Extreme weather pattern increasing - "El niño" explained.

[AngelLestat]

The UN made a nice video explaining this phenomenon, someone ask about this few weeks back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v92Iqihct98

The economic cost of this phenomenon is increasing each year..   Any solution to stop co2 will be much more cheaper than deal with the consequences. 

 

Edited January 26, 2016 by AngelLestat

[tater]

This el Niño is entirely within the range of normal ENSO events. Weather != climate.

Edited January 26, 2016 by tater

[AngelLestat]

So you are saying that co2 increase does not have any effect on El niño?

[tater]

You cannot demonstrate that it does at all. It might, might not. 

There is a post on NOAA's own ENSO site (at climate.gov) regarding uncertainty in the temperature measurements within the area of the ocean in question. It's +-0.3 °C. That's more than the claimed (not even observed, which is lower) average temperature anomaly in a few decades. So you have an entirely reasonable ENSO event (a couple in the 80s and 90s were stronger), and the temperature measurements of the ocean involved cannot be said to be higher within uncertainty in any case. There is no link. Crying "global warming" with each weather event doesn't make the point, it looks like hyperbole. 

Note also that the number of such sea temperature observations is currently twice the number of such observations 10 years ago (current approaches 35,000 measurements), and 3 times higher than the 1990s. Before 1990, such observations were effectively random (ships measuring water temperature that happened to be passing by the region, it's under 1000 in the 80s, and before that its below 100 per year back as far as there is any data at all. So basically you can talk about ENSO events before the '80s, but it could have been much stronger, or the sea temp much higher, and no one would really know well. That's the problem with comparing to any old climate data, there is not good data. Get before the age of sail, and it's proxy data, which is so uncertain the error bars are larger than the signal.

Edited January 26, 2016 by tater
typo

[GeneralVeers]

+1

The only connection between human activity and climate change/little Spanish boys/etc is that they're both happening at the same time. Well, just because every time you see a house on fire, you also see a fire truck nearby, does NOT mean fire trucks cause fires.

[AngelLestat]

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-could-make-super-el-ninos-more-likely-16976

There are not 100% confirmed things in weather or climate. But you may find an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing to some conclusions. 
That study shows computer simulations using and combining many climate models in supercomputers.
The outcome is always the same.

It was predicted that 2015 would be a very hard year for el niño, and it was.  So that means that theory is very close to the truth.

I dont have time to name all, (and they still happen), but just hurricane patricia give us something to take note. 

[tater]

It was not predicted any farther in advance than regular weather forecasting at all. That article is from 1 year before this manifested itself. It then cites 2 "super" el Niño events about 15 years apart. This one is overdue on that n of 3 time scale, not "increasing." Screaming "global warming" about every weather event is why they are losing the PR battle, it's like doomsday cults waking up the day after and the world is still there.

It's not a "hard year for el Niño," it's just a strong el Niño---which is good right now. The pattern oscillates with periods of one or the other dominating. There's good data for the last 20 years, OK data for the 10 years before that, then "meh" data going back under 100 years, then lousy data farther back than that. The entirety of the range of available data (even bad) is geologically tiny. How was the pattern 100,000 years ago? No idea, maybe it didn't even exist.

The Earth is not s steady state thing. Never was, never will be.

 

I'll add that I don;t really have a dog in the fight one way or another, I just don't like they hyperbole I always hear around any issue involving weather. The weather and climate are without any question poorly understood. Any predictions made that are not very conditional at this point are highly dubious to me. Climate "science" (adding science to a discipline is odd, since it's usually done with things that are not actually sciences) had its financial resources vastly multiplied once it became political. It reminds me of SDI in the 80s. Everyone started doing SDI stuff, because it was a cash cow---even when they thought that even the premise of an effective "missile shield" was rubbish.

Edited January 26, 2016 by tater

[AngelLestat]

ok you misunderstood me, the link I provide just predict that el niño can be stronger each time, now it was other predictions before 2015 saying that 2015 it would be a stronger year for el niño.

About data..  scientist knows how to correct possible errors in measurements (previous and new ones) to enclose the error in certain range.
But I am agree, we can not scream global warming for each pattern change.  It does not help to those who wanna understand the weather and climate.

But even if is related or not with co2 increase.. is a good video to understand this phenomenon.
In 1997 the economic cost was 45 billions,  in 2015 is expected to be higher as economies have grown. It may not look as a big number for big countries, but it is a big number for countries in development. 

[K^2]

Scientists aren't without bias, and unfortunately, climate research is highly politicized right now. We should consider this as a serious warning sign, and it should impact our policy decisions, but we should not consider it a proven matter and jump to any drastic actions.

Most of all, what this calls for is more research.

[tater]

Ranking things is always fraught, IMO. It's like those terrible TV shows that have "top 10 fighters of ww2" then don't rank them by some objective criteria. You could look at warmest temp in the middle of the region in the pacific, or the highest precipitation anomaly at some point, etc. In the other ocean, the biggest hurricane ever might never hit land, for example, and be sort of meaningless historically.

[insert_name]

climate change thread. in before the lock.

[Findthepin1]

There is not enough data to be sure. That is all I will say.