I’ve moved to WordPress: http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Memo To Big Oil

I’ve moved to WordPress.  This post can now be found at Memo To Big Oil
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Dear Big Oil:

It has come to my attention that I am in your pocket. Refer to the following screen capture from the NewsBusters.org blog.
http://i45.tinypic.com/2lniu08.png
Proof Of Bob Tisdale Being In The Pocket Of Big Oil

Link to thread:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/2009/12/15/weak-keith-olbermann-jon-stewart-attack-inhofes-climate-skepticism

Note that being in the pocket of Big Oil implies that I am receiving payment from you for my “flat earther” blog posts. Unfortunately, I, as of this writing, have received no Big Oil moneys. I assume this is simply an oversight or a minor accounting error on your part, Big Oil.

Since you’ve sent my payments to another Bob Tisdale or have apparently missed my Paypal donations link, Big Oil, I’d like to point out that the said PayPal link is at the bottom of this webpage.

Any and all donations, Big Oil, would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,


Bob Tisdale

North Pacific Ocean Heat Content Shift In The Late 1980s

I’ve moved to WordPress.  This post can now be found at North Pacific Ocean Heat Content Shift In The Late 1980s
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The Ocean Heat Content (OHC) anomalies (0-700 meters) of the mid-to-high latitudes of the North Pacific Ocean shifted significantly in the late 1980s. The shift is visible in a graph of North Pacific OHC anomaly data from January 1955 to June 2009, Figure 1. The graph compares North Pacific OHC (24N-65N, 120E-110W) to arbitrarily scaled NINO3.4 SST anomalies and Sato Stratospheric Mean Optical Thickness data, with the latter datasets provided for the timing of ENSO events and explosive volcanic eruptions. Following an initial increase in the late 1950s, the North Pacific OHC data dropped for almost three decades, until the late 1980s. Then the North Pacific OHC anomalies rose significantly, with the majority occurring during the 1988/89 La Nina. Is the timing with the recharge and redistribution phase of that ENSO event a coincidence, or are the decadal changes in North Pacific OHC in synch with another variable?

http://i48.tinypic.com/731mb7.png
Figure 1

Figure 2 is a series of annual OHC anomaly maps from 1986 to 1991. It is clear that the shift in North Pacific OHC occurred east of Japan, in the western and central mid latitudes, an area known as the Kuroshio Extension.
http://i45.tinypic.com/11sgyae.png
Figure 2

KUROSHIO EXTENSION OHC DATA
Figure 3 shows the region of the Northwest Pacific that I’ve used for Kuroshio Extension data in the remainder of the graphs. The coordinates are 30N-45N, 150E-160W.
http://i49.tinypic.com/1676m3n.png
Figure 3

The OHC (0-700 meters) of the Kuroshio Extension is compared to that of the North Pacific in Figure 4. It is clear that the variability of the Kuroshio Extension OHC has a major impact on the OHC of the North Pacific.
http://i45.tinypic.com/8x7x2g.png
Figure 4

Figure 5 is a comparison graph of Kuroshio Extension OHC to arbitrarily scaled NINO3.4 SST anomalies and Sato Stratospheric Mean Optical Thickness data, again with the latter datasets provided for the timing of ENSO events and explosive volcanic eruptions. ENSO does not appear to be the primary driver of Kuroshio Extension OHC.
http://i49.tinypic.com/34pky94.png
Figure 5

THE NORTH PACIFIC INDEX EXHIBITS SIMILAR VARIATIONS

As defined by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) Climate & Global Dynamics (CGD) webpage…
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/jhurrell/npindex.html
…the North Pacific (NP) Index is “the area-weighted sea level pressure over the region 30N-65N, 160E-140W, available since 1899.” It also exhibits variations that are similar to those of the Kuroshio Extension OHC. Figure 6 shows the North Pacific Index data smoothed with a 37-month running-average filter.
http://i49.tinypic.com/2i9tg5k.png
Figure 6

