Ocean Temperature And Heat Content

Many thanks indeed !
That claim of ‘error knowledge’ should be voided as well as the ‘0.1’ of a degree C increase.
XD

I am always interested in error bars. I suspect that they are not really wanted and everyone in the modelling world would be happier if they would just disappear but stubbornly refuse to do so. They are cleaned up and brought out for show when they need to be accounted for by they are expected to behave themselves, not make a scene, not speak unless spoken to and certainly not relax and reveal any more of themselves that strictly necessary.
In reality if they were allowed to be themselves and behave as they would at home I suspect that the error bars would undo their corsets and belt buckles and flop out all over the place.
This would then spoil the image of the neat, tidy, prim and proper graph because it would be indistinguishable from a page of wall to wall error bars running rampant. A bit like a ball room dancer at a Hells Angels long weekend booze up.

DOH! You’ve change a heat content measurement of the entire ocean to a level of abstraction, a potential to reach a certain temperature at a specific depth. Not an improvement.

Thanks Hoser i had a good laugh at that, I use it often and chuckle every time.

Willis, with N randomly sampled observations the standard error equals the standard deviation times square root N. Standard error 0.01 and N = 3000 suggests standard deviation of half a degree Celsius or almost all annual means (per float) between plus/minus one degree. Crucial is randomness. Is there also a graph of number of floats each year? If not fixed, for each year the number added and the number deleted? The whole effect may be due to sample change. Compare the surface station record.

Does any one how much energy it takes to heat 237 million cubic kilometers of salt water by 0.1 deg in 5 years. Is it possible given heat from the sun and from the earths core (volcanos etc)

Luther Wu says “The graph says it is possible
That’s the point – the graph looks wrong. A out of character step usually means Mann made figures.

Sorry, I meant above standard deviation divided by square root N. An example of simple book-keeping you almost never see. GHCN: 1940 has 4266 stations, 1940-1969 added 6074, deleted 696. In 1970 we have 9644 stations, 1970-1999 added 2918, deleted 9434. In 2000 we have 3128 stations, 2000-2010 added 14, deleted 1539. The samples were never spatially random. The changes were extremely non-random (homogenization). If something similar happened with the floats, the whole effect is dubious beyond repair.

From Nick Stokes on February 25, 2013 at 10:41 pm:

But the ocean temperature isn’t noisy. At depth there is no daily variation – and weak spatial gradients. There are no winds, no variable sunlight. The main issue seems to be deciding where the float actually was when readings were taken.
Here is a document that looks at a particular trajectory in detail. Fig 8 in particular shows the error issues.

For those of us who prefer our URL’s un-obfuscated, here’s your link:
http://www.cawcr.gov.au/bmrc/ocean/staff/gbb/Argo_error_estimates_v3.doc
Considering the many posts Willis has had before about the ARGO system, how the floats operate, etc, plus his extensive knowledge of the oceans otherwise,
It is curious that apparently you are taking it upon yourself to educate such a poor benighted fool, speaking down as you see needed to reach his decidedly low level of understanding.
Having downloaded the document, I see it is an incomplete work in progress, no references younger than 2005. Thus this “error estimates” document is missing info from the last seven-plus years of operation of this rather young monitoring system.
Got anything more relevant? If not, I bet Willis can quickly get some better links for you.

Why transform all heat content change into hypothetical temperature change?
Water comes and goes in form of rain and vapour. To add 1 mm to the global sea level it takes approx. 0.9 Zetajoules. Yearly rainfalls over the whole globe (860 mm on land and seas) take or give approx 1000 Zetajoules.
How to disentangle energy content between heat capacity and heat of evaporation, taking into account short, long term, geographical variations? More research is needed…

This ignores the vast mass of the ocean that is below 700m
If ocean heat content has really no increased significantly over this time then it poses big problems for the measurements of ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica. Sea level rise would need to be driven by much greater amounts of ice melt if thermal expansion is a smaller factor.
Or you could dismiss the OHC and sea level data as grossly mistaken or fraudulent. But that would destroy any credibility as multiple lines of evidence support both the rise in sea level and the degree of ice melt.

[snip . . nope . . mod]
Bart says:
February 25, 2013 at 1:47 pm
Phobos says:
February 25, 2013 at 1:27 pm
“— much more relevant than just the 0-700 m level — “
How so? IR from CO2 backradiation does not penetrate nearly that far. How are you supposing the heat gets there, when there is no change in the waters above?…”
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Before one considers how much DWLWIR penetrates the oceans to depth, one has to consider whether any and, if so, how much DWLWIR even reaches the very top surface layer of the ocean.
The optical absorption of LWIR in water is such that 20% of LWIR is fully absorbed within 1 micron, 40% is fully absorbed within 2 microns, and 60% is fully absorbed within 4 microns. About 83% of it is fully absorbed within the first 10 microns. See for example http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/10/06/does-back-radiation-heat-the-ocean-part-one/ This website cites a plot taken from Wiki.
For all practical purposes water is a LWIR block, much like a parasol is a sun block, or a high factor sun cream block is a powerful harmful UV block.
The first question that arises is, given that water is such an effective LWIR block, how does any DWLWIR reach the top surface of the oceans? This question arises because the ocean model referred to in Wiki (and the like) is an example of an ideal ocean, far divorced from the realities of life. The ocean considered is the ocean that is as flat as a mill pond. But in real life, this is not earth’s oceans.
According to a study conducted by Stanford University, the average wind speed over water is Beaufort 4 (see http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/global_winds.html) Of course, averages can be misleading due to variability, and in the Atlantic and South Pacific, the wind speed is greater (see http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/windpower/ResourceMap/index-world.html). I have spent approximately some 30 years studying ship’s logs covering trading worldwide, and I can confirm that it is rather rare to see wind conditions of less than force 4 being recorded on ocean voyages, and such a review would suggest an average more like force 5 (on worldwide ocean trading routes).
NOAA gives a description of sea conditions in various wind conditions as follows; http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/beaufort.html. It will be noted that at force 3 “crests begin to break, scattered whitecaps” and at force 4 there are “numerous whitecaps”. What does this mean? Well it means that already at force 3 the wind is drawing off the very top surface of the water which can be seen by the naked eye as crest beginning to break. The optical resolution of the human eye is not high, and the fact that the unaided human eye can, from a distance, see white crests means that more than a few microns of water is being ripped off. The human hair is between 17 to 180 microns. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair) perhaps on average approximately 50 microns (consider when standing say 5 metres from a person, how easy is it to see individual strands of hair?). The fact that the human eye can see white crests, which by force 4 are “numerous” in number, suggests that not less than about 50 microns of water is being ripped off the oceans and lies immediately above the oceans, particularly within say ½ metre above the ocean, as wind swept spray and spume.
Accordingly, before any DWLWIR can reach the oceans it has to first find its way through the wind swept spray and spume which lies immediately above the oceans. Given the optical absorption of LWIR in water, for practical purposes if there is even just 6 microns of wind swept spray and spume lying above the oceans at most only about 25% of DWLWIR even gets to reach the top surface of the oceans. If there is more than 6 microns of windswept spray and spume, even less than 25% of DWLWIR could penetrate this barrier. This is an issue which seems to be overlooked by those promoting the AGW meme.
It may well be the case that in force 5 conditions and above, none of the DWLWIR even reaches the very top layer of the oceans because it cannot penetrate the IR block consisting of the wind swept spray and spume that exists immediately above but divorced from the ocean below.
It is only once the DWLWIR has penetrated the spray and spume, that one has to ask how does that residual element (ie., such DWLWIR that is not absorbed by the windswept spray and spume which exists and lies immediately above the top surface of the ocean) heat the deep ocean? ie., the point to which Bart alludes. It is not easy to see by what mechanism DWLWIR can effectively heat the ocean, for a number of reasons:
1. Little if any DWLWIR actually reaches the top surface of the ocean since, for reasons detailed above, in the real world, most of it must surely be fully absorbed by the windswept spray and spume that lies immediately above the ocean (ie., say within ½ metre or so above the ocean).
2. Of the residual DWLWIR that has found its way past the windswept spray and spume some 60% of it is fully absorbed within 4 microns of the top surface of the ocean. But what happens to the DWLWIR so absorbed? Absorption of IR photons is essentially a light speed event, and theoretically (assuming the K&T energy budget is correct) there is so much energy absorbed within the first 4 microns of the top surface of the ocean that there would be copious amounts of evaporation (perhaps so much as to provide approximately 15 metres, or so, of global rainfall). This would arise unless in some way the energy received could be dissipated downwards into the deeper ocean before the top 4 microns are heated to evaporation point by DWLWIR being absorbed in the top 4 micron layer. But how is the energy dissipated downwards? What is the mechanism that dissipates this energy downwards?
3. It is not easy to see by what mechanism the LWIR absorbed in the first 4, or so, microns is dissipated downwards. It would appear that it cannot be conducted downwards since the energy flux is upwards not downwards at the top of the ocean and there is no known mechanism whereby conduction can take place against the direction of energy flux. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_surface_temperature from which it will be seen that the top surface of the ocean is cooler and that the ocean temperature increases from the top 10 microns through to about 5 metres, and only as from a depth of about 5metres onwards does the ocean begin to cool. It follows from this that energy flux is upwards not downwards, so how can any energy absorbed within the first 4 or so microns be conducted downwards?
4. The only other method that I have seen suggested is ocean overturning. However this is a slow mechanical process measured in many hours (about half a day). It is not clear that ocean over turning can effectively wrap and drag down the very top micron layer (this is a problem in itself) but even if it could, this is a slow mechanical process which cannot dissipate energy downwards at a speed greater or nearly equal to the speed and rate at which DWLWIR is absorbed in the top 4 micron layer. Given the speed of photonic absorption in the top 4 or so micron layer, the mechanical process involved in ocean over turning cannot dissipate that energy down to depth before the energy absorbed in the top 4, or so, microns would raise the temperature in the first 4, or so, microns of the oceans to a temperature sufficient to drive evaporation form the top microns of the ocean.
I have asked Willis a number of times to explain the process by which energy from DWLWIR absorbed in the top few microns of the oceans can be dissipated downwards to depth before the energy absorbed in those microns heats those microns of water to a temperature driving evaporation. Despite many requests being made of him, he has at no time explained the mechanical process involved. He has not explained how heat can be conducted to depth against the direction of energy flux, nor how ocean overturning can dissipate the energy absorbed in the top microns before that energy would drive evaporation of those very microns of water.
As I see matters there is a significant problem with respect to the behavoir of DWLWIR and its interaction with the oceans which presently is not fully addressed, or even addressed at all, by those that support the AGW meme.
PS. I do not like referencing Wiki, but I consider that on the aspects covered above it is not contentious.
PPS. As noted I have studied ship’s logs for approximately 30 years. Today, ships record ocean temperature by taking the water temperature at the inlet manifold of the engine cooling system. This water is drawn at depth. Depending on the design and configuration of the vessel (to what extent it is laden and how it is being trimmed), an ocean going ship will draw water from a depth of between say 5m and 13m. A depth of 8m to 10m is probably quite typical (if there is such a thing). It will therefore be appreciated that when a ship records water temperature it is measuring water temperature drawn at a depth of say about 8 to 9m, not surface temperature. In practice, there is for the main part relatively little difference between the water temperature at about 8m and surface, but of course, ship’s logs, since they are not recording surface temperature, will understate what the surface temperature of the ocean is.

