August
2013: Hottest Ocean Surface Temperatures on Record Defy ENSO, Spur
Continental Deluges
26
September, 2013
ENSO,
the global regulator for, generally, how much heat the world ocean
system dumps into the atmosphere, remained on the cool side of
neutral for much of August 2013. Ocean surface temperatures in the
Eastern Equatorial Pacific remained 1 to 2 degrees Celsius below the
1981-2010 average for most of the month. In a normal year, such
departures would tend to depress both global ocean and land surface
temperature averages. But, for the world’s global oceans and
related land atmospheric system, all was well outside the range of
normal.
For
beyond the Eastern Equatorial Pacific, most of the world’s oceans
ranged from .5 C to up to 4 C hotter than average. A particularly hot
region dominated an area east of Shanghai in the Pacific bordering
China, Japan and the Korean Peninsula. The hot surface water extended
under the powerful influence of an anomalous heat dome that brought
dangerous 100-110+ degree (F) temperatures to these countries
throughout much of August. This hot zone stretched eastward across
the Pacific and on toward the US west Coast — a vast swath of water
measuring 2-4 C hotter than the 1981 to 2010 average for much of the
month.
These
anomalously hot conditions outside of the region normally responsible
for governing ocean temperature trends resulted in global ocean
temperatures tying 2009 for the record high of .57 degrees Celsius
above the global average. But 2009 was an El Nino year. With the
Eastern Pacific remaining rather cool, one has to wonder what the
hell is going on? Everywhere but in the Eastern Pacific, the ocean
surface appears to have heated up. The more rapidly spinning gyres
and the greater rate of up welling aren’t doing their usual job of
cooling down both the ocean surface and the Earth’s atmosphere. For
August, record hot ocean surface temperatures pushed global averages
higher. Should ENSO switch to hot under such conditions — prepare
for world temperature records to start dropping like dominoes.
Land-Ocean
4th Hottest on Record
All
that said, It appears the huge volume of water vapor dredged up from
the record hot oceans had done its work in marginally cooling off the
continents. Heat pumped huge volumes of ocean water into the
atmosphere where it formed powerful storm systems that, during event
after event, dumped record amounts of rain. In deluge after deluge,
regions saw 100, 200, 500 and even 1000 year floods. The most recent,
in Colorado, resulted in thousands of homes lost, tens of thousands
displaced, and yet one more major disaster response effort from the
US federal government. The US inundation was mirrored this summer by
events in the Amur region of Russia and China, massive rainstorms
spurring a deadly glacial outburst flood event in India, record
floods in Canada, immense floods in Europe, major floods in Pakistan,
and a consistent set of record floods striking the central and
Eastern US. If we hadn’t also seen major floods in 2009 and 2010,
we could call 2013 the year of the flood. Others are calling such
events ‘the new normal.’ But normal it is not.
All
this rainfall over the world’s continents appears to have resulted
in land surface temperatures ‘only’ in the range of 11th hottest
on record with land surface temperatures at .62 C hotter than the
20th Century average (NOAA/NCDC).
These record hot temperatures combined with all time hot ocean
temperatures to make August 2013 the 4th hottest in the 134 year
climate record.
Ocean
Heat/Moisture Dump Showing Up in Sea Level Record
Whenever
the oceans heat up, we begin to see evaporation and rainfall rates
rising. Record flood events over the Continents is just one visible
effect of this heightened rate of evaporation. It is now also
starting to show up as large cyclical dips in the rate of sea level
rise. Note the start of this volatile shark tooth pattern in the
graph, provided by AVISO, below:
In
the above graph we can clearly see the large counter-trend drop in
sea level during the major flood events of 2010 (See “It
Rained So Hard The Oceans Fell“).
Subsequent very rapid sea level rise from 2011 to end 2012 easily
made up the difference, keeping ocean rise on the 3.19 mm per year
track its been following over the past couple of decades. By 2013, a
similar ocean to atmosphere to land-mass water dump became again
visible in the sea level charts. Observed major flood events
throughout 2013 provide a final corroboration of this massive and
volatile amplification of the water cycle.
Looking
Ahead
The
Ocean-Atmosphere-Cyrosphere system appears to be moving into a period
of wider and more powerful fluctuations. The hydrological cycle,
primarily governed by the pace of ocean water evaporation and rate of
rainfall, is receiving larger moisture dumps from heating seas. As
such, it is beginning to encounter periods of extreme rainfall during
major evaporation years. Record ocean heat, a primary driver to this
amplified and erratic hydrological cycle, is increasingly occurring
outside of the typical pattern of hot El Nino and cool La Nina
cycles. The fact that we have record ocean warmth during an ENSO
neutral pattern that is leaning toward cool is yet one more out of
boundary condition and should be cause for serious concern.
Any
return to El Nino conditions will likely result in larger volumes of
heat transferred from Ocean to atmosphere. With global temperatures
testing new limits even as the Equatorial Pacific remains cool, we
can only surmise that any new return to ENSO will result in another
leap to record hot conditions.
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