I have some good news and some bad news.
The world’s average temperature is breaking records, and India’s monsoon is in shambles. Borderline El Niño conditions are already here. How much worse will it get?
New data released Thursday by the International Research Institute for Climate and Society—a climate forecasting partnership between Columbia University and NOAA—shows that while ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific are still above normal, the atmospheric response has so far been sluggish. After an impressive ramp upearlier this year, that means the coming El Niño is increasingly likely to fall a bit flat.
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What’s going on is relatively straightforward: El Niño is a phenomenon that occurs simultaneously in the ocean and atmosphere, usually initiated by a subsea sloshing of warm water toward the typically cooler Eastern Pacific. That part has already happened. Since the Pacific is so huge, the gradual emergence of a big swath of warmer-than-normal water during an El Niño eventually prompts something else: a reversal in the local trade winds, which can shift weather patterns worldwide. That’s the part we’re still waiting on. This process needs a reinforcing shot of westerly winds (counter the trade winds’ typical direction) to help dampen the cold water thatnormally springs up from deep below the ocean’s surface in the East Pacific. So far, the westerly winds have not come, and cold water is beginning to eat away at the burgeoning El Niño.
According to the IRI, the most likely scenario now is a weak-to-moderate El Niño:
While forecasts of strength still have uncertainty, we think a weak or moderate event more likely than a strong one, and more likely than no event at all. A weak event now appears just slightly more likely than a moderate one.
–Meanwhile, in California, new data on Thursday showed the state’s epic drought has continued to worsen. More than 80 percent of California is now classified as under “extreme” or “exceptional” drought. The prospect of a weaker El Niño bodes poorlyfor heavy drought-busting rains along the West Coast this winter.
Professional weather watchers are losing hope that the expected arrival of an El Niño in coming months will wash away California’s drought.
The U.S. Climate Prediction Center, which issued its monthly report on Pacific Ocean weather patterns Thursday, is still projecting that sea surface temperatures will rise, a phenomenon known as El Niño. But the El Niño that’s in the forecast will likely be “weak to moderate,” the report says.
While strong El Niños have been associated with California’s wettest years, lesser El Niños have not been linked to rainfall in Northern California.
“We’re a lot less certain about what types of impacts we’ll have this year,” said Logan Johnson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service who has been tracking the development of the El Niño. “Unless it’s a strong event, it doesn’t do much to predict what winter rainfall will be.”
The chance of an El Niño emerging, according to the report, is about 70 percent by the end of summer and 80 percent by fall or early winter.
The projected strength of the El Niño is low because subsurface ocean temperatures near the International Date Line have cooled since earlier this year, according to the report.
Reports last spring of sea surface warming had many hoping that a strong El Niño would develop and help combat the state’s prolonged drought.
While rainfall in Northern California isn’t likely to see a bump with the El Niño, moderate events have sometimes correlated with wetter years in Southern California.
The strong events have correlated with statewide increases in rainfall. San Francisco saw its most rain in the last century – 47.2 inches – during the El Niño year of 1997-98.
California is wrestling with three years of below-average rainfall, and Sierra snowmelt remains historically light. That’s left water supplies in many places at near-record lows.
Several communities have begun restricting water use in homes and businesses, and water deliveries to California farmers have been curtailed.
While an El Niño is unlikely to bring an end to the drought, Johnson said this doesn’t mean California won’t see rain, as there are many factors shaping the weather.
It feels like we are if the threatened El Nino failed to develop as it would give us a couple more years of breathing space before a return to the more rapid temperature rises seen before the PDO switched to negative in 1998, on the other hand a mild El Nino is unlikely to break the south west USA drought and therefore we will see food prices rise rapidly and some major towns running out of water.
Not much of a choice really.
Yes, not much of a choice, and I hate to wish ill on the folks in CA, but a serious water crisis in CA and a resulting big spike in food prices nation-wide might help to jolt folks onto demanding more action on climate change. It won’t be any easier to deal with at some future time if we somehow dodge the bullet this time—-let’s get on with it.
Ooops. That should have read”It feels like we are between the devil and the deep blues sea. If the threatened El Nino etc…..