“Last year’s temperatures had an assist from El Niño, but it is the cumulative effect of the long-term trend that has resulted in the record warming that we are seeing.” California’s average annual temperature from 1896-2014. The change, they say, has largely been driven by greenhouse gases. “2015 was remarkable even in the context of the ongoing El Niño,” Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director Gavin Schmidt said in a press release posted by NASA. There was a weak El Niño in 2014-2015 and a stronger one at the end of 2015, but climate scientists have generally agreed that even without it, those years would have been warm. And you can’t fully blame El Niño for those. Those are also California’s two hottest years on record, although 2014 was warmer than 2015 here. 20 that globally 2015 was the new hottest year ever recorded, beating out 2014. “Also, above-normal SSTs along the West Coast contribute to the enhanced odds for above-normal temperatures.”Ī record strength El Niño means a record-warm tropical Pacific, and even as the event itself slowly fades, that heat charges into the atmosphere, keeping it warm through spring and probably even into summer. A La Niña, which can lead to drier and warmer conditions across the southern United States if it happens, might then keep Southern California warm through the winter.īut we’ve already had several consecutive hot years. through the early spring, which is consistent with a strong El Niño,” forecaster Matthew Rosencrans writes in the technical discussion that accompanies each new outlook. “All temperature tools continue to strongly favor above-normal temperatures across the northern half of the Continental U.S. That’s likely just because at this point, 12 months away, there’s no information to make any kind of valid prediction. Why the estimated long hot year? At least to start, blame El Niño. Please help us by sharing our work, or donate today to support our mission to explore the natural world of the Bay Area.įinally, in December-January-February 2016/2017, the forecast gives us a break - Northern California climbs down to an “equal chance” for above, below, or normal temperatures. This series has been funded by donations from Bay Nature readers. We’ll post new articles here throughout the fall and winter. Sidebar block text El Niño: Beyond the Hypeīay Nature goes beyond the headlines to explore what the strongest El Niño in recorded history might mean - or not - for Northern California. 21 calls for a greater probability that temperatures are above the 30-year-average in February-March-April of 2016. But for Northern California the maps don’t change in one critical way. You can look through the various maps and watch the colors swirl around the United States as the forecast changes. The output is a series of groovy, swirly maps that look like this one, for December-January-February 2016: The temperature outlooks for the United States are based on estimating the probabilities of three-month mean temperatures being above or below a 30-year average. Familiar and unfamiliar variables, short-term and long-term timescales, pretty much anything you might wonder about and lots of things you probably don’t, the CPC has an outlook for it: drought, rain, monsoon, El Niño and La Niña, Madden-Julian Oscillation, storm tracks, and of course, temperature. The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center creates all kinds of forecasts for the United States.
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