By Dr. Roger Pielke Senior
There is a weblog called “Skeptical Science – Getting Skeptical About Global Warming Skepticism” that has a misleading post on ocean heat content titled
Ocean cooling: skeptic arguments drowned by data
The post starts with
In 2008, climate change sceptic Roger Pielke Sr said this: “Global warming, as diagnosed by upper ocean heat content has not been occurring since 2004”. It is a fine example of denialist spin, making several extraordinary leaps:
•that one symptom is indicative of the state of an entire malaise (e.g. not being short of breath one day means your lung cancer is cured).
•that one can claim significance about a four year period when it’s too short to draw any kind of conclusion
•that global warming has not been occurring on the basis of ocean temperatures alone
So much for the hype. What does the science say about the temperature of the oceans – which, after all, constitute about 70% of the Earth’s surface? The oceans store approximately 80% of all the energy in the Earth’s climate, so ocean temperatures are a key indicator for global warming.
No straight lines
Claims that the ocean has been cooling are correct. Claims that global warming has stopped are not. It is an illogical position: the climate is subject to a lot of natural variability, so the premise that changes should be ‘monotonic’ – temperatures rising in straight lines – ignores the fact that nature doesn’t work like that. This is why scientists normally discuss trends – 30 years or more – so that short term fluctuations can be seen as part of a greater pattern. (Other well-known cyclic phenomena like El Nino and La Nina play a part in these complex interactions).
The post starts by mislabeling me as a “climate change sceptic” and a “denialist”. Not only is this completely incorrect (as can be easily confirmed by reading our article
Pielke Sr., R., K. Beven, G. Brasseur, J. Calvert, M. Chahine, R. Dickerson, D. Entekhabi, E. Foufoula-Georgiou, H. Gupta, V. Gupta, W. Krajewski, E. Philip Krider, W. K.M. Lau, J. McDonnell, W. Rossow, J. Schaake, J. Smith, S. Sorooshian, and E. Wood, 2009: Climate change: The need to consider human forcings besides greenhouse gases. Eos, Vol. 90, No. 45, 10 November 2009, 413. Copyright (2009) American Geophysical Union),
but it sets the tone of their post as an ad hominem attack, rather than a discussion of the issue.
The author of this post documents in the figures that they present, that upper ocean heat, in terms of its annual average, did not accumulate during the period ~2004 through 2009. This means that global warming halted on this time period. There is no other way to spin this data.
The claim in the post (apparently written by Graham Wayne) Does ocean cooling prove global warming has ended? that
“The most recent ocean measurements show consistent warming”
is false (unless the author of this post has new data since 2009 which may show warming). The recent lack of warming (the data do not support a cooling, despite what the Skeptical Science weblog reports) does not prove or disprove whether global warming over a longer term has ended.
However, the ocean heat content provides the most appropriate metric to diagnosis global warming in recent (since ~2004 when the Argo network became sufficiently dense) and upcoming years, as recommended, of example, in
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55.
The author of the post on Skeptical Science continues to present misinformation in their Intermediate level post where it is stated
“Early estimates of ocean heat from the Argo showed a cooling bias due to pressure sensor issues. Recent estimates of ocean heat that take this bias into account show continued warming of the upper ocean. This is confirmed by independent estimates of ocean heat as well as more comprehensive measurements of ocean heat down to 2000 metres deep.”
This is an erroneous statement. There was not continued warming for the time period 2004 to 2009, as confirmed by Josh Willis in
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55.
Recently, Josh Willis reported that an updated analysis will be available this Fall.
What the Skeptical Science fails to recognize is that with respect to the diagnosis of global warming using Joules of heat accumulation in the oceans, snapshots of heat content at different times are all that is needed. There is no time lag in heating or cooling. The Joules are either there or they are not. The assessment of a long-term linear trend is not needed.
For example, if the ocean lost its heat in one or two years (such as from a major volcanic eruption), the global warming “clock” would be reset. The Skeptical Science statements that
“Claims that the ocean has been cooling are correct. Claims that global warming has stopped are not.”
illustrates their lack of understanding of the physics. If ocean cooling does occur, it DOES mean global warming as stopped during that time period.
What would be useful is for the weblog Skeptical Science authors to discuss the value of using (and issues with using) the accumulation of Joules in the climate system as the primary metric to monitor global warming.
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Joules? You’re looking for Joules?
Arghhh… They’d be in the Argo treasure chests.
Captain Keith (Briffa) buried them on one of them thar islands.
Can’t see no islands? … must’ve capsized and sunk from the weight of all those Joules!
Pielke Sr: “If ocean cooling does occur, it DOES mean global warming as stopped during that time period.”
It boggles the mind that anyone with a basic science education could miss this simple concept. Heck! Anyone that has a swimming pool, let alone some science education, should get the idea. I’m glad you called them out on it.
