Global warming will increase intensity of El Nino, scientists say

[Summer Sun]

Scientists say they are more certain than ever about the impact of global warming on a critical weather pattern. The El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) occurs in the Pacific Ocean but plays an important part in the world's climate system. Researchers have until now been unsure as to how rising temperatures would affect ENSO in the future. But this new study suggests that droughts and floods driven by ENSO will be more intense. The ENSO phenomenon plays a complicated role in the global weather system. The El Nino part of the equation sees a warming of the eastern and tropical Pacific, while its cooler sister, La Nina, makes things chillier in these same regions.

 

Impacts across the world

 

Like water in a bathtub, the warmer or cooler waters slosh back and forth across the Pacific Ocean. They are responsible for rainfall patterns across Australia and the equatorial region, but their effects are also felt much further away. During the Northern Hemisphere winter, for example, you can get more intense rainfall over the southern part of the US in a warmer El Nino phase. For years, scientists have been concerned about how this sensitive weather system might be changed by rising temperatures from global warming.Now, in this new paper, published in the journal Nature, researchers give their most "robust" projections yet. Using the latest generation of climate models, they found a consistent projection for the future of ENSO. According to the lead author, Dr Scott Power from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, global warming interferes with the way El Nino temperature patterns affect rainfall. "This interference causes an intensification of El Nino-driven drying in the western Pacific and rainfall increases in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific," he said.

 

Models in agreement

 

According to Dr Wenju Cai, a scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), who was not involved with the study, the paper is "significant". "Up until now, there has been a lack of agreement among computer models as to how ENSO will change in the future," he explained. "This paper is significant in that there is stronger agreement among different climate models in predicting the future impact. "This study finds that both wet and dry anomalies will be greater in future El Nino years. This means that ENSO-induced droughts and floods will be more intense in the future."

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24494398

 

 

[Gray-Wolf]

I think the last nino hinted at this occurring by being able to drive global temps up to a point rivaling what it took a 'super Nino' accomplish only 12 yrs before to.

 

If the extreme temp events intensify then there impact on global temps will also mean that shorter, more moderate Nino's can accomplish what it took longer liver , more major Nino's to achieve before.

 

It is good to see that this area of study now show such a consensus across the global models though? The data must be becoming ever more refined for all the models to now churn out similar results? Less room for individual interpretation with more concise data fields.

 

EDIT: The other thing i wonder about is the impact this has on the observation of east Pacific ocean temps and the links to our current temp slowdown? Does a warming world mean that the cool ocean will no longer be as cold, as time moves forward, and so the next emergence of the pattern will have a lesser impact?

Edited October 14, 2013 by Gray-Wolf

[jethro]

I'm amazed they can tell what the future will be with the ENSO cycle, stunned in fact, when the leading experts can't even come to a conclusion, let alone agreement, on what drives the cycle.

[UV-RAY]

I'm amazed they can tell what the future will be with the ENSO cycle, stunned in fact, when the leading experts can't even come to a conclusion, let alone agreement, on what drives the cycle.

Lol, another load of taxpayers money wasted no doubt. Are these the scientist who dismissed this as being one of the irrelevant natural drivers only two weeks ago in the IPCC report.

[Methuselah]

I'm amazed they can tell what the future will be with the ENSO cycle, stunned in fact, when the leading experts can't even come to a conclusion, let alone agreement, on what drives the cycle.

They can't; which is why they used the term 'more certain then ever'...Absolute certainty only exists in the netherworlds of fundamentalist religion and politics...

 

As with all scientific predictions, we'll need to wait and see. And, even should the next nino be a stonker of extraordinary proportions, it won't prove a thing. Any more that the current quiet Solar cycle proves Landscheidt's theories correct...

 

IMO, the application of scepticism should be impartial? 

[jethro]

They can't; which is why they used the term 'more certain then ever'...Absolute certainty only exists in the netherworlds of fundamentalist religion and politics...

 

As with all scientific predictions, we'll need to wait and see. And, even should the next nino be a stonker of extraordinary proportions, it won't prove a thing. Any more that the current quiet Solar cycle proves Landscheidt's theories correct...

 

IMO, the application of scepticism should be impartial? 

 

I'm guessing you're getting me confused with someone who champions Landscheidt's theory?

