Ocean Heat Content: Dropping again

Why do we not see the 1998 super El Nino? Was that just on the surface?

MattN, it’s there. Look at the South Pacific chart. See that huge spike around 1998?

I think there is a la Nina coming down the track…

MattN (19:30:26) :
Why do we not see the 1998 super El Nino? Was that just on the surface?
It appears to be limited to the southern hemisphere.

Ocean weather, not climate… but that’s a whole lotta cold water.
If this keeps up, the Titanic anniversary cruise might be overly interesting.

You’ve got to be kidding.
ONE post on the elimination of data at CRU?!!??!
Still hacking away at El Nino, Solar cycles, placement of monitoring stations, polar ice, clouds, sea levels, hurricanes, and on, and on, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
Are you afraid to admit that you’ve misspent your blogging career (and possibly your life) whining about irrelevant issues?
The CRU/Phil Jones data is THE SOURCE. THE ORIGIN. THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS.
Everything you discuss is entirely dependent upon accepting the truth and validity of Jones’ claim that the earth warmed over the last 150 yrs.
With that debunked or disproven, the entire theory falls apart. ALL other global warming claims are thus falsified.
THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE AFRAID OF.
You and your site are a pathetic, AGW-enabling, JOKE.

The South Pacific OHC correlates well with the ENSO SST’s, so the super El Nino of 98 shows in one of the graphs.
We could see a sizable drop if the Southern Ocean starts on another down-swing while El Nino fades while the short-term trends continue for the rest of the oceans.

Anthony:
an interesting article re Captain Cooks sea temperature logs from his voyages in the 1700’s and others in the 1800’s
Ships’ logs from Cook’s Discovery and Resolution, William Bligh’s Bounty and 300 other 18th and 19th-century explorers’ vessels are being transcribed and digitised in a project that will allow climatologists to trace changing weather patterns.
The records, stored in the National Archives at Kew, contain a unique and highly accurate account of temperature, ice formation, air pressure and wind speed and direction in remote locations all over the world.
There are plenty of land-based weather reports from this period, but very little is known about the climate history of the three quarters of the world’s surface covered by sea.
Times Archive, 1890: Captain Cook’s journals
The book covers two years and ten months of the most brilliant achievements in the history of British nautical adventures
The UK Colonial Registers and Royal Navy Logbooks project, a partnership that includes the Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of Sunderland, aims to make all the logs available online. The weather reports are being charted to allow instant comparisons between past observations and current conditions.
The log from HMS Isabella, which set out in 1818 to seek the fabled Northwest Passage, reveals that there was a small but significant decline in the sea ice in Baffin Bay over the past 190 years. Until now, scientists tracking sea ice formation have largely relied upon observations from satellites. However, some of the logs suggest that there has been little or no change in sea temperatures elsewhere in the Arctic. Climate change sceptics are likely to seize on these records as evidence that man-made greenhouse gases are having less impact than many scientists have claimed.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6862384.ece

I have not read the comments, although the last few that i glimpse seem a bit overheated. If this information proves true and remains so for even a relatively brief period, the Northern Hemisphere is in for some very bad weather. Cold and deadly.

the 2003 spike in global data, that occured with the switching to the argos data has been discussed hereÖ
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/02/anomalous-spike-in-ocean-heat-content/
most likelz, another 0.1 has to be subtracted from the heat content due to this error.

Uriel said
“The CRU/Phil Jones data is THE SOURCE. THE ORIGIN. THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS.”
Such blind fanaticism is fascinating. There is a total rejection of rational analysis as ‘Science’ is perverted in a Faith of Certainty, and, as always, a hate of ‘outsiders’. The choice of a minor Jewish Angel as a soubriquet seems obscure, but presumably supports fantasies about “Swords of Righteousness”.

” The CRU/Phil Jones data is THE SOURCE. THE ORIGIN. THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. ”
If that isn’t faith I have never seen it. Honestly Uriel who is pathetic here? and do you really need to shout? Seems like you are pounding sand. Is data from the topics you list such a joke? Data is all this post is. Deal with it. And does it really matter that the earth has warmed over the past 150 years? I think that the crux of the matter is whether or not the temperature increases over the last 30-50 years are due to man made CO2 or if are they due to other factors such as increasing UHI, incorrect methods of temperature readings, solar trends, biased correction factors, etc? At any rate does a 150 year warming trend (which interestingly starts at the end of the LIA) somehow prove that we need to follow some clown who will tell us the “correct” way to live? i.e. CO2 free (or perhaps put another way “stop breathing you capitalist pig”). If you follow history you might consider the cooling scare of the 70s, did that somehow rely on “the source the orgin the only thing that matters”? General history might also teach you a few things as well especially if you think about soviet agricultural practices and the real fallout of misplaced and hokey but accepted “scientific” theory.
And finally thanks for your opinion but many of us here like Anthony’s site and think he does a great job. If you don’t like it why dont you start you own blog? I suggest you call it “Pounding Sand.”
APE

Uriel 20:39:00
Good to hear the voice of calm reason at last. Of course Phil Jones is a demi-god. Now be a good boy and go away and play while the grown-ups talk.