“Skeptical Science” is an alarmist blog. That’s why it is listed under RealClimate in the sidebar. Its name is based on misinformation. Every honest scientist is a skeptic, first and foremost. SkepticalScience is anything but skeptical.
The SS bloggers don’t understand scientific skepticism, and the Scientific Method is apparently beyond John Cook’s grasp. Ad-hominem attacks are the stock in trade of SS, as Dr Pielke observes. Mr Cook is not a skeptic, he is simply a climate alarmist promoting a scary agenda — and using his disingenuously named blog to do it.
“Alarmist Pseudo-Science” would be a far more accurate name.
I have been to that site and several others. If one Googles science skeptic, astronomy skeptic or many other terms where one might obtain the other side of an issue, most of the results now seem to be skeptical of the skeptics. There must be an army of spin doctors out there to protect whatever bandwagon the various branches of science are presently riding. I am still trying to find alternative theories to dark matter/energy which I know are out there but it is hard to find data or detail on the web regarding these or, in many cases, even mention of them. If one does find anything it is usually a trashing of these alternatives to the commonly accepted theories even though all of those accepted theories have their own problems and come to dead ends: string theory is a good example with many of the rats now jumping off that ship..
Posit
“No straight lines”
Mental leap jump leap
“This is why scientists normally discuss trends – 30 years or more – so that short term fluctuations can be seen as part of a greater pattern.”
Which is straight lines.
Skeptical Science was conceived by, of and for mendacity. Thanks for adding your statement to their history of abuse.
And of course, the ocean basin that’s leading the decline in OHC is the North Atlantic:
http://i49.tinypic.com/11wbm3a.jpg
Its anomalous rise since the mid-1970s represents more than 30% of the rise in global OHC, so if it’s governed by AMO/AMOC and if it continues to decline at the present rate, global OHC should be relatively flat for a few decades.
The graph is from this post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/06/january-to-march-2010-nodc-ocean-heat.html
Hopefully, the NCDC will update the dataset for April to June 2010 sometime in the next month or so. Lots of data to sort through with all of those ARGO floats bobbing around.
Tim Channon says:
September 11, 2010 at 8:37 am
“Posit
“No straight lines”
Mental leap jump leap
“This is why scientists normally discuss trends – 30 years or more – so that short term fluctuations can be seen as part of a greater pattern.”
Which is straight lines.”
I see many long term trends which are not striaght lines, sinusoidal seems quite common, as in the history of the various ice ages, and no they are not PURELY sine waves. Yes, one can plot a straight line through any data series but it is not necessarily as descriptive of what is actually happening.
Dr. Pielke, surely you know by now, there are some people are able to be reasonably engaged and others not. They didn’t like the tone of your statement, so they attack.
That said, using Joules as the primary metric may open to more issues than you’re aware. Although I like the idea, I can easily see where is takes an entirely different direction of skeptics vs. alarmists. Obviously, the mass of the oceans are not uniform, so Q = c * m * (T2 – T1) must be altered in (how many?) areas. While energy and temps are simply different forms of expression for essentially the same thing, the global populations understanding of both is not uniformly adequate. Although, it does raise interesting thoughts such as capacitance and triggers for release. I’d fear another few years just sorting out the definitions, much less implications and changes of past metrics to the new one.
Perhaps Skeptical Science could run a post on what, exactly, would falsify “global warming”? This would seem to me to be an a good line of inquiry for a sceptical site.
I’ve been a victim of their attacks as well for posting a little common sense aboujt (alleged) AGW. It is correct to say they are not “skeptical” of skepticism, but rather they are “deniers” of skepticism.
What are the total Joules (perhaps KiloJoules, kJ) during the 2004 to 2009 absorbed by the oceans? Was all or most of this heat absorbed into the oceans removed from the atmosphere? If so, does atmospheric satellite data show this same result? Does the ARGO project show a slight gain in heat at deeper depths of our oceans while showing a cooling sea surface temperature during the 2004 – 09? Also, how many kJ of heat was released into our atmosphere from the most recent 2009/10 El Nino? How many kJ of heat was absorbed from our atmosphere by the current 2010 La Nina?
slow to follow says:
September 11, 2010 at 8:55 am
“Perhaps Skeptical Science could run a post on what, exactly, would falsify “global warming”? This would seem to me to be an a good line of inquiry for a sceptical site.”
There is no such data nor will there ever be such, that is why the name was changed to “Climate Change” as the climate is always changing and anything and everything can be blamed on CO2.
Fascinating (and excellent) post, Dr. Pielke. Thank you!
Dr. Pielke writes,
“This means that global warming halted on this time period. There is no other way to spin this data.”
Although this is the only way that Dr. Pielke spins the data, it is not the interpretation made by many other scientists, who point out the large uncertainties and measurement questions surrounding ARGO-based estimates, and the evidence from many other sources showing that global warming has not halted.
