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Is Global Warming Quickening?

Is Global Warming Quickening?

Everyone who can should try and watch the 5 minute clip. The link takes you to a news catch up page. Select Monday 14 March and the clip titled “Is Global warming Quickening?”.

Figure 1 The NASA GISS LOTI (Land Ocean Temperature Index) graphic shown on Channel 4 News. This is a screen capture from the video archive linked above. Take a close look at the gradation of the colour scale that is discussed further below. This image bears no resemblance at all to the current NOAA SST image that appears immediately below the fold.

Sea Surface Temperatures (SST)

Let us begin by comparing the NASA GISS LOTI (Land Ocean Temperature Index) with current  SSTs.

Figure 2 The full global SSTs as recorded on 14 March 2016. NOAA SSTs downloaded from this link. If anything I’m more concerned by all that blue. The dying remnants of the El Nino along the Equator cover a vast area that is not captured by this projection while the cold southern ocean covers a relatively small area.

The SSTs present a totally different picture. In fact a worryingly cool picture with the N Atlantic now looking as cool as I’ve seen it, a likely refection of the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) preparing to flip to cool mode. The N Pacific and whole of the Southern Ocean are distinctly cool. How they manage to manufacture record warmth out of this is a story for another day. But how do Figures 1 and 2 appear so different. Part of the answer lies in the colour scale intervals that are chosen.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘Biggest El Niño of our generation’ may be tempered by The Blob

‘Biggest El Niño of our generation’ may be tempered by The Blob

Climatologists unsure of outcome of battle of ‘Godzilla’ El Niño vs. the Pacific Blob

For many drought-weary Californians, it has become the ‘Great Wet Hope.’ Bill Patzert, a climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, has given it a less enthusiastic nickname.

“This is the Godzilla El Niño,” Patzert says. “This potentially could be the El Niño of our generation.”

El Niño is the term for a massive patch of warm water that appears in the the Equatorial Pacific every few years, affecting weather patterns across the world. Typically, its appearance means more rain on the Pacific coast and a milder winter west of the Rockies.

“Places that are normally dry get extremely wet, and of course that would include the American west,” Patzert says. “So we’re kayaking down the street in Los Angeles, and they’re playing golf in February in Minneapolis.”

Climatologists suspected El Niño was coming. Now they’re predicting it’ll be even bigger than they thought.

el nino

Sea surface temperature anomalies for May 2014. Warmer colours indicate warm temperatures. (NOAA)

el nino

Sea surface temperature anomalies for May 2015. Warmer colours indicate warm temperatures, and are particularly noticeable around the equator and South America. (NOAA)

“A large El Niño like we saw in 1997 and 1982 has a big impact not only on the U.S. and Canada, but (also) all over the planet,” Patzert says. “The signal that we see in the Pacific from space is actually larger than it was in August of 1997.”

In 1997, a massive El Niño brought floods, mudslides and hurricanes. In California it killed 17 people and caused half a billion dollars of damage.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Olduvai IV: Courage
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