 

My scepticism encompasses all aspects which claim a great degree of certainty, I don't care which side of the divide they come from. This latest stuff on El Nino is for me, just another reason to chuckle at the seemingly endless fairy tales. Made all the more amusing when folk accept it as solid science, whilst completely over-looking that science hasn't yet decided what actually drives ENSO. When the scientists have got to the bottom of what drives the cycle, are in agreement over it, then and only then will I imagine that they can tell what the future holds.

[UV-RAY]

I'm guessing you're getting me confused with someone who champions Landscheidt's theory?

 

My scepticism encompasses all aspects which claim a great degree of certainty, I don't care which side of the divide they come from. This latest stuff on El Nino is for me, just another reason to chuckle at the seemingly endless fairy tales. Made all the more amusing when folk accept it as solid science, whilst completely over-looking that science hasn't yet decided what actually drives ENSO. When the scientists have got to the bottom of what drives the cycle, are in agreement over it, then and only then will I imagine that they can tell what the future holds.

Excellent assessment of where the actual science is at Jethro, anything other than accepting that we know little in what drives ENSO is just another assumtpion in a long list of assumptions.

[jethro]

Lol, another load of taxpayers money wasted no doubt. Are these the scientist who dismissed this as being one of the irrelevant natural drivers only two weeks ago in the IPCC report.

 

Oh I don't care if my tax gets spent on it, I'd rather it was spent on science to figure out how the world works, than some of the other nonsense it gets wasted on.

 

Can't comment on the latest from the IPCC, I haven't read it. With life in general being manic, not enough hours in the day etc, I can't bring myself to commit vast amounts of time to trawl through it; if it offered the promise of new info I'd be tempted, but I suspect it's more of the same old, same old.

[Methuselah]

I'm guessing you're getting me confused with someone who champions Landscheidt's theory?

 

Actually, J, I am not...Sorry if I came across that way...

[jethro]

Actually, J, I am not...Sorry if I came across that way...

 

Goodo. Curious though Landscheidt's work is, I reckon we know less about the Sun, than we do the ENSO cycle!

[BornFromTheVoid]

Eh, the paper was more about the future interaction of ENSO with the weather, rather than changes to what drives ENSO itself.

 

Modern climate models have modes of variability in the tropical Pacific just like ENSO, so it is possible to examine how different phases of ENSO interacts with the atmosphere, and how that may change under different climate projections.

 

It's like how we can predict the effect of a drop in TSI on our climate, without being able to fully understand how the sun works.

[Gray-Wolf]

And this is also a heartening reminder that science does move on and our understanding of earth systems is increasing year on year?

 

As the report is at bones to point out this is the latest 'significant' step forward in a study already 20yrs old! Science has done what it is supposed to and brought our 'understanding' to the point that unconnected universities are able to run the model through their systems and find they arrive at similar results and not a broad spread of results?

 

Some day we will crack this one J', maybe not to a resolution to suit some but be able to understand it well enough to prepare regions for periods of extreme drought or deluge! No more ripping out hearts on top of meso-american monument to appease the cycle here!!!

 

 

 

I just hope that general warming isn't going to make our growing understanding of the phenomena as  redundant as an IPCC report on it's publication.........

Edited October 14, 2013 by Gray-Wolf

[VillagePlank]

If the extreme temp events intensify then there impact on global temps will also mean that shorter, more moderate Nino's can accomplish what it took longer liver , more major Nino's to achieve before.

 

Well, er, no.

 

 

One indice of ENSO is the SOI of which it is the difference (more or less) of sea-level pressure. Now, if you want to change pressure patterns, say, as we have observed in the Northern Atlantic re Arctic Ice melt you are going to have to change the air temperature of the southern mid latitude cell and the southern polar cell; ie temperature gradients drive such things as we see all too well with the PFJ. Anything unusual going on in Antarctica? A apart from that, well, if the world is warming then the difference between the cells, if Antarctica stays cold, as expected, will force the steep gradient south, and, generally, less severe differences in sea level pressure around the southern Hadley cell, and the southern mid latitude cell (where ENSO occurs) in exactly the same way that a warming Arctic has pushed the PFJ, generally, more south, so a warming world with a cold Antarctica will mean less severe and shorter ENSO fluctuations.

 

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/documents/421974/1295957/Info+sheet+%2312.pdf/45c66f46-20a0-44bf-8466-1e1f6cdbd0b1

Edited October 14, 2013 by Sparkicle