We had an interesting weather report this morning on BBC R4 0700. The reporter forecast colder than usual (?) weather due to the NE winds from Scandinavia blowing over a colder than normal (?) North Sea. Remember this report was on the arch alarmist media BBC. But the North Sea is a shallow small area of water that would warm quicker than the oceans IF the claimed global warming was true. So perhaps this indicates a cooler NW Europe than would be expected probably due to a slightly less active sun.
Comment on Richard Verney’s dit above— The top 200m of water is affected by solar energy, the photic zone, below that sunlight cannot penetrate. Lunar comparisons are valid because the moon receives the same insolation as earth and zenith position temperatures there are around 120C which is the radiative equilibrium temperature with 1370W/m2. We get the same reduced for albedo and atmospheric adsorption to 960W/m2 which gives a radiative equilibrium temperature of 88C. Surface temperatures on earth in the zenith position can reach near 60C in dry desert positions though rarely over 40C in wet rainforest positions.These are both air temperatures. Surface heating of the atmosphere causes convection which pulls in cooler air to continue the heat removing process. The surface is always hotter than the in surrounding atmosphere and surface measurement shows that the 88C in dry desert positions to be near possible. I have seen an egg fried on a black rock in Death Valley Ca. Lunar comparison demonstrates the cooling effect of an atmosphere.There is more than enough heat from the sun to preclude the need for a GHG theory.

I know of no obvious reason for the 0.1°C temperature rise 1998-2003, nor for the basically flat temperatures before and after.
You need to read your Bob Tisdale. This jump-up in ocean temperatures coinciding with a big el Nino is at the core of his analysis and interpretation of ENSO and climate. What the above graph shows is the effect on ocean heat of the monster 1997-1999 el Nino and following La Nina. Bob has dissected the east Pacific temperatures from “rest-of-the-world” ocean temps, and shows that, while the east Pacific itself has not warmed over the last half century, it has successfully exported its ENSO heat such that the rest-of-the-world ocean temperatures show discreet, quantum-like step-ups precisely at the major el nino events in the last few decades.
BTW what goes up must come down. Expect the inverse phenomenon some time soon.

If the sudden rise in temperature is due to upwelling of warm water or trending toward warmer areas, then no way that can be taken as an increase in heat content of the entire ocean. But then, I’m just stating the obvious (so those claiming a change in the heat resevoir can see the fallacy of their assumptions).
And I agree with Willis that it’s unlikely to know the average temperature of the upper ocean to 0.01 degrees because it is huge beyond belief. But even more, the picker is in motion, moving every direction under the sun and changing directions constantly. This whole exercise reminds me, on a much smaller scale, of trying to determine the change in the average temperature of a tornado in progress as time advances–my head spins just thinking about it.
(As a comparative example, determining the metal content in a stationary orebody to an equal degree of confidence would be difficult enough–but every drilling campaign would show a different average simply by moving the holes to random locations–so what’s reality? The corrollary with the ocean is that the medium being sampled is moving in a quasi-random fashion with the added complexity that the buoys aren’t stationary with respect to the ocean’s currents–they’re going up and down while the water moves laterally yet likely nonuniformly. But who knows? Again, my head spins.)
I’ve contributed nothing but doubt.

John Marshall says:
February 26, 2013 at 2:27 am
“…Comment on Richard Verney’s dit above— The top 200m of water is affected by solar energy, the photic zone, below that sunlight cannot penetrate. Lunar comparisons are valid because the moon receives the same insolation as earth and…”
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I do not accept that a meaningful comparison with the moon can be made. Apart from the sistance between the moon and the sun, and the earth and the sun, every factor is different. May be one can make a ball park comparison, but is that ball park figure accurate within 10%, ie within about 28 degK, I doubt.
The earth has a very different and constantly changing albedo, it spins on a tilted axis with procession of season, it is a water world which has a significant latent heat capacity and acts as a heat and storage sink, the earth day and lunar day are radically different, the earth has an atmosphere which absorbs some part of the incoming solar the precise absorption is not known and varies (may be only slightly) over time, the atmosphere contains clouds which both reflect, absorb and block solar from reaching the surface. The pattern of clouds is chaotic and constantly changing, ie.,, the time of the day when they appear and disappear in relation to the solar zenith, the altitude at which they appear, the area of coverage, the height/volume of coverage, their nature and consistency how much water they hold and the size of droplet, the albedo characteristics of the earth below any cloud which may be formed in the atmosphere above, all has an effect on how much solar is received by the land and oceans below the clouds. This variability is so large that it could in itself completely explain the thermoter temperature record these past 150 years. Then there is volcanic activity etc, the topography of mountain ranges etc..The foregoing is just an illustration of some of the differences not a complete list.
All in all, the differences are so large and significant that one would not expect planet earth to have the same temperature as the lifeless moon. I do not consider that GHGs are the reason why planet earth is some 33degC warmer than the moon (even assuming that the 33degC figure is correct).
That said, I agree with you that the effect of Earth’s atmosphere is to cool the Earth rather than to warm it, and I consider your assertion that “There is more than enough heat from the sun to preclude the need for a GHG theory” to be probably correct.

Google “NASA correcting ocean cooling”. That JPL guy openly admits that he threw away all “too cool” buoy ARGO data, since consensus says it must be warming. I have barely any faith even in ARGO since then, whatever fine system it has been designed to be.