Comparing the scaled North Pacific Index data with the OHC for the Kuroshio Extension, Figure 7, illustrates the agreement between the two datasets.
http://i47.tinypic.com/29uvpe9.png
Figure 7

As discussed in my post North Atlantic Ocean Heat Content (0-700 Meters) Is Governed By Natural Variables, Lozier et al (2008) “The Spatial Pattern and Mechanisms of Heat-Content Change in the North Atlantic” identified the North Atlantic Oscillation as the driver of decadal North Atlantic OHC variability. Link to Lozier et al (2008):
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/319/5864/800?rss=1

Could the sea level pressure of the North Pacific also be the primary driver of decadal North Pacific OHC variability?

CLOSING COMMENT

If anthropogenic greenhouse gases had a noticeable impact on the OHC of the North Pacific, one would expect of a gradual rise in OHC. To the contrary, North Pacific OHC data declines from the late 1950s until the late 1980s. There was then a sharp rise from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, appearing to be strongly influenced by the North Pacific Index, followed by a decade-long decline until the early 2000s.

SOURCES
The NODC OHC data and the HADISST data used for NINO3.4 SST anomalies are available through the KNMI Climate Explorer:http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere

Monthly North Pacific Index data from January 1899 to July 2009 is available through the UCAR CGD webpage:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/jhurrell/indices.data.html#npmon

Sato Index data is available through GISS:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/strataer/
Specifically:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/strataer/tau_line.txt

Monday, December 28, 2009

NINO3.4 SST Anomalies Are Approaching 2 Deg C

I’ve moved to WordPress.  This post can now be found at NINO3.4 SST Anomalies Are Approaching 2 Deg C
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While the 2009/10 El Nino is still far from “Super El Nino” strength, NINO3.4 SST anomalies (OI.v2) for the week centered on December 23, 2009 have reached 1.94 deg C.
http://i50.tinypic.com/157byuf.png
Weekly NINO3.4 SST Anomalies

The increase is also visible in a .gif animation of the global SST anomalies for the last 4 weeks.
http://i46.tinypic.com/b7cn75.gif
Global SST Anomaly Animation

Referring to the NOAA Equatorial Pacific Temperature Depth Anomaly Animation webpage…
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/wkxzteq.shtml
…more warm subsurface water may rise to the surface during this El Nino.
http://i50.tinypic.com/110y9ad.gif
NOAA Equatorial Pacific Cross-Section - Temperature Anomaly Animation

Preliminary monthly NINO3.4 SST anomalies for December 2009 show an increase of 0.14 deg C to 1.81 deg C.
http://i50.tinypic.com/j5a0lu.png
Preliminary December 2009 NINO3.4 SST Anomalies

And the preliminary global SST anomalies for December 2009 are showing an increase of 0.03 deg C to 0.29 deg C.
http://i49.tinypic.com/2cct3zo.png
Preliminary December 2009 Global SST Anomalies

The preliminary monthly SST Anomalies are presented by the NOAA NOMADS webpage, but they will be updated over the next few weeks and will be finalized on January 11, 2010, according to the OI.v2 FAQ webpage:
http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/cmb/sst_analysis/FAQ.html

And for those wondering about the hotspot in the mid-to-high latitudes of central South Pacific, it is an area that is correlated with NINO3.4 SST anomalies. Refer to the following maps of time sequence of temperature anomaly correlations from Trenberth et al (2002) "Evolution of El Nino–Southern Oscillation and global atmospheric surface temperatures":http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/papers/2000JD000298.pdf

http://i47.tinypic.com/261e1lf.png
Trenberth et al (2002) Figure 8

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

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Happy Holidays

I’ve moved to WordPress.  This post can now be found at Happy Holidays
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Enjoy your holidays.

