Listen Up Climate Combatants—It's About to Get Real Hot
A big El Nino is coming, or so say a lot of computer models.
The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang is reporting that a strong El Nino is being forecasted for this fall or winter. The El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a weather phenomenon in which hot water near Indonesia sloshes over to the coast of Peru. When this happens it dramatically boosts the average temperature of the global atmosphere. The highest global average temperature recorded (according to the satellite temperature records) in the past 150 years or so occurred during the big El Nino of 1998. Californians mired in drought should hope that the forecast is true, because it means that they will likely be inundated.
Of course, forecasters said pretty much the same thing last June, but the models really mean it this time. From the Post:
El Nino is here, strengthening, and the buzz is growing that it could become a "big one" by the fall or winter.
The global consequences of a powerhouse El Nino would be enormous. But just how likely is that? Both computer model and human forecasters suggest it's a very real possibility, at least a 50-50 one. Computer models are particularly aggressive in their forecasts.
The models forecasts compiled by the International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate and Society, based at Columbia University, on average predict a strong event by the fall. …
Very strong or "super El Nino" events fall at the most intense end of the El Nino spectrum, which starts at weak and then steps up through moderate and strong levels. Only two events in modern records have ever achieved "very strong" intensity were the events in 1982-1983 and 1997-1998, which was the strongest on record. The 1997-1998 event is well-known for contributing to torrents of rain in California, leading to $550 million in damages.
El Nino might finally boost global average temperature enough to pass the 0.5 degree Celsius threshold for detecting human influence on the climate set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change back in 1990. Maybe just in time for the U.N. Climate Change conference in Paris this December.
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but the models really mean it this time.
The models are right. It’s the climate that gets it wrong.
That is the key quote from this piece, and a succinct summary of many climate change pieces.
“but the models really mean it this time.”
They always do.
They’re very earnest.
I envision Carbon Clowns praying to various Al Gore idolatry for the biggest baddest El Nino in this year of Peak Stupid and the Paris Carbon Confab.
I’m praying for the biggest baddest El Nino, because it means huge snow for the Rockies.
The models are perfect, when free from human error. If only top men would build a sentient computer network for the sky… a “Skynet”, all of our problems would be solved..
We are, it has been “settled”, the problem after all. *digs bunker
False climate conciousness?
El Nino might finally boost global average temperature enough to pass the 0.5 degree Celsius threshold for detecting human influence on the climate set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change back in 1990. Maybe just in time for the U.N. Climate Change conference in Paris this December.
This is snark, right?
Wait. I thought El Nino just moved weather around? He’s suggesting it changes the net global temperature?
Net surface temperature. Yes. Hotter water not being mixed with colder water would do that. Although, given those time periods, ENSO may be an effect of Solar cycles, which would explain why this one is overdue. In which case ENSO would correlate with rather than cause the temperature changes.
Surely you’re not suggesting that the sun, that enormous fusion reactor in the sky, could have a larger impact on Earth’s climate than evil CO2 from burning fossil fuels?
Nahh….that just be crazy talk!
That’s ridiculous! The sun is, like, thousands of miles away! The Koch Brothers’ pollution factories are like right here!
Yup, must be Snark Week at Reason HQ. Ever since the Blumenthal article, staff have been a bit rowdy above the comment line.
Which is awesome, and I’d like to see more!
If you need me climapocolypse, I’ll be in my pool with a mint julep.
The carbon foot print for your mint julep fueled decadence is staggering… you are killing us all..
Well I try.
*stabs pool boy*
Thank you. The carbon scales balance now..
.
*issues carbon rebate credit*
During the climapocolypse. Sigh
El Nino might finally boost global average temperature enough to pass the 0.5 degree Celsius threshold for detecting human influence
How the hell is a natural event going to prove that we can detect human influence on the climate temperature?
Shit, if we have one fucking day above 90 degrees in the middle of summer the proggies jump on it as proof positive that your car caused it. Not Al Gore’s airplane; just your car.
It’s very simple. If it affirms climate change it is ‘climate’ otherwise it is ‘weather.’
Because consensus, you science denier.
Damn, I keep running afoul of Consensus.
Tow that lion, apostate!
Everyone knows that weather isn’t climate. So when the weather doesn’t support climate change, for example a record-cold winter, then it’s just weather. Stupid deniers are so stupid they don’t know weather isn’t climate when they stupidly say a record-cold winter proves AGW to be false.
But when the weather supports climate change (droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, etc.), then it’s a climate event, and proof positive that AGW is real.
BLUF: Weather is cold, Climate is warm.
Why is Dry shitting directly on me? What have I ever done to Dry? Fuck you, Dry.
We have water to burn down here. Want some? I’ve been sending bottles of it to Jerry Brown. Not a single thank-you card, either.
Now that Atlanta doesn’t have to steal all the water, maybe we can have monster Appalachicola Bay oysters again.
Then all shall be as it should be.
The best kind of prison is the one where the inmates can’t even see the walls.
Look, Hugh, if you don’t like oysters, that just means more for me.
I may start hoarding water.
