Here is a story you won’t see in the Arizona Daily Star.  Three Australasian researchers have shown that natural forces are the dominant influence on climate, in a study just published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. The research finds that finds that the El Niño -Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a key indicator of global atmospheric temperatures seven months later.

The abstract of the paper says in part: “The results showed that SOI (Southern Oscillation Index) accounted for 81% of the variance in tropospheric temperature anomalies in the tropics. Overall the results suggest that the Southern Oscillation exercises a consistently dominant influence on mean global temperature, with a maximum effect in the tropics, except for periods when equatorial volcanism causes ad hoc cooling. That mean global tropospheric temperature has for the last 50 years fallen and risen in close accord with the SOI of 5–7 months earlier shows the potential of natural forcing mechanisms to account for most of the temperature variation.”

Citation:

McLean, J. D., C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter (2009), Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D14104, doi:10.1029/2008JD011637.

To see a broader view of natural climate change, see my article: Natural Climate Cycles.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 8:55 am and is filed under Climate change. Tags for this post: El Nino, ENSO, global temperature, global warming, troposphere. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.