Regards

Bob Tisdale

Monday, December 21, 2009

Mid-December 2009 SST Anomaly Update

I’ve moved to WordPress.  This post can now be found at Mid-December 2009 SST Anomaly Update
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NINO3.4 SST anomalies, Figure 1, and Global SST anomalies, Figure 2, have both increased over the past few weeks. For the week centered on December 16th, NINO3.4 SST anomalies were 1.85 deg C.

http://i45.tinypic.com/ofbmhg.png
Figure 1 - NINO3.4 SST Anomalies

http://i45.tinypic.com/246ltua.png
Figure 2 - Global SST Anomalies

And for those interested in the global SST anomaly map for that week:

http://i48.tinypic.com/23hm5w3.png
Figure 3 - Global SST Anomaly Map

SOURCE

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

Friday, December 18, 2009

Climate Studies Misrepresent The Effects Of El Nino And La Nina Events

I’ve moved to WordPress.  This post can now be found at Climate Studies Misrepresent The Effects Of El Nino And La Nina Events
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INTRODUCTIONI posted my first YouTube video on the subject of The Lingering Effects of the 1997/98 El Nino about one year ago. Since then, many of my posts have dealt with the multiyear aftereffects of strong El Nino events (and the subsequent La Nina events), and about the dominant impacts of those ENSO events on the gradual increase in global temperature record since 1975. Anthony Watts of the popular science blog WattsUpWithThat has graciously co-posted many of them, and through those posts, I have reached a much larger audience. With hope of reaching an even broader group of persons interested in Global Warming, I have produced two more videos that now appear on YouTube. The videos titled Climate Studies Misrepresent The Effects Of El Nino And La Nina Events, Parts 1 and 2, start with a reference to the ClimateGate emails. That email was written by Phil Jones of the CRU and refers to one of my guest posts at WattUpWithThat. I’ve tagged the new videos with ClimateGate and Climate-Gate with hope of attracting viewers interested in the CRU emails--to illustrate that climate studies misrepresent the effects of El Nino events, and by doing so, the authors of those papers overestimate the impacts of anthropogenic greenhouse gases.

NEW VIDEOS

Climate Studies Misrepresent The Effects Of El Nino And La Nina Events
Part 1


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tepm1w-og40
YouTubeLink
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Climate Studies Misrepresent The Effects Of El Nino And La Nina Events
Part 2



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BAp_gp32CM
YouTubeLink

LINKS TO FURTHER DISCUSSIONS
The post referenced in the ClimateGate email is:
Thompson et al (2009) - High-Tech Wiggle Matching Helps Illustrate El Nino-Induced Step Changes”.
The co-post at WattsUpWithThat is here:
A look at the Thompson et al paper – hi tech wiggle matching and removal of natural variables

The first detailed posts on the multiyear aftereffects of El Nino events are:
Can El Nino Events Explain All of the Global Warming Since 1976? – Part 1
And:Can El Nino Events Explain All of the Global Warming Since 1976? – Part 2
And:
Supplement To “Can El Nino Events Explain All Of The Warming Since 1976?”
And:
Supplement 2 To “Can El Nino Events Explain All Of The Warming Since 1976?”


The impacts of these El Nino events on the North Atlantic are discussed in:
There Are Also El Nino-Induced Step Changes In The North Atlantic
And:
Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation Data


The Lower Troposphere Temperature (TLT) anomaly responses are discussed in:
RSS MSU TLT Time-Latitude Plots... Show Climate Responses That Cannot Be Easily Illustrated With Time-Series Graphs Alone
And:
El Ninos Create Step Changes in TLT of the Northern Hemisphere Mid Latitudes

In addition to the “Wiggle Matching” post, the misrepresentation of ENSO in climate studies are discussed in the following (The discussions are similar but there are differences in the presentation):
The Relationship Between ENSO And Global Surface Temperature Is Not Linear
And:Multiple Wrongs Don’t Make A Right, Especially When It Comes To Determining The Impacts Of ENSO
And:Regression Analyses Do Not Capture The Multiyear Aftereffects Of Significant El Nino Events.”

