I became suspicious when trying to track down the scientific evidence showing the data for the AMO, after reading the 2006 NOAA hurricane forecast, which references the "multi-decadal signal" so many times that it caught my attention (more on this in a minute). If it's so obvious, the data must be somewhere, and it's not as if it would be something that would be impossible to measure. When you try to find the actual measurements of the ocean circulation and similar types of references to hard data among the Landsea-Gray-Goldenberg set, you just come up emptyhanded. Not only that, if you look at the sources for all their papers, they just source themselves. Huge, huge red flag.
An example of the non-science is the AOML webpage answering questions about the AMO; it says nothing convincing.
All this didn't make me very happy. I came to the conclusion that NOAA was pushing a political agenda for the Bush administration to prevent any mention of global warming, as part of a plan to convince us it doesn't exist and isn't affecting our planet.
Once something raises my suspicions, you know how I am more or less of an internet bloodhound, and I have been known to spend hours and sometimes days searching through "billions and billions" of web pages to get information on a topic that has piqued my curiosity.
Well guess what folks. There are measurements taken of the ATL thermohaline current, albeit infrequently, and the current has been decreasing, not increasing, for around a decade. In other words, the AMO (or multi-decadal oscillation, or thermohaline circulation, whatever label you give it) can't account for the increase in SSTs that has been occuring.
This is what I figure.
--All the effects that are increasing the probability of an active season, as stated in the NOAA forecast, are true. That an increase in SSTs is one of the culprits, seems true as well.
--As to whether or the increase in SSTs in the North ATL is due to a cyclic redistribution of heat in the oceans -- no hard evidence exists to support this, in spite of NOAA's rather noisy repeated insistence that this be accepted at face value (I am frequently guilty of overanalyzing things, but hardly ever guilty of taking something at face value).
--Even with no hard evidence, the idea of a thermohaline circulation makes sense.
--Recent scientific studies do show a model that correctly predicts the ocean warming due to another cause (below), that has been incorrectly completely attributed to an 'AMO.'
My conclusion, is that a combination of factors are causing the warming, but that with the evidence at hand, a cyclic circulation could not be causing the bulk of the warming.
Hot off the press, an article on just this topic.
Ok so -- I have a brother in law enforcement. They are constantly being trained in different areas and one of those has to do with the psychology of criminals. One tip-off if someone is lying is if they put additional emphasis on the statement. An example of this was when OJ Simpson was asked if he wanted to plead guilty or not guilty, he said, "absolutely 100 percent not guilty." That was the immediate tipoff that he was guilty, from a psychological perspective. So in the NOAA forecast, they don't just mention the "multi-decadal signal" once or twice, and drop it -- they bring it up again and again. So, what...if I see it enough, it's gospel? And what is really odd is that they never mention global warming. And it did work, initially, because I was doing a lot of reading and didn't have time to go back and check anything. So when I first started looking at this I did assume the AMO existed and the same tired chart of the cycle that NOAA displays at every opportunity was valid. But when I dug into it, I blasted myself for not having more of a scientist's skeptical "show me" mindset.
As far as trending SSTs, check out this link that I found.
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Katrina's Surge: http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/Katrinas_surge_contents.asp
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