California Drought - Over Rides El Nino La Nina

On April 7, and over the weekend, Michael E. Mann and Peter Gleick twittered about 2014 being the driest and hottest year on record for California. They provided a graphic from their recent PNAS article, "Climate change and California Drought in the 21st century."

The twitters included a graphic which depicted the heat and precipitation anomalies from 1895 to 2014, with last year marked as a glaring outlier compared to the entire record. 

Curious, I decided to highlight all years since 1996 by El Nino (red), La Nina (blue), and ENSO neutral (grey) to see if there was any heat/precip pattern that might emerge. The ENSO determination was from the Climate Prediction Center "Cold/Warm Episodes by Season" table. The result is:

The graphic above does not include 1999, which I could not locate. 

What is troubling is that the temperature anomaly for all years is above the 1901-2000 mean. The other observation is that even though the last 18 years are all warmer, only two of the last four (with this baseline) are drought years, and there is an equal balance of drought and excess precipitation in the 18 years since 1996. 

However, since 2000, only 6 years have been wetter than average, and eight have been drier. 

Time will tell on what 2015's final result will be, but the drought does not seem anywhere close to ending.

Climate Prediction Center: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml

PNAS: Mann and Gleick, "Climate change and California drought in the 21st century" http://www.pnas.org/content/112/13/3858.extract

Twitter: MichaelEMann

Mauna Loa CO2 spikes to new highs 404.65 ppm

On April 7, 2015, the Scripps Observatory at Mauna Loa, Hawaii recorded a daily average reading of 404.65 ppm, a new all time high in their records for carbon dioxide at the site.

The weekly trend is part of the natural movement for March-April, which saw carbon dioxide move up from the March 7, 2015 average of 401.71 ppm - an increase of 2.94 ppm in the last month.

However, the yearly jump from April 7, 2014 is about 2.45 ppm, well above the expected annual increase of about 2 ppm. Some of this increase can be attributed to extra GHG emissions, however some may be due to increasing ocean temperatures, as depicted later.

The two year trend is intact, with only one week averaging above 400 ppm in May, 2013, we can anticipate 4-5 months of average CO2 above 400 ppm at Mauna Loa this year.

Will the MLO daily averages go higher this year - and by how much? Very likely!

The highest daily average readings for MLO CO2 in 2014 were 403.10 ppm for NOAA on May 1, 2014, and 402.84 ppm for Scripps on May 31, 2014.

If one were to presume a 2-3 ppm increase over last year, the highest daily averages will likely be over 405 or 406 ppm. A weekly average in May or perhaps early June will likely be over 404 ppm.

However, higher anomalies are possible. The CO2 average daily concentrations around Hawaii on April 7, 2015 reveal regional readings above 410 ppm. The deep reds reflect grids above 406 ppb and the purple above 410 ppb.

The detail above is from the METOP IASI 1-B layer below.

As can be seen, the northern hemisphere CO2 is above 400 ppb in many regions.

Ocean temperatures in the Hawaiian waters are well above the long term (1961-1990) climatological mean and may be enhancing the CO2 increase, along with the higher concentrations being transported from the Northern Pacific. Sea surface temp anomalies around Hawaii currently appear to range from .25 to 1.25 C.

This sea surface temperature anomaly is not a regional concern alone, but global. The NOAA EMC sea surface temp anomaly depicts global oceans into very troubled waters, and the impacts on CO2 increase are still to be seen.

Sources:

Scripps MLO Observatory: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/

OSPO METOP IASI: http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/atmosphere/soundings/iasi/index.html

NOAA EMC Sea Surface Temperatures: http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/rtg_high_res/

Mauna Loa CO2 Spikes to 403.43 ppm - Ocean Heating Driving the Increase?

On March 10, 2015 the Mauna Loa NOAA/ESRL CO2 concentration reading spiked from 401.56 ppm on the 9th to 403.43 ppm on the 10th. This jump is almost a 2 ppm change in one day, an unusual event.

