The latest forecast from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has now downgraded any El Niño event in 2014 to be – at worst – a normal or a weak El Niño. There is still a reasonable possibility that it will develop, but that itself means that there is now a significant probability that it may not even happen. The alarmist clamour of 3 months ago, enthusiastically disseminated around the globe was clearly somewhat exaggerated.
ENSO Wrap-Up – 29th July 2014:
Despite the tropical Pacific Ocean being primed for an El Niño during much of the first half of 2014, the atmosphere above has largely failed to respond, and hence the ocean and atmosphere have not reinforced each other. As a result, some cooling has now taken place in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, with most of the key NINO regions returning to neutral values.
While the chance of an El Niño in 2014 has clearly eased, warmer-than-average waters persist in parts of the tropical Pacific, and the (slight) majority of climate models suggest El Niño remains likely for spring. Hence the establishment of El Niño before year’s end cannot be ruled out. If an El Niño were to occur, it is increasingly unlikely to be a strong event.
Given the current observations and the climate model outlooks, the Bureau’s ENSO Tracker has shifted to El Niño WATCH status.
Back on 6th May, the ABM wrote ” The tropical Pacific Ocean has warmed steadily in recent months, with large warm anomalies in the ocean sub-surface (5-day values up to +6 °C) and increasingly warm sea surface temperatures. Climate models surveyed by the Bureau suggest El Niño development is possible as early as July”.
Climate models are not as robust as some would like us to believe.
The alarmists such as Joe Romm went to town with dire predictions just 3 months ago and were predicting a “super” and a Monster” El Niño for 2014. Of course, dire predictions which never ever materialise are the stuff of alarmism. The clever alarmist is the one who makes unverifiable predictions which will never happen but which cannot be disproved.
Joe Romm, 26th March: Is A Super El Niño Coming That Will Shatter Extreme Weather And Global Temperature Records?
Signs are increasingly pointing to the formation of an El Niño in the next few months, possibly a very strong one. When combined with the long-term global warming trend, a strong El Niño would mean 2015 is very likely to become the hottest year on record by far. …….
John Upton, May 16th: A monster El Niño could be on its way, and it will likely have a complicated effect on the world’s breadbaskets.
Something fierce is rising out of the Pacific Ocean, and its appetite for the world’s major carb crops could be even more ravenous than that of a monstrous mythical sea creature. …… A dinosaurian belch of warm water thousands of miles wide has appeared at the surface of the Pacific Ocean near the equator. The warming ocean conditions have spurred NOAA to project a two-thirds chance that an El Niño will form by summer’s end. It’s tipped to be of the monster variety—the extreme type that could become more common with global warming.
El Niño events come regularly and we can expect that will continue. But in 2014 it will at worst be a “normal” or a weak El Niño. Its feared effects on the Indian monsoon have also been downgraded. The monsoon which is now half-way through its season has recovered somewhat.
But the simple truth is that not a single one of the dire predictions that global warming alarmists are wont to make has come to pass.
Tags: El Niño, El Niño 2014, Indian monsoon
The k2p blog 