Bob,
As I look at most of the graphs, there is a step change up around 2003. I seem to recall reading from both yourself and others that this coincided with the change over to the ARGOS buoys. If I recall you had views on this. Could you do a quick recap.
Also, can one assume that Ocean Heat Content has been trending down ever since modern recording equipement (The Argos Buoys) were installed.
40 Shades

Like predicted. page 6 here: http://ansatte.hials.no/hy/climate/preEcoSysTromsø_070314.pdf

Uriel: Your rant begins with, “You’ve got to be kidding. ONE post on the elimination of data at CRU?!!??!”
Please advise how your comment pertains to this post.

Lindsay H. – Cook was the Star Trek of his day – venture into the unknown and he did.
He should be Australia’s hero instead of Ned Kelly IMHO.

40 Shades of Green: You wrote, “As I look at most of the graphs, there is a step change up around 2003. I seem to recall reading from both yourself and others that this coincided with the change over to the ARGOS buoys. If I recall you had views on this. Could you do a quick recap.”
That was a post by Craig Loehle:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/02/anomalous-spike-in-ocean-heat-content/
You asked so I’ll list a few of my comments on that thread:
#####
The anomalous spike [in 2003] does NOT appear in the Domingues et al (2008) or the Ishii and Kimoto (I believe it was 2008 also) OHC reconstructions:
http://s5.tinypic.com/24v33t4.jpg
I noted the divergence in my post “The Latest Revisions to Ocean Heat Content Data” here:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/03/latest-revisions-to-ocean-heat-content.html
#####
And:
#####
Craig Leihle noted that the 2003 spike in OHC did not appear in global SST anomaly. Here’s a graph of OHC versus Global SST anomaly.
http://i36.tinypic.com/o70r9w.jpg
It’s from this post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/11/revised-ocean-heat-content.html
#####
But as you’ll note in the tinypic link, 40 Shades, that anomalous rise occurs ~1 1/2 years before in the SST data.
You asked, “Also, can one assume that Ocean Heat Content has been trending down ever since modern recording equipement (The Argos Buoys) were installed”
There’s actually a slight increase in OHC trend from January 2003 to June 2009:
http://i38.tinypic.com/300d3dl.png
But if you delete the last six months, the trend go up considerably:
http://i33.tinypic.com/2ynq7v8.png

Mr. Tisdale,
I was wondering if the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and ensuing Tsunami affected the Indian Ocean by enhanced mixing of the deeper colder water with the warmer surface water?
Intuitively I would think that the mixing would result in lowering the surface temperature reducing the heat radiation from the water with a corresponding increase in heat content later in the year.

Bob Tisdale (03:57:28)
Bob, I don’t want to engage with you on the detailed workings of ENSO because you would tie me up in knots every time.
I am taking a boad conceptual overview and there are many underlying variables that need to be measured and evaluated to see whether there is anything fatal to that overview.
I am aware of the two edged effects of variations in cloudiness and albedo but I deal with that by suggesting that what matters for the overall global energy budget is the netted out effect of all such variables and that netted out effect seems to best noted from observations of the latitudinal positions of all the worlds air circulation systems at any one time. It is likely that the position of the ITCZ might serve as an adequate proxy for that and thus an indicator of the speed of the hydrological cycle globally at any given moment.
I am also aware of your contention that the PDO is merely a statistical artifact of the ENSO phenomenon. I deal with that by suggesting that in fact there is a real oceanic oscillation behind the PDO phase shifts. How that would impact on your ENSO ideas I have no idea and it doesn’t really matter from my point of view.
I also noted your reaction to my suggestion of a longer 500/1000 year oceanic oscillation and that you thought I was connecting it with ENSO in some way. As far as I am concerned it need not be connected to ENSO or PDO at all but if it is connected then again that matters not from my point of view.
I see evidence for oceanic effects on energy release from oceans to air on all three timescales and it is up to you to decide whether that evidence can fit your ENSO ideas without conflict.
If there is something in what I say which you think is clearly disproved from something within your knowledge then please say so and I will consider it. I do not consider either my ideas or yours to be complete or incontrovertible at this stage.
I think TSI or other solar influences change act very slowly and so need not be linked to individual ENSO events at all. I take cognisance of what Leif says on that and am keeping an open mind as to the timescale at which solar influences become significant.
The main point of my earlier and lengthy post was that if one does accept a 500/1000 year oceanic cycle behind those of ENSO and PDO then all our climate observations can be dealt with via an internally driven process without the need for any external forcing.
That is not to deny an external forcing, it just means that such an external forcing is not required to explain what we see and record.
The issue of getting extra energy in the air from extra CO2 into the oceans is a seperate matter but if that cannot happen in any meaningful quantity on any meaningful timescale then instead of changing the equilibrium temperature of the globe it will just be dealt with by a small change in the speed of the hydro cycle. A change far far smaller (indeed miniscule) compared to the size of the changes regularly occurring to deal with the consequences of the varying rates of energy release from those ocean cycles.

