Saturday, May 24, 2014

Monsoon 2014: ‘Super’ El Niño is unlikely but rainfall deficiency can cross 16%!




Geez – a ‘Super’ El Niño??? It’s a bad enough that seasoned meteorologists have to struggle each year even to predict the emergence an El Niño with great certainity. But here are crackpots actually prepared to wager bets on its intensity and worse still,  even more cranks in the world including the gullible sections of the media willing to swallow their hype without question!!
Historically, the odds are stacked heavily against a ‘Super’ El Niño developing this year. The last two events were in 1997/1998, and 1982. Both these events occurred during the positive or warm phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). During the cool or negative phase of the PDO (which we are currently in), overall the El Niño events are less frequent and of lower magnitude. 
The strongest El Niño in a previous cool phase of the PDO was in 1972/1973, at the fag stage of the last cool PDO cycle. Of these three, the 1997/98 event is widely considered having the greatest intensity on global temperatures with the 1972/73 the least impact.  The real intensity of the 1982 event on global temperatures has not been fully established being offset by some measure by the global cooling triggered from El Chichon volcanic eruption.
 

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