Building El Nino could soak parched Calif.
By Christopher Weber, AP
These latest wet storms aren’t expected to provide much, if any, relief from California’s historic drought. But there is hope for a serious drenching next year in the form of El Nino, a tropical weather pattern over the Pacific Ocean that typically brings rain to the West Coast.
Climatologists say the system forming near the equator looks like a big one that has the potential to provide relief from the yearslong dry spell.
Here are some things to know about El Nino:
What is it?
An ocean-warming phenomenon that builds in the Pacific during springtime. Moderate-to-strong events typically bring winter rain and snow to California and the rest of the southwest.
Wasn’t there one this year?
Yes, but it arrived too late to help the drought. There’s a 90 percent chance the current El Nino will last through the summer and a greater than 80 percent chance it will stick around through the end of the year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. While NOAA says it’s too soon to determine the strength, other scientists say it’s turning out to be quite strong.
Is next year’s El Nino a sure thing?
Definitely not, says climatologist Bill Patzert of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But he says the increasingly warm temperatures in the Pacific along the equator recall conditions back in the spring of 1997, the prelude to a record El Nino year that brought heavy rains to California. “It’s definitely a couple of notches above where we’ve been. Right now it looks like there might be some potential, but there are no guarantees,” he said.
What’s the deal with La Nina?
El Nino’s flip side, La Nina, is a cooling of the central Pacific. It’s been much more common for the past decade or so. From 2005 to 2014, there have been twice as many months with a La Nina than with El Nino, weather records show.
El Niño, La Niña. Is it caused by Global Warming or Climate Change?
Can’t have it both ways here…
There are no stupid questions.
Just scientifically illiterate people.
Ahhh yes, Bitter illustrates the moronic right wing willfully ignorant lunatic fringe. Gee, if it’s not white, then it must be black, uhh and if it’s not black then…..
Rabid Leftist babble and ignorance injects race into every equation and then baseless name calling and accusation and for a last gasp, they try to be relevant when they can’t.
LOL! Injecting race?!!! WTF are you talking about? More evidence of your simple little world. You are tirelessly wrong.
Justice, you are a piece of ….work.
Exactly BC!!
You cant’ be screaming GW and have a dominant La Nina!! But maybe that MODEL IS WRONG TOO!
The ECO activists/lunatic fringe need to have a cause which has turned into their religion de jour/decade! Especially if they can hold others hostage to their maniacal invention ~ thank you algore and your carbon shill game.
Environmental responsible care had been corrupted by those that know how to ‘make a buck off it’! and turned into what is no longer considered science. Now we only have shills satisfying gov. funded grant money devising ways to control the earths population. Sick!! Greed, power, corruption ~ has always been around always will be.
God’s creation will survive and thrive ~ it always has always will. Humanity is to be the higher intelligence, stewards of this beautiful place. Care and appreciate the dynamic beauty of God’s gift. But, like with every thing evil seeps in and corrupts.
…..there is no mention in the article about climate change or global warming. Turn off the Faux News guys, you are losing it.
current low brow sociopolitical setting skews words including ‘black’ , ‘white’, and ‘faith’, effectively removing them from rational application
Yikes, folks. BitterClinger just asked a simple question. (El Niño, La Niña. Is it caused by Global Warming or Climate Change?)
There are records in the Andes of El Niño events going back hundreds of years. (The changes in water temperature affected fishing.) There are also other periodic cycles, such as the Pacific decadal oscillation.
That said, it is my understanding that most weather scientists believe that weather and climate swings are likely to become more extreme with a warming climate.
Anyone that has family or friends that are real scientists-with real science degrees and jobs-know that the scientific process requires them to challenge their peer’s findings-always trying to find errors or bad data before they will agree on the results-exhaustive research over decades results in 97 out of 100 real climatologists agreeing on climate change-I suppose that the other 3 are marlene’s friends- aaaaargh! the delusional it Burns!
The la Nina/El Nino argument in some of the comments above truly shows how people use buzz words they do not understand to try to look smarter (or more clever) than they are.
For example, the Nino phenomenon is a temperature increase or decrease in the Pacific Ocean. The last time I looked, the Pacific Ocean was not a global body of water, just the one that has the most affect on us west coast dwellers in both North and South America.
