Americans are longing for snow; Europeans are longing for Florida--but what's driving that is weather, not climate.
John Daly in Tasmania has an interesting take on the El Nino and global temperatures, including an analysis of why 1998 global temps have been so warm, even in the satellite data. Take a peek at the file below. He includes a graph, which may be useful. He also forecasts decidedly cooler global temperatures beginning in March.
http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/soi-temp.htm
Also, Pat Michaels in his latest World Climate Report (November 23, 1998) highlights a study by R.E. Houseago et al "Climate anomaly wave-train patterns linking southern low and high latitudes during South Pacific warm and cold events" from the International Journal of Climatology, vol. 18, pp. 1181-1193. The focus is on regional effects of El Ninos/La Ninas.
Here's the WCR text:
"A study by R. Houseago of the University of Birmingham (England) and three colleagues examined El Nino low and high latitude linkages in the South Pacific, an area where El Nino impacts are supposed to be fairly strong. Specifically, they looked at upper atmospheric flow patterns (winds) for three major La Ninas and four El Ninos since 1975. They found [quote] "a considerable deal of inter-cold and warm event variability in the propagation of height and temperature anomaly patterns [such that] clear and unequivocal propagation signals common to all cold and warm events are not revealed. This is because the anomaly signal as well as the direction of the anomaly movment is rarely consistent from one warm (cold) event to another, especially in the subtropical to subpolar latitudinal range."So in short, outside of the tropics, the impact from every El Nino or La Nina event differs. There is no compelling evidence that El Ninos are becoming more common. There is no evidence that El Ninos are linked to global warming. And even if we did know that more El Ninos (or La Ninas) were coming, they have no characteristic weather signature (outside of the tropics). In short, El Ninos are like all other climate events -- unpredictable.
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