The word you’re looking for is ‘retaining’.
No, I plan to capture all of the excess water I can here and sell it to California. And to Warty.
California doesn’t get water, PL.. if you let them have it, they’ll never learn their lesson. Warty is another matter..
Well, being a capitalist, I’ll give it to whoever pays me the most.
We’ll be just fine without your water that’s full of Oxycotin metabolites and python shit, thank you.
Cast not methamphetamine precursor slag before swine, I say!
Oh, Hugh, you naive fool. That’s jut Disney propaganda to keep out the riff-raff.
Shhhh…
That’s jut Disney propaganda to keep out draw in the riff-raff.
FTFY
Jut? What the fuck?
Warty is a fellow Ohioan?
*frantically searches the local sex offender registries*
You’ll never find him. The government hides his status so he can freely roam the country, keeping everyone in a perpetual state of fear.
You know very well why.
Models that were wrong last year made another similar prediction for this year.
If you look at the last two ENSO periods, we are overdue for one on a simple oscillation cycle.
Well, eventually they have to be right.
Well, I sure hope it warms up Bring it on!
Memorial Day weekend and it’s in the 50’s in NJ. Frost warnings tonight north of here.
It was uncomfortably cool riding around the job site this morning in the golf cart. Just to reiterate, I was cold outside in late May in Houston while wearing jeans and boots.
Yeah, but cold in Houston is relative since most people there complain about it being cold if it’s 74 and breezy.
People always looked at me funny as a kid when I was still wearing tshirts and shorts to school in January.
Still, 74 and breezy to kick off Memorial Day Weekend is apocalyptic.
Oh god, a winter shorts-er. There was always one of you.
I was a winter shorts guy when I lived in LA.
There was always one of you.
We are legion.
Why not??? My perfect calves are a gift to be shared.
Better than these?
http://www.cowsdna.com/wp-cont…..review.jpg
Adorable.
Certainly more arousing.
Playa, you have never seen my calves, which is good, because if you did you may have to give me your woman in return. I just assume LA is living off of Mad Max rules in your “south of LAX” zone
Denver got about 4-6 inches of snow a couple of weekends ago. And we’ve had highs in the 50’s and rain practically every day since. I heard A Basin has gotten 7 feet of snow this month. They may not have to close down for the summer this year at all.
I’ll probably head to the Basin on Monday to ski. I’ve lived in Denver for decades and this is the longest stretch of rain I’ve ever seen.
I can’t wait to watch the Canadians pass out at the parks. It’s a hobby of mine, like bird watching, only more cruel.
You don’t bird watch with a slingshot?
You can bird watch without a slingshot?!?
I literally just read on weather underground that this year is already the hottest ever. How could 1998 have been hotter? I confused.
It’s always the hottest year ever. Always. It’s like general relativity with a photon accelerating away from you. Or towards you. It’s always the same speed.
TDR: Confused. I don’t blame you – I dispell confusion here.
But since it doesn’t fit the narrative it will be ignored.
Billy Ayers still around?
Can we just put TEAM HOT and TEAM NOT in a room and let them battle to the death on pay per view? Those of us on TEAM DON’T GIVE A SHIT IF THE CLIMATE CHANGES SOME are getting really sick of their shit.
Gosh it’s hot.
I don’t think that would be much of a fight.
The NOT crowd seems to be a lot better armed.
TEAM DON’T GIVE A SHIT IF THE CLIMATE CHANGES SOME
Fuck you. Me and everyone else on TEAM IF YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO PREVENT HUMANS FROM EXTRACTING ALL THE HYDROCARBONS THEY CAN YOU’RE A FUCKING IDIOT are going to kick your pansy asses.
I think it’s lame that we worry about one planet’s climate. We need more planets to get a good data sample. Let me see. . .yes, we need to inhabit at least 2,500 to get a statistically significant analysis.
Tell you what, we’ll fire you into space on the top of a rocket and you sort the rest out. Cool?
I already secretly sent you to another planet. It’s one of those Earth parallels they had on Star Trek. Turns out that was true.
Do I have a goatee or not? That’s the only pertinent question here. Well, also, do I have a Tantalus Device and do I have Barbara Luna as my captain’s woman?
No. That’s what you left behind.
Mirror universe Episiarch is wealthy, sophisticated, charming, cultured, and popular.
Popular?!?
You’re in the universe that gets taken over by tribbles.
Oh yeah? Bring it on, TEAM ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION!
TEAM THAT’S AN EXAGGERATION
In any case, I’m fine with whatever the data shows, provided that it’s honestly collected and presented.
That snark was Martini-like dry!
I’m not really–well, entirely–being snarky. It’s true. I want good information about, you know, actual reality. It’s bad enough that we’re lied to about economics and government/foreign affairs, we don’t need it with the observation of the physical world as well.
As a South Floridian, a strong El Nino is absolutely the best thing that can happen to our weather. I want one every year.
I know, I was thinking that, too. Good news, everyone!
this time the sky is really falling
I guess Ron drew the short straw and gets to do all the Friday before Memorial Day posts?
