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Forces of Nature Impacting Weather and Climate, Part 2, ENSO
Erik Bye
August 20, 2025
Introduction
El Niño is one part of the natural weather system ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation), which operates along the Equator in the Pacific Ocean. The system is switching between a warm (El Niño) and a cold (La Niña) phase. The system may be described as a change between warm and cold water being transported up to the surface and then down to a lower level. This involves enormous amounts of water being exchanged, and the whole system is moving from east to west along The Equator. The change in the temperature at the surface of the ocean may be seen here, in the diagram reported by Dr. Roy Spencer, from UAH.
El Niño is the warm peak, while La Niña, the cold, cooling part, is the low part of the system. On average, the El Niño appears every 2-3 years. One may say that the temperature in the atmosphere increases during the El Niño, and is brought back to «zero» during La Niña.
Permanent temperature increase?
And here the interesting and exciting situation takes place. Does El Niño contribute to a worldwide permanent temperature increase?
A priori, one might equally well have asked the opposite question: Does La Niña contribute to a worldwide permanent temperature decrease? Presently, the interest is about the increase, which may easily be understood, based on the temperature pattern in the figure above. However, this is an extremely short period, and it would have been interesting to see the development from the «industrial-start-time», set to 1850 for convenience. This is almost fulfilled in the next diagram:
The Industrial Start
Here I have extended the period to 1880:
Roughly speaking, the temperature is more or less stable in the period 1880 to 1970. We can see the pattern of the ENSO temperatures, but there is no general temperature increase or decrease. A reasonable Conclusion is that the ENSO system has no permanent impact on the atmospheric temperature and the climate. So, in spite of the temperature increase from 1970, this is not due to El Niño.
This general increase in the temperature, being 0.015˚C per year, is an ongoing question. Suggestions are: due to the former ice-period, heat from volcanoes and other sources underseas, and the sun. Suggestions about the sun are discussed heavily, since there are no sun patterns to support this.
Geo-ingeneering
Another explanation has got some support. A reduction of the concentration of aerosols in the atmosphere might be a contribution. The reduction is a function of environmental improvement of the air quality. A kind of unprecedented geo-engineering, with increased global warming, caused by the reduced concentration of aerosols in the atmosphere:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/06/04/almost-all-recent-globalwarming-caused-by-green-air-policies-shock-revelation-from-nasa/
El Niño acts as Opium for the climate alarmists
In spite of a somewhat unclear situation of a permanent effect on the temperature, the alarmists have no limitations. An increased «global» Temperature is associated with the El Niño effect, as long as the ENSO pattern shows the El Niño peak. However, instead of a discussion of what will happen during the next La Niña period, the effect of El Niño dominates the coming climate situation. El Niño may be looked upon as a type of heroin for the alarmists.
The variability of the El Niño Size
One thing is striking about the academic commentary on El Niño. The graph by Dr. Roy Spencer (UAH MSU) above shows a steady temperature increase of 0.015˚C per year since 1979. And this is clearly completely independent of the size of El Niño. Even the strongest El Niños, 1998, 2011, 2016, and 2020, leave no clear traces. The temperature increase is steady. This should make IPCC believers shudder. Why don't we get significant jumps in the average temperature increase? Another sign that ENSO has no lasting impact on temperature?
Concluding remarks
Despite alarmists taking every opportunity to bring in El Niño in connection with a very strong regional warming or in connection with what meteorologists characterize as extreme weather, there is no change in the rate of temperature increase. It has been 0.015˚C per year since 1979. When one also sees that temperature was unchanged in the period 18801950, it is reasonable to conclude that El Niño has no lasting and permanent impact on the atmospheric temperature.