Correlation of a warm summer in the Arctic with La Niña?

[ArcticMelt1]

An interesting question is why, despite the warming winters in the Arctic in the summer in the Arctic after 2012, there is a cold snap?

This is due to the most powerful natural cycle (ENSO index)?



If the summer of 2018 will be a strong El Niña, will there be a new record low sea ice in the Arctic?


Scientific research on this topic:

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms11721

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2004GL019858/full

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4895717/

https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0417.1

[ArcticMelt1]

Last forecast

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

[Tealight]

In the title you have written "El Niño" and in the survey "La Niña". In the text "El Niña" which doesn't exist. Which phenomenon do you actually mean? 

[ArcticMelt1]

In the title you have written "El Niño" and in the survey "La Niña". In the text "El Niña" which doesn't exist. Which phenomenon do you actually mean? 

Thanks for the comment, corrected.

[Gray-Wolf]

I'm sure we see the conflagration of many 'natural signals' that can tip the scales toward a high melt/high export season but also a growing impact from low ice generally?

You could link low solar to high melt years with the last 3 record breaking years of 07' ,2010, 2012, being in the run down to , in  and on the way out of , low solar?

But then you have the Nina's as well so low solar and nina?

This year we will have La NADA and low solar...... but far more of the 'changed basin ' input than any of the past record years?

I believe we are far from seeing any 'settled' new patterns from ice loss with our basin currently trying to accommodate low ice over on the Pacific side along with Jen Francis's Atlantic side low ice forcings?

When we suddenly encounter blue ocean then we will also have the huge central part of the basin in the mix with full ocean processes resuming in the basin and any layering in the upper ocean being rapidly mixed out as long period swells and waves turn over the top 200m?

The last El Nino had a few false starts with near record Kelvin waves being pushed east early in the year. These waves also travelled up the west coast of the US and eventually found themselves in Bering so did these 'warm pulses' lead to the lack of ice over on the Beaufort side these last 3 years or so?

What we can say is we are in novel times with all the old forcings now being augmented by the new norm of low ice and large dollops of energy expelled from the open waters in Autumn/early winter.

[Archimid]

I don’t think a clear correlation between ENSO and Arctic melt can be established because The Arctic is a different place since 2007. if there existed a relationship before, it might no longer exist or it might even change signs.

[Pmt111500]

What I remember of this supposed relation, there was no correlation between the Extent of Ice and ENSO phase. That, however might not be the case with the Volume of Ice, that couldn't be checked for the earlier years. I don't know how we could use the extant Ice data for deducing the correlation. The +80degree temperature figures from dmi I have not had in any of my analysis, but I'd go with that, if you can get the numbers.

Further it's advisable to check also the other ENSO phases (and La Nada) for the correlation. The Arctic is so far removed from ENSO the signal (if there is one) may get mixed up by all the other stuff going on.

[Dharma Rupa]

Further it's advisable to check also the other ENSO phases (and La Nada) for the correlation. The Arctic is so far removed from ENSO the signal (if there is one) may get mixed up by all the other stuff going on.

Might also check for a delayed signal.  It could be that there is a correlation with the start or end of one of the phases and the temp in the Arctic a year and a half later.  There are plenty of other delayed responses in the climate system -- even some hint of an oscillation between the poles.

[Gray-Wolf]

What I remember of this supposed relation, there was no correlation between the Extent of Ice and ENSO phase.

I think we do see impacts but they are well delayed from any ongoing event?

Those Kelvin waves took up to 18 months to percolate all the way to the Alaskan current? Air masses , sourced over nino's , might have a faster passage in this age of rapid air mass movements but as for a driven response in some kind of 'real time'? Maybe QBO interactions with the polar night jet up at 10mb level?

What I think is apparent is that forcings are not stable but intensifying in one direction so what we see one year may have broken a threshold by the next year and so show different behaviours?

Maybe once we are into blue Ocean forcings things may plateau but until then the dollop of energy deposited into the atmosphere above open waters each Autumn must vary with the size of area involved?

