically, the authors predict the return later this year of El Nino, the tendency of the Pacific Ocean to vent more heat than normal into the
atmosphere, often with dramatic effects on weather in North America. The last powerful warming phase of what scientists call the El Nino-Southern
Oscillation (ENSO) was 1998, the hottest year on record. Since then, natural climate variability has been disguising the manmade warming.
"This might lead to an end of the present 'hiatus,'" Armin Bunde of the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Giessen, Germany, said in an email. He
qualified the prediction, saying that the tool can't predict the strength of an El Nino, only that it's coming. "We can only predict that in 2014
there will be an El Nino event with 76 percent likelihood," he said.
In the PNAS paper, called, "Very early warning of next El Nino," the German, Russian and Israeli scientists introduce a technique for predicting what
kind of trouble the Pacific Ocean might have in store for global weather patterns a year before it happens.
To calibrate and test the new El Nino prediction technique, researchers used atmospheric temperature data going back more than 60 years. Once they
felt the algorithm was properly tuned, they made predictions for 2012 and 2013, successfully predicting that neither would have an El Nino.
The new tool doubles the warning time before an El Nino hits, from the six months offered by current models, to a year. The new El Nino "alarm," as
the researchers call it, is right 76 percent, better odds than current prediction methods.
The scientists describe their advance, in the dispassionate, clinical tone of peer-reviewed research, as "non-trivial." A year warning of an El Nino
could give farmers time to buy drought- or flood-resistant seeds.
The scientists are making a confident but big bet here, one they acknowledge comes with "reputational risks," if they call an El Nino that doesn't
show up. "Should our alarm turn out to be correct, however," they write, "this would be a major step toward better forecasting -- and evenutally
understanding" of how El Nino works.
"The future ain't what it used to be"
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paranewbi
Senior Nomad
Posts: 913
Registered: 4-15-2011
Location: San diego
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Thanks for the article Monoloco!
Not withstanding the ongoing global warming debate...it seems like those massive hurricane seasons that have been predicted the last several years
never really materialize and the local weathermen with all their satellite, radar, and scientific technology can't beat calling a buddy fishing on his
boat and asking him if it's actually raining where he is...and knowing if it's coming my way or not.
The accuracy of this trade is questionable more than dependable. I suppose if your throw out a guess often enough you might actually be right
sometime.
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DavidE
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3814
Registered: 12-1-2003
Location: Baja California México
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Mood: 'At home we demand facts and get them. In Mexico one subsists on rumor and never demands anything.' Charles Flandrau,
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Here's something to chew on...
Big agriculture, business whose lives depending on knowing the weather, multimillion dollar sporting events and oh-yeah, CalTrans, depend on PAY-FOR
forecasting and not the gar-Bahge upchucked by the National Weather Service.
Living in the high, high sierra many years ago, the NWS would come out with "All Clear" CalTrans would put on a second shift and sure as hell it would
snow. The NWS would say "blizzard" No second shift and the following morning wake up to blue skies and not one freakin' flake of snow.
The meteorological community has shrank to a political platform rather than one based on scientific discipline. No one is talking about the ZERO
sunspot activity on the sun. No one is talking about the diminishing of the earth's magnetic field, and the possible polarity flip that may be in the
works. Ever hear about the billions of years old NORMAL fluctuation in the sun's output....oh what am I asking (?) of course not. This all has no
political agenda therefore is not relevant.
How does this all affect me? Ah jeez gimme a freakin' break.
A Lot To See And A Lot To Do
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Skipjack Joe
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8088
Registered: 7-12-2004
Location: Bahia Asuncion
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I asked several seasoned fishermen at Asuncion this past winter what to expect in the next few days. I expected them to look at the horizon, then at
the high clouds, and then how the stars twinkled and ponder before answering.
Instead - "We just look at the internet".
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monoloco
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6667
Registered: 7-13-2009
Location: Pescadero BCS
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| Quote: | Originally posted by DavidE
Here's something to chew on...
Big agriculture, business whose lives depending on knowing the weather, multimillion dollar sporting events and oh-yeah, CalTrans, depend on PAY-FOR
forecasting and not the gar-Bahge upchucked by the National Weather Service.
Living in the high, high sierra many years ago, the NWS would come out with "All Clear" CalTrans would put on a second shift and sure as hell it would
snow. The NWS would say "blizzard" No second shift and the following morning wake up to blue skies and not one freakin' flake of snow.
The meteorological community has shrank to a political platform rather than one based on scientific discipline. No one is talking about the ZERO
sunspot activity on the sun. No one is talking about the diminishing of the earth's magnetic field, and the possible polarity flip that may be in the
works. Ever hear about the billions of years old NORMAL fluctuation in the sun's output....oh what am I asking (?) of course not. This all has no
political agenda therefore is not relevant.
How does this all affect me? Ah jeez gimme a freakin' break. |
Zero sunspot activity? I guess you must have
missed this:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140107215515.ht...
"The future ain't what it used to be"
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