I think we are due for another big la nina event.

Nick Stokes says:
February 25, 2013 at 10:41 pm
“…But the ocean temperature isn’t noisy…”
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Anyone who has been diving would beg to differ; the temperature of the ocean can vary quite significantly within matters of metres.
I have spent some 30 years studying ship’s logs and Ships’ logs would also suggest that that assertion is not correct. It is not infrequent that one sees different sea temperatures recorded every 4 hours. At say 11.5 knots (a fairly typical speed for and ocean trading vessel) that is a change in temperature within only 46 nautical miles.
The idea that we have an appreciation of the average ocean temperature within a tenth of a degree is misconceived, the assertion that we know this within one hundreth of degree is farcical in the extreme.
Even if ARGO was increased a thousand fold, I doubt that we would have a realistic assessment within one tenth of a degree.

Further to my last post, the last sentence was incomplete. It should have read:-
“There is a lack of partial pressure (average atmospheric pressure on Mars being just 0.6 kilopascals or 0.087 psi) such that the spatial distribution of CO2 molecules is too spread out for them to produce the greenhouse effect which it is claimed that CO2 produces on Venus and Earth”
I trust that makes a little more sense. I am certainly not endorsing the warmists’ argument in this regard, but obviously partial pressure and spatial distribution of molecules is a factor which could have some relevance,

NODC reports the standard error in 2012 of the 0-700 metre ocean here as 0.361 10^22 joules or (one-third of the PMEL SE) or what would be just 0.0035C.
http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/woa/DATA_ANALYSIS/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/DATA/basin/yearly/h22-w0-700m.dat
I used your spreadsheet on the 0-2000 metre ocean (assuming there is 10% less area as one moves down to 2000 metres) and the temperature change from 1955 to 2012 is only 0.07C and from mid-2004 (when the Argo floats starts to become reliable) to 2012, it is 0.018C.

Izen
It is difficult to make any comparison between rocky planets since none are blackbodies and therefore, as a matter of first principle, BB calculations are misconceived.
However, even more fundamental than that is the proposition that you make a comparison between a rocky planet and a water world. Some 70% of earth is not rocky but watery.Water has very unusual characteristics and throws a complete spanner in the works. No meaningful comparison can be made between a water world and a rocky planet.

Professor Ole Humlum has an analysis of temperature and CO2 over the Jan 1980 to Dec 2011 period, where satellite data tells us that ‘total’ insolation is constant within 0.1%.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112001658
“The maximum positive correlation between CO2 and temperature is found for CO2 lagging 11-12 months in relation to global sea surface temperature, 9.5-10 months to global surface air temperature, and about 9 months to global lower troposphere temperature.”
The oceans are a maximum saturation of CO2 and other elemental gases and outgas based on system wide thermal changes, which may well be influended by changes in particle bombardments which are NOT part of the TOA ‘constant’ insolation values. Solar and galactic forces may well drive the fission thermostat that is the real basis for climate and CO2 changes.

Can someone give me some background on this issue – I’m totally confused. Graphs aside, surely no one is measuring the heat content of the ocean! Isn’t it correct that they are measuring temperature, with buoys and such? So even if someone decided to convert that into heat content for some reason beyond my understanding, why should we convert it back? Rather, what is the basic data available on temperature, above 700 meters or below or whatever? Do we know what’s been happening in the last decade and before, and how does it depend on depth? I had heard that there is “missing heat”, that some are guessing that it passed down into the very deep ocean beyond reach of our instruments… what are the facts about this?
Thanks.

It is pretty obvious that the step up is related to the super El Nino of 1998. In the satellite record it is clear that this super El Nino initiated a step warming that raised global temperature by a third of a degree in four years. It was obvious too that this step warming had an oceanic origin and was not anthropogenic. Your upper ocean temperature data confirm this and add additional data that may lead to an understanding of this rare phenomenon that happened only once in the twentieth century.

I don’t think converting the OHCA to temperature anomaly is actually helpful. It relies on the unstated assumption that the top 700m of ocean are well mixed and in thermal equilibrium. I doubt that either of these assumptions are valid.
It is simple to imagine that different temperature profiles from 0-700m would have identical heat content but very different climatic effects and appearances on, say, satellite temperature measurements. A thin, warm layer lying atop a steady decline in temperature might conceivably drive higher levels of evaporation than a relatively cool, deep top layer with relatively warmer water as you approach 700m.
If we’re ultimately concerned with the energy balance of the planet, let’s look at it in terms of total energy rather than the temperature of a very thin layer of the whole system.

Willis wrote: “I find the claim that we know the average temperature of the upper ocean with an error of only one hundredth of a degree to be very unlikely … the ocean is huge beyond belief.”
We don’t know the average temperature of the upper ocean to 0.01 C, and no one is claiming that we do.
In fact, no one is making any claims about the temperature of the ocean.
The calculation is about the *change* in average temperature of the ocean: dT = dQ/mc , and the uncertainty attaches to dT, not to T.

Nick Stokes says:
February 25, 2013 at 10:41 pm
Willis,
” I find the claim that we know the average temperature of the upper ocean with an error of only one hundredth of a degree to be very unlikely … the ocean is huge beyond belief. This claimed ocean error is on the order of the size of the claimed error in the land temperature records, which have many more stations, taking daily records, over a much smaller area, at only one level. “
But the ocean temperature isn’t noisy.
###
You don’t know much about physical oceanography. E.g. you weasel about lack of wind at depth, while ignoring the well known and well documented existence of the oceans wind equivalent, which represents a far more energetic system then mere gas. You also seam to be under some delusion that ocean water is well mixed. It is not. One example would be the bubbles or lenses of sharply bounded lower or higher density water, who’s temperature is generally higher (but also can be lower) then the surrounding volume containing them. Until the mechanisms that create these structures and govern their behavior are understood, no one can claim that they understand the ocean well enough to be certain of anything, least of all the total heat content of the ocean from a few distribution biased measurements.

People send me stuff!
This is an intervju with J Gregory IPCC and Chambers even if you dont understand Swedish have patience because the interviews in english will surprise many off you. Its a completely new tone when it comes to sea level rise. (the upper pod cast link on the page)
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=1650&artikel=5410247
Enjoy!!

MikeR says:
February 26, 2013 at 6:53 am
“Can someone give me some background on this issue – I’m totally confused. Graphs aside, surely no one is measuring the heat content of the ocean! Isn’t it correct that they are measuring temperature, with buoys and such?”
Yes, what they are measuring is temperature, whether with the older XBTs or the newer Argo floats. It is sensible, in principle at least, to convert this to energy units using thermal capacitance values, because energy is conserved, and in all calculations, the conservation equations are the key ones to be solved. Average temperature levels don’t really have a physical meaning, but average energy units do.
So what Willis is really doing here is a form of back-calculation, to get a feeling for the sensitivity of the original temperature measurements. Yes, oversampling and averaging can reduce the uncertainty in measurements, but that only goes so far, before any systematic errors can overwhelm the remaining random errors.
I, too, have many questions about the OHC values and the conversion from using older methods to Argo data in the years leading up to 2003. I have seen several claims that the jump seen in this plot is not reflected in several other data sets that should also be affected by a true temperature rise. I don’t have time now to look for references – can anyone find them?

Jim G says: “Sampling error derives not only from a lack of significant numbers of observations but also from a lack of representativeness of those samples collected to the universe being sampled and from methods and or equipment used to collect those samples (siting and callibrations come to mind).”
This is true for *any* measurement of *anything*. All data is model-dependent — all of it.

In addition to my comment, even the graphs above show a decline in the period.

richard verney says:
February 26, 2013 at 2:04 am
It would appear that it cannot be conducted downwards since the energy flux is upwards not downwards at the top of the ocean and there is no known mechanism whereby conduction can take place against the direction of energy flux.
Yes, this is a very straightforward point that is mostly avoided in the ocean warming discussion by alarmists. The downwards infrared can warm only the surface of the ocean, as heat transfer cannot happen agains the temperature gradient,
“It is well known that temperatures at the sea surface are typically a few-tenths degrees Celsius cooler than the temperatures some tens of centimeters below [Saunders, 1967; Paulson and Simpson, 1981; Wu, 1985; Fairall et al., 1996; Wick et al., 1996; Donlon et al., 2002].”
If the ocean surface is getting warmer, then the below mass will get warmer as not be able to cool so fast, and might store more heat from the sun, however to my understanding the DLIR stops at the surface of the ocean.
Therefore with known SST we may evaluate the temperature of the ocean below. No increase in SST means no increase in the total heat content once the heat transfer below is in balance.

gymnosperm says:
February 26, 2013 at 7:52 am
Is anyone else having trouble getting on this site? I have been continuously blocked by ad popups along the top that prevent anything else from loading. This happens both when I approach from my browser and my wordpress reader. I can only get through with multiple refreshes.
I am using Firefox (version 18.0.2 now). I don’t remember ever having any problems or adds popping-up when accessing this site.

