From the University of California – San Diego Scripps Institute, you gotta love the subheading in this PR. I didn’t know robots could travel back in time. Gosh, I learn something new every day. Apparently 300 soundings done by the HMS Challenger between 1872-1876 are enough to establish a “new global baseline” for the last century. The temperature rise is pretty much what we’d expect from LIA recovery. Though, for an outfit that hauls Titanic Chicken of the Sea debate ducker James Cameron to the bottom of the deepest ocean trench, I’d take this PR with a grain of sea salt, especially since it provides no supporting graphics or documentation. I’d sure like to see how the distribution of those 300 sounding looks. – Anthony
New comparison of ocean temperatures reveals rise over the last century
Ocean robots used in Scripps-led study that traces ocean warming to late 19th century
A new study contrasting ocean temperature readings of the 1870s with temperatures of the modern seas reveals an upward trend of global ocean warming spanning at least 100 years.
The research led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego physical oceanographer Dean Roemmich shows a .33-degree Celsius (.59-degree Fahrenheit) average increase in the upper portions of the ocean to 700 meters (2,300 feet) depth. The increase was largest at the ocean surface, .59-degree Celsius (1.1-degree Fahrenheit), decreasing to .12-degree Celsius (.22-degree Fahrenheit) at 900 meters (2,950 feet) depth.
The report is the first global comparison of temperature between the historic voyage of HMS Challenger (1872-1876) and modern data obtained by ocean-probing robots now continuously reporting temperatures via the global Argo program. Scientists have previously determined that nearly 90 percent of the excess heat added to Earth’s climate system since the 1960s has been stored in the oceans. The new study, published in the April 1 advance online edition of Nature Climate Change and coauthored by John Gould of the United Kingdom-based National Oceanography Centre and John Gilson of Scripps Oceanography, pushes the ocean warming trend back much earlier.
“The significance of the study is not only that we see a temperature difference that indicates warming on a global scale, but that the magnitude of the temperature change since the 1870s is twice that observed over the past 50 years,” said Roemmich, co-chairman of the International Argo Steering Team. “This implies that the time scale for the warming of the ocean is not just the last 50 years but at least the last 100 years.”
Although the Challenger data set covers only some 300 temperature soundings (measurements from the sea surface down to the deep ocean) around the world, the information sets a baseline for temperature change in the world’s oceans, which are now sampled continuously through Argo’s unprecedented global coverage. Nearly 3,500 free-drifting profiling Argo floats each collect a temperature profile every 10 days.
Roemmich believes the new findings, a piece of a larger puzzle of understanding the earth’s climate, help scientists to understand the longer record of sea-level rise, because the expansion of seawater due to warming is a significant contributor to rising sea level. Moreover, the 100-year timescale of ocean warming implies that the Earth’s climate system as a whole has been gaining heat for at least that long.
Launched in 2000, the Argo program collects more than 100,000 temperature-salinity profiles per year across the world’s oceans. To date, more than 1,000 research papers have been published using Argo’s data set.
The Nature Climate Change study was supported by U.S. Argo through NOAA.
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This seems barely credible. I wrote an article on the numerous flaws in the historic SST data
http://judithcurry.com/2011/06/27/unknown-and-uncertain-sea-surface-temperatures/
To believe that 300 readings tells us anything seems something akin to either desperation or bad science.
tonyb
Based on the accuracy of the older thermometers, it is more likely that the data should be used to prove that there has been no change in temperature.
data is a good thing.
Here is an article on the Challenger.
http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/marinebio/challenger.html
It was a genuinely impresive effort, especially in comparison to the poor methodology which characterised the collecting of many SST samples. However 300 readings is neither here nor there. Having said that I don’t doubt that the oceans have probably warmed since the end of the little ice age but in truth we don’t know by how much
tonyb
To believe that 300 readings tells us anything seems something akin to either desperation or bad science.
tonyb
##################
Tony. These are historical records. You should applaud the publication of them.