B: Just trying to catch up a bit on my blogging since I was out of commission while I was hanging out with a bunch of bioethicists for the first three days of this week. Enjoy your holiday!
Riddle me this, is there a bioethicist out there, perhaps with the exception of Appel, who isn’t a terrible human being?
I mean, Peter Singer, Leon Kass, et al.. *shudders*
On the whole, no. Buy isnt Peter Singer a regular eyhicist as opposed to the bio- variety?
Enjoy yours, Ron. Sounds like you need it more than anyone.
Don’t. Don’t coddle the writers. They get soft and lazy if you do.
God, next thing you know, they’ll think they’re people
At least we might get some rain here in Tucson before we all die in the looming extinction of all life on earth because the temperature is 0.5 degrees higher than it might have been.
So, we’ve got that going for us.
Rain in Tuscon isn’t a sign of the end times?
They need to sacrifice more virgins.
Well, at least they’ll still have all the sluts.
Two weeks of beautiful gusty weather during the mornings followed by wet, dreary, blustery, cold afternoons and evenings. I’m done with rain.
You can tell people who are not from the desert: they think that rain is “bad weather”
… Hobbit
I’m up in Phoenix and am sorely underwhelmed by what is to be my first summer in Arizona. It has yet to top 95 in May so far.
I’ve seen more rain here than I did in California all of last year.
You just wait. It’ll get more than 20 degrees warmer.
Also they have monsoon season out there.
Phoenix generally runs at least 5 degrees hotter than Tucson. Since I live right next to the Catalinas, the spread between my house and Phoenix is generally around 8 degrees or so. The difference between 106 and 98 is . . . material.
This has been an unusually wet winter (for Arizona, at least). The payoff for all that extra rain has been a tidal wave of pollen.
Monsoon season is the awesomest, at least in Tucson. Unbelievably scenic, what with the thunderstorms and the mountains and all.
I concur about the monsoons. The added bonus is that it coincides with Phoenix’s haboob season.
Blah, blah, fucking blah.
What’s the impoverishment of a few billion people compared to rich liberals’ need for social signaling and moral preening?
Cooler weather numbs the conscience, and soothes the sanctimony glands…
So, if El Nino is causing the temp spike (assuming it occurs), how is it evidence of Global Warming? Are they saying that El Nino is caused by Global Warming?
This fall or winter? That would coincide with Obama’s plans for a climate change Treaty at the conference in Paris this winter.
I predict a political shit-storm.
“The Obama administration is working to forge a sweeping international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions, but without ratification from Congress.
In preparation for this agreement, to be signed at a United Nations summit meeting in 2015 in Paris, the negotiators are meeting with diplomats from other countries to broker a deal to commit some of the world’s largest economies to enact laws to reduce their carbon pollution. But under the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08…..reaty.html
The Constitution? What is it and why should we care?
Something something old, dead white guys.. something something over 100 years ago..
HE NEEDS A LEGACY, DAMN YOU!
I predict record snowfall in Paris.
Just its car exhaust..
Yes it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvmeUStFvz8
And here I thought it was that kid that Janet Reno sent back to Cuba…
I love it:
“Look, a totally natural cyclical climate event, unaffected in any way by CO2 concentrations, will provide proof that CAGW is real!”
What a bunch of morons. Sucks for us that they have so much influence.
I love it:
“Look, a totally natural cyclical climate event, unaffected in any way by CO2 concentrations, will provide proof that CAGW is real!”
What a bunch of morons. Sucks for us that they have so much influence.
I can see the appeal of such a cyclical climate event; all the water moving from ocean to air means the energy did as well – i.e. the temps go up.
1998’s El Nino appeared to be hockeysticks away. That’s when the ‘hiatus’ basically started. Doh. But internalized hope of Carbontology is a bump this year, perhaps .3C in one year for instance, from El Nino, then another ‘hiatus’ starts.
If the world seems to start exhibiting such behavior this summer, I guarantee by the Paris Confab there will be no hockeystick but ‘escalator’ models galore – where each El Nino bumps temps up; a staircase leading to Venusian hell going up instead of down.
Computer models are particularly aggressive in their forecasts
Computer models always seem agressive in their forecasts.
Who are these computers and why do we keep trusting them?
It’s worse than that. Are you aware of the many supercomputers that run those models? The heat they dump into the environment is the *real* cause of climate change!
“El Nino might finally boost global average temperature enough to pass the 0.5 degree Celsius threshold for detecting human influence on the climate set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change back in 1990.”
Let me get this right: a *natural* weather cycle with confirm man-made global warming?
“it’s a very real possibility, at least a 50-50 one”
Soooo, yeah, it’ll either happen or it won’t.
Wait, so does Ronald believe that man is the biggest contributor to global warming or what?
What does El Nino stand for?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mkSRUf02gu8
The highest global average temperature recorded (according to the satellite temperature records) in the past 150 years
Wow – there were satellites 150 years ago?
Ha ha! Came here to say this.
Hmmmm. The weather wizards at weather.com think differently:
http://www.weather.com/forecas…..uly-august
THE year to book that Alaskan cruise.