“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.” —Francis Bacon (1605) The Advancement of Learning, Book 1, v, 8

Stephen Rasey says: “From measurement to measurement, the float are recording a different piece of the ocean, representing a different proportion to the whole.”
Levitus et al 2012 discuss such concerns explicitly in their Supplementary Material. You should read it. It’s really just applying the statistics of sampling to the ARGO data.

How well calibrated are the Argo floats before deployment? Have any been retrieved and calibrated? How were they calibrated – against one temp or the whole temperature range? And under what pressures?
With 510 million square km of ocean and assuming a random distribution of floats, for a confidence interval of .01 – within the sensitivity of your graph at .01C – you would need A LOT more floats. Tens of thousands..

Phobos says:
February 26, 2013 at 8:58 am
Jim G says: “Sampling error derives not only from a lack of significant numbers of observations but also from a lack of representativeness of those samples collected to the universe being sampled and from methods and or equipment used to collect those samples (siting and callibrations come to mind).”
“This is true for *any* measurement of *anything*. All data is model-dependent — all of it.”
Agreed, the point is that, per the examples I gave, “climate science” is particulary weak on collection of representative data and error confidence limits do not take quality of data into consideration.

Willis Eschenbach says:
“Richard, that is total and absolute bullshit”.
I am assuming that this is a technical term used in climate science and differs from just plain bullshit as opposed to absolute bullshit?

Willis: you rock. What a genius way to cut through the clutter of “data” and try to elucidate the “meaning” and, in this case, the fact that the “meaning” is completely lost in the measurement errors. Thanks. These graphs offer no support for policy recommendations, in fact, the reverse. Anyone using them for that should be ignored.

It should be obvious that the water the ARGO buoys measured in 1993 isn’t the same water they measured in 2012–the water moves on (sinks, evaporates, rises, mixes) and is replenished from God knows where, while the buoys are relegated to a certain strata of the oceans. So this whole study is of dubious value.
Willis’ calculations and discussion are good and interesting, but it’s an unquantifiable, dynamic/non-static “population” from inception. To NOT find a change over time would be the exceptional case.

Uzurbrain says: “Just because you can get an electronic instrument to show a reading to 5 decimal points does not mean that is the accuracy. You claim +/- 1.5 C that is about +/- 3 F.”
Again, _read the paper_. 1.5 C is their largest uncertainty. Most are less than 0.5 C, and many less than 0.25 C (Supp Mat, Figure S12). Hence the uncertainty of the average can be small.

ferdberple says:
February 26, 2013 at 8:04 am
CO2 lags temperature in the modern records as well, which is strong evidence that CO2 is not a forcing agent in global temperatures. Rather, global temperatures are forcing CO2, and some other mechanism is causing climate change.
With a chance of -again- starting the same discussions:
CO2 changes lag temperature changes in the modern record, but human caused CO2 emissions lead the increase of CO2. Not temperature. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_co2_acc_1900_2004.jpg
and at an incredible stable ratio:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1900_2004.jpg
Temperature can’t be the cause: a maximum of 16 ppmv/°C for seawater at equilibrium (Henry’s Law). And vegetation is going opposite: more uptake with higher temperatures, that gives about 8 ppmv/°C over multi-decades to multi-millennia.
Thus maximum 8 ppmv since the depth of the LIA. The rest of the 100+ ppmv increase is human induced.
That doesn’t give a clue of what CO2 does on temperature. My own estimate: around 1°C for a CO2 doubling, mostly benign for nature, including humans…

” Lew Skannen says:
February 25, 2013 at 10:53 pm
I am always interested in error bars. I suspect that they are not really wanted and everyone in the modelling world would be happier if they would just disappear but stubbornly refuse to do so. They are cleaned up and brought out for show when they need to be accounted for by they are expected to behave themselves, not make a scene, not speak unless spoken to and certainly not relax and reveal any more of themselves that strictly necessary.
In reality if they were allowed to be themselves and behave as they would at home I suspect that the error bars would undo their corsets and belt buckles and flop out all over the place.
This would then spoil the image of the neat, tidy, prim and proper graph because it would be indistinguishable from a page of wall to wall error bars running rampant. A bit like a ball room dancer at a Hells Angels long weekend booze up.”
Thank you Lew. Probably half my comments on various climate change sites revolve around questioning the error analysis. I was trained in chemistry and it’s amazing how quickly error analysis builds a large error bar. I believe that if proper error analysis was performed on climate measurements, we would be able to authoritatively state the variations in average temperature between winter and summer for the past two decades and not much else.

Some here are suffering from an error in concept that averaging data having errors produces more accurate data. The truth of that presumption depends on the nature of the errors (unbiased random noise) and measurement of a constant (fixed) value. If you use different thermometers with different biases, averaging does not help nor does averaging data from the same thermometer with a significant bias or the same thermometer used to measure different things. Is there a discussion of these issues for Argo.

To MikeR:
You wrote:

Can someone give me some background on this issue – I’m totally confused. Graphs aside, surely no one is measuring the heat content of the ocean! Isn’t it correct that they are measuring temperature, with buoys and such? So even if someone decided to convert that into heat content for some reason beyond my understanding, why should we convert it back? Rather, what is the basic data available on temperature, above 700 meters or below or whatever? Do we know what’s been happening in the last decade and before, and how does it depend on depth? I had heard that there is “missing heat”, that some are guessing that it passed down into the very deep ocean beyond reach of our instruments… what are the facts about this?

You are correct that the ARGO project buoys measure ocean temperature. Our knowledge
of ocean temperatures before the project came on-line in 2003 is decidedly fragmentary.
Willis stated in his original posting that the reason he was converting heat content into
average temperature rise was a personal preference, as he found that
the heat energy change was difficult to visualize. As to the “missing heat” problem, the
so-called deep ocean is just about the only place left where this “missing heat” can be
hiding. This was the reason for Anthony making his original post,
commenting on a blog post at a rival Web site. Anthony adduced as evidence
a graph from the NOAA Pacific Marine Environment Laboratory (PMEL), which had
listed the total heat energy change in the 0-700 meter layer.

Steven Mosher says: February 25, 2013 at 11:12 pm
“Nick,
Ya, you’d be amazed if you look at a ships track over time in ICOADS by how little it changes and by how little it changes during the course of a day.. relative to the air that is.”
Steven, you would be amazed at how the sea temperature changes minute to minute if you are in a small boat. Then you reflect that there is as much heat in the upper 1m of the ocean as there is in all the atmosphere above it. Then you look at a thundering great vessel in ICOADS and you say “How the ^$#@ can anyone think that something that size can give a good idea of the temperature of a layer of water 1m deep?”
It sometimes helps to go and observe. You learn a lot that way. You learn to respect Nature and not to try to second guess Her.

Willis Eschenbach wrote: “Only 1.5% of the samples were taken north of 60°N.”
The Arctic Ocean’s volume is only 1.1% of total ocean volume.

Phobos said on February 26, 2013 at 12:33 pm:

Willis Eschenbach wrote: “Only 1.5% of the samples were taken north of 60°N.”
The Arctic Ocean’s volume is only 1.1% of total ocean volume.

Thus since it is only capable of holding a relatively very small amount of heat, and since it is far colder than other waters such as equitorial thus it takes less heat per Kelvin rise than it would around the equator or the middle latitudes, the Arctic is really not representative of the world oceans, and should be disregarded during conversations about “global warming” and “warming oceans” as it’s irrelevant to the overall discussions of ocean heat content.
Good point, Phobos.

