End of the 'Hiatus'?

So what do I expect of the rest of 2014? 

Well I'm seeing early signs of this turning into an 'El Nino' year. We're long over due a 'normal length' Nino ' event, the last Nino was a very stunted 9 month affair ( a 'normal ' one is around 18 months) but it still managed to drive global temps up into the top global temp ever recorded. so what would a 'normal' Nino do? Well 2013 posted a top four temperature for the year and this was an ENSO neutral year ( all the years above 2013 were Nino or Super Nino years) so any Nino' influenced year stands a good chance of posting a record warm year. 2015, should the Nino be a 'normal length' ,would be a full Nino year and so would post a record warm year.

A recent paper on the 'Super Nino' phenomena saw that the spacing between Super Nino's was set to reduce from once every 20 years to once every 10 years by the end of the century. The last two 'Supers had 15 years between them and it has been 16 years since the last 'Super' so will the upcoming Nino' turn out to be a 'Super'? If so then expect to see the global record temp stretched by as much ( if not more?) as we saw the 98' Super push up global temps.

This would be enough of a worry by being set among the extreme weather events we have been seeing ( surely even more energy in the climate system that a record year would bring would spawn even more weather extremes?) but we are also entering the first predicted time period that could see the Arctic go 'ice free' over the late summer ( 2016 plus or minus 3 years).

Would two Nino influenced years put enough heat into the atmosphere to impact the Arctic melt seasons of 2014 and 2015?

Well, back in 2007, after the record melt that took everyone by surprise, studies were done into the' Perfect melt storm synoptic' and they found that they were spaced 10 to 20 years apart. The two 'perfect melt storms' before 07' had been in 97' and 87' so only 10 years apart. Is this a signal that we should expect the next one in 2017?

So What I'm wondering is are we about to see global temps leap up due to ENSO influence only then to find the year after this being one that sees the remaining 2/3rds of the Arctic ocean lose its ice?

The impacts of such a loss would be instant. The energy that is currently safely reflected back into space will be then able to become a part of the climate system. That change is huge and is so on many fronts.

For one all of that energy is gobbled up by the planet for those few weeks.

This means all of the ice the following year is 'first year' ice.

 This ice is saltier than older ice and so melts faster. It is also thinner than older ice.

 This time it will be thinner still as the ocean has to first shed all of its heat before it can begin to freeze. this could put refreeze back a few weeks.

 This means that the following year would see a lot of the ice melt out earlier than it did the year previous.

 Seeing as the year previous saw all the ice melt then the chances are we will see a repeat but earlier in the summer giving the ocean more time to heat up.

 And so the cycle goes on. 

The experts expect the 'ice free' period to rapidly expand into high summer over the years following the first 'ice free' year.

 Think of Hudson Bay and you get an idea of when to expect the basin to be free of ice each year. Hudson's winter ice is made of all first year ice.

So we may well be at the start of the period that saw the impacts of AGW begin to ramp up to the point that the change ( and not just the science) became undeniable? 

I begin to worry that we are.

The high pressure that's camped over the north Pacific, and has been for over a year, is driving sea surface temp anoms that look more akin to PDO+ve phase and we're told to expect a flip from the deep ocean warming phase of the IPO ( interdecadal Pacific Oscillation) to it's warm surface phase. Both of these have been cited as major drivers of the current 'Hiatus' in surface temperature gains.

So a Nino', a never before experienced arctic sea ice melt out and major natural drivers about to flip positive ( warming) what else could go wrong? Well the Asian Energy Boon is now entering a phase where 'visible' pollution is to be tackled ( so the smogs are to be consigned to history?). We all saw what happened when we sorted out our polluting ways through the seventies and eighties...... NASA puts the impacts on current 'Global Dimming' as reducing warming by up to 50%......

OK! , entering a renewed warming phase without Sea ice and our sulphate/particulate shield gone..... what else could go wrong....????

Just don't ask!