Posted on 12/17/2015 8:47:54 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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#AGU15 NASA suggests El Niño will lead to âstronger, wetterâ atmospheric rivers to ease Californiaâs drought
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The above images are of Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies (SSTA) of the 1997 (left) and 2015 (right) El Niño. The SSTA are derived from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Optimally Interpolated SST that are provided by the Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST) and also use NOAAâs National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI) climatology. The AVHRR instruments have been flying onboard NOAAâs operational polar orbiting satellites since 1981 beginning with NOAA-7 and continuing to present with NOAA-19. To view an animated version of this SST view, click here. For more information on this AVHRR Optimally Interpolated SST data, please visit this page.
NASA Examines Global Impacts of the 2015 El Niño
People the world over are feeling, or soon will feel, the effects of the strongest El Niño event since 1997-98, currently unfolding in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. New satellite observations are beginning to show scientists its impact on the distribution of rain, tropospheric ozone and wildfires around the globe.
New results presented Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco show that atmospheric rivers, significant sources of rainfall, tend to intensify during El Niño events, and this yearâs strong El Niño likely will bring more precipitation to California and some relief for the drought.
Due to this El Niño, tropospheric ozone, a pollutant and greenhouse gas, is seen decreasing over mid-latitude locations such as the United States, and the risk of fires across the tropics is showing signs of increasing.
An El Niño, which is a reoccurring natural phenomenon, happens when sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean warm up. The increased ocean surface temperatures influence air and moisture movement around the globe. Approximately 15 years of observations by NASAâs fleet of Earth-observing satellites show how El Niños affect multiple interconnected Earth systems.
One big question about the current El Niño is whether it will bring significant rainfall to drought-plagued California. Researchers studying storms and their relationship to strong El Niños believe it will.
Duane Waliser, chief scientist of the Earth Science and Technology Directorate at NASAâs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and his colleagues analyzed the historical record of atmospheric rivers. These concentrated rain bands account for 40 percent of Californiaâs water supply. Their results suggest the number of atmospheric rivers California receives will remain the same, at an average 10 per year, but they will be stronger, warmer and wetter.
âOverall weâll likely get more precipitation, but maybe less in terms of snowfall,â Waliser said, adding that they may contribute to more flooding.
Itâs the strength of the El Niño that determines its impact on total rainfall in California, said Martin Hoerling, a research meteorologist with the Earth Systems Research Laboratory at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado. His group ran a statistical analysis of the relationship between past El Niño strength and precipitation.
âWhat we learned is weak El Niños donât necessarily change the odds of precipitation being much different from normal,â said Hoerling. âThe rare occurrence of a strong El Niño, like what weâre currently experiencing, however, greatly increases the odds of a wet California winter.â
El Niñoâs elevated sea surface temperatures shift rain patterns by affecting the temperature of the air above the ocean, which alters how winds and air masses circulate air around the planet.
The change in winds also affects the distribution of tropospheric ozone around the planet. Tropospheric ozone exists in the atmospheric layer closest to the surface and comprises ozone produced naturally and from human pollution. Ozone in the troposphere is a greenhouse gas and a health hazard. Understanding El Niñoâs influence on ozone concentration is important for understanding the atmosphereâs response to natural variation and distinguishing natural changes from human causes.
Mark Olsen, an atmospheric research scientist at Morgan State University in Baltimore and NASAâs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and his colleagues produced the first near-global map of ozone sensitivity caused by El Niño and La Niña events. Previous work showed that El Niño events cause a strong change in ozone in the tropics. Olsenâs new work uses satellite data combined with a computer model to show that a smaller but still significant effect occurs in the mid-latitudes.
âEl Niño is just one factor in the variability,â Olsen said. âBut you do see regions like the central United States where El Niño explains 20 to 25 percent of the variability.â
Ozone in this region tends to decrease where El Niño-driven changes to local wind circulation patterns causes them to draw air upward. According to Olsen, itâs a large enough influence that El Niño does need to be considered if you want to attribute causes of ozone concentration changes and long-term trends.
Jim Randerson, Earth system scientist at the University of California, Irvine, and his team analyzed wildfire burned area maps from satellite data to study how El Niño-driven effects change the distribution and severity of wildfires worldwide. During El Niños, the number and size of fires increases in tropical forests across Asia and South America.
âThe change in atmospheric dynamics shifts the rainfall,â Randerson said. âSo El Niño causes less rain to fall in many areas of the tropics, making forests more vulnerable to human-ignited fires.â
Fires in tropical forests also accelerate carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere and reduce air quality. Indonesia, for example, has carbon-rich peatlands that ignite as soon as the rain stops, which is what happened this fall, Randerson said. Meanwhile, Southeast Asia, Central America, and the southern Amazon have very high fire risk for 2016. El Niño tends to reduce rainfall in their wet seasons, and less rain means drier vegetation and drier air, which make forests vulnerable to dry season burning.
NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives, and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earthâs interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.
75 degrees is our confort zone right here...below that we consider it to be on the chilly side!
I be right back! I gotta take a shower.
A few days ago, I learned that Lewisville dam is the 8th most dangerous dam in the US. Just damn...
From the man-initiated burn map, it seems the South Africans, Australians and Brazilians are the evil ones. Leave me alone.
But I expect strong weather, eg tornadoes, next Spring.
Here in Placer County, heart of the Sierras, my view is that it will be in the bucket, when it’s in the bucket, and not a minute before. It has been raining frequently, but the storms have not been especially powerful. That said, in some powerful winters such as 96-97 and 97-98, the really big storms have rolled in in January-March, so here’s hoping.
So far, shaping up quite nicely.
NWS expecting 3ft of new snow in the northern and central Sierra between now and Christmas.
Huge rotations in the northern Pacific continue unabated. Their tails beginning to reach toward Hawaii.
Strap in.
Ditto, the “banana belt” is holding tough and a green Christmas will be appreciated.
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