Latest El Niño-Southern Oscillation Stories
Is it possible to make valid climate predictions that go beyond weeks, months, even a year? UCLA atmospheric scientists report they have now made long-term climate forecasts that are among the best ever — predicting climate up to 16 months in advance, nearly twice the length of time previously achieved by climate scientists. Forecasts of climate are much more general than short-term weather forecasts; they do not predict precise temperatures in specific cities, but they still may have...
Scientists at the University of Miami's (UM's) Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science have found an intriguing relationship between hurricane tracks and climate variability. Angela Colbert, a graduate student in Meteorology & Physical Oceanography, with the collaboration of Professor and Associate Dean for Professional Masters, Dr. Brian Soden, studied data from the Atlantic gathered between 1950-2010, unlocking some noteworthy results, which appear in the American...
U.S. forecasters said Thursday that La Nina is returning for another season, bringing more droughts, heavy rains and severe weather. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center said in a statement that experts upgraded last month's La Nina watch to a La Nina Advisory. NOAA said the back-to-back emergence of the trend is not unheard of and happens about half the time. "La Nina, which contributed to extreme weather around the globe during...
Clouds only amplify climate change, says a Texas A&M University professor in a study that rebuts recent claims that clouds are actually the root cause of climate change. Andrew Dessler, a Texas A&M atmospheric sciences professor considered one of the nation's experts on climate variations, says decades of data support the mainstream and long-held view that clouds are primarily acting as a so-called "feedback" that amplifies warming from human activity. His work is published...
A new study, published in the journal Nature draws a correlation between El Nino weather events and civil warfare. El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) happens every two to seven years and is a warming of ocean water in the western pacific that shifts across the ocean. This warming of the ocean causes the warmer air to rise, pushing away clouds and moisture changing rainfall patterns and temperatures across much of Africa, South and Southeast Asia and Australia. The correlating La...
An Update from NASA's Sea Level Sentinels: Like mercury in a thermometer, ocean waters expand as they warm. This, along with melting glaciers and ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, drives sea levels higher over the long term. For the past 18 years, the U.S./French Jason-1, Jason-2 and Topex/Poseidon spacecraft have been monitoring the gradual rise of the world's ocean in response to global warming. While the rise of the global ocean has been remarkably steady for most of this...
In three decades of recording Arctic Ocean sea ice, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Monday reported that in July 2011 the sea ice hit its lowest monthly recorded level. Sea ice in the Arctic covered an average 3 million square miles during July, the lowest measurement for that month since the NOAA started keeping such records in 1979. The July 2011 figure is 81,000 square miles smaller than 2007's July record low and about 22 percent below the average for...
A new study published in the Friday edition of the journal Science has found that East Africa has been affected by the ENSO phenomenon (El Niño Southern Oscillation) known as El Niño/La Niña for more than 20,000 years.The work, which was completed by scientists from Germany, Switzerland, the US, the Netherlands, and Belgium, studied Lake Challa, a crater lake near Mt. Kilimanjaro. According to a press release from the University of Hawaii School of Ocean and Earth Science and...
A Montana State University researcher who analyzed 100 years of data has found a significant link between extreme Montana weather and the ocean temperatures near Peru.Montanans who want to know what to expect from the weather should look to the Pacific Ocean in the fall or maybe find a way to chat with some Peruvian fishermen, according to Joseph Caprio, professor emeritus in MSU's Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences and former Montana State Climatologist.If the average...
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), coastal communities along the U.S. East Coast could be at risk to higher sea levels and more destructive storm surges in future El Nino years. NOAA's new study examined water levels and storm surge events during the "cool season" of October to April for the past five decades at four sites. The study found that strong El Nino years caused the East Cost to have three times the average number of storm surge...
Latest El Niño-Southern Oscillation Reference Libraries
If you live in or around Billings, Montana the above graph shows you what you can roughly expect when it comes to heating and cooling your house during the ENSO Phases. In Billings during a normal phase of the ENSO your heating degree days pass 900HDD. However, when El-Nino phase is present the monthly average dropped to around 650.5HDD, which is a pretty significant amount especially when you are talking about paying that heating bill. When the La-Nina phase sets up the heating degree...
ENSO has an impact on the severe weather across the United States. As we look at the above graph we see that the area of Baltimore is impacted by ENSO and its tornado count. The stats are for the described years to the left of each bar. During a La-Nina the tornado count picks up for the region; within 50 miles of the city up to 9 tornadoes occurred during the 2000 event. The 2010 EL-Nino set into the region and the tornado count dropped to around 4 tornadoes within 50 miles of the...
If you live in or around Bismarck North Dakota the graph shows you what you can roughly expect when it comes to heating and cooling your house during the ENSO Phases. Bismarck North Dakota, with its northern latitude, does have an impact on what type of heating and cooling it sees. During an Normal Phase the HDD for the region hits about 1348 on average. When the region enters into an El-Nino they can expect the amount of HDD’s to decrease to around 970 which really helps cut down on the...
The above graph highlights how the ENSO has an impact on water temps. Northern Gulf of Mexico during EL-Nino: The first part of March during this EL-Nino cycle saw water temps in the 56-60F range, while the 8-14th saw water temps warm to the 60-64F range. By the third week of March temps had maintained 60-64F. The last week of March the temps dropped back to around 56-60F. Northern Gulf of Mexico during LA-Nina: The first week of March saw water temps approach the 70-72F range, by the...
When it comes to wind, more and more people are turning to it as alternative option for electricity. One has to wonder what kind of impacts would be created by the different cycles of ENSO. The above graph has been done for Boston MA. The month of choice was to run it for March of all three cycles. Normal Cycle: (When we are in between EL-Nino and La-Nina) winds averaged around 0-5mph 9% of the month of March. While 6-10mph average winds occurred more often with 35%. And then winds in the...