Willis Eschenbach says:
February 26, 2013 at 10:05 am
Richard, that is total and absolute bullshit. I give you the Lie Direct on that.
I even dedicated an entire post to the question of the absorption of IR. In that post I answered your damn questions, over and over and over.
The fact that you didn’t like my answers doesn’t entitle you to make false claims about whether I’ve answered, Richard, thats underhanded and untrue, and I expect better of you.
See my post called Radiating the Oceans for a full discussion of this issue, including my answers to Richard that he’s trying to pretend never happened …
Richard, I expect an apology, or we’re done discussing forever. I won’t have dealings with a man who tells lies in an attempt to damage my reputation.
w.
I mix now in a discussion that is not mine and I’ll be sorry …
Willis, your 4 arguments there don’t stand for me.
The sea surface is the only point where the ocean does lose heat, this is why the inverted gradient forms with a cooler surface.
If the gradient would be inverted the ocean would be a net heat sink, this goes up to a moment when thermical balance is achieved and then the surface cools again, as the ocean gains warmth not only at the surface but in deeper layers too (as deep as sun radiation can penetrate)
DLR cannot directly warm the oceans due to the oceans cool skin. The inverted temperature gradient at the ocean surface ensures that heat does not go from the cool skin above to the below strata.
Even with mixing the surface water, when the water above is cooler then the water below, it will not add warm to the water below but cool it.
The only way DLR can warm the ocean is increasing the sea surface temperature.
If the sea surface temperature increases, then the temperature gradient allows for warmer water below, but this water is warmed by the sun radiation which penenetrates deeper.
As long as the cool skin gradient does not invert itself there is no heat transfer from the surface to the lower levels.
Argument 1. People claim that because the DLR is absorbed in the first mm of water, it can’t heat the mass of the ocean. But the same is true of the land. DLR is absorbed in the first mm of rock or soil.
When you put your hand on land it is warmer above and cooler below. This explains why heat is tranferred from above to below.
The oceans have a cool skin above, so the comparison is wrong.
Argument 2. If the DLR isn’t heating the water, where is it going?
DLR is part of the energy exchange at the surface.
You can calculate the net heat flow at the surface and DLR is part of that net heat flow.
If it would be heating the surface of the ocean then the surface would get warmer then the water below, then you can talk about warming and heat transfer to the below through mixing water or difusion. As long as the surface is cooler then the water below it, it does not warm the water below it.
Argument 3. The claim is often made that warming the top millimetre can’t affect the heat of the bulk ocean.
This is a different point. As explained this top milimeter is not warmer. One can mix it as long he/she wants, it will not add energy to the warmer water below.
The only way how the ocean can get warmer is when the surface gets warmer.
Argument 4. Without the heating from the DLR, there’s not enough heating to explain the current liquid state of the ocean.
Yes, as said, this sets the temperature of the sea surface. In consequence the ocean below warms from the sun radiation until it gets in balance and it loses the same heat at this very surface.
The ocean can lose heat only at the surface and not everywhere. On the “dark side” it frozes and it does not lose heat there, whereas where the 1000 W/m2 comes it unfrozes and intakes all the heat it can. It then radiates only at the surface where it is not frozen, in balance with the atmosphere above.
The ocean would be in any case unfrozen in part of it, not completely frozen, as 170 W/m2 is a flat world myth, 1000 W/m2 would melt any ice, what we have due to DLR is a bigger unfrozen surface due to the slow down of heat loss.
I think this is the way how it makes sense.

Error bars should represent sampling uncertainty. Or stated another way, the probability the correct value is within a certain range.
Error bars are largely determined by sample size, and to a lesser extent the distribution of the data. Population (ocean) size over a certain amount has a very small effect.
But with the crucial caveat, sampling is random. As Argo floats drift, they do not sample randomly ( I don’t know whether or not their initial deployment is random). Error bars with non-random sampling are meaningless. Unless, you know what effect your non-random sampling has, and I see no indication the Argo people do.
On one university course, I was required to read Use and Abuse of Statistics (a very well written book as I recall). Climate Science merits a whole new edition of its own.

Willis at 12:09 pm. I agree that the claim of one standard error equaling 0.01 for the global mean is curious but check whether this is the standard error of the global mean or something else like the annual mean per float (or per stratum). Each float does a measurement every ten days. So there is already a small error in the annual mean per float. For the remainder we assume that we have in a certain year a random sample of size 3000 from an imaginary population of float means. Square root 3000 equals 54.77. Global standard deviation equals 8.73. Then the standard error of the global mean equals 8.73/54.77 or 0.16.
The statistical theorem holds for random samples, whether the distribution is normal or not. Note that the standard error is the standard deviation of sample means over repeated random sampling. In the course of years float samples are dependent. So the standard error may be re-interpreted as the standard deviation of means in dependent or non-random samples. To give an extreme example: take one year of data and make one hundred copies of your data. Agree that the mean over copies has standard deviation zero? This would never be called a standard error. So the reported value of 0.01 may apply at dependent samples, underestimating the real standard error.

Going back to the original abstract in Nature, the graph is based on pooling global data in an attempt to find a warming signal. Pooling global temperature data is entirely bogus.
No point is asking what the error bars represent, they are fantasy.
There is also a supplement trying to explain the error methodology. The authors of the original analysis are pooling, homogenizing, excluding data in an attempt to find a “global” value.
Sounds like most of the so-called global warming conjecture.

If I ran the Argo zoo, I’d moor 30 floats, or make them powered such that they can be kept at the same location. In order to quantify the bias resulting from free floating drift. Especially, as the TAO buoys have solved the deep ocean mooring problem.

Phobos says:
“Don’t forget, the uncertainty of an average is less than the uncertainty of any of what it’s averaging.”
Not true, often times it can be higher. How much statistics do you really know? To say something so outright false, just makes me think you are misinformed on statistics in general.
Here are what you SHOULD have said if you had taken stat 101:
“The uncertainty of an average is less then the uncertainty in certain cases. In the case of ARGO, I claim that the experiments are all equal and so therefore the uncertainty of the average is equal to this:
For example, if you have two temperatures T1 and T2, each with a measurement uncertainty of dT, the uncertainty dA of the average is
dA = dT/sqrt(2)
For N points the denominator is sqrt(N).
Then of course if you were being honest, you would add the following excerpt:
“Levitus et al 2012 claims this is the only error and I read and lazilly agreed without giving it any further though. So my opinion on this matter is rather worthless. So just go read them if you disagree with me, because my brain has shut down and I can not think.”
Why that last paragraph? Well you are being lazy. You site a paper and state that the error is what they say it s. Did you have any thoughts, concerns, or even some opinion on their evaluation of the data? Come on man, up your game. Give us something. Don’t just go around thumbing your nose at everyone else while you are being lazy intellectually.
OK, enough with “that”….my thoughts on ARGO is this:
As we add 700 bouys at (certain) locations every year, we are adding instruments which have not been active prior to this year. *duh. Therefore, what is the error of the instruments over time being subjected to various weather phenomena including in some cases hurricanes? (the ARGO floats can dive to avoid some of this, but then again that asks whether the diving will effect the instruments)…..
Another issue:
“Float reliability has improved each year and the float lifetime has been extended. ” So in essence every year you add more accurate instrumentation. This is probably a good thing, but it brings out error such as what Willis stated. Namely, that you have instruments which are as I mentioned earlier being around longer and longer…which becomes a larger and larger problem. In essence, adding more accurate and reliable instruments might actually increase your error for that reason. You would never know though if you did not test the instruments over time and find out if you had a systematic drift on the readings. (I think someone mentioned this possible error earlier….)
Anything systematic error not caugh is time of measurements and whether this has a systematic effect. My guess is probably not, but more readings would not hurt either, so to get rid of this error, have the things record more often. Perhaps they are unable to do so, in which case any new bouys added should measure more often.
I don’t know, there was so much covered by Willis that I tend to wonder if the grids are a problem now too. I would have to think on that, but I tend to think that grids are going to be hairy to make since the positioning of these bouys is not exact.

This is an awful lot of comments for nothing more than a thought experiment. Are we all still pretending the OHC was measurable in 97-98? And then suddenly we start talking about ARGO? HELLO!!!??!!! ARGO started being deployed in 2000. This isn’t an apples to oranges comparison! It’s apples to imagination! It’s a meaningless conversation.
But, then, so is the thoughts behind trying to measure the OHC with the buoys. This isn’t like static ground thermometers. And, even if they were, what they are measuring is different each measurement. It isn’t like they’re measuring the same piece of water, even if the location is exactly the same. Quit letting people pretend this gives us some value or understanding. It doesn’t. It’s as meaningful as me measuring the heat content of the water from my tap each day. As a bonus, I’ll measure it in a pot and change depths.
Wait, never mind. I forgot that some people believe that heat from SUV driving magically drops to the depths of the oceans and lurks. Please ignore and carry on with the delusions.

