Science Snapshots: Super El Niño Is (Likely) Coming!
For background on El Niño in general, see this previous Science Snapshots: https://peckerwoodmanor.blogspot.com/2023/07/science-snapshots-heeeereeees-el-nino.html
But it's not just a normal El Niño this winter (or summer for our friends below the equator). It's a SUPER EL NIÑO!
Well, that's the prediction, anyway.
Apparently the U.S.'s National Center for Atmospheric Research has a new climate model, and when they ran it the results were "oh shit." I'm more on the short term side of things, but I'm guessing their reaction when they saw the results was the same as when I see there's going to be a massive tornado outbreak tomorrow when I look at the 500 millibar vorticity chart, and that is "oh shit."
Based on past experience, stronger El Niño equals more pronounced impacts. A super El Niño is defined as when the area of warm sea surface temperatures is 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Freedom Units), and has only happened 3 times since we started recording in 1950. Those were the 1982-83, 1997-98, and 2015-16 seasons.
So, we're talking droughts, flooding, warm winters, and more (or less) hurricanes/typhoons depending on where you are. Extra bad? According to Wikipedia, the 97-98 El Niño caused 16% of the world's coral reef systems to die. We're most directly affected by the day to day weather and major weather events and that's what makes headlines, but at the end of the day a couple degrees is a major change of temperature for the ocean and those critters are going to feel it too.
I hate to be the bearer of doom and gloom though. For the winter haters out there in northern North America, it should be warmer than usual. See the first El Niño post at the top of the page to get more info on the teleconnections for your area. And the parched Southern US has a chance for some more precipitation as the winter progresses.
Let's wrap up with talk about climate models.
Your standard weather model that predicts conditions out to 10 days (though more realistically 5 days) takes current conditions, cranks those through a bunch of equations and spits out what the weather is going to be in the future. Here's an example precipitation forecast for this coming Saturday in the US, it's a snapshot of how the radar should look at 2100 UTC (4pm Eastern Daylight Time).
Why only 10 days or so? Because eventually the model "blows up." Not that the computer explodes, although I'm sure that's something I could do, but essentially the process crashes because the equations can't be solved anymore. We don't know with 100% certainty the current state of the atmosphere at every single point in order to properly start the model, so eventually those errors get too big and boom, no more forecast.
So clearly, looking at 2 weeks, 3 months, or 30 years into the future can't be run in the same way. Enter the climate model. Rather than looking at every little circulation in the atmosphere, instead the climate model uses equations to represent the major components of the climate system between the atmosphere and the oceans. They predict the exchanges (or fluxes) of heat, water, and momentum (movement/energy).
And this new climate model above, called Seasonal-to-Multiyear Large Ensemble (SMYLE), extensively uses hindcasts to create its predictions. Meaning, the model has accurately reconstructed climate information from the past. When past conditions are given to the model, it does a good job estimating the actual observations from the 97-98 El Niño event. And when we give it current conditions, it's telling us a similar thing is happening again.
Anyway, I hope that made any sort of sense since I'm not a climate expert. Feel free to comment with questions and I'll do my best to help.
Here's some more info for further reading:
Climate model primer: https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/climate-modeling/
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