The other thing we must also accept is that the last super Nino was only part of the global temp for that year with lessening of dimming and albedo flip/open arctic waters adding in their share. As such we have seen two of the warmest Nina's on record at the end of the noughties and then this near failed Nina as global augmentations warm out Nina's and warm up Nino's?

Because these forcings are now annual maybe it would make more sense to look at them and not the much rarer Nino/Nina events?

As China rolls out its own versions of the clean air acts dimming will drop away with soot washing out very quickly and sulphates over a few years.Couple that with the bespoke scrubbers being retro fitted to smoke stacks/power plants I would expect their impacts to be far swifter than we had begun to see in North America/northern Europe after our clean air acts began to take impact?

If Nasa is right with its assessment of impacts from dimming we could see the push of a moderate Nino each and every year as the full impacts of the current GHG loading traps a fuller amount of solar now reaching the surface?

then we have albedo and open water? No matter the extra snows WACCy weather may bring we are still seeing rapid declines in snow cover come late spring/early summer and with permafrost now driven ever deeper land surfaces warm ever faster and impact up to 1,500km away.... again a more direct impact on the basin and again an annual event?

[Pmt111500]

What I remember of this supposed relation, there was no correlation between the Extent of Ice and ENSO phase.

I think we do see impacts but they are well delayed from any ongoing event?

(cut)

Whoa, that's a lot of questions. Have to take them one by one if I even understand them... may take a while to get some of them.

What I did, I just experimented shortly with an assumption that La Ninas have become a bit warmer overall so nowadays a small La Nina would be as large as larger ones in historical record. Got scared of possible overfitting and quit. I didn't back then have a clue how far down the waters of La Nina get up (and still don't) so I was mainly working on assumption the middle layers of the area would be the source of cooler waters. If they come from deeper layers then the whole stuff was bogus. Good luck trying to solve this. It would be nice if the warmth of upcoming winters of only one year ice could be tied to ENSO.

[Gray-Wolf]

What I remember of this supposed relation, there was no correlation between the Extent of Ice and ENSO phase.

I think we do see impacts but they are well delayed from any ongoing event?

(cut)

Whoa, that's a lot of questions. Have to take them one by one if I even understand them... may take a while to get some of them.

Soz Pmt111500 !

I'm just full of questions and only broad brush strokes with which to attempt to answer them!

I know the PDO temps are modified to take account of warming oceans but I do not know if the same can be said for ENSO?

If it is just a 30 year average for the base line ENSO temps then any sudden acceleration in warming will leave the average behind and so have Nina's warmed up and Nino's on steroids?

But this misses the point of ENSO interference in ice levels?

I think it will be a bit of a dead duck with other forcings probably imparting a far bigger influence?

For me 'Dimming' is the one thing that has aided Deniers over the decades but will come back to bite themselves in the butt big stylee?

Our efforts to clean up were aided by the collapse of the soviet Union and their uber dirty industries but then swiftly on its tail was China in its headlong rush to 'modernise' itself.

In the west we had purer coals to drive our industrialisation but China just had high soot,high sulphur brown coal and so must have had a big impact on the atmosphere esp. just downwind over the Pacific?

The 'cleanup' they are undergoing is also occurring at record speeds compared to ours? so we might look at a 40 year pause in warming until it resumed at the start of the 80's but their 'pause' was far shorter and the cleanup far faster.

Again the Deniers may well have made hay whilst the sun didn't shine as brightly as it might but the flip side of that is a rapid warm up aided by some of the naturals also flipping into augmenting warming?

This year's global temps will be interesting with near nina conditions in charge.... will it still post a top 3 temp?

In the light of all that I think general warming, esp. if in an accelerated period of warming, will cause far more damage to the ice that a once every 4 or 5 year event can?

[Pmt111500]

What I remember of this supposed relation, there was no correlation between the Extent of Ice and ENSO phase.

I think we do see impacts but they are well delayed from any ongoing event?

(cut)

Whoa, that's a lot of questions. Have to take them one by one if I even understand them... may take a while to get some of them.

Soz Pmt111500 !

