The Christmas Kid is back; but will it last through winter?

"The Christmas Kid" (aka El Niño) has been identified by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as now present in the Pacific Ocean. This is interesting; there has been considerable comment that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is in a cool phase, during which El Niño conditions and events are less common. Furthermore, this El Niño follows hard on the heels of a pretty strong La Niña, which has exerted a cooling spell on the globe, particularly on parts of North America.

All of which has gotten the global warming skeptics pretty close to orgasmic ecstasy.

Now, if you go to this link to Real Climate (also in the post below), there's a guest post by author Kyle Swanson (of Swanson and Tsonis 2009) in which they try to get a handle on the "pause in warming" [his term] of the past few years. One thing they do in this paper and mentioned in the guest post is to make the bold prediction that there might not be a new planetary temperature record until the year 2020.

Actually, that's not quite what he says. Here's what he really says, with an emphasis on one word added by me:

"If this hypothesis is correct, the era of consistent record-breaking global mean temperatures will not resume until roughly 2020."

Aha. Consistent. Meaning every few years. Which doesn't mean there won't be a new global mean temperature record before then. And when are new global mean temperature records most likely to happen???

During El Niño years, of course. So the real question right now is if this kid has staying power. To make it happen, the warm conditions in the Pacific have to last through winter and well into 2010. They might make 2009 warm enough to set a record, but there's an atmospheric lag, which is why the planet has stayed a bit cool even as La Niña dissipated. So 2010 has the best chance if the Pacific stays warmer than normal into summer (or even late spring) 2010.

So here's a couple of articles about the current state of Pacifical affairs:

El Niño arrives in Pacific for a months-long stay

Climate scientists warn of wild weather in the year ahead as El Niño begins

El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion

And the current (as of Monday July 13, 2009) sea surface temperature anomalies: