How much does El Nino affect global temperatures?

Threegoofs said:

Is that why you seemed to enthusiastically support all the posts a while ago which showed a 'pause' when you started the measurement in 1998?

I believe JH has posted these (the Mockton WUWT blog vomit) nearly monthly for years, and I can't think of you objecting to the premise once.

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Actually the pause in relation to the 1998 El Nino should never have been there because the warming from the El Nino should not have been counted ether

longview said:

Actually the pause in relation to the 1998 El Nino should never have been there because the warming from the El Nino should not have been counted ether

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Guess you just forgot to mention it. Over and over again.

longview said:

Actually the pause in relation to the 1998 El Nino should never have been there because the warming from the El Nino should not have been counted ether

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That's just wrong too. We must include all the years with all the variations. They are part of normal climate variation. The climate normal is the average of all the variation, not just the mean values. Normal extremes are part of climate too. In a warming climate both La Nina and El Nino conditions warm over time along with the mean.

Leafsdude said:

Not significantly. It's not been since the early 1800s that warming of significant strength began. Intriguingly, that period coincides with early human industrial activity. Correlation doesn't imply causation, of course, but causation requires correlation, so there's that.



Of course there's been warmer periods. Are you so simplistic as to not understand that warming today is a problem because of rate and not because it's warmer than ever?



As per above, 160 years (actually closer to about 100 years, but whatever)) is within the period of human CO[sub]2[/sub] production. Hence that record showing a warming trend supports AGW.

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A warming trend in a period that was already warming shows nothing, CO2 warming between 1850 and 1900 would be very small.
I will run the equation for the max predicted and get back.

Threegoofs said:

Guess you just forgot to mention it. Over and over again.

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No, You forgot to check, I have mentioned that if the 1998 peak cannot be counted for the start of the pause,
it should not have been included as part of the warming.

Russell797 said:

That's just wrong too. We must include all the years with all the variations. They are part of normal climate variation. The climate normal is the average of all the variation, not just the mean values. Normal extremes are part of climate too. In a warming climate both La Nina and El Nino conditions warm over time along with the mean.

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The models included the high point of 1998 in their projections of future temperature.
The was spelled out as the stark contrast of the hiatus, in a Nature article.

Russell797 said:

Yes it could be a lot of it, but realize that aerosols produce a net cooling by scattering away solar insulation. As such they diminish the forced temperature change induced by the Sun and greenhouse gases. The Sun has not increased in output over the period in question, but rather has decreased slightly. The greenhouse effect has been increasing over that time period. Absent the aerosols temperature would be higher than what it is.

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It depends on the aerosols. They both absorb radiant spectra, and block spectra. Some reflect better than others. Each has different properties. Most aerosols do have a net cooling effect, but BC has a net warming effect. Especially when it is on the surface of ice.

Mithrae said:

...yes, a ~3W/m^2 increase in surface insolation over those nine years, coming after over thirty years of decreasing surface insolation totaling ~12-17W/m^2 over land according to that paper.

And as I originally pointed out to LoP and again in this thread, those results appear to be much smaller than the measurement error margins of 7-27W/m^2:
"The range of the root mean square (RMS) errors at a spatial resolution of 2.5- was found to be between 11.7 and 31.5 W m–2 (19); the best results were found over Europe, Australia, eastern Canada, and western Canada (known for good quality of ground data); the worst were found over central Africa and Pakistan/India. In an updated evaluation at 1- resolution based on ISCCP DX data (20, 21), the range of the RMS errors was reduced to about 7.5 to 27.0 W m–2 (excluding African stations). On the basis of results of evaluation against Surface Radiation (SURFRAD) (22) ground observations at a spatial resolution of 0.5- over the United States, it was found that the average RMS error on a monthly time scale was about 20 W m–2 (23)."

Perhaps the large error margin is why those 2005 results seem so different from the 2013 IPCC estimates, which suggest only about -0.3W/m^2 of global average effective radiative forcing from aerosol-radiation interactions from 1958 to 1992 and +0.1W/m^2 of warming from 1992 to 2002.

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I'm curious. Where did you read about the decreasing surface insolation? Quote please. I didn't see it.