The global warming/climate change condition is very complex, and hard to predict. It is NOT necessarily that everywhere gets hotter but that the average temp on a global basis seems to be rising (at least in this version). The lack of a perfectly predictable model is a common thing that the deniers always seem to miss but still use to attempt to disprove climate change.
Atomic put this as well as it can be stated. And a nutcase tried to take it as a racial statement?
And Marlene….. Your post is entirely conflictive….if the lunatic eco fringe is the problem, (obviously humans) how can you also say that humanity is to be the higher intelligence and be stewards to this place? Are you suggesting that the eco lunatic fringe is possibly right?
There is a lot of historic and scientific evidence for climate change.
The is zero evidence for the existence a god. If there was a god, why wouldn’t this god just fix the problem?
But please, believe what you want…just don’t expect everyone else to fall in line.
3% of the population also started this country tea total….or were they wrong too?
What?
business owner – you are clueless. The earth is warming, that is a fact; even the 3% of scientist that debates the human contribution agree with that (unless they live in a cave). The evidence is overwhelming that warming is due largely to human obsession with petroleum products. Thousands of peer review publications each year over the last decade or so provide amble evidence. The warming earth is anthropologically driven and the warming is responsible for changing climates which translates to differing weather patterns, and instability in the weather. More violent fluctuations for example.
For example, normal processes like drought cycles are influenced by the warming trends, exaggerating the lengths and affects (e.g., warming dries the soil out quicker, affecting the ability to store water). Hence, the almost exclusive funding of fancy brochures claiming climate change is a hoax is funding by the oil industry (read that as tobacco companies claiming cigs are not responsible for cancer – how did that go for them).
You can put blinders on and stick with those scientists (the largely cig scientist) that have generally been shown to not have valid arguments because it fits your preconceived notion, or you can accept the overwhelming evidence that the earth is warming and that warming is having some significant affects on weather patterns worldwide.
My sense is you have actually never read a peer reviewed scientific article on the subject and if you have a good chance you would not have a single clue regarding the statistical arguments made, did they use more traditional frequentists statistics or did they rely on bayesian or information-theortic multi-model approaches. Regardless of what statistical paradigm they relied on, speak to the advantages or disadvantages of the analytic framework they choose.
As a scientist, I have read a number of articles over the years in the various sub-disciplines that define climate research. I am guessing you are only parroting talk shows – good source.
Rick
If i am so clueless rick then why are scientists skewing data and changing past temps to fit their models? Something kinda fishy when people lie to earn money and gain control. Nice rant by the way…very scientific name callinG, really sells your point. Just remember. .i love u too man.
LTN needs software to automatically delete insulting off-topic comments.
BO: Every model needs to be calibrated. You have not demonstrated that you have a basic understanding of science, which is probably why you never link to and sources or bring any substance to the discussion. This is a common trait of ‘skeptics’.
Green there is no barrier to entry here, so ignorant people have just as much say as informed people. Create a barrier to entry (education) and a lot of the worst commenters go away.
So the new narrative is “if you dont agree with me you are ignorant and basically stupid with no right to voice your opinion”. i guess all of my very intelligent elitists friends on here are just darn right stupid on the subject of freedom, liberty, and that pesky constitution. But please keep giving the real elite more power and wealth with no recourse cause boy oh boy its always worked out in the past.
” You have not demonstrated that you have a basic understanding of science,”
Yes, those who have designated themselves as the arbiters of intelligence have not approved your application. More funds are required.
Reminiscent of the time when the Pope and his Cardinals were the arbiters of scientific knowledge, and heretics were burned at the stake.
Hopefully this El Nino materializes! But while we need all the water we can get, the strongest of El Ninos can lead to flooding, landslides & closed roads. So hopefully it packs merely some ‘punch’, not a full wallop.
And the biggest argument against the whole human caused climate change narrative, is the personal attacks one gets if you question it. And we’re not talking just on these blogs, but even Congressman go on witch hunts when someone comes before them and doesn’t testify that they’re drinking climate change kool aid.
Ideally, science deniers would have their own little planet in some far off Galaxy . They would be free to not care about any of these issues. They could then heat it up, shoot it up and generally let their right to ‘freedom’ eclipse their better judgement. It would be a hot, violent place, but it would be theirs.
The rest of us would have our own planet and would take reasonable steps to secure its future. No hype, no fear mongering, no FOX news, just regular people going about their lives with their brains turned ON, collectively deciding that the very science that has provided so much for them should be respected and, once verified, be accepted.
