I assumed you had at least a basic idea of heat transfer in dynamic systems. No where did I say the atmosphere heats the ocean, I did say that the atmospheric conditions will affect the rate of ocean cooling, surely you agree with that!

“Furthermore, the four years of oceanic cooling to two miles deep …….”

Do not confuse metric and imperial measurements, a common source of errors in junior school classes, use km and not miles . Argo/Argos meaurements are what you must be referring to, homepage here http://www-argo.ucsd.edu/
These measure the upper 2km depth of the oceans and, because of the sea ice, there are fewer Argo bouys in the Arctic and Antarctic waters. Another factor to remember is that the average ocean depth is 3.5km.

edcon (13:03:38) :
“Mary Hinge’s thought processes may be revealing about her apparent lack of blog etiquette.”

I have not insulted Kim at all, read the posts! It is up to the reader to determine the thought processes, I can see what she is doing, I am sure others will to. Why are you so sensitive?
Sometimes I think I am in a scientific debate instead of a blog. It is only when your debatee constantly fails to provide any evidence for their argument, uses false quotations and mixes up imperial and metric measurements then you realise this is just a blog.

Mary Hinge’s thought processes may be revealing about her apparent lack of blog etiquette.

Also, if the Los Ninos and Las Ninas do effect the volume of the ocean, and hence the sea level, it looks to me like the volume and sea level change precede the atmospheric manifestation. So you have your causality backward. I wish I could remember who said ‘The climate is the continuation of the ocean by other means’.

I’ve been studying this stuff for several years, now, and my understanding and beliefs have undergone a number of sea changes. Can you say the same about yourself? When are you going to question your underlying assumption that climate is exquisitely sensitive to CO2. How cold does it have to get?

I’m just a little amused that a true believer like yourself criticizes a skeptic like myself in the manner you have. You’ve got that part backwards, too.
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I am in total agreement with Mike here Dennis (put that in a diary as a red letter day!). There is nothing like healthy debate to help you learn about what is a very complex subject. A lot of posters do produce good sources of information and it all helps stimulate the intellectual juices!

Try not to think in one dimension for a change. At first glance it would seem logical to assume that a warm water event results in more evaporation than a cool event. Bear in mind that the air above the initial upwelled cold sub-surface water is cooler and drier than during a neutral or El Nino episode. There is also an increase in the trade wind speed, put the two together and this results in greater evaporation (using the body sweat anology again, if you work out in cool, dry air the sweat evaporates very quickly, in humid conditions the sweat doesn’t evaporate as fast). But don’t take my word on it, this is the important part of this paper :
Gautier C. Peterson P. and Jones C. Global Estimation of Freshwater Fluxes and Freshwater Oceanic Transport from Satellite Data, World Water Resources Vol 8, No. 4 pg 505-514.1996

“Evaporation exceeds precipitation by about 200 cm year-1 during the La Niña conditions of 1988-89, whereas precipitation exceeds evaporation by about 200 cm year-1 during the El Niño of 1991-92.”

“And if Jason’s data is not available……”

If you don’t believe the data, fine. Whatever data anyone, or any organisation presents that goes against your preset ideas you’re going to ignore anyway.

“You are simply not persuasive”

With your answers revealing your thought processes, I really couldn’t care less

And if Jason’s data is not available, whence the two orphaned dots on your sea level graph? Also, see the latest thread for more doubt about 3.4mm/yr rise.

You are simply not persuasive, sorry. I’m sure you’ve convinced yourself.
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An efficient cooling mechanism such as evaporation will if over a sufficiently large area, don’t forget how large an area the Pacific covers!

“I don’t think individual Las Ninas or Los Ninos have much effect on sea level”

As further evidence look at the 1997-1998 levels where the sea levels rose during that strong El Nino.

“Now, the PDO, that is another thing.”

As has been discussed before the PDO phases are in effect neutral, it is their effect on ENSO that determines temerature changes.

Sea ice area approaching the edge of normal standard deviation Oct 2008,
Do you actually believe this BBC garbage, of cause you don`t. //

I don’t always believe the BBC and I certainly don’t believe much of the garbage posted on here but I do give some credence to current data rather than the cherry-picked data that some people on this site worship. They denigrate ANY data that counters their belief, calling it unreliable, but then have the brazen cheek to use the data from the same sources as definitive proof if the data agrees with their beliefs over a selected period. I like to keep an open mind so maybe this board is not for me.