As for the rest, since when do warmers care about error ranges?

Leafsdude said:

Not significantly. It's not been since the early 1800s that warming of significant strength began. Intriguingly, that period coincides with early human industrial activity. Correlation doesn't imply causation, of course, but causation requires correlation, so there's that.

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Various proxy studies seem to generally suggest that there was about 0.2-0.3 degrees of warming between 1700 and 1900 or so. Anthropogenic climate forcing was tiny for most of that period, perhaps 0.05W/m^2 effective radiative forcing by 1860. (That compares with ~0.3 by 1900, ~0.8 by 1970 and ~2.3 by 2011; so some two thirds of all human impact on the climate has been initiated in the past fifty years or so.)

AR5 WG1 Figure 5.7 - summary of proxy studies


Figure 8.18 - summary of radiative forcing estimates (posted earlier)


1700 was about the time the Maunder Minimum ended. If increasing solar activity was responsible for most or all of the 18th and 19th century warming, it could likewise have been responsible for up to half of the early 20th century warming:



But there's other factors in play too of course. While their net contributions over the long term is negligable, on a decadal scale cycles such as the PDO and AMO may have constructively contributed both to warming (c. 1920 to 1940s), cooling (to 1970 or so) and warming again (to 1990 or so) in the 20th century. And on an annual scale there's certainly a strong correlation between global temperatures and the AMO in particular, though I don't know which is the cause and which is the effect (or they're both both!).
Wood for Trees graph



It's interesting that only about 80% of climate experts even agree with the statement that half or more of the warming the past fifty years was caused by humans: The slight question around that statement doesn't mean that human activities are not contributing a great deal to climate change, rather that A) there's a lot of natural stuff going on too and B) only a fraction of our impacts have so far been realised (eg. Hansen et al 2004 suggest that only about 60% of the total climate response is likely to occur in the first 25-50 years).

Lord of Planar said:

I'm curious. Where did you read about the decreasing surface insolation? Quote please. I didn't see it.

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I quoted it earlier (and as I've noted, aerosol cooling several times larger than the 1990s aerosol warming agrees with the IPCC, even if the estimates differ in magnitude):

Mithrae said:

Pinker, Zhang and Dutton, 2005
"An early report on this topic based on surface observations made primarily in Europe (4) suggested that S declined by more than 10% from 1960 to 1990. On the basis of the analysis of a more comprehensive observational database, it was shown that over land, S decreased on the average by 0.23% (1) and 0.32% (2) per year from 1958 to 1992."

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0.23% to 0.32% per year over 34 years, against ~163W/m^2 total surface insolation, is ~12-17W/m^2.

Lord of Planar said:

As for the rest, since when do warmers care about error ranges?

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When they're useful for our nefarious agenda! :2wave:

Mithrae said:

I quoted it earlier (and as I've noted, aerosol cooling several times larger than the 1990s aerosol warming agrees with the IPCC, even if the estimates differ in magnitude):


0.23% to 0.32% per year over 34 years, against ~163W/m^2 total surface insolation, is ~12-17W/m^2.



When they're useful for our nefarious agenda! :2wave:

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Back to cherry picking a region.

I was thinking global.

Lord of Planar said:

Back to cherry picking a region.

I was thinking global.

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You weren't thinking :roll:

Mithrae said:

Land covers 30% of the Earth's surface across all latitudes and longitudes - hardly "regional." And as I quoted above (and as you originally posted) the 1983-2002 global data derived from satellite measurement shows the same thing; a trend of decreasing surface insolation up until 1992 or so. Both are in clear agreement with the IPCC trends (if not the scale; measurement error margins bigger than the calculated changes and all, at least by that paper's approach).

But don't let that get in the way of your "undeniable fact" that this was somehow the cause of rapid warming since the 1970s.

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Russell797 said:

That's just wrong too. We must include all the years with all the variations. They are part of normal climate variation. The climate normal is the average of all the variation, not just the mean values. Normal extremes are part of climate too. In a warming climate both La Nina and El Nino conditions warm over time along with the mean.

