John Dumas, National Weather Service science and operations officer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), gives a presentation on predictions of an El Niño this winter during a live webcast on Thursday, Nov. 13 at the Aquarium of the Pacific. The event took place as the Aquarium debuts its new show about the weather phenomenon that displays on the Aquarium’s Science on a Sphere (SOS) platform (right).
Staff Writer
Though warmer waters in the Pacific Ocean earlier this year showed signs that an El Niño may bring wet weather to drought-stricken California this winter, climate experts said last week at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach that an El Niño, if it develops at all, will likely be “weak.”
Experts made their predictions and answered questions during a live webcast on Thursday, Nov. 13 in front of the Aquarium’s Science on a Sphere (SOS) platform, which began screening a new show in the Aquarium’s Ocean Science Center last Saturday about El Niño, a global weather phenomenon.
The six-foot-diameter SOS presents near-real-time data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) satellites and other monitoring systems, showing sea-surface temperature, sea height, cloud patterns and storm systems, according to the Aquarium.
An El Niño, named after “The Christ Child” since it hits around Christmas time, occurs when “trade winds” that normally blow from east to west lessen or reverse while ocean temperatures along the equator in the Pacific Ocean rise at least 0.5 degrees Celsius above normal for three consecutive months, NOAA National Weather Service Science and Operations Officer John Dumas explained.
“Right now, we’re .8 degrees above normal,” he said. “So it’s a weak El Niño condition.”
Dumas added that, while ocean temperatures have been slightly above normal, large clouds have stayed in the western Pacific, and “atmospheric response” has remained flat. He said that NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts a 53-percent chance of an El Niño this year.
Typical El Niño conditions occur about every three to seven years, according to experts. However, strong El Niños, such as the one that struck during the winter of 1997-98 that brought more than double the normal rainfall to the Los Angeles County area, happen less frequently— about every 10 to 20 years.
Such a wet-weather event would be ideal for California, where underground aquifers and groundwater reservoirs are drying up from three consecutive years of drought, but, so far, experts say a strong El Niño isn’t in the forecast.
Bill Patzert, climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said there was “promise” in spring when unusually warm water in the western Pacific Ocean mirrored conditions before the last major El Niño in 1997. As a result, fishing boats began catching fish this year that would normally be caught 500 to 1,000 miles farther south or offshore, he said.
However, Patzert, who said the warmer water temperatures could be caused by climate change, added that the patch of warm water has since begun to “disappear,” and the potential for an El Niño this year has started to fade.
“Everybody got pretty excited, but that did not persist,” he said. “It was definitely a preview of a potential El Niño that, unfortunately, kind of fizzled.”
Patzert said “small to moderate” El Niños, which he predicts will occur this year, are typically “not very promising in terms of winter rainfall,” adding, “that’s really too bad, because we do need some drought relief [in California.]”
He added that, in the Los Angeles region, there has only been about half an inch of rain so far, which is about 35 percent of normal. Still, Patzert said more rainfall in California may come later this winter.
“There are other weather systems here in the American west, especially in California, that can deliver rain— great, low-pressure systems that will move out of the north Pacific as we get deeper into winter,” he said. “We aren’t necessarily going to have another dry winter, so keep your fingers crossed.”
Patzert and Dumas noted, however, that even a strong El Niño wouldn’t bring California back to pre-drought conditions.
“A lot of rain in one winter is not going to be a drought buster,” Patzert said. “We’re going to need many years of above normal rainfall, and, hopefully, next winter, if we’re lucky, we’ll get a nice, big sweet El Niño.”