Bob Tisdale (04:47:32)
Thank you for that link.
http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Fi34.tinypic.com%2Fsmyi2v.png
The ocean heat content started it’s rise around 1980 in response to powerful solar cycles 21. 22 and 23. It rose despite strong El ninos venting energy to the air so I have to assume that those strong cycles were putting in more than the El Ninos were releasing.
The fall in solar activity from the peak of cycle 23 appears to be now having an effect on ocean heat content even though the current El Nino is weak and other oceans are negative. Presumably not enough energy is being put into the oceans to maintain ocean heat content even though the oceanic conditions suggest it should be rising.
As you point out at first sight the period 1955 to 1980 does not seem to fit the pattern. However what we had then was an even stronger solar cycle19 followed by a weaker cycle 20 combined with a negative oceanic phase.
Thus the weaker cycle 20 appears to have prevented the combination of cycle 19 and the negative ocean phase from building up the ocean heat content in the way that would have been expected. Instead it remained approximately stable.
Now that is all logical and fits the observations but is it true ?
One difficulty with that analysis is that it signifies a much greater effect on ocean heat content than should take place if Leif is right about the size of solar variability. It could be a matter of amplification as per Svensmark and others.
I’m not sure how it impacts on your ENSO theories, however and no doubt you can clarify that.
Nevertheless whether or not Leif is right and whether or not your ENSO ideas are right the fact is that all these observations do fit my general climate description which relies on a broad global interplay between all the indivdual components of the system.
How those individual components vary or interact between themselves can be fought over between all those who have an interest in those individual components. Whatever the outcome of the various territory struggles the final outcome will still fit my overview.

How strong are the westerlies? Do we have churning seas releasing heat during westerly equatorial wind conditions while the subsequent easterly equatorial wind condition peels away what warmth is left to reveal the cold depth?

In my post (05:38:54) I did not deal fully with the period 1980 to about 2003 due to a local distraction.
From 1980 to 2003 there was a step upward in ocean energy content but then a plateau even though air temperatures (not shown) continued to rise.
I would say that the step change occurred as the oceans switched from negative to positive and a new equilibrium was set between solar input and ocean energy release. There was a high solar input and a high ocean output so the ocean heat content was for a while after the step up roughly in balance but the air kept getting warmer due to the energy venting in strong El Ninos.
From 2003 to date the oceans turned negative again so energy release fell and we saw another upward step change in ocean heat content because solar input was still high in historical times but as we now know destined for a fall.
Now (2009) the sun is not even putting enough in to replace the relatively small rate of energy loss to the air in current ocean conditions so at last ocean heat content is falling even as air temperatures are falling (albeit irregularly).

Doug in Seattle (20:10:41) :
MattN (19:30:26) :
Why do we not see the 1998 super El Nino? Was that just on the surface?
It appears to be limited to the southern hemisphere
It is not here. SOI is positive (average:+3.9 for the last three months). And if you see:
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
you will observe, along the southamerican west coast, a cold SST that reaches the equator line, this is the Humboldt´s cold current surfacing (el Nino area 1+2).
All this is indicative of La Nina back. Positive anomalies are restricted along the equator line.
Also the characteristic PDO horseshoe pattern is back. Then all the pacific ocean is cold.