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And waves have crests and troughs. which do we measure sea level from?
No it it clear that the El Nino events are part of a complex interference of several cyclic patterns, we just do not know
all the contributors.

Climate News / ENSO
Chinese Scientists Claim: Peak Solar Activity Drove 2015/16 El Niño

Chinese Academy of Science physicists find link between solar peaks and strong El Niños The Impact of Solar Activity on the 2015/16 El Niño Global Warming Policy Forum, 10 September 2016 Wen-Juan Huo and Zi-Niu Xiao, two physicists at the Chinese Academy of Science, have published new research today suggesting that the strong 2015/16 El…

Abstract
Recent SST and atmospheric circulation anomaly data suggest that the 2015/16 El Niño event is quickly decaying. Some researchers have predicted a forthcoming La Niña event in late summer or early fall 2016. From the perspective of the modulation of tropical SST by solar activity, the authors studied the evolution of the 2015/16 El Niño event, which occurred right after the 2014 solar peak year. Based on statistical and composite analysis, a significant positive correlation was found between sunspot number index and El Niño Modoki index, with a lag of two years. A clear evolution of El Niño Modoki events was found within 1–3 years following each solar peak year during the past 126 years, suggesting that anomalously strong solar activity during solar peak periods favors the triggering of an El Niño Modoki event. The patterns of seasonal mean SST and wind anomalies since 2014 are more like a mixture of two types of El Niño (i.e., eastern Pacific El Niño and El Niño Modoki), which is similar to the pattern modulated by solar activity during the years following a solar peak. Therefore, the El Niño Modoki component in the 2015/16 El Niño event may be a consequence of solar activity, which probably will not decay as quickly as the eastern Pacific El Niño component. The positive SST anomaly will probably sustain in the central equatorial Pacific (around the dateline) and the northeastern Pacific along the coast of North America, with a low-intensity level, during the second half of 2016. […]

4. Conclusion
This study investigated the modulation of El Niño Modoki events by solar activity, and analyzed the possible impact of solar activity on the 2015/16 El Niño event. The 2015/16 El Niño event is more like a mixture of two types of El Niño; namely, EP El Niño and El Niño Modoki. The EMI has a clear decadal period, similar to the solar cycle, and demonstrates a significant positive correlation with sunspot numbers. Statistical analysis revealed that an El Niño Modoki event will most likely occur in the one to three years following a solar peak year. The solar cycle reached a peak in 2014—the 24th solar cycle since 1755. The evolution of the SST and wind anomalies are similar to the typical features found from historical data composites in peak years and the following one to three years after a solar peak. Therefore, the El Niño Modoki component of the 2015/16 El Niño event might also have resulted from high solar activity. Considering the impact of high solar activity, the El Niño Modoki component in the 2015/16 El Niño event may not decay as quickly as the EP El Niño event. It will likely sustain in the central Pacific, with a low-intensity level, in the second half of 2016.
Full paper

Leafsdude said:

Not significantly. It's not been since the early 1800s that warming of significant strength began. Intriguingly, that period coincides with early human industrial activity. Correlation doesn't imply causation, of course, but causation requires correlation, so there's that.



Of course there's been warmer periods. Are you so simplistic as to not understand that warming today is a problem because of rate and not because it's warmer than ever?



As per above, 160 years (actually closer to about 100 years, but whatever)) is within the period of human CO[sub]2[/sub] production. Hence that record showing a warming trend supports AGW.

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If the effect of CO2 produced in 1820 was anything at all we would be on fire by now. Clearly the effect of CO2 pre 1950 has to be insignificant for the warming between 1970 to 1998 to be attributable to CO2.

Basic numbers. Annual Report on the Promotion of Science and Technology 2000[Part1 Chapter1 (2)] See fig.3.

Tim the plumber said:

If the effect of CO2 produced in 1820 was anything at all we would be on fire by now. Clearly the effect of CO2 pre 1950 has to be insignificant for the warming between 1970 to 1998 to be attributable to CO2.

Basic numbers. Annual Report on the Promotion of Science and Technology 2000[Part1 Chapter1 (2)] See fig.3.