If it was a diary you found, you’d note it. If it was a record of warm month in 1720,
you’d note it.
Why do people who cherish data, who collect anecdotes, as you do, have a problem with
somebody else doing the same thing. It’s data. That’s good.
Tony
‘ Having said that I don’t doubt that the oceans have probably warmed since the end of the little ice age but in truth we don’t know by how much”
Well, you better hope they have warmed otherwise your records of a cool LIA on land are
a shambles.
There is a pretty consistent relationship between the change in temps over land and those in the ocean. That’s just physics. In fact, If you have land temps you can make an estimate of ocean temps. With error bars of course. So we do have an idea of how much the SST has warmed.
That idea, that knowledge, LIKE ALL KNOWLEDGE, comes with error bars. Sometimes tight, sometimes wide. It’s knowledge nevertheless.
If we accept this data, surely it proves no anthropogenic influence. Given no increase in warming correlating with human activity growth. Oh the hypocrisy !
And then over the following year, the biggest Super El Nino in history occurred and global sea surface temperatures spiked by up to +0.6C and Land temperatures by more than +1.5C in a matter of months.
In fact, 1872-1876 was dominated by a nearly continuous La Nina.
Where were the soundings taken?
.
Too bad they didn’t sample deeper…….maybe could have found Trenberth’s missing heat hiding in the pipeline.
Given the timing of the article, is this a hoax?
“The new study, published in the April 1 advance online edition of Nature Climate Change and coauthored by John Gould of the United Kingdom-based National Oceanography Centre and John Gilson of Scripps Oceanography, pushes the ocean warming trend back much earlier.
“
300 records vs argo’s hundreds of thousands of records is not even a rounding error … they should never be discussed in the same study … its not just bad science but magical thinking …
Mosh
If I had published a new diary of 300 observations covering a 4 year period as the basis for a new global record for the ocean you would have poured scorn on it and muttered the word ‘anecdotes.’
Of course I applaud the release of new data but we need to put it into perspective. I agree with you about error bars but sometimes they are so large they have little scientific meaning as the basis for hugely important political decisions. To requote Lamb on temperatures ‘We can know the tendancy but not the precision.’ A good motto for the IPCC.
I’ve just come across the 7 year diary of William Merle who compiled a weather diary in the 1340’s in Britain. I’ll remember your approval of small numbers of observations as the basis for a new global record if I ever come to write about them. 🙂
tonyb
Steven Mosher : “That idea, that knowledge, LIKE ALL KNOWLEDGE, comes with error bars. Sometimes tight, sometimes wide. ”
Did the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem come with error bars?
H.M.S. Challenger’s voyage lasted some three or four years, so 300 temperature soundings are, jolly roughly, two a week.
As noted by the excellent Robert Clemenzi, we do not kow whether the thermometers used were as accurate as the ones used today. I’d like to think that Queen Victoria’s Royal Navy had state of the art equipment, but rather doubt it.
How were the sub-surface temperatures recorded? Double-walled container? Triple-walled? do we have any idea of the recovery time from 700 metres? wre the containersat least slightly open [a couple of pin-hles would allow the pressure to equalise, from 70 bar to zero (gauge), as the ontainer is recovered.
Even if the temperatures were taken in the same location [and in the 1870s I’d guess deep-sea accuracy to well under a mile, perhaps nearer a quarter-mile, with good Sun sights alone], were they at the same date, same local recent weather, and same phase of the Moon [so tides, too].
Without that, claiming accuracy to one hundredth of a degrre Fahrenheit, from three hundred observations [that are comparisons] may be a little doubtful. I suggest.
[Perahps it as a third of a Kelvin, and three-fifths of a degree Fahrenheit, but it does say “.59-degree Fahrenheit”
Steven Mosher says:
April 2, 2012 at 12:18 pm
…………
Steven, is there a link to the data file?
There is a pretty consistent relationship between the change in temps over land and those in the ocean.