Usually, these readings are considered anomalies that last for one day, and are deemed as local fluxes that do not represent the general readings of the Central Pacific. This is briefly detailed in the NOAA ESRL reported readings below.

Source: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html

This seems supported by the hourly tracking by the Scripps Mauna Loa CO2 readings graph for March 10, 2015, even though Scripps did not report a daily average the readings were too variable. What is interesting is that the Scripps graph below reveals hourly readings over 404 ppm, before tapering off to near 401 ppm at the end of the 10th. It will be interesting to see if the readings stay in the 401 range - and for how long into the near future.

Source: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/mlo_one_week.png

The Scripps month long chart reveals significant variability for February 9 to March 10, with abrupt shifts that made it a challenge for Scripps and NOAA to determine a daily CO2 average on some dates. Perhaps Scripps will issue a reading for March 10th later this week.

However, is the assumed variability really a local source? I suggest it really is a natural event in the Central Pacific region, based upon air mass boundaries.

The METOP IASI 1-B global mean CO2 for March 10 reveals the global and regional variability. The image below depicts a global mean of 404 ppm at 972 mb. However,  of the Northern Hemisphere has concentrations above 410 ppm.

The detail around Hawaii shows concentrations in some grid cells above 410 ppm. As noted in a post on behalf of Ralph Keeting on the Scripps blog, the frontal boundary, represented here in the grey (cloudiness blocks METOP IASI CO2 readings) can separate cooler northern hemisphere air with higher CO2 concentrations from warmer tropical air with lower concentrations. That may be the case illustrated below. This is the detail of the 972 mb image for the Hawaiian area.

Source: http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/atmosphere/soundings/iasi/index.html

Time will tell how long this spike lasts, but it is very likely, given the impact of El Nino, and general ocean warming of the Pacific, that we perhaps will see concentrations above 405 ppm and some daily readings above 406 in May or June.

Mauna Loa CO2 at 400.46 ppm on December 7, 2014? It's Possible!

The Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) published a preliminary carbon dioxide (CO2) reading go 400.46 ppm this afternoon. If it held, which I do not expect it will, it would be a jump of 2.42 ppm in one day, which is quite unusual.

To illustrate the leap - here is the last year's CO2 cycle. This kind of abrupt change will place us above March, 2014's mean, with room to spare. 

While we might immediately dismiss this as an anomaly, perhaps another perspective may change that perception.

Mauna Loa Observatory sits at 3,397 meters, or 11,145 feet asl. This is a rough equivalent to 650-666 mb of pressure, or layer 83 in the METOP IASI imagery.

Here are four images for comparison:

December 26, 2012, pm: This is the earliest METOP 2 CO2 imagery I've downloaded. Note the global CO2 level on that date was 393 ppm at 650 mb. Also, note almost no area was measured above a concentration of 410 ppm (yellow).

December 7, 2013, pm: Last year's METOP 2 IASI CO2 portrays an increase of 3 ppm at 650 mb on that date - to 396 mb. Also, numerous areas now portray concentrations above 410 ppm, (yellow) especially in the Arctic.

December 7, 2014, pm: Yesterday's MLO CO2 reading of 400.46 ppm is perhaps best understood with this perspective. The METOP 2 IASI CO2 at 650 mb was measured at 398 ppm, an increase of 2 ppm over 2013. While there are high concentrations of CO2 in the Arctic in 2014, similar to the prior year, what is now different are the increased areas of the Antarctic above 410 ppm (yellow).

So what is the METOP 1 IASI readings for December 7, 2014 pm? The satellite image at 650 mb reveals a global mean methane of 400 mb. Areas near Hawaii are above 400 mb. 

Given this, it might be argued that areas around Mauna Loa did experience readings above 400 ppm yesterday. 

If so, it is sobering to speculate what the CO2 concentration highs will be in 2015 - 405? 406? Time will tell - but it is not trending downward.

Sources:

NOAA ESRL Global Monitoring Division: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html

NOAA OSPO METOP IASI: http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/atmosphere/soundings/iasi/index.html