As the El Nino is warm surface water returning eastward in a Kelvin wave when the trade winds weaken, how can it alter the ocean heat content? Surely all it does is redistribute the heat from the West Pacific to the East Pacific there is no heat added into the surface waters. Therefore, if there is a spike in OHC when there is an El Nino – it shows an error in the methodology for determining the OHC.

Ian W: You wrote, “As the El Nino is warm surface water returning eastward in a Kelvin wave when the trade winds weaken, how can it alter the ocean heat content? Surely all it does is redistribute the heat from the West Pacific to the East Pacific there is no heat added into the surface waters. Therefore, if there is a spike in OHC when there is an El Nino – it shows an error in the methodology for determining the OHC.”
Your explanation misses some of what transpires during an El Nino event, because the heat is added during the recharge portion, the La Nina. Refer to the OHC of the tropical Pacific compared to NINO3.4 SST anomalies:
http://i33.tinypic.com/2h55ixv.png
El Nino events release heat from the tropical Pacific to the atmosphere, lowering OHC. During El Nino events, warm water is also redistributed from the tropical Pacific to the extratropics of the Pacific, lowering OHC in the tropical Pacific but raising it in the extratropics. And the subsequent La Nina recharges the lost heat in the tropics. If there is a multiyear La Nina, the tropical Pacific OHC rises in a “step”.

Leif: You wrote, “So, clearly [on that flimsy evidence], sunspots have little [if any] measurable impact.”
It is flimsy. But it appears the significant upward shifts occur regardless of the solar cycle.

My freezer is about 20 degrees. It takes about 3 hours to make a batch of ice from start to finish. It seems cold air removes heat from water pretty quickly.

Bob Tisdale (09:32:59)
Each ocean behaves differently because of the lag which you have mentioned whereby the initial conditions in the Pacific then spread around the world.
The global chart smooths all that out and so we just see a relatively steady rise in OHC throughout the period of high solar activity.
The solar changes should not be that influential as Leif says so we must wait and see.
Makes no difference to the energy in versus energy out proposition though and makes no difference to the fact that the oceans create variations in energy flow to the air which causes climate variability.
I currently think the oceans can do it all on their own if need be but I remain puzzled on the scale and timing of the solar effect, if any.

Leif Svalgaard (09:51:17) :
Yes, basically because the cosmic flux has been rather constant [apart from the dips caused by high solar activity] since we have good data [1952]
In other words you think that CERN paper is nonsense?
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V11/N21/C2.php

Wow, all that water cooling down so quickly.
I wonder where all that heat is now ?
I hope this cooling-trend stops before we freeze our *sses of.

Do you think that it is really possible for anything to have an exact target; such as hitting the moon with a rocket since the moon is in a constant orbiting motion plus a very slow ratation on it’s axis? The earth orbits the sun with the speed of light, the moon is smaller than earth, earth rotates on it’s axis at 1,000 miles in one hour, all planets in our galaxy are insync with earths rotation and the gravity of the sun; all this stuff is traveling so fast in the universe that it seems almost impossible to be able to hit a target since there is constant motion.
The earth orbits the sun at the speed of light, the moon orbits the earth; plus all these other planets are in constant orbiting motion, yet connected to the rotation of the earth.
It looks in my mind like all this stuff works like the internal structure of a big wrist watch.

Ok I’m having great problems with the oceans controlling temperature.
There are people saying that the oceans heat content is increasing at especially at 700m. At this sort of depth the temperatures are coler than the air temperatures.
To reach 700m sw sunlight will have to travel through 700m of water which will all absorb some of the UV and warm.
At 700m the water temperature is 12C approx and 4C below 900m and 22C surface. (presumably tropical seas?)
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/Water/temp.html&edu=high
If the 700m water is going to warm the air then it must increase the surface temperature of water to greater than the air temp. You cannot transfer heat from cold to hot
I.E. if the 700m water gets heated to 13C the surface temp is 23C assuming thermal link. If 23C is cooler than the air temp then heat will still be flowing from air to water. This is likely the case during the day so there is a possibility of transfer from air to ocean at night perhaps?
The other possibility is for the cool waters with the additional heat content to get transported to cooler latitudes via the THC.
In both these cases the effect of heat content lowering in the oceans should be measurable at the ocean surface or at the turnover point of the THC by an increase in surface temperature.
But of course the THC takes centuries to transit from warm to cool waters so temperature increases we are seeing now are due to events occuring before industrialisation.
Stephen Wilde (10:06:09) : says
… makes no difference to the fact that the oceans create variations in energy flow to the air which causes climate variability.
But i can see no way that energy stored at low temperature can transfer to the air at a higher temp in any sort of controlled manner.
Explanations on a post card please.