Willis Eschenbach wrote: “I’m just not finding how those things are being accounted for.”
If you read Levitus et al 2012, you see they are not claiming to calculate the average temperature of the oceans, but of the “World Ocean.”
The World Ocean isn’t the exact ocean; it’s meant to be a representation of it, subject to the limitations of what’s experimentally doable and affordable. It’s a model of the exact ocean, if you want to call it that.
Of course, such constructions are the norm in environmental science, and indeed in most science. One can never measure the ideal system, so one somehow obtains reasonable facisimiles of it and does the measurements there, accounting for differences as well as reason and creativity allow, and doing one’s best to indicate the amount of resulting uncertainty.
The interest (in this case) isn’t so much in whether the modeled system gives a precise measurement of the average temperature of the ocean — which would, of course, require an infinite number of a set of measurements {x,y,z,t} for every point in the ocean and at every instant in time — but in how the consistently modeled system changes with time.
All data in science depends on a model. ALL data. I suspect you know this, and are just looking for ways to dismiss the OHC results in any way possible. There are an infinite number of objections that could be raised; but, do you have a better method?

@Mark Bofill: Again, they aren’t measuring the average temperature of the huge ocean; they’re measuring the average temperature of the “World Ocean.”
As Levitus et al 2012 write in their Supplementary Material: “The results describing the variability of ocean heat content shown here are based on gridded (1-degree latitude-longitude grid), interpolated fields at standard depth measurement levels….”
You have about 3,000 buoys surfacing about every 10 days, taking temperature profiles all the way up. At any given depth, that’s about 110,000 measurements per year, so about one measurement every 3500 km^2, randomized over most of that ocean layer.
Sure, it’d be great to have 10 times as many buoys, or a hundred times more. Is there a reason to think that would give greater precision of the model’s average temperature?

Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 8:13 am
Sure, it’d be great to have 10 times as many buoys, or a hundred times more. Is there a reason to think that would give greater precision of the model’s average temperature?
—-
I’m sorry if I was unclear. I don’t have any issue with the number of buoys deployed. I don’t read Willis as having taken issue with this either. I believe the issue is in the error claims. Willis appears to be expressing skepticism that these measurements are accurate to within a hundreth of a degree. He does not appear to be stating that we require accuracy to within a hundreth of a degree, and neither am I.

Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 7:07 am
“The interest (in this case) isn’t so much in whether the modeled system gives a precise measurement of the average temperature of the ocean — which would, of course, require an infinite number of a set of measurements {x,y,z,t} for every point in the ocean and at every instant in time — but in how the consistently modeled system changes with time.”
Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 9:01 am
‘Mark Bofill says: “I believe the issue is in the error claims. Willis appears to be expressing skepticism that these measurements are accurate to within a hundreth of a degree.”
It’s good to raise questions. It’s also good to answer them. I don’t see Willis crunching the numbers to provide an alternative number. On the other hand, there has been a lot of work done on the ARGO system over the years, much of which is concerned about data integrity:
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Bibliography.html
And, Levitus et al 2012 have an entire Appendix on it; clearly they have thought about the issue a lot, and, importantly, crunched the numbers.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2012GL051106.shtml‘
OK, Phobos, which is it? How consistently the model changes with time or the integrity of the measurements. Maybe you are going to address the latter? So far, you have not.

Phobos writes
“which would, of course, require an infinite number of a set of measurements {x,y,z,t} for every point in the ocean and at every instant in time”
I cannot imagine where you got this idea. You are allowed to sample, just as the Hershey Company samples. But you have to identify the physical processes that you are sampling and the physical characteristics of the measuring instrument. Both projects demand rigorous experimentation. From what I see, you have assumed that the ocean is everywhere uniform, at least down to 200 meters. You have assumed that there are no physical processes to measure. Regarding the buoys, you assume that they are all ideal and remain so come what may. As a scientist, your level of rigorous experimentation should at least come up to the level of the Hershey Company. Treating the ocean as everywhere uniform is simply myth making.

Phobos writes:
“It’s good to raise questions. It’s also good to answer them. I don’t see Willis crunching the numbers to provide an alternative number.”
Of all sins against logic and scientific method, this one is the most offensive. Alarmists claim to reason that any claim they present, no matter how ridiculous, is authoritative until critics present an alternative. The only thing behind the Alarmists’ claim is narcissistic grandiosity.

Theo Goodwin says: “Alarmists claim to reason that any claim they present, no matter how ridiculous, is authoritative until critics present an alternative.”
Hardly. But what we have here is an experienced research group who has been analyzing ocean data for a long time and who have published a peer reviewed paper in a respectable journal that contains an entire Appendix on error analysis, versus a blog comment that says, this doesn’t look right to me.
Until more specifics are offered, and/or I crunch the numbers myself, I’m going with the scientific experts.

Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 11:09 am
Then come to the United States and meet the people who say “Show me!” Scientists are given exactly the respect they earn; that is, they are permitted to offer evidence and explanations in support of their assertions. They will be questioned. They will be judged on the quality of their answers. They may respond and a new cycle of debate begins.
The playing field that I have described is level in accordance with scientific method. If you find something wrong with it, please tell me.

Michael Moon says:
February 27, 2013 at 10:51 am
How do they describe the rigorous experimentation they did to validate the instruments in the ocean? Did they assume that the ocean is everywhere uniform, at least down to 200 meters? If not, against what physical processes were the instruments validated?
What is their program for removing and re-validating instruments that have been in use for (what period of time)? What have they discovered about instrument deterioration (change) for instruments that were actually in use? What are the differences between instruments that traveled some distance from their starting points and those that did not?
If these questions seem annoying, do remember that the future of industrial civilization may very well depend upon the answers.

Uzurbrain says:
February 27, 2013 at 12:34 pm
Ditto. Unpaid skeptic substitutes for paid scientist and, in this case, reveals some falsehoods and some important work not done.

Theo Goodwin,
http://www.seabird.com/pdf_documents/Datasheets/911plusbrochureAug11.pdfin,
Have a look for yourself. These are commercial instruments with guarantees involved, and as usual, when someone buys something like this and expects to get what he paid for, he probably will. Having bought accurate instruments and used them, these guys impress me as the real deal.
The group I do not trust are the ones apparently at UC-San Diego who took the first 5 years of data, saw that OHC was Falling, and adjusted the data to show the opposite. The instrument was not at fault there.

Phobos says:
February 26, 2013 at 10:55 am
“Doug Proctor says: “Huge numbers of data points in different places and different times do not reduce error estimates; only repeated measurements of the same parameter that is unchanging reduces errors (of measurements). Each time you measure a different thing that is itself changing you get back to your fundamental measurement limitation.”
——————————–
It is simply statistical sampling — much like what a candy company does as its boxes come off the assembly line, in order to measure and control quality. They don’t measure the same box over and over again, but sample a subset of the boxes over time. With sufficiently sized sampling, the difference between the sampled set and the entire population is small — this is, after, the basis of all statistical reasoning.”
Phobos, you did not address your error here. In fact, you did not acknowledge it and when prompted you pretended that it does not exist. Yet this error is huge. You have assumed that the ocean is everywhere uniform down to 200 meters. In effect, you make a preposterous claim of uniformity. Once again, Alarmist thought is top down and has no place for empirical work.

Let’s see if I’m following this right.
“Phobos” is mainly referring to Levitus 2012 and its Appendix as the font of knowledge where all of this is explained, and if all you ignorant denying slobs would (could?) just read and understand it, you’d all know (and especially Willis would know) why you are all wrong.
Levitus 2012:
Comment On Ocean Heat Content “World Ocean Heat Content And Thermosteric Sea Level Change (0-2000), 1955-2010″ By Levitus Et Al 2012
by Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.
An Ocean of Overconfidence
by Willis Eschenbach
More Ocean-sized Errors in Levitus et al.
by Willis Eschenbach
Levitus data on ocean forcing confirms skeptics, falsifies IPCC
at Niche Modeling
Comment On “Levitus Data On Ocean Forcing Confirms Skeptics, Falsifies IPCC” At Niche Modeling
by Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.
The Overstatement Of Certainty In The Levitus Et Al 2012 Paper
by Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.
Yeah, I see Phobos’ point. If only that lousy slacker Willis had ever read Levitus 2012, he would naturally understand how he’s completely wrong and Phobos is so perfectly correct.
Also I’m getting that Phobos says you must have your own numbers to challenge other numbers. Much like how it’s not enough to prove to the judge that you weren’t doing 60 in the 45mph zone thus the ticket is wrong, but you must provide a verified speed value measured with certified instruments traceable to national standards showing you were below 45.5mph (allow for rounding) to beat the rap.

kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
February 27, 2013 at 5:55 pm
Thanks for bringing many of us up to speed.