An alternative hypothesis is that we do not yet measure ocean heat content well enough to speak conclusively (as Pielke chooses to do) about its short-term trends. That is honesty, not “spinning.”
slow to follow raises an interesting point.
I have asked some pretty well educated people who make a living off of climate that exact question.
Their answers, if they even acknowledge the question, is usually ‘if CO2 is proven to not act as a GHG, then I will say AGW is falsified.’
The answer demonstrates that either they do not realize a distinction between greenhouse effect and AGW, or choose not to admit there is one.
But usually the question is ignored or they try a feeble deflection by asking about evolution or if I work for ‘big oil’.
30 years is no more valid for discerning a “trend” or a “significant” shift than 3 years. The shorter the time scale the more likely it is that all you are seeing is insignificant bumps. An ant approaching a 3″ deep pot hole in the road would see it as a huge crater, yet we roll over those at 80mph and barely notice it. Why not 300, or 30,000, or 3o,000,000 years? Because we are like the ant looking at the pothole.
Monckton, Pielke Sr., Montford,… are all coming under sustained attack at the moment. The alarmist sophists’ stock in trade is of course Ad hominem, but the most pernicious are the straw men they continuously set up because these demand time and energy wasting meticulous replies from meticulous people, not easily followed by lay persons. There is also a tit-for-tat twisting of the arguments against those who have advanced them; that clogs up the debate and takes it nowhere, but the aim of course is to score points and reaching tangible truth is last of a sophist’s concerns. The first time I noticed this was a few months ago during the “debate” between George Monbiot and Ian Plimer whose only defence was to get up on his high horse: that certainly did not put him in a good light. Monbiot seems particularly to favour the tit-for-tat tactic and his setting up of the ultimate straw man in the shape Abraham to champion him in his most difficult battle I see as an integral part of this process. The victims should quickly move on and avoid wasting energy on all this.
Doesn’t Josh Willis also say that multi-annual flat or cooling periods in the ocean temperature record are not unusual?
If you were cast as a denialist, Roger Pielke Snr, I agree that’s quite wrong. I think you are one of the most reasonable critics of the IPCC etc.
I’m afraid the ARGO system is about the only useful thing that has come out of the billions of dollars we have spent on climate science. Sure, like most scientific experiments, it has had its early teething problems, but they are getting those ironed out and the data are getting more accurate and more reliable as they learn the details of the system.
Pielke, Sr is certainly right about ocean heat content. Changes in ocean heat content are the definition of changes in climate. All that garbage about trying to measure (and average) land surface temperatures and/or sea surface temperatures and think that you have come up with any useful information is ridiculous. .Anyone that’s been through thermodynamic or even first year electrical theory can see that the ocean is nothing but a large heat sync (capacitor in electric) that stores all changes in energy-in minus energy-out for the entire climate system.
Looking at these charts
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/2009-time-series/?ts=ohc
For the period 2004 to 2009, they all don’t agree, so how can someone make the claim that global warming stopped.
Some show a little cooling, some are flat, and some show continued warming.
This is recent pattern.
Fact 1: Global temperature is dropping
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/ihadcrut3_gl_1998:2011a.png
..but this prove nothing, 2010 was warmest on record, this is just short-term fluctuation, 30-year linear trend is still positive..
Fact 2: OHC is dropping since 2004
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/iheat700_global_2004:2011a.png
.. but this is not the only indicator, warming is continuing unabated, you do not see the broader picture..
Fact 3: Sea levels is stabilizing
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/l3a.png
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/l2a.png
.. but Maledives and Tuvalu are drowning and IPCC told, that…
They are losing, they know it and time and mother Nature is working against them. You can not forever ride on finished 30-year natural trend.
RE: “Bob Tisdale says:
September 11, 2010 at 8:50 am
And of course, the ocean basin that’s leading the decline in OHC is the North Atlantic:
http://i49.tinypic.com/11wbm3a.jpg”
Also the CFS (for what it’s worth,) is suggesting most of the Atlantic between 40 degrees north and 40 degrees south will be slightly below normal by the March-April-May period of 2011, which is quite a change from it being largely warm in that area now.
See page 28 of: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
Gary from Chicagoland says:
September 11, 2010 at 9:07 am
“What are the total Joules (perhaps KiloJoules, kJ) during the 2004 to 2009 absorbed by the oceans?”
Ocean heat content is measured in 10^22 joules. Hasn’t gone up in 5 years.
Official Data here-
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
gneiss says:
September 11, 2010 at 9:15 am
“An alternative hypothesis is that we do not yet measure ocean heat content well enough to speak conclusively (as Pielke chooses to do) about its short-term trends. That is honesty, not “spinning.”
========================================================
So, in your “honest” estimate, what is the time frame to make an accurate assessment of ocean heat content? If the above statement is true, then there shouldn’t even be a AGW debate.