The posts related to the effects of ENSO on Ocean Heat Content are here:
ENSO Dominates NODC Ocean Heat Content (0-700 Meters) Data
And:
North Atlantic Ocean Heat Content (0-700 Meters) Is Governed By Natural Variables

More detailed technical discussions can be found here:
More Detail On The Multiyear Aftereffects Of ENSO – Part 1 – El Nino Events Warm The Oceans
And:
More Detail On The Multiyear Aftereffects Of ENSO - Part 2 – La Nina Events Recharge The Heat Released By El Nino Events AND...During Major Traditional ENSO Events, Warm Water Is Redistributed Via Ocean Currents.
And:
More Detail On The Multiyear Aftereffects Of ENSO - Part 3 – East Indian & West Pacific Oceans Can Warm In Response To Both El Nino & La Nina Events

WATTS UPWITHTHAT VERSIONS

Many of the above posts have been co-posted at WattsUpWithThat. I’ve also provided links to them for those interested in reviewing the comments.

Can El Nino Events Explain All of the Global Warming Since 1976? – Part 1
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Can El Nino Events Explain All of the Global Warming Since 1976? – Part 2
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Multiple Wrongs Don’t Make A Right on ENSO Impacts

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Why regression analysis fails to capture the aftereffects of El Nino events
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ENSO Dominates NODC Ocean Heat Content Data

Thursday, December 17, 2009

A Look At The Individual Proxies Used In Kaufman et al (2009)

I’ve moved to WordPress.  This post can now be found at A Look At The Individual Proxies Used In Kaufman et al (2009)
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On its publication in September 2009, Kaufman et al (2009) “Recent Warming Reverses Long-Term Arctic Cooling” made its rounds in blogs.

The abstract reads, “The temperature history of the first millennium C.E. is sparsely documented, especially in the Arctic. We present a synthesis of decadally resolved proxy temperature records from poleward of 60°N covering the past 2000 years, which indicates that a pervasive cooling in progress 2000 years ago continued through the Middle Ages and into the Little Ice Age. A 2000-year transient climate simulation with the Community Climate System Model shows the same temperature sensitivity to changes in insolation as does our proxy reconstruction, supporting the inference that this long-term trend was caused by the steady orbitally driven reduction in summer insolation. The cooling trend was reversed during the 20th century, with four of the five warmest decades of our 2000-year-long reconstruction occurring between 1950 and 2000.”

A BBC News article “Arctic 'warmest in 2,000 years'”…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8236797.stm
…included the following graph:

http://i45.tinypic.com/2dcahd3.gif
Kaufman et al Graph In BBC Article

KAUFMAN et al PROXY DATA IS AVAILABLE FROM THE NOAA PALEOCLIMATOLOGY PROGRAM

NOAA Paleoclimatology Program includes a webpage for Kaufman et al (2009):
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/kaufman2009/kaufman2009.html

Toward the bottom of the page is a link to a spreadsheet that includes the standardized data of the 23 individual proxies included in Kaufman et al (2009):
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/reconstructions/arctic/kaufman2009arctic.xls

The last column (Column Y) in the spreadsheet is the average of the standardized proxies, which I’ve plotted below. Though the scales are obviously different, the curves of the BBC graph and the Average of the Standardized Proxies are similar in shape, a few minor differences, but they are similar.
http://i50.tinypic.com/2ptdpuv.png
Average Of Kaufman et al Standardized Proxies
The differences may reflect the October 2009 corrections made to 7 of the 23 proxies by Kaufman et al (noted in the spreadsheet). They included:
"October 2009 Update
"Record 2 was revised using the correct time scale of McKay et al. (S16)
"Record 12 was revised to omit the high-pass filter used by Andersen et al. (S25)
"Record 20 was corrected to reflect the interpretation of Tijander et al. (S32) that X-ray density is related inversely to temperature
"Record 21 was corrected to reflect the interpretation of Haltia-Hovi et al. (S33) that varve thickness is related inversely to temperature
"Records 3 and 10 were revised to correct rounding errors
"Record 19 was truncated at 1799 to exclude the 1805 bin, which was based on only one year (1800)"

In some respects, a spaghetti graph of the 23 proxies shows the same basic curve, but at least one of the proxies had higher values 2000 years ago and others appear to be dropping, not rising, in recent years.
http://i49.tinypic.com/4h9u6x.png
Spaghetti Graph Of Kaufman et al Standardized Proxies

That prompted me to plot the individual proxies to see what they revealed.

