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2010-06-24 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

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Posted by 3dc 2010-06-24 17:54|| || Front Page|| [9 views ] Top

#1 For those who might be interested, Bob Tisdale reports on various sea surface temperatures every month and has quite an interesting posting on El Nino and La Nina at his Climate Observations blog:

http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/

El Nino is actually a period when the ocean is giving up its heat to the atmosphere ... which is why we see the warm surface temperatures. La Nina is when it is an absorbing phase of solar energy. So while sea surface temperatures are low during La Nina, the ocean is actually banking heat at this time (and storing it in the far Eastern Pacific). Once the trade winds slack off, this warm water "sloshes" (so to speak) back across the equatorial region raising surface temperatures there while it gives the heat up to the atmosphere.

Posted by crosspatch 2010-06-24 18:21|| 2010-06-24 18:21|| Front Page Top

#2 Following from crosspatch, 99.x% of the Earth's climate heat is in the oceans. So when the atmosphere warms from an El Nino it means the Earth's climate is cooling as the oceans lose heat, and as the atmosphere cools from a La Nina it means the Earth's climate is warming.

Atmospheric temperatures (over timescales less than a century or so) are irrelevant to whether the Earth's atmosphere is warming or cooling. It's Ocean Heat Content that matters. And we have only been able to measure OHC with any accuracy for less than 10 years.

Posted by phil_b 2010-06-24 19:07|| 2010-06-24 19:07|| Front Page Top

#3 And we have only been able to measure OHC with any accuracy for less than 10 years.

....which will be qualified in the MSM as 'all known history' or 'since records have been kept' rather than '10 years'.

Posted by Procopius2k 2010-06-24 19:25|| 2010-06-24 19:25|| Front Page Top

#4 And when Al Gore tries to get a little LaNina at a hotel and fails, it's called, "An Inconvenienced Nerd".

Posted by HammerHead 2010-06-24 21:50|| 2010-06-24 21:50|| Front Page Top

#5 Oh my, HammerHead. That's definitely "To your room" caliber. Well done! ;-)

Posted by trailing wife 2010-06-24 22:48|| 2010-06-24 22:48|| Front Page Top

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