Hehe, "fortnight"-I know it has a real meaning but they just sound silly and Medieval when they speak that way...

King Henry's Meteorological Service?

This is Australia. We get paid fortnightly. That reminds me of a manual
for a CD player I bought recently saying to press the button 'thrice'.

You get paid fortnightly!? My wife pays me once a year; it's like ENSO accumulation without the radiative component.

There is certainly something odd about this Nino. Just back from a visit in the heart of Ninoland (Galapagos). It is supposed to be warm, wet and green there during a Nino. It was cool, dry and brown. The locals said it was rather cloudier than usual this time of year, but apart from that they hadn't noticed anything special.

Could it be that the Solar minimum or the PDO shift are making this El Nino "different"? I'm reaching here but I suspect that the temperature variability in the Northern Pacific may effect the various teleconnections of weather with temperature variability in the Equatorial Pacific. The only reason I mention the solar minimum is because tty mention that it seems unusually cloudy in the Galapagos, and although it's anecdotal and rather small situation, I couldn't help but think "Svensmark". Anyway, this seems to be a really interesting situation ENSO wise and I'm watching it intensely.

I would think the chance of a big El Nino during a negative phase of the PDO
to be very slim. Don't really know why the models have it wrong.

Looks kind of interesting in the extrem eastern equitorial region of the Pacific right now, right off the S. American coast.

Also, kind of neat to see Hurricane Bill's "track" in the Atlantic.

http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2009...

Nice graphic. I noticed NINO1 had turned down quite sharply. This shows
the cold water upwelling nicely.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/indices.shtml

"press the button 'thrice'. "
Like a second car I once had. I translated it to mean for "the rice".

Andrew askes - "Could it be that the Solar minimum or the PDO shift are making this El Nino "different"?"

Why should all El Ninos be the same?

If I had time, I'd make up a list of reasons why all does not go as forecast in climate science. The dominant reason could be that the answer is known before the experiment is started. (sarc off).

I'd love to see a compund curve with all known regular, major climate influences roughly quantified and added. Diurnal, seasonal, annual, Milankovitch, etc. Then I'd like to see error envelopes around the curve. Then I'd like to see how far it could be projected into the future before the errors become unbearable.

This is even before El Nino, PDO, volcano, etc.

One authority told me sincerely that NASA can accurately predict Earth orbit math for a million years ahead. I supose that depends on the definition of "accurately".

For fun, try terms like rod, pole, perch, chain for distance, furlongs per fortnight for velocity, knots per hour for marine ignorance.

I'll have to check but I think usually SOI and NINO 3.4 track closely. Except not right now.

I have plans to do an analysis of various climate factors on the temperature history.

Andrew - The recent La Nina (2008-2009) had two dips. According to the SOI, the second dip was as great or greater than the first dip. According to Nino 3.4, the second dip was much smaller than the first. The difference between the two indexes was historically unusual. However, I see no reason to think it was anything but noise. The pressure differential (SOI) and the temperature of the Nino 3.4 region are coupled, and I don't see any reason why the nature of the relationship would have changed.

Carl,
I saw an animation on yours or Bob T's site recently of the change in
temperature by latitude,
from the 70's until now. I can't find it. Do you know where it is? Cheers

David,
The closest thing on my site is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PineTDfAZYw
If it's on Bob Tisdale's site, I don't know where it is.
By the way, I hope to redo that video without the latitude band 0 to 15 N.

Apropos:

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/ScienceSunspots...

This paper reminds me of Erl Happ's recent post
http://climatechange1.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/...