Southern Hemisphere Sst

[Android]

Over the last few weeks I have been watching as southern hemisphere SST anomolies have climbed. There are some quite intense areas, some coral bleaching warnings have been made. This is one to watch possibly.

http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/climo.html

[Gray-Wolf]

The continuing 'cold' anoms across the equatorial waters of the pacific seem to be 'squeezing' the +Ve anoms further north/south. Obviously there will be positive sea level heights associated with these bands of warm water and I imagine both sides reaching a point where they 'slosh' back into the central region over a very short period of time possibly promoting El-Nino conditions (even with a cool phase PDO.

Look at the waters in the Ross Sea and up the 'Wilkins' edge of the Antarctic peninsula too. Another 'one to watch'?

And one glimpse at the Baltic shows you how the waters that were ice free over summer are faring this winter....makes you wonder how the areas under a thin skin of ice are doing as the ice cover insulates them from the worst of the temps /mixing.

[Android]

3 weeks later and those very warm anomolous regions in the southern hemisphere SSTs have fallen slightly.

It does look like the impact of the warming can be seen on the lower troposphere: http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/

It's also interesting that we are in La Nina ocean and atmospheric conditions, but that cold seems to be having trouble breaking free. In fact the tropical pacific SSTs look less like La Nina today than 3 weeks back. According to the last enso report (http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/anal...ory/index.shtml) ocean heat content in the tropical pacific is now rising. Any big La Nina in the works is on borrowed time. It seems ot me that the La Nina conditions are being facilitated by the strong easterly winds in the central equatorial pacific. Yet this doesn't seem to be enough to bring a swift la nina. If those easterlies come down would that cause us to lurch into an el nino?

The latest map:

[Gray-Wolf]

GISS do have it that the conditions are 'primed' for an El-Nino by late 09' early 10' and I have little reason to doubt their evidence. The 'lingering' of the last La Nina may well give the upper ocean the appearance of a cool equator but the warm water 'bulge' seems to have formed and be flowing towards central America.

Do note the temp anoms around the Antarctic coastline from the Ross sea to the Peninsula.

Another point is the meltwater outflow from both poles. These must be in excess of figures from 30yrs ago and must impact surface tempos/salinity as they mix at their outflows (Bering sea/Ross sea/East/West Greenland)