Another “the science is settled” moment. From the ABC:
A new US-led study, featuring research by Tasmanian scientists, has concluded that warming ocean temperatures over the past 50 years are largely a man-made phenomenon.
Researchers from America, India, Japan and Australia say the study is the most comprehensive look at how the oceans have warmed.
The study, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, examined a dozen different models used to project climate change, and compared them with observations of ocean warming over the past 50 years.
It found natural variations accounted for about 10 per cent of rising temperatures, but man-made greenhouse gases were the major cause.
One of the report’s co-authors, Hobart-based Dr John Church, is the CSIRO Fellow with the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research.
He told AM the study was one of the most comprehensive looks into the changes in ocean heat to date, “by quite some margin”.
Dr Church said the breadth of the study had “allowed the group to rule out that the changes are related to natural variability in the climate system”.
He said there was simply no way the upper layers of every ocean in the world could have warmed by more than 0.1 degrees Celsius through natural causes alone.
“Natural variability could only explain 10 per cent, or thereabouts, of the observed change,” he said.
Professor Nathan Bindoff is one of the world’s foremost oceanography experts, and has been a lead author on past Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports.
“Ninety per cent of the temperature change stored in the whole of the Earth’s system is stored in the ocean, so global warming is really an ocean warming problem,” he said.
Professor Bindoff said the new research balanced the man-made impacts of warming greenhouse gases and cooling pollution in the troposphere against natural changes in the ocean’s temperature and volcanic eruptions.
“This paper’s important because, for the first time, we can actually say that we’re virtually certain that the oceans have warmed, and that warming is caused not by natural processes, but by rising greenhouse gases primarily.”
And he described the evidence of global warming as unequivocal.
“We did it. No matter how you look at it, we did it. That’s it,” he said.
Full story: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-11/research-taps-into-ocean-temperatures/4063886
h/t to reader Mick Muller
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… we can actually say that we’re virtually certain …
Really “unequivocal”.
That’s it then. We we’re all wrong. Who knew?
And he described the evidence of global warming as unequivocal.
“We did it. No matter how you look at it, we did it. That’s it,” he said.
Unequivocal you say…well, when you put it this way… I’m convinced!
More MODELS?!?!?! Give it a rest already.
Paper here:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1553.html
People with two heads are twice as smart as people with one.
As soon as you get to the first mention of climate models, you know what to expect.
Given that our proportion of the global atmospheric CO2 content from fossil fuel use is 3% I find it difficult to understand the conclusions of this ‘research’.
Also given that the GHG theory has failed to agree with the actual observations I find the whole report strange. It seems not to agree with the ARGO data either so is this research based on modeled data?
Brilliant. Comparison of observation with models enables these authors to conclude that “warming is caused not by natural processes, but by rising greenhouse gases primarily”.
But presumably the conclusion is only justified if those same models can also simulate observed natural variations over the relevant time scales. And perhaps they don’t.
http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/~gang/eprints/eprintLovejoy/esubmissions/Nature.climate.withfigsandsupp.mat.12.5.12.pdf
Link to the paper:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/nclimate1553.pdf
John M Reynolds
“…examined a dozen different models used to project climate change…”
Tells you everything you need to know.
The paper is here: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1553.html
I remain highly skeptical that a change of +0.15 C since 1960 can be measured at all – the measurements from the pre-ARGO area (i.e. for all except the last 8-9 years) were sparse and crude.
“The study, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, examined a dozen different models used to project climate change, and compared them with observations of ocean warming over the past 50 years.”
More scientists incapable of telling the difference between computer models and real data.
Note the old chestnut “over the past 50 years.”
Since the models are tuned primarily to that period and pretty much fail before that time it is obvious that they do not correctly model natural climate changes.
As stated by John Kennedy of Met Office here, their models are tuned to fit 1960-1990:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/03/15/on-the-adjustments-to-the-hadsst3-data-set-2/#comment-188363
Studying “dozens” of failed models does not tell us much about attribution.
Of course the authors are well aware of this and this study is deliberately misleading and dishonest in suggesting otherwise.
“The study …. examined a dozen different models used to project climate change and compared them with observations of ocean warming over the past 50 years.”
Its all a bit like
“The study examine a dozen different star clusters and only found one that matched the requirements to indicate the presence of the God Aries.”
Hey guys,
Look up – see that bright object? That is called the Sun. It is warm. Now read Svensmark & Milankovitch.
“a dozen different models used to project climate change, and compared them with observations of ocean warming over the past 50 years.”
JK—Did any of the models consider Solar effects beyond simple direct heating? (A dozen times garbage is still garbage.)
“And he described the evidence of global warming as unequivocal.”
JK—Care to share that evidence with us? (I mean real empirical evidence, not computer models that even the CRU crowd mistrusts – see climategate II emails.)
And please justify thinking that you can
Thanks
JK
Given the sparsity of data over much of the worlds oceans particularly prior to Argo systems it seems impossible to measure the heat content of the oceans to anything like that accuracy, much less assign responsibility. A look at :-
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JPO3005.1
“One important finding from these 20-yr results is that
oceanic trends estimated over any particular 20-yr period
are very unlikely to provide even a sign-consistent
estimate of the trends over a 50-yr period. And because
trends can be so large over a particular 20- or 25-yr
period, even trends estimated over 50 yr may be dominated
by much shorter term events that occurred within
that 50-yr period. Evidently, oceanic regional trend estimates
pose substantial sampling challenges and very
long records are needed.” ——
” Further, the magnitude of the 20-yr
trend variability is great enough to call into question
how well even the statistically significant 51-yr trends
identified here represent longer-term trends.
The analysis approach outlined does not allow examination
of the less well-sampled regions of the World
Ocean. There are no results to offer for most of the
ocean south of 20°S. Thus, it remains to be determined
what the characteristics are of multidecadal trend variability
in these areas.
will show this sparsity of data, like one sample per decade or two per 1° grid !
0.022 – 0.028C rise. In 50 years. Yawn.
“we’re virtually certain that the oceans have warmed, and that warming is caused not by natural processes”
Virtually is spot on, models all the way down again. I wonder if they can show how natural causes can be ruled out as they claim?
More trot for the next IPCC report.
How did they prove that the warming was not natural? What experiment did they perform?
The journal Nature Climate Change?! If you publish a journal devoted to climate change, well then, I guess the climate has to change. A it always has. Just for different reasons.
It is almost as if these reports are pre-written, and only need the title and and topic filled in.
AGW is a pernicious social mania that is remarkably immune to critical thinking by its true believers.
From the link
The study, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, examined a dozen different models used to project climate change, and compared them with observations of ocean warming over the past 50 years.
Note the m word . Models=video games.
No mention of the “science” then. Just assertions. Next?
I have not read the paper so I may be completely wrong about it but I sense circular reasoning here. If climate models are tuned to match reality based on assumption that greenhouse gases are main climate factor – and then they are compared with reality to which they are tuned – there’s no wonder the conclusion is that greenhouse gases are main climate factor.
That does not prove them right, though.
OMG! This really is a world-wide conspiracy. The leftist American democrats have suckered in the Japanese, Indians AND the Aussies. Time for damage control — Anthony, you secure South Carolina and Mississippi and I will call Jim Inhofe and get Stephen Goddard to whip up a rebuttle quick smart.