Is this the same, or is it different? - Jaci Brown ponders

T

he complexity of forecasting weather events around the world has become even more challenging.

Senior Research Scientist
 at CSIRO, Jaci Brown.

An El Niño was predicted for last year, but never eventuated and now a Senior Research Scientist at CSIRO, Jaci Brown, wonderd with it will happen this year.

She writes about this on The Conversation in a story headed: “Will last year’s predicted El Niño happen this year?”

Illustrating the difficulties for forecaster are the concluding paragraphs in her story:

“Over the past decade, a new type of El Niño has emerged, known as central Pacific El Niño or El Niño Modoki (Modoki is Japanese for “same but different”). This sort-of El Niño develops more quickly after the warm water has built up, giving much less notice that an El Niño is imminent. It is possible that this new El Niño type is due to global warming, but it could also be just part of the larger natural variability of the climate system.

“Our subsurface ocean observation systems only provide us with detailed records of the tropical Pacific since the early 1980s. There is still a lot for us to learn about all the ways that El Niño can form. Global warming is further changing our understanding because everything is now happening with already warmer water,” she writes.