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Looks like they've been able to see the warming back to that time. This was published a couple weeks ago in Nature, which gives you an idea of how significant the research is (or maybe not, if you dont understand what it takes to get a paper into Nature itself).

Early onset of industrial-era warming across the oceans and continents : Nature : Nature Research


For a nice summary of the study for those with only a high school science education (you know who you are..) see here:

https://www.apnews.com/c557f1dceb0e400184ead25ae3ac9a60

Relevant quote:

"the speed at which the climate responds to even a small change in greenhouse gases appears to be quite fast," said study lead author Nerilie Abram, a paleoclimate scientist at the Australian National University.

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Tim the plumber said:

If the effect of CO2 produced in 1820 was anything at all we would be on fire by now. Clearly the effect of CO2 pre 1950 has to be insignificant for the warming between 1970 to 1998 to be attributable to CO2.

Basic numbers. Annual Report on the Promotion of Science and Technology 2000[Part1 Chapter1 (2)] See fig.3.

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What a ridiculous statement the bolded is. Humans have increase CO2 by a little over 40% since 1750 or so. The greatest part of that during the 20th century, but it all adds up from the beginning of the industrial revolution.

I thought it would be interesting to see what the maximum possible contribution from CO2 could be during the El Nino spikes.
We are told by the IPCC that the ECS for doubling the CO2 level will be between 1.5 and 4.5 C.
So by applying the highest amount the IPCC says is possible, we can get some idea of the differences between
El Nino warming and AGW.
There was a big El Nino in 1998, and the highest annual delta in that cycle was
between Feb 1997 and Feb 1998 at .52 C.
CO2 between those times moved from 364.09 to 365.98
ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt
6.49 * ln(365.98/364.09)= .0336 C (this being the maximum amount of warming if the full ECS of 4.5 C were applied)
Since the El Nino warming was more than 15 times greater than the maximum possible AGW warming
from CO2, perhaps it is safe to say AGW is not a big factor in El Nino warming.
Well wait a minuet, maybe that was an outlier year?
2016, another big El Nino with .45 C of warming between Feb 2015 and Feb 2016.
CO2 increased from 400.28 to 404.04
6.49* ln(404.04/400.28)=.0606C
That's a little closer,the El Nino signal is only 7.4 times greater than the maximum
possible AGW warming.
Warming from El Nino's is so many times greater than the maximum possible warming
from even the upper limit of CO2's ECS, that is saturates any possible signal.
Any anthropological warming that did occur, could only be observed after the El Nino cycle completed.

longview said:

I thought it would be interesting to see what the maximum possible contribution from CO2 could be during the El Nino spikes.
We are told by the IPCC that the ECS for doubling the CO2 level will be between 1.5 and 4.5 C.
So by applying the highest amount the IPCC says is possible, we can get some idea of the differences between
El Nino warming and AGW.
There was a big El Nino in 1998, and the highest annual delta in that cycle was
between Feb 1997 and Feb 1998 at .52 C.
CO2 between those times moved from 364.09 to 365.98
ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt
6.49 * ln(365.98/364.09)= .0336 C (this being the maximum amount of warming if the full ECS of 4.5 C were applied)
Since the El Nino warming was more than 15 times greater than the maximum possible AGW warming
from CO2, perhaps it is safe to say AGW is not a big factor in El Nino warming.
Well wait a minuet, maybe that was an outlier year?
2016, another big El Nino with .45 C of warming between Feb 2015 and Feb 2016.
CO2 increased from 400.28 to 404.04
6.49* ln(404.04/400.28)=.0606C
That's a little closer,the El Nino signal is only 7.4 times greater than the maximum
possible AGW warming.
Warming from El Nino's is so many times greater than the maximum possible warming
from even the upper limit of CO2's ECS, that is saturates any possible signal.
Any anthropological warming that did occur, could only be observed after the El Nino cycle completed.

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This is hilarious.


I think you should be a WUWT 'guest writer'.

They'd love it over there!

Threegoofs said:

This is hilarious.


I think you should be a WUWT 'guest writer'.

They'd love it over there!