GRAPHS OF INDIVIDUAL PROXIES

The following are graphs of the 23 proxies used in Kaufman et al. There is a classic hockey stick, Proxy 22, which is a graph of the Briffa et al Yamal tree ring data. There’s also a reverse hockey stick, Proxy 12, which is the Andersen et al DYE3 South Greenland Ice Isotope data, where the upward blade is in the first few decades; then the curve remains relatively flat for the remainder of the term. Some of the datasets illustrate warmer temperatures in recent decades, Proxies 9 and 23. There are others that are relatively flat but there are many others that show warmer temperatures in centuries past. The graphs of the individual proxies follow, without commentary. The titles include the location, proxy type, author(s), and years covered.
http://i46.tinypic.com/120m4pe.png
Proxy 1
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http://i49.tinypic.com/o7vs51.png
Proxy 2
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http://i47.tinypic.com/1h6n9c.png
Proxy 3
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http://i50.tinypic.com/jtthtc.png
Proxy 4
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http://i47.tinypic.com/jpeura.png
Proxy 5
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http://i46.tinypic.com/35nbr85.png
Proxy 6
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http://i48.tinypic.com/aff40k.png
Proxy 7
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http://i48.tinypic.com/1pxb4p.png
Proxy 8
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http://i48.tinypic.com/2nki4g7.png
Proxy 9
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http://i48.tinypic.com/21kz8ye.png
Proxy 10
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http://i45.tinypic.com/2usfjp4.png
Proxy 11
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http://i48.tinypic.com/mx259k.png
Proxy 12
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http://i45.tinypic.com/2d77eih.png
Proxy 13
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http://i50.tinypic.com/34gn888.png
Proxy 14
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http://i50.tinypic.com/2qlgylx.png
Proxy 15
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http://i48.tinypic.com/eia1hj.png
Proxy 16
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http://i50.tinypic.com/xc3ipg.png
Proxy 17
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http://i48.tinypic.com/2mhv2xg.png
Proxy 18
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http://i47.tinypic.com/21kw4r8.png
Proxy 19
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http://i49.tinypic.com/24yn7nt.png
Proxy 20
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http://i45.tinypic.com/2eqevb8.png
Proxy 21
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http://i50.tinypic.com/2daej3b.png
Proxy 22
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http://i45.tinypic.com/2cnvbcy.png
Proxy 23

CLOSING
Viewed individually, the proxies do not necessarily illustrate “that a pervasive cooling in progress 2000 years ago continued through the Middle Ages and into the Little Ice Age,” or that the “cooling trend was reversed during the 20th century, with four of the five warmest decades of our 2000-year-long reconstruction occurring between 1950 and 2000.” Many of the proxies illustrate past temperatures rivaling or exceeding current temperatures and indicate long-term variability, not a long-term decline or pervasive cooling.
UPDATE 12-17-09: I modified the closing sentence with the addition of ...and indicate long-term variability, not a long-term decline or pervasive cooling.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation Index Reconstruction

I’ve moved to WordPress.  This post can now be found at Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation Index Reconstruction
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INTRODUCTION

The Climate Reconstruction webpage…
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/recons.html
of the NOAA Paleoclimatology Program and World Data Center for Paleoclimatology, Boulder contains a number of multi-century SST anomaly reconstructions. Though I posted the AMO reconstruction dataset in an earlier thread, SST Reconstructions, I thought it deserved an individual post. So what I’ve done in the following is presented the write-up provided by NOAA, with graphs trailing.

