“La Niña Intensifies”

The Australian Bureau of Meterorology has just released its latest ENSO Report. It starts out with:

The La Niña event in the Pacific Ocean has strengthened further over the past two weeks. All computer models surveyed by the Bureau predict the La Niña will last through the southern hemisphere spring, with the majority indicating the event will persist into at least early 2011.

The graphic above shows the 30-day moving SOI has reached a new high, even already surpassing the peak reached in January 2008. The following graphic in the BOM report shows sub-surface temperature from May-August, with the cool water progressing to the surface.

Subsurface temps

The BOM writes:

In the central Pacific, the sub-surface of the ocean is more than 6°C cooler than normal for this time of the year, on a weekly scale.

La Niña depresses average global surface temperatures, which will soon show up in the months ahead in the monthly temperature statistics. Dr Roy Spencer’s Daily Earth Temperatures from Satellites shows surface temperatures now dipping below last year’s level.

Forecasters are busy revising their projections

Meanwhile, forecasters have been busy revising their earlier projections. Here’s the forecast made back on July 16, 2010, i.e about 2 months ago. The blue line dips to about -1.7.

July 16, 2010 projections

Two months later, in their latest September 14 projections, the blue line now dips down to -1,9.

September 14, 2010 projections. Source: https://www.netzerowatch.com/content/themes/gwpf-theme/assets/images/blank.jpg

This La Niña is shaping up to be deeper than previously expected. Does that mean we’re headed for global cooling? No it doesn’t. This is just one ocean cycle. Maybe a few more EL Nino/La Niña flip-flops will tell us more, meaning we have to wait another 5 or 10 years.

All these nice graphs are available to you simply by clicking on the Climatic Indicators I have listed in my side bar. Lots of interesting stuff there.

NoTricksZone, 15 September 2010