tallbloke (2:33:17)
I meant to type ‘historical terms’ rather than ‘historical times’ which has caused some confusion especially to Leif.
I take Leif’s instruction on solar issues seriously but remain puzzled by the contradiction between his clearly correct comments on the smallness of solar variation over time and the contradictory but equally clearly correct historical correlation between solar activity and climate changes.
As I did say elsewhere, but perhaps it was missed, it may just be that by coincidence the solar cycle troughed at around the same time as my proposed 500/1000 year oceanic cycle troughed at around 1600 AD.
I’ve previously said that solar and oceanic influences can either supplement or offset each other so it is possible that at other times than around 1600 AD there could have been occasions when solar influences were high from an active sun but the climate was nevertheless cool due to negative oceans.
I am now reasonably sure that solar influences are weak except on long timescales and that oceanic variability is strong on shorter timescales but I remain open minded on the precise timescale at which solar influences become significant.
My doubts on the issue arise because it is quite easy to describe relatively short term multidecadal climate changes or changes in ocean heat content by juggling the solar and oceanic contributions (I have done that in my responses to Bob Tisdale) but from what Leif says that should not be possible.
It may be that there are amplification factors such as the hypotheses by Svensmark and others but whatever the reality my proposed general climate description remains unaffected. I’d like to know the answer though.

Bob Tisdale: I can see that part adjusted out making the graph look more in line with temperature trends before 2008, and I can see where the adjustment would be needed to take in the fact of the ARGO data taking more accurate measurements which then shows OHC could’ve been higher than what the older measurements were getting.
El Nino is removing OHC, the South Pacific OHC showing the El Nino, like I said if current downtrends in the other regions continue after El Nino disappears we could see enough of a drop to make the trend not seem near as significant as we see South Pacific OHC drop as the ENSO region cools.
There’s still the Southern Ocean OHC but apparently the swings mean what goes down must come back up to an extent, but here we see it going up and basing it on the up and down movement what goes up will probably have to come back down.

innocentious (11:35:45)
You have hit on the points that confused me some years ago.
However I had by then already noted the latitudinal shift in the air circulation systems that always follows changes in sea surface temperatures.
I considered the possible reasons why the air circulation systems might shift latitudinally in response to sea surface temperature changes and decided that it must be something to do with the net global energy balance.
I had previously noted the shift poleward shortly after the global temperatures started to rise in the late 1970s and was surprised that in 1988 Hansen and others announced that the whole thing was anthropogenic. I went along with that until about 2000 because I’m just an amateur and what would I know ?
Anyway around 2000 I noted the systems shifting back equatorward again (apparently before anyone else noticed) and that created a dissonance in my mind which caused me to doubt the professional diagnosis.
About two years ago it became clear to me if not to others that something was seriously awry in contemporary climatology because no one was linking the return equatorward of the air circulation systems to anything happening in the climate as a result of natural variability. As it happened that coincided with a cessation of the apparent warming trend so I was pretty sure that I had spotted something significant.
I noticed that the drift of the systems back equatorward was being ignored and the earlier poleward drift was being attributed to irreversible human influences.
So, there was a clear and obvious discrepancy between real world events and generally accepted climate theory.
Hence my entry onto the scene as a climate theorist.
I think I now have a grip on the overall scenario by creating a conceptual overview based on observations and basic physical principles.
There are two fundamental isues which remain unresolved:
1) the extent to which external forcings affect the system (mainly solar variation). I have explained previously why I think internal oceanic forcings could account for all observed climate changes in any event so I am not unduly concerned about that aspect and the current weak solar cycle should resolve the issue for us.
2) the question whether changes in the composition of the air alone are capable of changing an equilbrium temperature initially set by the sun/sea interaction.
I aver that because the air temperatures always move towards sea surface temperatures and because the effect of increased evaporation and a faster hydrological cycle always offsets the warming effect of any increased downwelling infra red radiation created by more greenhouse gases then more CO2 in the system cannot alter the equilibrium temperature set by sun and oceans. AGW theory relies on such additional downwelling IR raising the ocean temperature but I have not found corroboration of that assertion anywhere other than in sources influenced by James Hansen who started the whole AGW scare back in 1988.
If it can be shown that extra downwelling infra red radiation from human sources can affect ocean temperatures on a timescale meaningful to humanity (say less than 500 years) then I would accept that as evidence in favour of AGW theory.
However the fact is that currently the air circulation systems have moved back equatorward from the positions adopted during the recent late 20th century warming spell despite increased CO2 in the air and temperatures are no longer rising so at present AGW theory is distinctly shaky.
Furthermore our most recent and most advanced sensors show that ocean heat content is currently falling rather than rising whereas according to AGW theory the increased CO2 in the air should have caused increasing ocean heat content.
I hope that assists you.