A link to the paper:
http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/files/norock/products/GCC/GeophysResLetters_Gray_04.pdf

NOTE

Keep in mind that the AMO Reconstruction data presented at the end of this post is not the same as the AMO presented by the NOAA ESRL. The NOAA ESRL AMO data is detrended North Atlantic SST data. The long-term reconstruction of the AMO has not been detrended. It is “the 10-yr moving average of annual SSTA values. Values are reported as standard deviations.”

NOAA WRITE-UP
Link:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/treering/reconstructions/amo-gray2004.txt

NAME OF DATA SET: Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) Index Reconstruction

LAST UPDATE: 10/2004 (Original Receipt by WDC Paleo)

CONTRIBUTORS: Stephen Gray and Julio Betancourt, USGS Desert Laboratory; Lisa Graumlich and Greg Pederson, Big Sky Institute, Montana State University.

IGBP PAGES/WDCA CONTRIBUTION SERIES NUMBER: 2004-062

SUGGESTED DATA CITATION: Gray, S.T., et al.. 2004.Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) Index Reconstruction.IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology Data Contribution Series #2004-062. NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.

ORIGINAL REFERENCE: Gray, S.T., L.J. Graumlich, J.L. Betancourt, and G.T. Pederson. 2004.
A tree-ring based reconstruction of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation since 1567 A.D. Geophysical Research Letters, 31:L12205, doi:10.1029/2004GL019932.

ABSTRACT:

We present a tree-ring based reconstruction of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) which demonstrates that strong, low-frequency (60–100 yr) variability in basin-wide (0–70°N) sea surface temperatures (SSTs) has been a consistent feature of North Atlantic climate for the past five centuries. Intervention analysis of reconstructed AMO indicates that 20th century modes were similar to those in the preceding ~350 yr, and wavelet spectra show robust multidecadal oscillations throughout the reconstruction. Though the exact relationships between low-frequency SST modes, higher frequency (~7–25 yr) atmospheric modes (e.g., North Atlantic Oscillation/Arctic Oscillation), and terrestrial climates must still be resolved, our results confirm that the AMO should be considered in assessments of past and future Northern Hemisphere climates.

GEOGRAPHIC REGION: North Atlantic Ocean (0-70º N)

PERIOD OF RECORD: 1567-1990 AD

FUNDING SOURCES: National Science Foundation (USA), U.S. Geological Survey.

DESCRIPTION:

Reconstruction of North Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation index based on tree ring chronologies from eastern North America, western Europe, Scandinavia and the Middle East.

These data represent a tree-ring based reconstruction of annual sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) for the North Atlantic Ocean (0-70º) and a reconstruction of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) index derived from these SSTA values. The AMO is the leading mode of low frequency, North Atlantic SST variability. Over the instrumental period (1856-Present) the AMO exhibited a 65-80 yr cycle (0.4 º C range), with warm phases at roughly 1860-1880 and 1930-1960 and cool phases during 1905-1925 and 1970-1990. The AMO appears to have returned to a warm phase beginning in the mid 1990s.

The AMO has been linked to multi-year precipitation anomalies over North America, and appears to modulate the strength of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) teleconnections over large portions of the Northern Hemisphere. Multidecadal variability in the North Atlantic is also thought to play a role in Atlantic hurricane formation, rainfall over the Caribbean and northeastern Brazil, African drought frequency, and winter temperatures in Europe. Instrumental observations capture only two full cycles of the AMO, so a need exists for developing proxies to assess low-frequency North Atlantic SST variations and their climatic effects.

These SSTA and AMO reconstructions span the period from A.D. 1567 to 1990 and were developed using 12 tree-ring records from eastern North America, western Europe, Scandinavia, and the Middle East. We first reconstructed annual SSTA values for the North Atlantic and then smoothed this time series with a 10-yr moving average to produce the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation index. Correlations between the observed and reconstructed SSTA and AMO values were high (r = 0.64 and 0.81, respectively) and numerous tests confirmed that the model has significant skill in predicting SSTA values.

