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Monday, September 28, 2009

Preliminary September 2009 SST Anomalies

I’ve moved to WordPress.  This post can now be found at Preliminary September 2009 SST Anomalies
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The “official” September 2009 OI.v2 SST anomaly data will not be published online until October 5, 2009. These are the preliminary results NOMADS presented today by NOMADS for September 2009.

NINO3.4 SST anomalies remain in the 0.8 to 0.9 deg C range where they have lingered for the past few months. Northern and Southern Hemisphere and Global SST anomalies have all dropped approximately 0.03 deg C.
http://i36.tinypic.com/2jbmfq8.png
Preliminary NINO3.4 SST Anomalies Through September 2009
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http://i36.tinypic.com/33n9l3l.png
Preliminary Global SST Anomalies Through September 2009
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http://i37.tinypic.com/24lv85h.png
Preliminary Southern Hemisphere Anomalies Through September 2009
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http://i33.tinypic.com/w7lnc4.png
Preliminary Northern Hemisphere Anomalies Through September 2009
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http://i35.tinypic.com/2zrqb8h.png
Map of Preliminary September 2009 Global SST Anomalies

SOURCE

OI.v2 SST data is available through the NOAA NOMADS website:
http://nomad3.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh?lite

7 comments:

John said...

Hi Bob -

Sorry for yet another question. When do you think we will know for sure that the AMO has entered its cooling phase? I read in a prior post that you believed it entered it in 2004 - has anyone confirmed that?

I've read your posts regarding removing the north atlantic and volcanic aerosols with interest. Just curious if/when the effects will be more apparent. The northern hemisphere anomalies really seem to dominate the current maps.

Bob Tisdale said...

John: I don't believe I've written that the AMO has reached its cool phase. Generally, that refers to a the period when the AMO values are negative. It recently dipped into the negatives during the 2008/09 La Nina, but came right back up again. Climatologists and meteorologists consider the phases due to the general impacts on weather.

What I believe I've written is that the AMO appears to have reached its peak, and that it appears to have peaked in 2004 or 2005. This means that the North Atlantic SST anomalies are no longer rising faster than their linear trend and should no longer be contributing to a rise in global temperature.

The AMO values could cycle up again or they could continue down, but they do appear to have peaked for the short term.

John said...

Bon -

Another off topic question.

In the paper recently mentioned in the comments, COMPO and SARDESHMUKH (2008), it states that 40% of the temp rise is due to ENSO (I know you disagree with the % amount).

That flies in the face of all current climate models, correct? Even if the percentage attributed is not the same as your views? All models assume ENSO's contribution has been flat over that time period, correct?

Bob Tisdale said...

John: First, thanks and I’ve asked the website about the problem. As soon as I hear something, I’ll let you know.

You asked regarding the percentage of the global warming that Compo and Sardeshmukh attribute to ENSO, “That flies in the face of all current climate models, correct? Even if the percentage attributed is not the same as your views? All models assume ENSO's contribution has been flat over that time period, correct?”

I cannot speak for all models. There may be some recent revisions to models that allow them to better model the aftereffects of ENSO. I will quote from Compo and Sardeshmukh (2008). The wrote in 2008, starting on page 3, “Ideally, one would use ocean-atmosphere coupled climate models to estimate this background. Unfortunately, many current models have substantial errors in representing tropical variability associated with ENSO (e.g., Newman et al. 2009, Zhang and McPhaden 2006, Joseph and Nigam 2006). The dominant tropical Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) pattern of sea surface temperature (SST) found in the models deviates substantially from that found in observations (Zhang and McPhaden 2006). There are also statistically significant inconsistencies between the frequency power spectra of the amplitude of the dominant EOF pattern obtained from the model simulations with that obtained from observations (Newman et al. 2009). This compromises estimations of the ENSO-related component of "natural climate variability" from the model simulations, leaving one to rely on some analysis of the observed climate record itself for this purpose.”

Compo and Sardeshmukh (2008) also make the following observation, “The index time series is sometimes also band-pass filtered as an initial processing step. One immediate difficulty with using such single index definitions of ENSO is that no ENSO-unrelated variations can occur in that index. If one uses the Niño-3.4 SST index, for example, then no ‘global warming’ signal can ever occur in the Niño-3.4 region, by definition. This is also clearly unsatisfactory, given climate model predictions of a significant change in this region in response to greenhouse gas increases (e.g. Meehl et al. 2007).”

But what they fail to note (but mention elsewhere) is that while climate models predict significant changes in this region, including significant rises in linear trend in the NINO3.4 region, the linear trend of NINO3.4 SST anomalies has been flat (slightly negative) since 1900.
http://i33.tinypic.com/bhccr4.png
Looking at the trend since 1950, it is positive:
http://i35.tinypic.com/2i6cuqd.png
However, if we look at the trend since 1975, it is negative:
http://i38.tinypic.com/seq3c2.png
And even more negative since 1979 (the last “30 years”):
http://i35.tinypic.com/2dh9xm0.png

Peter Taylor said...

Bob,

I much appreciate your work and insights,though I haven't had time to follow as much as I would have liked, so please excuse this simple question if you have already addressed it.

The decadal average SST (global) from 1999-2009, appears well above the average for 1990-1999 - and the recent rise maintains a kind of 'plateau' - perhaps with a slight overall cooling.

Given that the albedo data shows a global increase in cloud and hence lowering of short-wave input since around 2001, where do you think this surface warmth is coming from? Is it the effects of the previous large ENSO events working their way through the oceans? The plateau over the last decade in the ENSO region certainly looks anomalous in its pattern - any thoughts on that?

Bob Tisdale said...

Peter Taylor: You wrote, "Given that the albedo data shows a global increase in cloud and hence lowering of short-wave input since around 2001..."

Your statement surprised me. ICOADS Ocean Cloud Cover data...
http://i38.tinypic.com/143nacm.png
...and NOAA CAMS-OPI Global Precipitation data (as proxy for global cloud cover)...
http://i35.tinypic.com/2ly3kn8.png
…do not show an increase in cloud cover since 2001.

John said...

Unless I am misreading his data, I believe this latest graph from Dr. Spencer also shows SW input increasing, not decreasing, due t less reflected sunlight. It's more interesting that warmth hasn't increased with the energy input.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Terra-CERES-SW.jpg

The full post is at:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/09/the-2007-2008-global-cooling-event-evidence-for-clouds-as-the-cause/

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