22 Comments
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Jeff Suchon's avatar

Thank you for your expert assessment, Zeke! I wonder if the La Nina's will be as warm as the old El Ninos soon.

maurice forget's avatar

Merci pour la mise en situation , mais a part la colère et l'angoisse ressentis que puis-je faire. La réponse égoïste est probablement d'attendre la suite et de remercier le Ciel de ne pas avoir d'enfants à ma charge.

Jeff Suchon's avatar

Mar A Lago c'set chateau sous les mers - Nemo

MacaroniandCheese9's avatar

> when global temperatures came in for August 2023 a full 0.5C warmer than any prior August on record

i think you may have meant September 2023.

Zeke Hausfather's avatar

Good catch! I've updated the post to fix it.

Archival Aardvark's avatar

What, if any, implications does this El Niño have for the whole “acceleration” debate? I know some claim that El Niño operates as a “stair-step” pushing global temps ever upward. Is that accurate? Besides for the short-term implications of this record El Niño, I am confused as to what the long-term implications might be.

Zeke Hausfather's avatar

By itself, not that much. Rigorous analyses of acceleration should try and remove the effects of short-term internal variability like El Niño and La Niño (though this can be challenging in practice). There is a robust debate about the effects of climate change on El Niño, but my sense is there is no clear consensus that climate change has intensified events (at least beyond the long-term background warming).

Archival Aardvark's avatar

Thanks! So the idea that El Niño acts as a “stair step” for global temps is not persuasive? I see this idea in doomer circles online all the time. Usually the claim is accompanied by something like the attached chart which does make El Niño events look like temporary jumps that push warming upwards. I understand that this is probably not the correct way of looking at the situation.

But what if we never get under 1.5C again after this El Niño? I suppose that’s a whole other question….

Zeke Hausfather's avatar

I mean, it does in the sense that El Ninos tend to follow La Ninas that suppress temperatures, so you end up with a stair-step pattern superimposed on a long term trend. But El Nino and La Nina are not forcings – they don't provide any sustained heating or cooling for the climate system after the events end.

Archival Aardvark's avatar

Yeah this is pretty much my concern. “values will never quite go back to previous levels.” So we might touch 2C with this crazy El Niño and then never go back down?

Dr.Hausfather seems to disagree with this framing though.

But figures like James Hansen will view whatever happens after this record breaking El Niño as evidence that global warming is accelerating way beyond even what the previous WMO report indicated (.27/decade). Is that accurate? If so, yikes.

Jaime's avatar

So, why is it so strong? Just normal variability, or does climate change affect El Niño intensity?

Zeke Hausfather's avatar

Its a bit unclear if climate change is making strong El Nino events more likely (normalizing for long-term warming). It is strongly debated on the literature with no clear consensus.

Theodore Rethers's avatar

I feel this is the final unmasking that man made aerosols have been suppressing, with China cleaning up their emissions and shipping Sulphur being removed we now see the shape of our natural global biological aerosols background position, and it is not where it once was. Overfishing and deforestation feeding back into stratification and increased stress related biological aerosol suppression, there is no hiding anymore the true state of the planet and it should be a wakeup call for all or us.

Jeff Suchon's avatar

And EVERYBODY remember Dr James Hansen predicted this as a SUPER-DUPER El Nino a couple of months back hands down. I like James and Zeke. They complement the truth.

Kevin Trenberth's avatar

Zeke

I appreciate this evaluation using the surface data. However, much more can be learned from the information in the ocean below the surface. There anomalously high ocean temperatures remain in the equatorial zone in the eastern Pacific.

This is the Southern Hemisphere winter when the southeast trade winds are strongest and they extend across the equator. As it stands, the warmest waters are 165 to 170 W along the equator and it is not until about October that these can extend farther eastwards along the equator typically. So atmosphere and ocean coupling is present near the dateline and that is affecting teleconnections and weather patterns, but the full so-called Bjerknes coupling between the atmosphere and ocean can mainly occur after September when the southern hemisphere SSTs begin to rise. This is why the peaks in EN occur typically centered about December. But the biggest influences on teleconnections and warmest conditions occur some 3 months later typically in February. It then depends on whether the ocean runs out of heat, and the model results suggest they wont. But the models all do the annual cycle incorrectly.

Keep up the good work

Kevin

Yeltneb's avatar

Foreshadowing. Won’t the actuaries jump into action to protect Capital. How can they risk the wealth of their wealthy patrons in this risk filled environment. The flight to safety will be wild, and might just stop oil. TWT

Guest007's avatar

These types of predictions are what always get climate activist into trouble. Why not wait a few months without predictions and then point out what happened. A correct prediction does not help in any policy debate but every incorrect prediction creates another huge obstacle to overcome.

Zeke Hausfather's avatar

Its important not to oversell the predictions from any single model. But what we have here is a confluence of 14 different modeling groups, at a time of year when ENSO predictions have historically been pretty skillful. Plus we are already seeing 2C Nino3.4 temperatures in July!

Mal Adapted's avatar

I cringe along with you at every opportunity for motivated obstructionists to exploit 'failed' predictions from consensus climate science while ignoring the relativity of wrong, but (h/t JR Camp) f*** a bunch of motivated obstructionists! For the rest of us, forewarned is forearmed. Science isn't perfect, it's just the only method humanity has invented for explaining the present and predicting the future that works better than divination with a sheep's liver. It's literally Dr. Hausfather's job to make the best forecast he can as soon as he can, and explain it to his discerning followers in terms we'll understand. Otherwise we'd risk being taken by surprise, at our open-ended cost. IMHO the potential social upside of making 'these types of predictions' is worth the gamble, if it shows science to be cost-effective in the service of private and collective risk management!

Jeff Suchon's avatar

I think Zeke added to my obsessive ( maybe rightfully so.. or delusional ) call to reflect sunlight and start "wise" desal projects now. As Earth 🔥,it ain't getting better and this semi-evolved ape gives his 2 bananas to saving the good stuff.

Nigel Harvey's avatar

Thank you for your detailed analysis. A deeply disturbing read.