11/06/2017 at 4:45 pm
El Nino is just stored solar energy surfacing. It’s all just global warming. The ocean does not generate it’s own heat. The ocean just stores it and moves it around.
11/06/2017 at 6:12 pm
After El Niño, the ocean gets cooler and part of the energy is radiated to space. From the global mean average surface temperature it is just heat passing by as the atmosphere also doesn’t generate its own heat and just moves it around.
11/06/2017 at 6:20 pm
The lack of comprehension is staggering.
Whoever is interested in understanding El Niño should take a look at this talk (powerpoint pdf) by William Kessler, of NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and School of Oceanography, University of Washington. Fear not, it is climate neutral. It explains very clearly what El Niño, is, how it starts and ends, what Rossby and Kelvin waves are and the role they play. Fantastic explanation.
On the second slide it says:
“The role of the Ocean-Atmosphere system is to move excess heat from the tropics to the poles, where it is radiated to space.”
On slides 24 & 25:
“(One might say that the climate “function” of El Niño events is to drain excess heat from the west Pacific warm pool.)”
“Because the amount of warm water in the warm pool is limited, [Los] Niños have a finite duration (9-12 months).”
The prevailing ENSO recharge-discharge hypothesis is presented.
This article from the Guardian (2016) explains it further:
El Niño is Earth’s rechargeable heat battery
“when the waters are warm (El Niño), resulting in more evaporation from the ocean waters into the atmosphere. Conversely when the ocean waters are cold, there is often less evaporation. Because evaporation requires a great deal of thermal energy – it cools the ocean while moistening the atmosphere – it’s an engine that moves heat.
So, a new study, led by Dr. Michael Mayer from the University of Vienna, focused on the energy flows during the ENSO process.
During La Niña, heat builds up in the Pacific and then during El Niño, the heat is dissipated to other regions. The dissipation occurs in both laterally via atmospheric energy transports and vertically via radiation to space.
The authors found that models tend to underestimate the ENSO processes in the upper 700 meters of the Pacific. While observations show substantial cooling of the tropical Pacific during El Niño as measured by ocean heat content, most models lack this typical signature.
The buildup and release of oceanic heat during La Niña and El Niño mainly occurs in the tropical Pacific. What is happening in the other basins during warm and cold ENSO events tends to be of opposite sign. This means that oceanic heat is released from the Pacific during El Niño while ocean heat content increases in the tropical Atlantic and Indian Ocean at the same time. The opposite tends to be the case during La Niña. This “seesawing” of oceanic energy between the different ocean basins is a result of the atmospheric teleconnections we describe. Besides this energy exchange between the different ocean basins there is also considerable radiative heat loss to space during El Niño.”
The article is open:
Mayer, M., Fasullo, J. T., Trenberth, K. E., & Haimberger, L. (2016). ENSO-driven energy budget perturbations in observations and CMIP models. Climate Dynamics, 47(12), 4009-4029.
From the conclusions:
“This study shows that key aspects of ENSO, namely (1) net radiative energy loss (gain) at TOA, (2) ocean heat discharge (recharge) in the tropical Pacific and (3) compensating OHC tendencies of the opposite sign in the tropical Atlantic and Indian Oceans during warm (cold) events, are underestimated in all considered models and partly missing in some models.”
With all this information we can analyze what the 2014-2016 El Niño has meant for the planet. Most lay people think that El Niño warms the planet. Quite the opposite. El Niño is the discharge part and cools the planet by increasing energy loss to space from the tropical top of the atmosphere and at the poles. It just looks as global warming because the energy is moved from the Pacific Ocean through the atmosphere to other parts of the climate system and to space. We measure that energy transfer as warming in our thermometers.
This big El Niño has not been followed by a La Niña. For as long as there is no La Niña, two things happen:
-There is no rapid surface cooling. The post-El Niño cooling we are observing is much slower.
-There is no rapid recharge of Pacific Ocean energy.
We are also observing warmer Arctic winters with above normal snow precipitation over Greenland (see figure). This is indicative that warm humid air from the South is making it to the Poles where the energy is mostly radiated to space.
The most likely outcome is that global average surface temperatures will continue decreasing over the next year. A new El Niño is unlikely unless a strong La Niña recharges the lost energy or enough time (years) is past for a slow recharge.
Do not expect much global warming in the near term. Now you can go on with your personal attacks if that is all you’ve got.