tallbloke (23:58:58) :
“When will someone start listening?”
Is the BBC starting to listen?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm
QUOTE: “What happened to global warming?”
“This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.”
This seems to be the first almost semi-neutral article so far; is the BBC getting
ready to switch sides?
The article goes on to discuss the oceans heat storage.
“What is really interesting at the moment is what is happening to our oceans. They are the Earth’s great heat stores.
According to research conducted by Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University last November, the oceans and global temperatures are correlated.”
The most funny thing in the article is,,,,,,
“The Met Office says that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly.
It predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998).”
Maybe a second hand store will give them Ten Dollars for that “Super Computer”
that they just bought!

Leif Svalgaard (11:01:41) have been nearly constant since 1952, while temps have not.
Certainly you are looking through your standard “any-impact-from-outer-space-have–instant-on-earth-effect-glasses” (without any delay). We have many predominant oscillations here on our planet that has characteristic time constants in the range from a couple of years to a century. Thus I suggest that you should instead try to answer the question I asked – is the paper from CERN nonsense?

When I did research, my resultant thesis, which is still in the library at OSU in Corvallis, has a number of weaknesses in it, as well as points to consider that could be argued with. There are other sections that are pretty solid. My hunch is that the CERN paper is likewise. The entire thing is not nonsense, but parts can and should be called into question, just like my original thesis.
Fortunately for me, a colleague who happened to be wicked smart, considered my thesis and data as a “gold mine” (his words, not mine). He brought out aspects of the study that I was unable to due to my lack of sufficient background in electrical signal speed along the axis of brain cells, and detailed (as in electron microscopic details) neuroanatomy in terms of the physical properties of the auditory pathway in the brainstem.
The best scientists in the field find gold where it can be found and offer critique that is meant to improve knowledge. If my colleague had called my paper nonsense, we probably could not have collaborated in a second reading of the data and come up with truly solid insights and discoveries that had not been published before. The result is a published paper in a major journal that I remain proud of and humbled by. All due to a colleague imbued with both smarts and diplomacy.

Ocean heat content plunges immediately before an El Nino – if you look at 1998 in the first graph, it drops like a rock
Proof that oceans affect atmospheric temps and not vica-versa?
“For the oceans to be absorbing the energy away”
For me this is a really key point. I’d love it if someone could answer this. Does the temperature of the atmosphere affect the temperature of the ocean (beyond, say, the top meter or so)?
Another related question – to heat 1 meter cubed of water from absolute zero to 10 degree Celsius would take a lot more energy than it would take to heat 1 meter cubed of our sea level atmosphere to this temp, yes? One more – can one think of the oceans as being a “store” of all the sunlight it took warm it from absolute zero (not that it was ever at absolute zero… and yes, geothermic influences were probably fairly important at the stage when the oceans were forming!) to its current temp? Or would it be simpler to say they are a store of sunlight, otherwise they would be frozen? I wish I could say this more clearly. Is it really possible that the thin, insubstantial atmosphere can ever “warm” the oceans? Put it this way, if you wanted to heat a container of water, would you blow hot gas at it? Here is a thought, if the oceans were frozen, what would reheat them? A warming atmosphere or the direct sunlight?
Further, if the atmosphere controlled the oceans’ temps and CO2 warmed the atmosphere, in other words if both conditions were true, surely we’d have had a runaway greenhouse sometime in the last 600 million years? As in CO2 warms atmosphere, atmosphere warms the ocean, ocean outgases CO2 which warms the atmoshere and so on? I understand the AGW theory even throws in more postive feedbacks to do with water vapor. What am I missing?

“The atmosphere is heated from below as it is basically transparent to sunlight [in the visible where by far most of energy is].”
So you would agree that the notion that heat being transmitted from the atmosphere into the ocean is, as part of an understanding of earth’s climactic system, not valid?