Willis
I revert further to your comment at February 26, 2013 at 10:05 am which calls for my response.
Willis, your present Article, is on certainties and error margins in the measurement/assessment of ocean temperatures and hence the heat content of the oceans, and on that point I am fully with the general thrust of your observation. My comment that has apparently caused you offence was not a comment on the present Article (concerning measured/assessed “Ocean Temperatures and Heat Content”) but was instead a comment on a comment made by another commentator. As such, my observation was only partially germane to your present Article.
I am familiar with your post “Radiating the Oceans”. You have posted many good articles on WUWT, but, with respect, your article on “Radiating the Oceans” was not one of your best, in fact I would venture to say it was one of your worst.
The reason I hold this view is that the most important aspect to understanding climate and in particular whether AGW is real (or if real is more than merely nominal) is understanding the oceans and the atmospheric conditions above the oceans on a micro and macro basis. Not only does the heat capacity of the oceans dwarf that of the atmosphere, the oceans act as the heat sink and as the heat pump of planet and in so doing they are the key driver of Earth’s climate. The heat pump being both the generator and power force behind the water cycle, and also the ocean current conveyor belts which in turn distribute the vast energy received, in the equatorial, tropical and sub tropical areas, pole wards. There can be no AGW unless the oceans are heating, and there can be no cAGW unless the top metres of the ocean are warming at a significant rate; if heat energy is being sequestered and dissipated to lower depths (say much below the thermocline, or at any rate below the 700m level) then subject to that being only a very transient phenomena of short duration, there can be no cause for immediate alarm. Accordingly, it is necessary to consider the role of GHGs and consequential claimed backradiation (DWLWIR) in detail. Your article on “Radiating the Oceans” was, with respect, far too superficial, contained little in the way of science, and did not address the fundamental issues that arise, and in failing to do so, it shed very little light on this vitally important topic (quite probably the most important topic in the context of cAGW) and failed to take the science or the debate forward.
Materially, your article did not consider the significant difference between the interaction between DWLWIR and land, and DWLWIR and water. In the case of the former, IF DWLWIR can heat the land, say a rock, the effect of this does not cause the rock to evaporate and the energy flux in the rock is downwards such that heat gained/inputted at the top surface of the rock can be conducted downwards and into the rock structure below. Water on the other hand is different since it evaporates and energy absorbed in water would tend to increase the rate of evaporation from the very place where the heat energy is being received/inputted which leads to latent heat issues and a cooling effect of the top layer of the water, and as far as the oceans are concerned in the top layers of the ocean the energy flux is upwards so heat cannot be transported downwards by conduction. These are significant issues and are issues that cry out to be addressed in your article. Regrettably, it did not seek to address them. It also erroneously looked at the position from an average perspective. You put forward what you claim to be the average energy budget for the oceans. However, the oceans do not receive the average energy budget since once you remove the frozen poles, the land masses disproportionally in high northern latitudes the oceans are not equally balanced over the entire latitude of planet Earth. They are located disproportionally within the sub tropical band. Further and even more importantly, it is necessary to consider what is going on in the equatorial, tropical and sub tropical ocean. As your article on ARGO noted theoretically these oceans receive enough solar energy to heat them to a temperature in excess of 40degC and yet for the main part they appear capped at 30degC. In my opinion, this is mainly because the ocean current conveyor belt is absorbing this excess energy and taking it pole wards before the equatorial, tropical and sub tropical ocean can heat themselves to a higher temperature (places where the ocean current conveyor belt is less strong, eg the Red Sea, off the coast of Ghana, the Gulf of Mexico etc obtain higher temperatures more in the region of 36degC). As I have pointed out to you before, there is a reason why the ocean say off the coast of Iceland does not freeze whereas the sea in the Baltic at the same latitude does freeze even though the ocean/sea in those areas (same northern latitude) for practical purposes receives the same radiative energy budget; I would suggest that it is because the sea off Iceland gets the benefit of the warm ocean current conveyor belt whereas the sea in the Baltic does not receive the same benefit. As you are aware, I hold the view that the reason why the oceans do not freeze is the large amount of energy inputted into the equatorial, tropical and sub tropical ocean some part of which is distributed pole wards. I hold the view that looking only at an average condition paints a very distorted picture and hides what is going on in the natural world.
I am of the view that one cannot begin to properly discuss ‘radiating the oceans’ without considering; (i) what is the optical absorption characteristics of LWIR in water, (ii) how much DWLWIR reaches the oceans (in considering this one has to consider the effect of wind swept spray and spume and to what extent it acts as a LWIR block and thus a barrier preventing some or all of the DWLWIR penetrating the ocean and instead imparts that energy received into the atmosphere immediately above the ocean below, AND whether any, and if so how much, DWLWIR is reflected back off the surface of the oceans so that it does not penetrate the ocean but is instead bounced off into the atmosphere), (iii) given the optical absorption characteristics of LWIR in water, how much energy is absorbed in the top micron(s) layer (bearing in mind that DWLWIR is omni-directional such that DWLWIR which interacts with the ocean say at 10 degrees to the horizontal will penetrate through the water predominantly horizontally with little vertical downward component), at what speed is this energy absorbed (bearing in mind we are talking about energy being received in joules per second) and what is the affect of the absorption of that energy; in particular what does it do, where does it go and how (through what mechanisms and/or physical processes) is that energy distributed and/or transported from the top few microns, and over what time scale does this dissipation take place (when considering this issue one needs to consider the mechanical process of ocean overturning and whether this slow mechanical process dissipates the energy in the top micron layer which is being received in joule seconds at a rate faster than that energy would excite water molecules in those microns to a level at which they would evaporate), (iv) what is the temperature profile of the ocean both in the top micron layers, the top surface layer, the first 10 metres, down to the ocean thermocline and below; and (v) is the energy budget for the oceans effectively that they are receiving: 170 W m^-2 (solar) + 320 W m^-2 (DWLWIR), and are losing 390 W m^-2 (surface radiation) and 100 W m^-2 (sensible heat/convective/evaporative losses), thereby balancing at 490 W m^-2, or is it the null hypothesis (the energy flux) position that the oceans receive: 170 W m^-2 (solar), and are losing 70 W m^-2 (radiation loss) and 100 W m^-2 (sensible heat/convective/evaporative losses), thereby balancing at 170 W m^-2, and what evidence and/or scientific literature supports one or other energy budget.
When considering those issues, it is very important to not mix heat and energy. On a science blog such as WUWT, I would have thought that those issues, amongst others, would have been considered and addressed in any worthwhile article dealing with ‘radiating the oceans.’ As WUWT is a sceptical blog, one might also have considered the atmospheric composition immediately above the oceans. Water vapour not CO2 is the main GHG, and over the oceans (particularly the equatorial. tropical and sub tropical oceans) there is a greater concentration of water vapour than the global average water vapour, such that one could pontificate upon whether a small increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere immediately above the oceans could have any significant affect in driving up ocean heat content when it is so overwhelmingly dwarfed by levels of water vapour (which the ocean itself is producing). That, of course, is a slightly different issue but sufficiently germane since most readers are interested in whether ocean heat content is rising and if so why.
As you are aware, Scienceofdoom carried an article on whether ‘back radiation heats the oceans’. To their credit, unlike your article, they considered the absorption characteristics of LWIR in water and conceded that approximately half of all DWLWIR is fully absorbed within the first few microns of the ocean. What they failed to do, perhaps because there has been very little scientific research, is to go on and consider the implications of this absorption. In particular, they dodged the bullet by not considering the effect of this absorption, eg., how much energy is thereby assimilated within the first few microns, what does that energy do, how is it dealt with by the oceans on a molecular basis, how is this energy dissipated and by what mechanical and/or physical process and/or processes is it dissipated and over what time frame this dissipation takes place. These, of course, are issues that you also have not addressed in your various articles/posted comments. In fact, I would venture to say that you would have been better to refer the reader to the Scienceofdoom four part article on the subject than to read your own version “Radiating the Oceans.” This observation is meant as a constructive critique and not put forward with any malice or an attempt to in some way belittle you. It is just my personal opinion of your Article, and I do not know to what extent I may be alone in holding that opinion as to the worth of your Article.
I do not wish to get embroiled and thereby side tracked by a debate on semantics as to the meaning of ‘an explanation’. I recall that we have briefly touched on that before, and I commented that we shall have to beg to differ upon the meaning of explanation.
Not wishing to put words in your mouth (and apologies if I am so doing), my perception of your comments, made over a period of time, can reasonably fairly be summarised as: (i) It is a fact that the oceans are not frozen; and (ii) the energy budget for the oceans is that they are receiving: 170 W m^-2 (solar) + 320 W m^-2 (DWLWIR), and are losing 390 W m^-2 (surface radiation) and 100 W m^-2 (sensible heat/convective/evaporative losses), thereby balancing at 490 W m^-2 ; and (iii) if one were to remove the 320 W m^-2 (DWLWIR), received by the oceans, in that energy budget, the oceans would gradually cool and freeze; and (iv) since the oceans are not frozen QED they must be receiving 320 W m^-2 of DWLWIR. Sorry, but I do not consider that to be an explanation of the issues arising. Indeed, since the energy budget employed by you in (ii) above is contested, as a matter of first principle, it cannot itself be used as the means by which to establish its own validity. It is no more proof of its own validity than my citing the null hypothesis energy budget (the oceans receive 170 W m^-2 (solar), and are losing 70 W m^-2 (radiation loss) and 100 W m^-2 (sensible heat/convective/evaporative losses), thereby balancing at 170 W m^-2) and saying look DWLWIR is irrelevant it can be completely ignored since it is no part of the null hypothesis energy flux budget. Merely citing your claimed version of the energy budget, or my merely citing the null hypothesis energy budget, is not proof that either one of those budgets is correct. We need to consider in detail the implications of those budgets on the physical world and what affect they would have on the physical world if they were correct, further we need extraneous corroborating evidence in support of one or other.
Unfortunately, in climate science, notwithstanding the vast sums thrown at it, little is known and even less understood. For practical purposes, all the data sets are not fit for purpose (too short a period, collection issues, contamination, a failure to consider errors and uncertainties, bastardisation through countless adjustments the need and correctness of which is unclear etc) and there is a lack of empirical observational evidence and experimentation. It is unfortunate that climate scientists repeatedly use averages since the use of averages sheds very little light on the real world; one of the few things that you can be reasonably sure about, is that in the real world the average condition is rarely encountered. Models are not objective and can tell us little more than the assumptions pre-programmed into them as a result of the prejudices of the programmer and it is difficult to see how the average of ‘crap’ is pure gold; the average of numerous sow’s ears does not produce a silk purse. The upshot of this is that we are all fumbling around in the dark; so for main part, it is difficult to know and understand what is going on. I consider myself to be a sceptic, by which I mean I am sceptical of the correctness and/or relevance of nearly all contentions in support of AGW, and I am sceptical of the correctness and/or relevance of nearly all contentions countering against AGW, and I have an open mind to be persuaded of the relevance and correctness of any issue whether it be in support of AGW or against it. I am only interested in getting to the bottom of the issues and learning the truth. I want to know what is going on, and why, and how. I would have thought that that would be a view that you also share so it is not constructive to get side tracked with semantics unless those semantics have a bearing on the scientific principles involved.
I will revert later today (or tomorrow) with a list of questions germane to “Radiating the Oceans” on which i would appreciate receiving the wisdom of your views. It may well be that some of the questions cannot be answered due to the poor state of climate science, but even to hone in on areas than cannot presently be properly/fully answered, say due to lack of research and/or experimentation, is in itself useful.
Willis, it is apparent that you are an intelligent man. It is also apparent that you have much experience with the sea. I would have thought that you might wish to put that intelligence and experience to good use and actually address head on some of the varied issues that arise should the ocean energy budget be as you claim in your Article “Radiating the Oceans”. In fact these issues would make a good topic for a follow up Article. Perhaps you could pen an article on “Radiating the Oceans, Part 2” in which you could take the science and debate forward.

