ASA - January 2007: Re: [asa] Pictures of a Warming Planet

From: Janice Matchett <janmatch@earthlink.net>
Date: Mon Jan 15 2007 - 19:29:26 EST

At 06:19 PM 1/15/2007, Rich Blinne wrote:
>Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.
>The question is whether there is global warming
>and whether anthropogenic greenhouse gases
>caused it. The temperature trend by itself
>doesn't answer the question. But, there is also
>a trend for higher nighttime lows and lower
>stratospheric temperatures (with two spikes for
>volcanic eruptions). Both of these trends speak
>against solar forcing as a cause. The fact that
>CO2 went way up in the same time frames also
>speaks volumes. See the graphs for yourself here:
>
><http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/01/13/weekinreview/20070114_BASICS_GRAPHIC.html>http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/01/13/weekinreview/20070114_BASICS_GRAPHIC.html

@ http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/

Note the increase in temperature a few years ago
-- coinciding with all the hysteria about GW.
Also note where the temperatures appear to be
heading. A cooler, wetter period is predicted --
it'll be interesting to see how GW Henny Pennys
spin that into their apocalyptic scenarios. ~ Janice

http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/pdo_warm_cool3.jpg

http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/img/pdo_latest.png

The "Pacific Decadal Oscillation" (PDO) is a
long-lived El Niño-like pattern of Pacific
climate variability. While the two climate
oscillations have similar spatial climate
fingerprints, they have very different behavior
in time. Fisheries scientist Steven Hare coined
the term "Pacific Decadal Oscillation" (PDO) in
1996 while researching connections between Alaska
salmon production cycles and Pacific climate (his
dissertation topic with advisor Robert Francis).
Two main characteristics distinguish PDO from El
Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO): first, 20th
century PDO "events" persisted for 20-to-30
years, while typical ENSO events persisted for 6
to 18 months; second, the climatic fingerprints
of the PDO are most visible in the North
Pacific/North American sector, while secondary
signatures exist in the tropics - the opposite is
true for ENSO. Several independent studies find
evidence for just two full PDO cycles in the past
century: "cool" PDO regimes prevailed from
1890-1924 and again from 1947-1976, while "warm"
PDO regimes dominated from 1925-1946 and from
1977 through (at least) the mid-1990's. Shoshiro
Minobe has shown that 20th century PDO
fluctuations were most energetic in two general
periodicities, one from 15-to-25 years, and the other from 50-to-70 years.
http://ingrid.ldeo.columbia.edu/%28/home/alexeyk/mydata/TSsvd.in%29readfile/.SST/.PDO/

Major changes in northeast Pacific marine
ecosystems have been correlated with phase
changes in the PDO; warm eras have seen enhanced
coastal ocean biological productivity in Alaska
and inhibited productivity off the west coast of
the contiguous United States, while cold PDO eras
have seen the opposite north-south pattern of marine ecosystem productivity.

Causes for the PDO are not currently known.
Likewise, the potential predictability for this
climate oscillation are not known. Some climate
simulation models produce PDO-like oscillations,
although often for different reasons. The
mechanisms giving rise to PDO will determine
whether skillful decades-long PDO climate
predictions are possible. For example, if PDO
arises from air-sea interactions that require 10
year ocean adjustment times, then aspects of the
phenomenon will (in theory) be predictable at
lead times of up to 10 years. Even in the absence
of a theoretical understanding, PDO climate
information improves season-to-season and
year-to-year climate forecasts for North America
because of its strong tendency for multi-season
and multi-year persistence. From a societal
impacts perspective, recognition of PDO is
important because it shows that "normal" climate
conditions can vary over time periods comparable
to the length of a human's lifetime .

----------
Data
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) Index is
defined as the leading principal component of
North Pacific monthly sea surface temperature
variability (poleward of 20N for the 1900-93
period). Digital values of our PDO index are
available from Nate Mantua's anonymous ftp
directory
(<http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest>linked
here). Please send email to Nate
(<mailto:mantua@atmos.washington.edu>mantua@atmos.washington.edu)
or Steven Hare
(<mailto:hare@iphc.washington.edu>hare@iphc.washington.edu)
to let them know that you have obtained this
data. Nate updates the PDO index every two or three months.

Alexey Kaplan's PDO reconstructions for
1856-1991:
<http://markov.ldgo.columbia.edu:81/%28/siberia/alexeyk/mydata/TSsvd.in%29readfile/.SST/.PDO/>SST
and
<http://markov.ldgo.columbia.edu:81/%28/siberia/alexeyk/mydata/TSsvd.in%29readfile/.SLP/.PDO/>SLP

A link to Trenberth and Hurrel's
"<http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/~jhurrell/np.html>North
Pacific Index" for North Pacific area-weighted
sea level pressure (a good index for the
intensity of the Aleutian Low pressure cell).
More information on this index and its importance
to North Pacific and North American climate is
detailed in Trenberth and Hurrell (1994): Decadal
atmosphere-ocean variations in the Pacific.
Climate Dynamics, Vol. 9, p 303-319.

Steven Hare's collection of links to
<http://www.iphc.washington.edu/Staff/hare/html/decadal/post1977/post1977.html>Pacific
fishery and climate time series.

NOAA's Climate Diagnostics Center interactive
<http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Correlation/>correlation
maps, with links to many other climate indices (like the SOI, AO, NAO, etc.)

The
<http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/sci/sa-mfpd/english/clm_indx1.htm>Aleutian
Low Pressure Index (ALPI) from Canada's Pacific Biological Station.

