This is the first I've heard of this "IPO" or "PDO" but it appears to be an interesting piece of the puzzle. As best as I can simply understand it, there seems to be a long term cycle between increased absorption of energy by the oceans, followed by increased absorption of energy by the atmosphere.
- The growing body of research helps explain why ocean temperatures have been rising faster than anticipated, and, perhaps more compellingly, why land temperatures rose less than models had projected after the turn of the century — a mystery, sometimes dubbed the warming “hiatus,” “pause” or “faux pause,” that confounded science until just the last couple of years.
“The hiatus is associated with the negative PDO phase — with strong subtropical trade winds that pile the warm water up in the tropical western Pacific, and bury some warm water in the subtropics,” Trenberth said. “If you turn that off, then the waters warm more generally and over a shallower layer, with consequences for the atmosphere above.”
The take away appears to be that scientists are predicting increased atmospheric warming, along with the author's optimistic prediction that it will take the wind out of global warming deniers' arguments, and that the public and policy makers will start taking this new reality more seriously. The optimism is nice, but I can't deny how determined some people are to keep their heads buried in the sand.