Preliminary data indicate that the monthly SOI for February will be around 20.5, according to the Australian daily monitoring tool. The final number will be released on Monday (March 3rd) by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), but it is already possible to anticipate a major and historic milestone. The monthly value for this February can be the highest ever, since data began in 1876, for any month of February.

If the average stays above plus 20, as indicated by the data released so far by the Queensland government, it would be the highest monthly value since November 2000. If we only consider this time of the year (Northern Hemisphere winter and Southern Hemisphere Summer from December to March), it would only be 7th occasion with a monthly SOI value over plus 20. The Southern Oscillation Index peaked over 20 at this time of the year previously in the years of 1889 (December), 1890 (January), 1917 (December), 1950 (December) and in 1974 (January and March).

The very high value for the SOI is associated with a strong La Niña event (picture above) that could persist for many months (Joseph D’Aleo assessment). This is strong evidence that global temperature patterns present a much stronger correlation with the ENSO evolution in the Pacific than with the CO2 rise, as recently explained in a must read article by Joseph D’Aleo (read more).

It is also interesting to point that remarkably high SOI averages as seen recently and now in February also took place in the past during periods of global cooling as late in the 19th century and in the 50’s and the 70’s as the PDO experimented a negative phase. This strong La Niña event and the behavior of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation may hint the beginning of a new negative phase of the PDO, but is too early to tell and it could be another false indicator as seen in 1999 and 2000. The same could be said about global cooling. The recent trend of global temperature (read Anthony Watts's excellent tracking) can be a brief lapse in the curve of global warming or may indicate the beginning of a long term cooling trend. I entirely agree with WOOD-TV Craig James’ opinion (read more) that this can be "just a noise in the upward trend or is it the start of a downward trend in temperatures". The famous and very competent meteorologist from Grand Rapids tells "it is a little too early to be proclaiming that global warming has ended" and it sounds reasonable to me, but at the same time it is very nice to see that natural forcing and not manmade global warming is driving our planet temperature.