Mid-April 2009 NINO3.4 SST Anomaly and AMO Update

I’ve moved to WordPress.  This post can now be found at Mid-April 2009 NINO3.4 SST Anomaly and AMO Update

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CORRECTION: The AMO discussion in this post has been corrected to reflect the discussion in The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation - Correcting My Mistake.

NINO3.4 SST ANOMALY

NINO3.4 SST anomalies have risen over the past few weeks. They’re no longer near the threshold of a La Nina. The NINO3.4 SST anomaly for the week centered on Wednesday April 15, 2009 was -0.132 deg C.

http://i39.tinypic.com/t69w8i.jpg
Figure 1 - NINO3.4 SST Anomalies

Figure 2 is the map of weekly SST anomalies, centered on Wednesday April 15th. The Global SST anomalies for the week are approximately 0.17 deg C.

I’ve highlighted the location of the NINO3.4 region. I noted it’s the “approximate” location because I had to eyeball the 5S, 5N, and 170W coordinates. The 120W longitude was provided on the map.
http://i39.tinypic.com/6hujv6.jpg
Figure 2 - Global SST Anomaly Map

The Climate Prediction Center’s Pacific Subsurface Temperature Anomaly and Temperature animations are being updated again. They hadn’t been for a few weeks.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/wkxzteq.shtml

http://i42.tinypic.com/nwzy10.jpg
Figure 3 - Pacific Subsurface Temperature Anomaly

ATLANTIC MULTIDECADAL OSCILLATION

As noted in The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation - Correcting My Mistake, the AMO is detrended North Atlantic SST anomalies. The updated weekly OI.v2 data begins on January 3, 1990, so it does not seem appropriate to detrend it with only 19 years of data. Hence, this update illustrates the weekly North Atlantic SST anomalies, not the AMO.

North Atlantic SST anomalies (and, therefore, the AMO) appear to have ended their precipitous decline. Refer to Figure 4. But that recent drop was sizable. It will be interesting to see what unfolds in the months to come.
http://i40.tinypic.com/n4e2p1.jpg
Figure 4 – North Atlantic SST Anomalies

SOURCE

The OI.v2 SST anomaly data is available through NOAA’s NOMADS System:
http://nomad3.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh?lite