I'm just full of questions and only broad brush strokes with which to attempt to answer them!

I know the PDO temps are modified to take account of warming oceans but I do not know if the same can be said for ENSO?

If it is just a 30 year average for the base line ENSO temps then any sudden acceleration in warming will leave the average behind and so have Nina's warmed up and Nino's on steroids?

But this misses the point of ENSO interference in ice levels?

I think it will be a bit of a dead duck with other forcings probably imparting a far bigger influence?

For me 'Dimming' is the one thing that has aided Deniers over the decades but will come back to bite themselves in the butt big stylee?

(cut)

Yep, it's quite possible the general warming of oceans influencing ENSO this way is a dead duck. The northwestern Pacific temperatures during La Ninas might have clues to rule that out. What you say of dimming sounds quite reasonable to me. Getting quite late in the evening here. Should remember to check this in the morning, thanks.

[Tor Bejnar]

If it is just a 30 year average for the base line ENSO temps then any sudden acceleration in warming will leave the average behind and so have Nina's warmed up and Nino's on steroids?

I don't know much but, from the Climate Prediction Center:

There will be multiple centered 30-year base periods that will be used to define the Oceanic Niño index (as a departure from average or "anomaly"). These 30-year base periods will be used to calculate the anomalies for successive 5-year periods in the historical record: ...

In other words, a different 30-year base is used for each 5-year period of time.

The 2014-2015 (IIRC) El Niño 'disappeared' because a new base was instituted in the middle of it, pulling the rug out from under the formerly-just-over-the-threshold values.

I almost think the 30-year base needs to be changed every year or two [after every EN?], due to climate change.  But this area is so far out of my expertise that my opinion counts for naught.

[Pmt111500]

If it is just a 30 year average for the base line ENSO temps then any sudden acceleration in warming will leave the average behind and so have Nina's warmed up and Nino's on steroids?

I don't know much but, from the Climate Prediction Center:

There will be multiple centered 30-year base periods that will be used to define the Oceanic Niño index (as a departure from average or "anomaly"). These 30-year base periods will be used to calculate the anomalies for successive 5-year periods in the historical record: ...

In other words, a different 30-year base is used for each 5-year period of time.

(cut)

Well this makes sense if you're trying to find the proper oscillatory frequenc(ies) for ENSO but.... yeah, you'd get a bit noisier result, i'd wager. Anyway the atmospheric response times to El Nino are there, they're a bit different for different regions where there is one. Maybe there are similar ones to La Ninas (and dudded La Ninas). Not touching the dimming issue yet.

I almost think the 30-year base needs to be changed every year or two [after every EN?], due to climate change. 

Maybe using some sort of index made out of the overall global temperature? The overall yearly rise (or drop) are small but they are there. Though, would this result in circular reasoning and/or overfitting?

But this area is so far out of my expertise that my opinion counts for naught.

Ditto, I think it's clear, that the behavior of Sub-polar Gyres of Pacific and specially Atlantic (being pretty much disconnected of ENSO) may break many hypotheses concerning this (as of yet) hypothetical link between La Ninas and Arctic. But that doesn't mean there couldn't be one. Ah, the difficulty of making proper science!

(Thus far it's clear, I'll have to reread some things of PDO, that one might well have a large role in all of this.)

[Gray-Wolf]

But with PDO comes the triple 'R' and the altered Jet..... andthen  forcings behind an altered Jet........

All roads lead to Rome and all impacts increasingly lead back to sea ice loss in the basin!!!

May the god's be kind when AGW signals swamp the naturals completely!

[Pmt111500]

But with PDO comes the triple 'R' and the altered Jet..... andthen  forcings behind an altered Jet........

All roads lead to Rome and all impacts increasingly lead back to sea ice loss in the basin!!!

Of course there are ENSO effects to southern hemisphere too but I don't recall seeing any analysis trying to break it sensibly down to southern and northern components. That I've not seen one doesn't mean there isn't one. There's IPO though on Southern pacific... Don't know much of it...

May the god's be kind when AGW signals swamp the naturals completely!

Amen to that.