Phobos says:
“How so?”
The actual size of the universe you are sampling dwarfs your number of sampling points. Your universe in this case could be considered semi-infinite for all of the potential locations where instruments could be sited. And of course no amount of sampling of infinity results in any confidence interval whatsoever. Plus the arguments regarding precision of instruments, siting, methodolgy, etc. Sample size error, though questionable in itself in this instance, is only one source of potential error so quoting the precision levels being claimed is highly questionable

I’m really surprised at the lack of understanding of SAMPLING. When I see people using terms like “statistical sampling” it makes the hair on my neck stand on end. As if just taking lots of “samples” and applying statistical mathematics, is of any value.
Sampling is at the center of all modern communications. Fiber optics transmission systems work at such high capacity, because any single signal doesn’t have to occupy the whole fiber. A continuous (analog) signal can be sampled at regular intervals, in such a way that the whole signal can be represented by just the (near zero length) samples, which means there are long gaps between one sample and the next. Those gaps are a perfect place to put in samples of some completely different signal, or even hundreds of different signals. Clever circuitry allows one to sort out the samples, and send those for any one signal to a place where the entire original analog signal can be reconstructed.
The rules are quite simple; the signal must be “Band Limited”, meaning there must be some cutoff frequency, beyond which there is no information from the signal. All real signals are band limited, but one may have to curtail the bandlimit (B) to some orgainzed value. The next rule is the important one; the samples must be taken at least as often as one sample for each half wavelength at the Band limit frequency. So for example, an audio telephone signal limited to say 4 kHz, must be sampled at least as fast as once every 125 microseconds.
This rule is known as the Nyquist Sampling Theorem. Theoretically if you obey those rules, you can in principle exactly reconstruct the complete continuous signal.
If you violate that rule, and have a signal at a frequency of B+b while sampling at a frequency 2B, you will find that the reconstructed message will now be bound to contain signal components at B-b frequency.
Well so what ? Well B-b is a frequency that is within the signal bandwidth B, that was NOT present in the original signal, so it is an error or noise component, that cannot be removed by any means without at the same time removing components of the real signal. No amount of statistical prestidigitation or central limit theorems can buy you a reprive from a violation of the Nyquist criterion; the message is corrupted forever.
Well you may say, in climate or weather data sampling, we really don’t need to reconstruct the original continuous function; say a continuous local Temperature value, it is sufficient to calculate say the average Temperature over say a 24 hour day.
Well we still have a problem; that erronious noise component has a frequency B-b, for a signal outside the band limit by (b). So what if (b) = (B) so the signal has a component which is equal to the sampling rate (2B). The reconstruction noise component is now at B-B = 0. Zero frequency.
Well the zero frequency component of a signal is just the average value of that signal over a complete cycle.
So if you sample a Temperature just twice a day, and that Temperature has a 24 hour fundamental frequency component, plus some higher frequency components due to the daily Temperature cycle not being a pure sinusoid, then you can’t even recover the average value of the Temperature over the day.
So now if you throw in spatial variations of the Temperature over say the whole of planet earth, then you better not have any cyclic changes in Temperature over distances less than twice the spacing of your measurment (sampling) stations.
Hansen seems to think that 1200 km is a perfectly good distance to be representing by any single Temperature made at one point. So what about weather in the SF Bay region, where Temperatures can vary wildly over distances of a few km.
Well I don’t want to belabor the point, but the bottom line is, that BEFORE you apply your statistical magic to any set of numbers, you better be sure that each of those numbers is indeed a valid sample of the quantity you want to study. Otherwise, you are simply applying statistics to completely meaningless noise components, which don’t represent anything useful.
Now in the case of Argo buoys that are ducking and diving, you certainly are seeing what they read as they rise to the surface, but the local water is changing with ocean current meanderings, and two nearby buoys, can be in quite different water streams.
At certain times in tidal flows inside San Fracisco bay, you can lean over the side of your fishing boat, and put one hand in each of two completely different water bodies; one can be muddy brown coming down from upstream rivers, and the other the normal not to clear water of the bay.
Statistics doesn’t correct for improper sampling procedures.