I too found Joe Romm’s post.
http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/10/skeptical-science-global-warming-not-cooling-is-still-happening-ocean-heat-content/
In his updated post in response to tallblokes crayon comment Joe claims to have up dated his information to 2008. He speaks with such confidence. It is difficult to know who to believe. Can anyone show Mr.Romm’s Fig.1 “Earth’s Total Heat Content” up dated to 2009.
PS I have had a run in with Joe in the past. In the end he simply censored my reply, which was both polite and measured. I was surprised to see he permitted a link to WUWT.

Roddy Baird: Ocean heat content plunges immediately before an El Nino – if you look at 1998 in the first graph, it drops like a rock.”
First, the El Nino in question started early in 1997. It’s better to think of it as the 1997/98 El Nino. If we look at a comparison graph of NINO3.4 SST anomalies and OHC of the tropical Pacific…
http://i33.tinypic.com/2h55ixv.png
…we can see that tropical Pacific OHC drops in sync with the rise in NINO3.4 SST anomalies. That graph is from this post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/09/enso-dominates-nodc-ocean-heat-content.html

Stephen Wilde, you need to be more specific when you say,
all the worlds air circulation systems at any one time. It is likely that the position of the ITCZ might serve as an adequate proxy for that
Do you mean the position of the ITCZ, its width, or some other property?
In addition, it would be nice to see some empirical data on the ITCZ compared with the positions of the world’s atmospheric circulation systems.

tallbloke (02:18:29) :
So far as we can tell, it doesn’t affect it at all, because longwave radiation from the atmosphere can’t penetrate the surface of the ocean beyond it’s own wavelength. This means a lot of energy gets focussed into the top few nanometres of water, and causes prompt evaporation. This cools the water surface.
Then how come the sea surface can maintain a temperature of 16 C if it is only heated by the 160 W/m2 sunlight absorbed by it?
Perhaps Stephen can help us?

I tried following the links, but can only find processed data. Does anyone know if this data comes from the Argo array?

Leif Svalgaard (20:04:17) : Svensmark claims there is no delay [or perhaps a few days (from his Forbush Decrease analysis)]. Now, to the question: First, the paper is not from CERN. It is in no way instigated, funded, or otherwise endorsed by CERN. Svensmark and Co were permitted to use some vacant CERN facility, is all.
Sorry, but I do not understand why you mention Svensmark here? The paper is written by Kirkby (CERN), not by Svensmark.
Kirkby, J. 2008. Cosmic rays and climate. Surveys in Geophysics 28: 333-375. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD

steve: You asked, “I tried following the links, but can only find processed data. Does anyone know if this data comes from the Argo array?”
The ARGO data does appear in the NODC/Levitus et al (2009) OHC data. But it’s limited to this decade. Levitus et al (2009) describe the source of the remainder of the data back to 1955 in the following paper, which I forgot to link in the above post (Sorry). Here ye go:
ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat08.pdf

Geology 101 on infrared
http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geog101/textbook/energy/radiation_balance.html

I posted a link to a geology 101 website that appears to have been placed in the spam file.
[Rescued & posted. ~ dbs, mod.]

Leif Svalgaard (08:10:43) : does not seem convincing [yet].
I like the word yet. 😉

We have a very nice and consistent account of C02 in the atmosphere, and a good record length. My understanding of C02 is that is quickly disperses and mixes with any addition/reduction.
What about H20 and how much is that varying globally?
What Leif suggests is that C02 reflects 1/2 of what IR is incoming, and that’s a qualitative assessment. Need one of those for H20 molecules airborne.
What is missing is a quantitative assessment.
We know how much C02 is up there and can give it a reasonable quantity.
Do we have anything for, say, the last 5 years on H20 content?
You can see what I am after: The density of C02 & H20 available to pre-screen and how much is reflected out to space before it hits. The retention on the nightside is then part of the budget.

CO2 is not well-mixed. It does not lay in an even carpet throughout our atmosphere. Neither is ozone well mixed. CO2 is relatively heavy and tends to move in globular bunches along jet stream tracks. It can dissipate but our atmosphere just doesn’t do a good job of that due to the frontal systems and pressure gradients that define our climates and weather patterns.

Re: Pamela Gray (19:22:52)
My M.Sc. thesis contains errors. I was aware of them (some are substantial) and I wanted to fix them, but the powers wanted to rush me through. I did not sign the consent forms – and yet somehow…
My experience of grad-school was that it is 85% politics & funding issues. The “education” I got was not the one for which I (thought I) signed up.
–
You make an important point about research inspiration-sparks. Had your work (weaknesses & all) been obstructed (for whatever reason), an important seed might not have been sown. Thanks for the note.