Not always (or not in 1970) http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GT-AMO.htm
Thanks for the note on the JC’s blog, left you a reply there.
A Webpage devoted to the voyage of the HMS Challenger provides a global map with the track of its voyages and comments about the soundings. See:
http://www1.btwebworld.com/challengeroceanic/chal.htm
Well isn’t it amazing that “climate scientists” who asssert that Physics and Chemistry and Mathematics simply are NOT pertinent to their educational specialty, which is “climate science”, so they are experts because they can study some prehistoric mud snail and deduce the climate history of the earth; but a mere physicist is quite unable to apply rather simple basic and universal principles to figuring out what effects seem to be important.
And in all of this appeal to authority, I have not yet encountered one single “climate scientist”; who understands even the most basic concepts of sampled data systems, or that there even is such a discipline.
So boring a single hole at a single angle , at a single height, in a three dimensional object like a tree, and one single and not typical tree at that, is adequate to precisely determine the Temperature record of an entire climate zone.
So I’m going to be really impressed by 300 “soundings” at quite unknown oceanic locations, in waters that meander like other rivers, from day to day or year to year.
Well it is of course the same thing as GISSTemp or HADCRud. They may be excellent data records of GISSTempp and HADCRUd; they just don’t relate to anything else that might be interesting. So they are akin to the average telephone number in the Manhattan Telephone directory. Of no earthly use to anybody, unless that average number just happens to be your telephone number.
And the impossibility of monitoring anything like the global ground level influence of clouds on the net solar energy captured at the surface, renders the whole exercise a farce.
But, it could be of historical curiosity interest, to see how ancient sailors tried to gather some data on their travels. Captain Bligh’s efforts to try to get some exotic plants back to Europe comes to mind.
“Ocean robots used in Scripps-led study that traces ocean warming to late 19th century”
Did they use Mr. Peabody’s WABAC machine?
“”””” Miss Grundy says:
April 2, 2012 at 12:38 pm
Steven Mosher : “That idea, that knowledge, LIKE ALL KNOWLEDGE, comes with error bars. Sometimes tight, sometimes wide. ”
Did the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem come with error bars? “””””
Well one thing we know for sure about “the proof of Fermat’s last theorem”, is that it most certainly is NOT Fermat’s proof of Fermat’s last theorem; which evidently he considered hardly worth writing down.
The paper does indeed have error bars and while the Challenger data set may be relatively small the comparison is valid – I think.
Simple arithmetic tells us that if the rate of warming over the last 100 years was twice that of the last 50 years then the rate of ocean warming in the first 50 years (1880’s – 1930’s) was 3 times higher than in the second 50 years. And man-made carbon-dioxide then was – I do believe – somewhat lower than in the second half of the twentieth century.
The real ‘usefulness ‘ of the oceans is that for alarmists great claims about ‘hiding heat’ can be made , with virtual no way to call them out as BS’ing as its not possible to measure in any meaningful way.
Hey, if you add in Herodotus dipping his toe in the ocean and some Chinese data you might get a few dozen more data points. Go for it, all data is the same right? at least for publication mill purposes
Maritime Museums of San Diego and Liverpool UK are full of such recordings and the old thermometers, and yes they were accurate even then (not to 100 of a degree). I find the Ocean rise in temperature quite exceptable since we are recovering from the LIA. As many here would know this is natural recovery from a cold period and yes it is mostly natural global warming, as any sane person would expect. Warm or Cool we have to live with it and as our for bearers have done, adjust or die. And NO Co2 reduction or tax will fix that.
Fascinating. I’d love to see a trial of their equipment alongside a modern rig.
HADSST says there was a big temperature drop from 1872 to 1910.
1910 Oceans were .34C COLDER than 1872.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadsst2gl.txt
Notice – Sea temperatures rose .751C from 1910 to 1941
1910 -0.615
1941 0.136
And as of Jan 2012, Sea temperatures are a miniscule .065C warmer than 1941.