Let's Hear It for El Niño

As I've noted before, it's been a very cool summer here in the lovely upper Midwest. That doesn't necessarily have anything to do with short- or long-term trends with the weather.

Then again, there's new evidence that human activity doesn't, either:

Because El Niño−Southern Oscillation is known to exercise a particularly strong influence in the tropics, we also compared the SOI with tropical temperature anomalies between 20°S and 20°N. The results showed that SOI 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.

So is it our old pal El Niño, or is it your SUV, you big ol' carbon footprint tromping rat bastard? These researchers strongly suggest that it's not you, or your SUV.

So if this research is correct, do we need cap and trade and other draconian measures that are being demanded suggested? Don't know the answer for sure. But as with everything that the Obama administration proposes, I'd suggest two things:

1) Be skeptical, especially when you sense you are being stampeded to a result.

2) Follow the money.

(H/T: Yid with Lid, which has lots more)