Global Warming’s Influence on El Niño Still Unknown
24 May 2010
Although the climate of the Pacific region will undergo significant changes as atmospheric temperatures rise, scientists can not yet identify the influence it will have on the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather phenomenon, accordingto an international science review by the World Climate Research Program’s Climate Variability and Predictability Pacific Panel, published online 23 May in Nature Geoscience.
The paper’s lead author is Dr. Mat Collins from the Met Office Hadley Centre in the UK.
The Panel convened in Australia at the Greenhouse 2009 climate change conference to consider new research that could build an understanding of changes in the behaviour of ENSO. ENSO is a naturally occurring phenomenon causing climate variability that originates in the tropical Pacific region and influences ecosystems, agriculture, freshwater supplies, hurricanes and other severe weather events worldwide.
There is an increasing body of evidence pointing to significant changes in Pacific Ocean climate as a consequence of global warming. What we are attempting to clarify is how those changes will enhance or moderate ENSO and, in Australia’s case, deliver stronger or weaker El Niño events which would have vastly different implications.
—Dr. Wenju Cai, CSIRO
The report concludes that rising global temperatures will bring change to the Pacific region in several ways:
- tropical easterly trade winds are expected to weaken;
- surface ocean temperatures are expected to warm fastest near the equator; and
- the thin water layer separating the ocean’s upper surface layer from its calm deep water below (the thermocline) is expected to become narrower and less deep.
The authors suggest further research directions and coordination efforts that would continue to improve science’s understanding of, and ability to accurately model ENSO, and enable researchers to predict the level of ENSO activity in the short-term (10 to 30 years).
Year-to-year ENSO variability is controlled by a delicate balance of amplifying and damping feedbacks, and one or more of the physical processes that are responsible for determining the characteristics of ENSO will probably be modified by climate change. Therefore, despite considerable progress in our understanding of the impact of climate change on many of the processes that contribute to El Niño variability, it is not yet possible to say whether ENSO activity will be enhanced or damped, or if the frequency of events will change.
—Collins et al.
Resources
Mat Collins, Soon-Il An, Wenju Cai, Alexandre Ganachaud, Eric Guilyardi, Fei-Fei Jin, Markus Jochum, Matthieu Lengaigne, Scott Power, Axel Timmermann, Gabe Vecchi & Andrew Wittenberg (2010) The impact of global warming on the tropical Pacific Ocean and El Niño. Nature Geoscience doi: 10.1038/ngeo868
Most rational people would consider ENSO the driver of any climate effects as demonstrated by PDO etc.
Posted by: sulleny | 24 May 2010 at 02:41 PM
Most rational people would be right but if they are not educated and informed they might think the relationship stops there.
Posted by: ai_vin | 24 May 2010 at 11:36 PM
Logically, unless climate scientists can explain the causes of ENSO they are not in a position to rule out ENSO as the root cause of climate change. ENSO is short and long term climate change in action. Trying go understand the change that we can actually see happening is where we should begin.
Positing an effect of CO2 on ENSO is just silly, another attempt to frighten people. Looks to me like an intellectual back flip. Not really very smart at all.
Posted by: Erl Happ | 25 May 2010 at 04:07 AM
Climate modeling is in its infancy. We hava a long ways to go and there are way too many premature predictions based upon little understanding.
Posted by: danm | 25 May 2010 at 05:47 AM
ENSO temperature trends have risen over the last several decades, so it is obviously more than just ENSO.
The basic physics of CO2 heat trapping is climatology 101, so attempting to ignore it is refusing to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
The National Academy of Sciences recently reinforced the science of global warming, stating;
The compelling case that climate change is occurring and is caused in large part by human activities is based on a strong, credible body of evidence, says Advancing the Science of Climate Change, one of the new reports. While noting that there is always more to learn and that the scientific process is never "closed," the report emphasizes that multiple lines of evidence support scientific understanding of climate change. The core phenomenon, scientific questions, and hypotheses have been examined thoroughly and have stood firm in the face of serious debate and careful evaluation of alternative explanations.
National Academy of Sciences Climate report
Posted by: Will S | 25 May 2010 at 06:50 AM
'The basic physics of CO2 heat trapping is climatology 101, so attempting to ignore it is refusing to acknowledge the elephant in the room.'
Show me the evidence that this is occurring. The troposphere cools via convection and decompression and very little via radiation. The tropsophere warms and cools in accord with ENSO and direct heating by short wave radiation. The stratosphere warms via ozone absorbtion of long wave radiation from the sun, but there is no effective downward transfer of that energy to yield a temperature increase in the troposphere.
Look at the data. Google 'Earth Laboratory tests the greenhouse theory once a year, every year, and finds it wanting every time'.
Posted by: Erl Happ | 25 May 2010 at 04:08 PM
Erl,
posters Will and ai_vin cling to the now embalmed and entombed climate change theory because it meets their politics. What little science the theory represented evaporated with the ClimateGate scandal. They are well-intended, just not ready to accept the fate of the global warming campaign.
Posted by: sulleny | 25 May 2010 at 06:17 PM
lol
Ok now you sound like General Custer at Little Big Horn when he said "I think we got them surrounded."
Posted by: ai_vin | 25 May 2010 at 09:59 PM