GRAPHS

http://i48.tinypic.com/241ml5g.png
North Atlantic SST Reconstruction
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http://i47.tinypic.com/ekkhuc.pngAMO Reconstruction “The AMO index is the 10-yr moving average of annual SSTA values. Values are reported as standard deviations”

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Met Office Prediction: “Climate could warm to record levels in 2010”

I’ve moved to WordPress.  This post can now be found at Met Office Prediction: “Climate could warm to record levels in 2010”
But They Fail To Tell You Why

The Met Office begins their December 10, 2009 press release…
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20091210b.html
…with, “A combination of man-made global warming and a moderate warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as El Niño, means it is very likely that 2010 will be a warmer year globally than 2009.” They continue, “The latest forecast from our climate scientists, shows the global temperature is forecast to be almost 0.6 °C above the 1961–90 long-term average. This means that it is more likely than not that 2010 will be the warmest year in the instrumental record, beating the previous record year which was 1998.”

Most people would assume the “man-made global warming” portion of the opening sentence refers to anthropogenic greenhouse gases. But in this instance I believe “man-made” means the bias in the instrument temperature record, the Hadley Centre’s HADCRUT3GL data, the Hadley Centre created when they spliced two SST datasets together in 1998.

A year ago today, in the post The Step Change in HADSST Data After the 1997/98 El Nino, I plotted the differences between HADSST2 SST anomaly data and the SST anomalies of the three NOAA/NCDC SST datasets: ERSST.v2, ERSST.v3b, and OI.v2 datasets. Refer to Figures 1 through 3 for updated graphs.
http://i49.tinypic.com/j090g1.png
Figure 1
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http://i49.tinypic.com/20qgmk5.png
Figure 2
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http://i47.tinypic.com/2gx2nwm.png
Figure 3

The HADSST2 data acquired this man-made shift in Global SST data when they changed source SST datasets from ICOADS to NCEP-GTS in 1998. A coincidence? The supplier writes:

“ICOADS Data
“The total period of record is currently 1784-May 2007 (Release 2.4), such that the observations and products are drawn from two separate archives (Project Status). ICOADS is supplemented by NCEP Real-time data (1991-date; limited products, NOT FULLY CONSISTENT WITH ICOADS).” [Emphasis added.]

Refer to:
http://icoads.noaa.gov/products.htmland:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadsst2/

Recently I also compared the global SST anomalies of HADSST2 and the other Hadley Centre’s SST dataset, HADISST, again plotting the difference between the two. Refer to Figure 4.
http://i45.tinypic.com/f3e5vo.png
Figure 4

If the Global HADCRUT data is in record territory in 2010, it is in large part the product of poor source dataset splicing of the HADSST2 portion of the HADCRUT data. The period bias in their SST data varies from 0.06 to 0.12 deg C, depending on the dataset one uses for comparison.

The other portion of the record is the product of the multiyear aftereffects of the 1997/98 El Nino that I’ve discussed in numerous posts. The most recent overview of this is included in Global Temperatures This Decade Will Be The Warmest On Record….

SOURCE

ERSST.v2, ERSST.v3b, OI.v2, HADISST, and HADSST2 data is available through the LNMI Climate Explorer:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere
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Tuesday, December 8, 2009

WMO Press Announcement Is Missing A Few Things

I’ve moved to WordPress.  This post can now be found at WMO Press Announcement Is Missing A Few Things
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The World Meteorological Organization Press Release Number 869 “2000-2009, The Warmest Decade” is missing a few things. Link:
http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_869_en.html

The text of the press release DOES NOT CONTAIN the words:

Anthropogenic, or

Greenhouse, or

Manmade, or

“Climate Change”.

My post “Global Temperatures This Decade Will Be The Warmest On Record…” discussed the reasons for the record decadal temperatures. I posted it approximately one month ago, in advance of the misinformation sure to be spread by the press and alarmist blogs.

