The next El Niño?

[pscot]

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html

To begin, we are currently observing what looks to be the strongest downwelling oceanic Kelvin wave event since satellite records began in the 1970s. This still needs to be verified in reanalysis, but a large swath of 6°C (11°F) ocean temperature anomalies at a depth of 100 - 200 meters (Figure 1) clearly illustrates the significance of this event. To review, oceanic Kelvin waves travel only from west to east at extremely slow speeds (2-3 m/s). These waves have been alluded to as the facilitators of El Niño. There are two phases of an oceanic Kelvin wave, the “Upwelling” phase and the “Downwelling” phase. The Upwelling phase of an oceanic Kelvin wave pushes colder water from the sub-surface towards the surface, resulting in cooling at the surface. The Downwelling phase is the opposite, where warmer waters at the surface of the West Pacific warm pool are forced to sink, resulting a deepening of the thermocline and net warming in the sub-surface.


Figure 1. Departure of ocean temperature from average along the Equator in the Pacific Ocean on March 29, 2014 (top), shows a large area of 6°C (11°F) ocean temperature anomalies at a depth of 100 - 200 meters. A time lapse is available here. Image credit: NOAA/CPC.



In the West Pacific, the thermocline is rising in response to strong upwelling (cold ocean temperature anomalies near the surface). In the central and eastern Pacific, the thermocline is deepening as the warm pool has begun to rapidly shift towards the Date Line. An enlightening time lapse can be found on the NOAA/CPC webpage. Note the lens of colder than average ocean temperature anomalies at the surface in the far eastern Pacific. This can be attributed to a surge in the Easterly trade winds over the eastern equatorial Pacific, which pushes water away from the coast, resulting in some upwelling off the west coast of South America. The surge in the trade winds is just an expression of atmospheric processes occurring in the tropics at intra-seasonal (weekly) timescales. Nevertheless, it is evident that the entire West Pacific Warm Pool has begun to shift eastward, and there is a large adjustment in the Pacific Ocean currently underway.

That being said, we still need to see some favorable atmospheric forcing this month to continue the forward advancement of a full-basin El Niño. In particular, west-to-east blowing winds along the Equator are needed to keep pushing warm water eastwards towards South America. Keeping this in mind, there are some signs of an upcoming period of westerly wind bursts along the equatorial Central Pacific in the next few weeks

[OnlinePoker]

1. Most of the info on WUWT is out of whack, but his reference pages are good

They bring together mostly visual pages from a lot of different sources into one conglomeration. His ENSO page is quite good:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/climatic-phenomena-pages/enso/

On edit: Also, check out his Sea Ice page:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/

[NickB79]

2. "strongest downwelling oceanic Kelvin wave event since satellite records began in the 1970s"

Does this imply an El Nino brewing that's potentially stronger than the historic 1998 El Nino?

If so, this will be brutal. The only good thing to come of it would be to silence the global denier crowd and perhaps get world governments to take climate change seriously.

[pscot]

3. Until it starts to hurt

there won't be real change. Maybe panic in the streets is what it takes to get the pols off their collective asses. It's been about 4 years since the last El Niño. I hope the next one hits like a truck.

[Champion Jack]

4. You nailed it