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Well the thread is about how much the El Nino's affect global temperatures,
why should we not evaluate the limits of the equation.
I did the upper limit, you do the lower limit, oh wait it will only look worse,
for the alarmist position.

Russell797 said:

What a ridiculous statement the bolded is. Humans have increase CO2 by a little over 40% since 1750 or so. The greatest part of that during the 20th century, but it all adds up from the beginning of the industrial revolution.

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From measurements at the Law Dome, CO2 concentrations have naturally varied between 271 and 285ppm over the past thousand years, and as rapidly as 10ppm in thirty years on at least one occasion (281 in 1580 to 271 in 1610). They'd been on a generally increasing trend since that low point, long before industrialisation, and even into the mid 19th century there were fluctuations - for example decreasing from 284 in 1810 to 283 in 1820, or from 286.8 in 1849 to 286.1 in 1864 - which would make it difficult to assert clear anthropogenic determination even of the CO2 levels at that stage... let alone any noticeable climate impacts from it!

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/law/law2006.txt

Mithrae said:

From measurements at the Law Dome, CO2 concentrations have naturally varied between 271 and 285ppm over the past thousand years, and as rapidly as 10ppm in thirty years on at least one occasion (281 in 1580 to 271 in 1610). They'd been on a generally increasing trend since that low point, long before industrialisation, and even into the mid 19th century there were fluctuations - for example decreasing from 284 in 1810 to 283 in 1820, or from 286.8 in 1849 to 286.1 in 1864 - which would make it difficult to assert clear anthropogenic determination even of the CO2 levels at that stage... let alone any noticeable climate impacts from it!

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/law/law2006.txt

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Nearly all the 40% increase since 1750 is anthropogenic. We know this from the changing isotopic signiture between 12C/13C ratio.

longview said:

I thought it would be interesting to see what the maximum possible contribution from CO2 could be during the El Nino spikes.
We are told by the IPCC that the ECS for doubling the CO2 level will be between 1.5 and 4.5 C.
So by applying the highest amount the IPCC says is possible, we can get some idea of the differences between
El Nino warming and AGW.
There was a big El Nino in 1998, and the highest annual delta in that cycle was
between Feb 1997 and Feb 1998 at .52 C.
CO2 between those times moved from 364.09 to 365.98
ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt
6.49 * ln(365.98/364.09)= .0336 C (this being the maximum amount of warming if the full ECS of 4.5 C were applied)
Since the El Nino warming was more than 15 times greater than the maximum possible AGW warming
from CO2, perhaps it is safe to say AGW is not a big factor in El Nino warming.
Well wait a minuet, maybe that was an outlier year?
2016, another big El Nino with .45 C of warming between Feb 2015 and Feb 2016.
CO2 increased from 400.28 to 404.04
6.49* ln(404.04/400.28)=.0606C
That's a little closer,the El Nino signal is only 7.4 times greater than the maximum
possible AGW warming.
Warming from El Nino's is so many times greater than the maximum possible warming
from even the upper limit of CO2's ECS, that is saturates any possible signal.
Any anthropological warming that did occur, could only be observed after the El Nino cycle completed.

Click to expand...

Again, assess the mean, the long term running average, not the peaks and vallies. The ENSO magnitude of variation is much greater than the long term running mean as you have shown. The mean value represents the more linear slope produced by ongoing AGW.

Russell797 said:

Again, assess the mean, the long term running average, not the peaks and vallies. The ENSO magnitude of variation is much greater than the long term running mean as you have shown. The mean value represents the more linear slope produced by ongoing AGW.

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I am pointing out that the short term spikes of the El Nino events are of such a greater magnitude, that they disrupt
the annual averages. In addition the quick rate of increase and decrease is much too rapid to be related to CO2.

longview said:

I am pointing out that the short term spikes of the El Nino events are of such a greater magnitude, that they disrupt
the annual averages. In addition the quick rate of increase and decrease is much too rapid to be related to CO2.

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ENSO is not related to AGW. It's a normal climate fluctuation caused by the varying strength of the prevailing easterlies and the associated areas of atmospheric high pressure. The average is not disrupted because the net value for ENSO is zero. No heat is added or subtracted from the oceans long term due to ENSO.