Trouble is, when the deniers decide to heat up THIS planet, it becomes OUR problem. Thems fightin words.
Strange that the same people that call us “deniers” (just read an article about greenies needing to use that term and not skeptic to increase their chances of people listening to them) are the same people that want bigger govt, wealth redistribution, open borders, closed forests, zero guns, drugs legalized, forced vaccinations, and the list goes on.
The difference between a liberal and conservative person:
If a conservative person sees something on tv they dont like they just change the channel.
If a liberal person sees something on tv they dont like they get the show thrown off the air.
How about the scientists on here start biking to work, put solar panels on their houses, grow all their own food and never buy petroleum based products again. Also please give half your income to a nameless rich guy to force the rest of us to do the same….any takers?
Oh and Atomic..”fighting words”? Thats like liberal anti gun nature bat talking about civil war…u guys hate guns and dont own them…so how do you propose you fight people?
b.o. , it’s difficult to engage on your statement(s) because you do not appear to be capable of rational thought.
Yet here u are…name calling…again
What exasperates the realists and scientifically literate is that the deniers try to rely on opinions as being as valid as genuine scientific evidence. It’s as if I were to say that I don’t believe fusion creates the energy on the sun, because after all we can’t create it here on earth. So fusion on the sun is bunk.
There’s a website called Realclimate dot com that provides information by a group of climate scientists who are qualified to study and report on the situation. It’s a better place to get informed than a politically oriented channel of any stripe that others seem to rely upon.
No need to call them names, but it’s incredible how many of the duped take these denials so seriously. It’s an argument that’s pretty much settled.
There have been climate changes in the past, but the science clearly shows a major portion of the accelerating change this time around to be contributed by manmade greenhouse gases. There’s a lot of costs and money and lifestyle changes at stake to mitigate this (significant) portion of climate change due to human factors, if it is to be tackled. That’s why the opponents so fiercely try to attack the science, not because they have any particular better understanding otherwise.
The costs will come anyway, as sea levels and storm surges begin to sop up Miami and other seaboard cities, and wreak havoc in other ways that have been long discussed. Those responsible for most of it will as always want others to pay the price to ameliorate it at that time – when it may be too late to help. As of now, they certainly don’t want to pay to help prevent it. Too many of the powerful in the current status quo would be disturbed.
Meanwhile, the drought may further focus our attention more directly, unless with good luck El Nino comes through with a banner precipitation year.
Not Born,
Phd.’s/tenured professors in climatology, very literate people, disagree with the narrative!
The familiar retort is that they’re an extremely small minority of scientists.
But if they’re illegitimate in their findings, or being paid off by the oil industry as is often accused, then get their tenure stripped!
And if there’s this great majority of scientists that believes in the human caused climate change narrative,!do they unanimously agree that man is 100% responsible for any climate change? No they do not.
You can say it’s exasperating to engage in dialogue with someone who has a different view than you on climate change, ok. That’s how you feel.
But if you’re not literate in psy-
chology, here’s a lesson for you. Whatever the topic, when someone responds with a personal attack in a debate, it’s a sign they’re not comfortable or confident in their own views!
3% is a small minority of “Scientist.” 400ppm CO2 is 400ppm CO2. 400ppm CO2 isn’t from Volcanoes, Asteroids or Aliens, it’s from burning massive amounts of fossil fuels.
In the 1980’s we came together as a Planet to abate another gas that was destroying the Ozone Layer, we can tackle CO2 emissions too.
The term “deniers” implies that there is already concrete evidence for something, but the “deniers” just refuse to accept science. Basically, it’s a term the greenies use to make other people look stupid. However, there is nothing close to concrete evidence, and the evidence there is is riddled with skewing and mis-interpretation. There’s simply not enough evidence for me to go crazy calling names and insulting people on this blog. hint. hint.
BO. YAWN
Deadgrass. YAWN SQUARED
No, the deniers do not understand the science and/or choose to deny it because it doesn’t fit their worldview.
You claim lots of things have holes in it but have yet to link to any research. Why is that? Have you read a research paper?
Excellent examples of what I was talking about in some of these responses. Greenies don’t try to make people look uninformed. That would be ignorance, “Beliefs”, and refusal to accept information from experts that they don’t like. You’ll come around eventually. In this country, it often seems like only once the opposition finally admits they were wrong, do major things change. Like Nixon going to China.