"The dry seemed to be particularly dry, and the wet seemed to be particularly wet," she said.
La Niña and other events make climate influence unclear
But the unusually wet December in southern California and heavy snowpack in the northern United States are also signs of Arctic air that dipped south as another weather pattern, the North Atlantic Oscillation, hit a negative phase, experts said. That sent cold air and winter storms farther south than normal until the weather pattern started fading away in mid-January.
"The effects of La Niña were sort of muddled together with the effects of the North Atlantic Oscillation," said Ed O'Lenic, chief of the operations branch at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. "It's very difficult to separate the two."
Further muddling the picture, some research suggests that the unusual behavior of the North Atlantic Oscillation this year and during the winter of 2009-2010 may be a consequence of declining sea ice in the Arctic.
But it's not clear whether climate change has affected or will affect the behavior of La Niña and her counterpart, El Niño. "It's possible that [the El Niño cycle] impacts could be aided and abetted by climate," L'Heureux said, who said the ambiguity can be just as frustrating for climate scientists as it is for the public trying to make sense of unusual weather.
"At this point, it's too difficult to make that real-time attribution," she said. "That's really what our field struggles at -- people want this information on demand. They want to know now what's causing this extreme rainfall event."
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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23 Comments
Add CommentLa Nina is over, China is drowning.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Sometimes we have a quiet year, and sometimes Mother Nature just blasts us," [Bill Patzert, a climate scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory]said."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Mother Nature"? - A climate scientist referencing "Mother Nature" and "sometimes this and sometimes that" hardly seems scientific at all. Give us the facts, man.
Is it too far fetched to consider the lining up of our planets that is responsible for our weather conditions? What about our new discovery of planet X, or is it Nibiru that the ancient Mayans warned us about? Now we have a comet or death star in our Solar System. Recent changes found in our Earth's magnetic field including a hole. Oh, not to mention the numerous & increasing UFO sightings from countries all over the world. Solar flares and hugh asteroids falling too close to Earth. Historical rising of the Mississippi. The recent Tornadoes formed aren't of the norm. What's the weather all about? The crop circles/symbols left are messages/warnings from above, the same symbols the Mayans left in stone. Seems there are a lot of connections here. I'm no scientist but shouldn't we all keep an open mind on what its all got to do with..... the weather on this Earth!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thislittlbits,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, farfetched and yes, you are no scientist. Crop circles? UFO's? Are you serious?
"I'm no scientist"...the only thing you said that didn't sound idiotic. Keeping an open mind does not mean accepting as truth the ravings of a lunatic. Science is about proof not about blind acceptance. So please provide some or save your fantasies for some sci-fi blog.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't worry, things are not so bad, not yet. 2011 will be trumped before 2015.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWorld governments need to consider issuing ration cards to their citizens to see them through the coming famine.
There is always Soylent Green...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Is it too far fetched to consider the lining up of our planets that is responsible for our weather conditions?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYES. It would have made just as much sense if you theorized that Santa Claus was testing a faster sleigh, and thus disrupted weather patterns that way...
So what do we do now? It doesn't matter what caused the problem, the weather has been weird. How do we use the little bit of knowledge we have to at least be better prepared for these natural disasters?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother so-called 'scientific' article from SA with no actual science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this'It's official' Scientific American has declined in credibility in 2011
Well stated. Mother Nature?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo next year when there are less damage from tornadoes it will mean what?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat will be dismissed as 'weather'.
@geojellyroll, you don't seem to realize that this is a science news magazine not a publisher of peer reviewed scientific papers. If you want scientific papers you can read Nature. Sciam is just here to tell us what's going on, not the details of the underlying science. Of course your only intent here is to cast doubt on a source of info that conflicts with your world view so nothing I say will make any difference. I'm guessing a born again, tea party, climate denier who's been abducted by UFOs. Next time the little green men take you to see Jesus, ask them not to bring you back.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are all kinds of wrong for that answer: depending on the age of the contributor, he/she may not know what soylent green is....:-#
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn reply to geojellyroll. One role of science is to predict future events/discoveries using known science. James Hansen, among others, has predicted more severe weather events as a result of climate change. If this seems to be borne out by observation it certainly is of scientific importance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you really want to wait until there's NO doubt before acting?
It's always tedious to hear the Heritage Foundation's opinion, but thanks anyway. The majority of us understand that sciam is a science news site and not a peer reviewed journal. Read Nature if you want the detailed science. But of course your only point is to try and cast doubt on a publication that continually challenges your world view. By the way you forgot to claim that you are cancelling your subscription of 10 years. We've heard it all before.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHuh? "No actual science?" I agree that this article disappointingly lacks specifics. But its generalizations are based on a body of scientific evidence and informed conjecture. The sweeping reference to "computer models" is irritating (whose computer models? what data do they use?), but IMHO doesn't qualify the statement as unscientific, just shallow. Is it "unscientific" to say the universe began with a so-called "Big Bang" even though not all models agree on this? Your own assertions as to the unscientific nature of this article are even more empty than the article itself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, it is too far fetched that the lining up of the planets is causing the weather patterns on earth and warming the climate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe obvious 'solutions' - decrease NOAA funding, attack it and Scientific American's credibility, and find some crackpot scientist that contends the Earth is actually cooling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe obvious 'solutions' - decrease NOAA funding, attack it and Scientific American's credibility, and find some crackpot scientist that contends the Earth is actually cooling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs inflation increases, so also with the number of billion dollar disasters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDollars are a terrible measure of comparing years of climate related disasters. How did this even make it into ScientificAmerican???
I thought this article was pretty brave, the temptation is to blame global warming and climate change, but instead the article points out that there is no firm consensus as of now. As it is I've been wondering about all the tornadoes and thunderstorms this year, it makes me wonder what hurricane season will be like.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have an exact way to measure global warming or cooling. Sea level is inversely related to global average temperature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the Earth is really warming then the polar ice sheets should be increasing in size. This is because the polar regions are not heated by the sun directly. A warming Earth would cause more moisture to condense in the polar regions, which means more ice.
The fact that moisture transfers heat to the poles should be obvious to climate scientists. But those scientists ignore the obvious. Instead, they imagine that sea level rise is due to warming. In fact, sea level rise is due to global cooling since less moisture is moving to the poles where it freezes.
The Earth's poles act like the air conditioners for the Earth. More heat means more moisture and so more ice at the poles. Moisture is the refrigerant in the air conditioning cycle of the Earth.