“El Nino is certainly the mechanism by which stored Pacific Ocean heat is returned to the atmosphere. So it is exactly one major way in which ocean heat comes back to haunt us. “As for extreme weather. El Nino causes major effects all on its own by resulting in major weather shifts and extremes around the globe. Add human-caused warming on top of that and you have some very strong extreme potentials.” ---Robertscribbler A comment on Robertscribblers blog - Australia is already suffering badly and an el Nino will make things significantly worse there. Many years ago I pencilled in Australia as a region that will probably be abandoned due to climate change and will resemble a moon colony only inhabited by mining companies by 2050. But things do seem to be speeding up somewhat. Seemingly the 1998 el Nino temporarily increased surface temperature by 1.5°c (Wikipedia): “An especially intense El Niño event in 1998 caused an estimated 16% of the world’s reef systems to die. The event temporarily warmed air temperature by 1.5°C, compared to the usual increase of 0.25°C associated with El Niño events.” Looks like we will get a glimpse of our (possibly nearer than we think) future.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 02:39:01 +0000