We Texans have enjoyed enduring rainfall, which is essential to filling rivers and streams that drain into man-made reservoirs. Water from these reservoirs is filtered and purified before being pumped into distribution piping, which ultimately brings potable water to us.
Why is the El Niño Southern Oscillation important to us? The El Niño condition causes rainfall over the southern tier of the USA. While the ENSO is in El Niño mode, a colossal atmospheric river transports water vapor from the Pacific Ocean across our part of the North American continent.
Background Science
“The western Pacific warm pool (WPWP) is the warmest area of the open oceans and [a] global heat reservoir with high sea surface temperature (SST) usually warmer than 28°C [82.4 °F] accompanied by active deep convection. The temperature variation over the WPWP is closely linked with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the dominant interannual climate mode in [the] tropical Pacific.” Learn more from The American Geophysical Union: Warm and Cold Episodes in Western Pacific Warm Pool and Their Linkage With ENSO Asymmetry and Diversity
The ENSO — The El Niño Southern Oscillation Video Source: Smithsonian Inst. & NOAA
Academics look for answers to ‘global warming’ with a mindset of anthropogenic causation. I quote from an earlier AGU report: “The causes of ENSO diversity, although being of great interest in recent research, do not have a consistent explanation.“
Background Theology
The first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence states: “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
Our Founding Fathers firmly believed God, the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, is sovereign over all of nature.
Mark 4:35-41 MEV (27 AD)
35 That same day, when the evening came, He [Jesus] said to them, “Let us go cross to the other side.” 36 When they had sent the crowd away, they took Him in the boat just as He was. There were also other little boats with Him. 37 A great wind storm arose, and the waves splashed into the boat, so that it was now filling the boat. 38 He was in the stern asleep on a pillow. They woke Him and said, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”
39 He rose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” Then the wind ceased and there was a great calm.
40 He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How is that you have no faith?”
41 They feared greatly and said to one another, “What kind of Man is He, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”
Before 2100 BC, there was no Google to search for answers. MIT would not appear for over 4,000 years. But there was a man named Job who acknowledged Nature’s God, as recorded in Job 26:7-10:
7He stretches out the north over empty space,
He hangs the earth upon nothing.
8 He binds up the waters in His thick clouds,
and the cloud is not broken under them.
9 He covers the face of the full moon
and spreads His cloud over it.
10 He has circled the waters with boundaries,
until the day and night come to an end.
Contemporary climate scientists seek answers to weather variability through the lens of anthropogenic causation. Atmospheric CO2 concentration, for example.
The post-1990s increase in the frequency of CP El-Niño events has led some researchers to relate such changes in ENSO patterns to the influence of global warming. However, decadal variations in ENSO characteristics have also emerged in unforced climate-model simulations, as well as in empirical models, suggesting that natural low-frequency variability may also play an important role in the modulation of ENSO diversity. Excerpt from Nature: ENSO diversity shows robust decadal variations that must be captured for accurate future projections
Application
Presupposing the claims of climate alarmists, that is, believing that humans have authority over the atmosphere, the oceans, and the physical earth beneath our feet, is the definition of idolatry. It takes for granted the claims of those alarmists that mankind can control the atmosphere over the earth.
Idolatry is a sin.
1 If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or the wonder comes to pass concerning that which he spoke to you, saying, “Let us go after other gods,” which you have not known, “and let us serve them,” 3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. — Deuteronomy 13:1-3 MEV
17 Elijah was a man subject to natural passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.
19 Brothers, if any one of you strays from the truth and someone corrects him, 20 let him know that he who converts the sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. — James 5:17-20 MEV
In August of 1974, God became real to me through a miraculous personal encounter. After a half-century since that encounter, I am imperfect, but I have confidence because without a doubt I can say God is at work in me, as the psalmist wrote in Palm 138:8, “The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me; Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever; do not forsake the works of Your hands.“
Soli Deo Gloria
John White
Rockwall, Texas
John N. White 