----------

Key References to PDO research

Barnett, T. P., D. W. Pierce, M. Latif, D.
Dommenget, and R. Saravanan. 1999. Interdecadal
interactions between the tropics and midlatitudes
in the Pacific basin. Geophys. Res. Lett. 26: 615-618.

Beamish, R.J. 1993: Climate and exceptional fish
production off the west coast of North America. Can. J. Fish. Aquat.
Sci., 50, 2270-2291.

Bond, N.A. and D.E. Harrison (2000): The Pacific
Decadal Oscillation, air-sea interaction and
central north Pacific winter atmospheric regimes.
Geophys. Res. Lett., 27(5), 731-734.

Francis, R. C. and S.R. Hare. 1994.
<http://www.iphc.washington.edu/Staff/hare/html/papers/francis-hare/abst_f-h.html>Decadal-scale
regime shifts in the large marine ecosystems of
the Northeast Pacific: a case for historical
science. Fish. Oceanogr. 3: 279-291.

Francis, R. C., S. R. Hare, A. B. Hollowed, and
W. S. Wooster. 1998. Effects of interdecadal
climate variability on the oceanic ecosystems of
the NE Pacific. Fish. Oceanogr. 7: 1-21.

Gershunov, A. and T. P. Barnett. Interdecadal
modulation of ENSO teleconnections. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 79: 2715-2725.

Graham, N.E., 1994: Decadal-scale climate
variability in the tropical and North Pacific during the 1970s and 1980s:
Observations and model results. Clim. Dyn. 10, 135-162

Hare, S. R. and N. J. Mantua. In
Press. Empirical evidence for Northeast Pacific
regime shifts in 1977 and 1989. Prog. Oceanogr.

Hare, S. R., N. J. Mantua and R. C.
Francis. 1999. Inverse production regimes:
Alaskan and West Coast Salmon. Fisheries 24(1):6-14.

Hare, S.R. and R.C. Francis. 1995.
<http://www.iphc.washington.edu/Staff/hare/html/papers/hare-francis/abst_h-f.html>Climate
Change and Salmon Production in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. In: R.J.
Beamish [ed.] Ocean climate and northern fish
populations. Can. spec. Pub. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 121, pp. 357-372.

Latif, M. and T.P. Barnett, 1994: Causes of
decadal climate variability over the North Pacific and North America.
Science 266, 634-637.

Mantua, N.J. and S.R. Hare, Y. Zhang, J.M.
Wallace, and R.C. Francis 1997:
<http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mantua/abst.PDO.html>A
Pacific interdecadal climate oscillation with
impacts on salmon production. Bulletin of the
American Meteorological Society, 78, pp. 1069-1079.

Miller, A.J., D.R. Cayan, T.P. Barnett, N.E.
Graham and J.M. Oberhuber, 1994: The 1976-77 climate shift of the Pacific
Ocean. Oceanography 7, 21-26.

Minobe, S. 1997: A 50-70 year climatic
oscillation over the North Pacific and North America. Geophysical Research
Letters, Vol 24, pp 683-686.

Minobe, S. Resonance in bidecadal and
pentadecadal climate oscillations over the North
Pacific: Role in climatic regime shifts. Geophys. Res. Lett.26: 855-858.

Nigam, S., M. Barlow, and E. H. Berbery,
1999: Analysis Links Pacific Decadal Variability
to Drought and Streamflow in United States. EOS,
Vol. 80, No. 61. <http://www.agu.org/eos_elec/99088e.html>(html version)

Overland, J.E., S. Salo, and J.M. Adams (1999):
Salinity signature of the Pacific Decadal
Oscillation. Geophys. Res. Lett., 26(9), 1337-1340.

Trenberth, K.E., 1990: Recent observed
interdecadal climate changes in the northern
hemisphere. Bulletin of the American
Meteorological Society, 71, 988-993.

Trenberth, K.E. and J.W. Hurrell, 1994: Decadal
atmosphere-ocean variations in the Pacific. Clim. Dyn. 9, 303-319.

Zhang, Y., J.M. Wallace and D.S. Battisti 1997:
<http://www.atmos.washington.edu/misc/zhang.html>ENSO-like
Interdecadal Variability: 1900-93. Journal of Climate, Vol. 10, 1004-1020.

PDO review articles

Mantua, N.J. 1999 :
<http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mantua/REPORTS/PDO/PDO_egec.htm>The
Pacific Decadal Oscillation. A brief overview for
non-specialists, to appear in the Encyclopedia of Environmental Change.

Mantua, N.J. 1999:
<http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mantua/REPORTS/PDO/PDO_cs.htm>The
Pacific Decadal Oscillation and Climate
Forecasting for North America. To appear in
premiere issue of "Climate Risk Solutions" newsletter.

Francis, R. C., S. R. Hare, A. B. Hollowed, and
W. S. Wooster. 1998.
<http://www.iphc.washington.edu/Staff/hare/html/papers/JClimate/abst_JCL.html>Effects
of interdecadal climate variability on the
<http://www.iphc.washington.edu/Staff/hare/html/papers/JClimate/abst_JCL.html>oceanic
ecosystems of the NE Pacific. Fish. Oceanogr. 7: 1-21.

Leetma, A., 1999:
<http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/991214FO.html>El
Niño/La Niña and Hurricanes: was 1999 a preview
of the future? An extended abstract from a
seminar Dr. Leetma gave for the US Global Change
Research Program. December 16, 1999, Washington D.C.