Pamela Gray (16:23:36) “It is a dog eat dog system geared towards preditorial carnage.”
Charming Pamela – thanks for the delightful warning.

Leif Svalgaard (18:07:17) said:

rbateman (10:01:30) :
What Leif suggests is that C02 reflects 1/2 of what IR is incoming, and that’s a qualitative assessment. Need one of those for H20 molecules airborne. What is missing is a quantitative assessment.

For both of them it is exactly 50%. The incoming is from a definite direction, but the outgoing is radiated in a random direction, thus half goes out and half continues in. so it is very quantitative. This is AFAIK. And it is not ‘reflected’, but absorbed and re-emitted.

Although, at some point, the mean-free-path is small enough that they would have a higher probability of transferring that energy to another molecule in the atmosphere, wouldn’t they?

Is it not true that the upper 700m of ocean contains 85% of the heat?

The only evidence for AGW that still seems rather convincing to me, is sea level rise. Is there any evidence that global sea levels are starting to drop now that OHC drops?

tallbloke,
I think Stephen is correct to point out that the SB law deals with temperature differential between black body and space.
No, SB law deal with radiation emitted from a black body. It doesn’t matter what’s ‘above’. (and I said 396, not 350 but that’s a detail)
Your experiment is a bit troublesome. Firstly you should not stand in the water because that introduces heat transfer by conduction in addition to transfer by radiation. Secondly it’s i bit difficult to direct all the radiation from the water to the surface of your body and visa versa. Suppose that was possible and you were not in direct contact with the water, then you would receive 1200 W from the water and the water would receive 1000 W from you, if your surface area is about 2 m2 and your skin temperature 33 C, i.e. a net transfer of 200 W to you. If the water was 2 m2 too, then there would be 200 W net from you to the water.

“lgl (11:09:38) :
tallbloke,
I think Stephen is correct to point out that the SB law deals with temperature differential between black body and space.
No, SB law deal with radiation emitted from a black body. It doesn’t matter what’s ‘above’.”
If we are considering Earth and Space my comment is correct.
If we were considering Earth and another body then you would be correct and I would have used different wording.
Anyway that quibble distracts from my main point. The SB law does not deal with internal variability resulting from movements of the circulations in ocean and air.

Stephen
If we are considering Earth and Space my comment is correct.
But we are not. We are considering the Earth’s surface.
Your point (or one of them) is that IR does not heat the ocean, and your problem is that it is impossible to explain the high temperature of the ocean without the energy from IR. For the third time, what else is there? Your internal variability does not create energy.

lgl (08:46:48) :
The data is all over. Here is Bob’s OHC together with NCDC ocean temp from Junkscience: http://virakkraft.com/OHC-SST.jpg
and it’s of course physical that most variations start at the surface and is delayed at 700 meters.

Posting a link of a graph with no labeled x or y axis isn’t a convincing argument.
I don’t know what ‘most variations’ means.
Anyway, the oceans absorb huge amounts of solar radiation. In the tropical and subtropical oceans it’s in excess of 90% of all incoming solar insolation. If this energy input were not transported upward to the surface and then into the atmosphere, the world’s oceans would boil away within a matter of years.
IMO your error is to think that a temperature gradient of warmer to cooler downwards in the ocean is evidence of heat transport downwards. It isn’t. It results from the absorbtion gradient of sunlight in the ocean.

lgl (15:31:46)
As regards 1), 2), 3) and 4) the answer is no because of internal variations in the system caused by varying rates of energy release from the ocean to the air geographically and more importantly over at least 2 and probably 3 time scales which are clearly linked to global air temperature variability.
Those internal variations are not accommodated by the models or taken into account in the standard energy budget calculations yet they are what causes climate changes to cycle as per our observations over the past couple of thousand years and they would probably cover most climate changes right back to the last ice age.

Stephen
Right, both yes and no to be on the safe side. The figures I gave is of course on average for the whole globe and there are huge seasonal and zonal variability but the point is that on average you are missing 340 W/m2 in your ‘theory’ and you have obviously decided not to understand this.

Phil. (07:41:56) :

Do it in the Sahara desert at night with a cooled IR filter above to remove the downwelling IR from the atmosphere and it will probably freeze.

Not been in many deserts have we? Without the heat source it will freeze for sure
DaveE.

Hotter than it is now. The oceans would vaporize until equilibrium was reached and we would have an atmosphere almost entirely of water vapor – a potent GHG.

Global Average SST Update to October 14
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/10/global-average-sst-update-to-october-14/