More Detail On The Multiyear Aftereffects Of ENSO - Part 3 – East Indian & West Pacific Oceans Can Warm In Response To Both El Nino & La Nina Events

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INTRODUCTION

This is Part 3 of a multipart post. It addresses critical comments about my earlier posts that dealt with the multiyear aftereffects of major traditional El Nino events. Two specific major traditional El Nino events, those in 1986/87/88 and 1997/98, caused Sea Surface Temperatures (SST) of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans to remain at elevated levels during the subsequent La Nina events. These SST residuals, what I have called step changes in earlier posts for the sake of simplicity, bias global SST upward during the La Nina events and give the impression of a gradual increase, one that is erroneously attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gases.

Links to Parts 1 and 2:
More Detail On The Multiyear Aftereffects Of ENSO – Part 1 – El Nino Events Warm The Oceans

More Detail On The Multiyear Aftereffects Of ENSO - Part 2 – La Nina Events Recharge The Heat Released By El Nino Events AND...During Major Traditional ENSO Events, Warm Water Is Redistributed Via Ocean Currents.

Part 3 is a relatively short post in comparison to the first two in this series. It illustrates very simply that East Indian and West Pacific SST anomalies can rise during both phases of major traditional ENSO events. That is, it shows that the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans can warm in response to both an El Nino event and to the La Nina that follows it.

THE DIPOLE EFFECT

In Part 2 (More Detail On The Multiyear Aftereffects Of ENSO - Part 2 – La Nina Events Recharge The Heat Released By El Nino Events AND...) I discussed the processes that cause the East-West dipole effect between East Pacific SST anomalies and the SST anomalies of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans. A .gif animation, Figure 1, shows the SST anomalies for the SST anomalies for November 1997 (the peak of the 1997/98 El Nino) and for November 1998 (the peak of the 1998/99 La Nina) and shows the resulting El Nino-La Nina seesaw relationship of SST anomalies between those two regions.
http://i48.tinypic.com/xc6s0l.gif
Figure 1

EAST INDIAN AND WEST PACIFIC SST ANOMALIES WARM FIRST IN RESPONSE TO THE EL NINO

Part 1 (More Detail On The Multiyear Aftereffects Of ENSO – Part 1 – El Nino Events Warm The Oceans) discussed how the changes in atmospheric circulation in response to the El Nino travel from west to east, with the Atlantic Ocean SST anomalies peaking 4 to 5 months after the El Nino and the Indian Ocean SST anomalies lagging by 5 to 7 months. These changes in atmospheric circulation continue east and raise SST anomalies of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans. Refer to the 1986/87/88 and the 1997/98 El Nino events in Figure 2.
http://i46.tinypic.com/epks8.png
Figure 2

INVERTING NINO3.4 SST ANOMALIES ILLUSTRATES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LA NINA EVENTS AND EAST INDIAN AND WEST PACIFIC SST ANOMALIES

After the changes in atmospheric circulation begin to raise the SST anomalies of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans, the warm water that was released from below the surface of the Pacific Warm Pool returns to the surface of the East Indian and West Pacific Ocean, raising the SST anomalies there to higher levels. The SST anomalies of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans are then maintained by the La Nina. To illustrate this relationship, I’ve inverted NINO 3.4 SST anomalies and shifted them upwards by 0.2 deg C. Refer to Figure 3.
http://i48.tinypic.com/28bhgjk.png
Figure 3

CLOSING

Since both the El Nino and La Nina portions of major traditional El Nino events warm the SST anomalies of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans, their SST anomalies appear to rise in steps. Ocean currents then blend these natural increases in SST anomalies for the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans with the other oceans, raising the SST anomalies globally. The resulting increases in global SST anomalies are mistakenly attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gases.

SOURCE
SST Anomaly data and maps are available from the NOAA NOMADS webpage:
http://nomad3.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh?lite=

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