The Coming El Nino

The IRI at Columbia University is out with their latest monthly ENSO prediction, and the average predicts a strong El Nino beginning around August:

Anything above 1.5°C is considered a "strong" El Nino. The 2015-2016 El Nino SST anomaly peaked at 2.6°C, and the 1997-1998 peaked at 2.4°C. 

(An "El Nino" has a SST anomaly of 0.5-1.0°C, "moderate" El Nino is 1.0-1.5°C, and "strong" El Nino is > 1.5°C.) There have to be five consecutive months where the index is in a category before it earns one of these labels. 

(This is from the same page as above.)

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James Hansen said in his email newsletter that he has a paper coming out the concludes 'the present greenhouse gas forcing is 70% of the forcing that made Earth’s temperature in the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum at least +13°C relative to preindustrial temperature.'

The Eocene is the period after the PETM, from 59 million years ago (Ma) to 49 Ma. Here's more on the Early Eocene Climate Optimum. I don't know much more than this at present....

Have a nice weekend.