From CFACT

By Joe Bastardi

I am amazed at what I am seeing about the upcoming El Niño, which I have been saying has a good chance of super El Niño status. You have people on one side of the climate issue trying to make as if it is the end of the world as far as extreme weather events. They are also licking their chops at the prospect of another global temperature spike, which is completely counterintuitive to the idea that CO2 is causing all this, since we have one example of another temperature spike and flattening out as the earth tries to adjust to the increased water vapor.

But what if we have, what IMO was the most impactful climate event of the past 50 years, the Super Niño of 1997-1998. How did that impact the U.S.?

A detailed 1999 peer-reviewed analysis by Stanley A. Changnon (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society) directly quantified the nationwide impacts of weather events attributed to this strong El Niño. It estimated direct economic losses of about $4–4.5 billion (primarily property/crop damage from storms and flooding, plus some business losses in recreation/snow-removal sectors) but benefits of roughly $19 billion. This produced a net positive effect of ~$15 billion, with less federal relief needed than in prior non-El Niño winters. Yes, U.S. weather and climate costs during the 1997–98 El Niño were below average overall — and in fact, delivered a substantial net economic benefit — especially when focusing on the 1997 Atlantic hurricane season (strongly suppressed) and the 1997–98 winter (milder than average in much of the country, with major savings outweighing localized damages).

Well, isn’t that special? First, there’s the chance of a lack of hurricanes in the heart of the season (as I have stated several times, I am quite concerned early), and then — what I would truly hate the most — the lack of winter. Keep in mind, some El Ninos have been great winters with monster storms. The aforementioned winter of 97-98 produced the greatest snowstorm recorded in the Ohio Valley. (Louisville broke its all-time total snowfall, reaching 22.4 inches by the morning of Feb. 6. It still stands as the most snowfall on record for a single snowstorm.) And in 2016, another warm winter, the monster blizzard in mid to late January. Those were both very warm winters overall, though. But I am sure if some extreme event shows up, be it a hurricane, a flood, a tornado outbreak, whatever, it will be blamed on the El Niño. Well, what about the opposite? If it turns out tranquil in the States, will it get noticed? Of course not. They will run to the predictable uptick in the western Pacific that is coming, completely ignoring how the last decade has had the least ACE of any decade on record in the west Pacific.

The fact is that the climate cabal preys on the fact that most people do not know what has happened before. And so big El Niños are a great opportunity to deceive people into thinking nothing like this has happened before. In reality, there is nothing new under the sun (except the sudden warming last El Niño around Australia, which could not have been CO2-induced).

Now, I want to discuss what is most important. Why the Great El Niño of 97-98 was the visible flip of the cumulative heat buildup in the oceans via geothermal and other natural causes that I have outlined several times as a possible contributor. Notice I did not say, this is the only idea, and I used the word possible. But the “coincidence” is too hard to ignore.

But look at the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI), the gold standard for measuring ENSO (El Niño–Southern Oscillation) events.

Notice there is more blue than red after 1997. This is another one of my pet peeves with my side on the climate debate, that they think the La Niña is cooling the globe. That is true relative to the spike that occurs with temps, but as is plainly seen on the global temperature, it leaves a higher plateau than before.

If it is water vapor, as I think, instead of CO2, the most recent spike was aided by Tonga.

But notice how the El Niños have been stronger looking on the MULTIVARIATE ENSO INDEX when it was colder. Why would that be?

Because the overall warming of the oceans is now blunting the reaction a bit more. The contrast in SST in the 82-83 event, and the most recent strong El Niño, as measured by the Oceanic Niño Index, is stark.

23-24. Notice how warm the oceans are around the El Niño compared to previous years.

I used November to March as the base, but January to February in 24 was very warm around Australia.

This strongly blunted another ENSO tool the Southern Oscillation index, which in an unprecedented fashion relative to the Oceanic Niño index, fell out of their El Niño category in the heart of winter!

Even 2016, which was a very strong event

had overall surrounding areas much warmer than 82-83. So, when using something like the MEI, which is also measuring atmospheric parameters, the MEI is not showing as strong an event. The colder it was, the more the El Niño stood out. Which might disappoint a lot of the climate hysterics chomping at the bit with this El Niño because it’s so warm now, it may not be able to beat the last peak. Remember, the warmer it gets, the harder it is to get warmer.

2015-2016 was the year I thought finally the other side would have to say, “By golly its water vapor.” But no, they doubled down, as they will this year, no matter what.

But the reason you see the MEI doing what it’s doing in the amount of WV (water vapor) in the air really turned the tables. It meant the west pac and the Asian continent warmed more than the oceans to their east and south. This naturally increased the easterlies over the Pacific, which in turn would lead to more La Niñas showing up. But please get this through your head; La Niñas are responding to the warming, not leading to cooling overall. For any cooling to truly start, whatever is warming the ocean (guys like me believe it’s natural) has to stop. I am 70 now, and I have been hearing it all for years on how the cooling is ready to start from this or that. And when I debated Bill Nye on Global temps, I did not know about the geothermal heating that was going on. But no excuse, Bill has been right on the fact that the temperature has gone up. But I wonder if he has looked at all the natural reasons, or dug into the weather aspects the way you are seeing here — perhaps to stop and think about it or understand the step up function is a product of water vapor, which correlates wonderfully not only to total warming, but also where and when it warms the most. I learn by being corrected when I am wrong, but if you never think you are wrong, then that does not happen. But look, folks, until such a time that we see sustainable cooling, no matter how wrong we think the other side is, they can keep saying, “CO2 is going up, the temperature is going up, there’s your answer.” And if it’s an agenda that promotes ideas that say we have to spend a kajillion dollars but can’t tell you what the result is, then you should expect no less.

Listen, I have to deal with the warmth no matter the cause since it is impacting the forecast, where I need to know. If you never forecast globally, how would you truly know? It’s the old wrestling debate: If you never lost a match, could you truly be your best? (Maybe, since Cael Sanderson never lost a match in college, but for the rest of us, correction is essential to reaching one’s peak.)

Maybe I am thinking that because I get corrected so much.

One more example, and then I will leave you

Winters in the 30 years before the 97-98 Super Niño:

Since the period is not far from the 30-year means, we will have a lot of near normal, but certainly much warmer than the previous 30 years.

Now if we only had wet bulbs, better still, dewpoints. I am becoming a big fan of what is known as the dewpoint anchor being championed by Phillip Mulholland.

Philip MULHOLLAND | Researcher | MSc | Exploration | Research profile

My order of importance is Saturation mixing ratios, Dewpoints, Wet Bulbs, and last and LEAST, temperatures, as the ones preceding temperature would better explain the climate and how it changes.

But notice how the first three are not quantified, but of course, CO2 is.

Gee, I wonder why?