Will There Be A 2018/19 El Niño?

[rangerrebew]

Will There Be A 2018/19 El Niño?
Bob Tisdale / 1 day ago April 6, 2018   

Guest Post by Bob Tisdale

Looks like one may be forming right now.

Judith Curry published the post ENSO forecast for 2018 yesterday. On the thread (here) I asked and stated:

    Judith, the question that needs answering: Are weather conditions right for a series of westerly wind bursts in the western tropical Pacific? Without westerly wind bursts to initiate downwelling Kelvin waves, there will be no El Niño.

So this morning I checked with the NOAA GODAS website, and, yes, there have been westerly wind bursts this year. See the hovmoller plot of the “Surface zonal wind stress anomaly” from the GODAS Pentad Anomaly Products webpage (my Figure 1 below).

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/04/06/will-there-be-a-2018-19-el-nino/

[Sanguine]

Short answer: yes.

[GtHawk]

Will an El Niño in 2018/19 be strong enough to permanently raise global sea surface temperatures?

Only time will tell. And if you’re wondering how a strong El Niño can (and does) raise global sea surface temperatures permanently,

Permanently? Seriously? That's just a little bit hard to believe, the ocean temperature will remain up permanently, they'll never go down, ever? What is this gonna be some sort of super El Nino that has never happened before, because I'm pretty sure the Ocean temperatures have gone up and down before.

[Elderberry]

http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml

EL NIÑO/SOUTHERN OSCILLATION (ENSO)
DIAGNOSTIC DISCUSSION
issued by
CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER/NCEP/NWS
and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society
08 March 2018
 

ENSO Alert System Status: La Niña Advisory
 

Synopsis:  A transition from La Niña to ENSO-neutral is most likely (~55% chance) during the March-May season, with neutral conditions likely to continue into the second half of the year.

During February 2018, La Niña weakened, but was still reflected by below-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the east-central equatorial Pacific Ocean [Fig. 1]. The latest weekly index values were -0.8°C and -0.6°C in the Niño-3.4 and Niño-3 regions, respectively, and were near zero in the surrounding Niño.4 and Niño1+2 regions [Fig. 2]. While negative anomalies were maintained near the surface, the sub-surface temperature anomalies (averaged across 180°-100°W) warmed to near zero [Fig. 3]. This warming was due to the eastward propagation of above-average temperatures along the thermocline in association with a downwelling equatorial oceanic Kelvin wave [Fig. 4]. The atmospheric anomalies typical of La Niña weakened considerably across the tropical Pacific. Convection was suppressed near Indonesia and was only weakly enhanced over the far western Pacific [Fig. 5]. Also, low-level wind anomalies were westerly over the western and central Pacific, while upper-level winds remained anomalously westerly over the eastern Pacific. Overall, the ocean and atmosphere system suggests La Niña is weakening.

Most models in the IRI/CPC plume predict La Niña will decay and return to ENSO-neutral during the Northern Hemisphere spring 2018 [Fig. 6]. The forecast consensus similarly favors a transition during the spring, with a continuation of ENSO-neutral conditions through the summer. In summary, a transition from La Niña to ENSO-neutral is most likely (~55% chance) during the March-May season, with neutral conditions likely to continue into the second half of the year (click CPC/IRI consensus forecast for the chance of each outcome for each 3-month period).

This discussion is a consolidated effort of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NOAA's National Weather Service, and their funded institutions. Oceanic and atmospheric conditions are updated weekly on the Climate Prediction Center web site (El Niño/La Niña Current Conditions and Expert Discussions). Forecasts are also updated monthly in the Forecast Forum of CPC's Climate Diagnostics Bulletin. Additional perspectives and analysis are also available in an ENSO blog. The next ENSO Diagnostics Discussion is scheduled for 12 April 2018 . To receive an e-mail notification when the monthly ENSO Diagnostic Discussions are released, please send an e-mail message to: ncep.list.enso-update@noaa.gov.
 
Climate Prediction Center
National Centers for Environmental Prediction
NOAA/National Weather Service
College Park, MD 20740