![706644main_705852main_GEOS5_full_full[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/706644main_705852main_geos5_full_full1.jpeg?resize=640%2C320)
Rapid upper ocean warming linked to declining aerosols
Australian scientists have identified causes of a rapid warming in the upper subtropical oceans of the Southern Hemisphere.
They partly attribute the observed warming, and preceding cooling trends to ocean circulation changes induced by global greenhouse gas emissions and aerosols predominantly generated in the Northern Hemisphere from human activity.
The research, by scientists from CSIRO and the University of NSW, was published today in Scientific Reports.
Mr Tim Cowan, lead author of the study, says his group was initially interested in the three decade long cooling below the surface of the Southern Hemisphere subtropical oceans from the 1960s and 1990s. “But what really caught our eye was a rapid warming of these subtropical oceans from the mid-1990s, most noticeably in the Indian Ocean between 300 m to 1000 m depth,” said Mr Cowan.
This had the research team asking whether this rapid warming was partly a response to greenhouse gases overcoming the cooling effect of aerosols that peaked globally in the 1980s due to the introduction of clean air legislation across United States and Europe.
To test this, the researchers examined more than 40 state-of-the-art climate simulations that included historical changes to greenhouse gases and aerosols over the twentieth century. “What we found was that the models do a good job at simulating the late twentieth century cooling and rapid warming in the subtropical southern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, however they show an around 30-year delay in the warming in the Indian Ocean” said Mr Cowan.
“This delay in the modelled Indian Ocean warming is likely due to the presence of atmospheric aerosols, generated through transport emissions, biomass burning, and industrial smog, together with natural emissions of sea salt and dust – these were also the main cause of the late twentieth century subtropical Indian Ocean below-surface cooling” said Mr Cowan.
“What makes this work fascinating is the fact that human-emitted aerosols have such a large impact on remote ocean temperatures.”
Mr Tim Cowan, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
The researchers found that models with a delayed peak in Northern Hemisphere aerosol levels after the 1980s had a tendency to simulate a delayed rapid Indian Ocean warming until well after 2020, and that the rate of warming related to how quickly the aerosol levels declined after their peak.
“We know that aerosols in the atmosphere generally cool the Northern Hemisphere by scattering incoming sunlight. This, in turn, increases the movement of heat from the Southern Hemisphere oceans to the Northern Hemisphere oceans via a global oceanic conveyor belt, travelling south from the subtropical Indian Ocean, passing the southern tip of Africa into the south Atlantic and then north along the Gulf Stream” said co-author Dr Wenju Cai.
“Together with a greenhouse gas-induced southward shift the Indian subtropical ocean gyres towards the Antarctic, these processes delay the Indian Ocean warming in the models,” Dr Cai said.
“What makes this work fascinating is the fact that human-emitted aerosols have such a large impact on remote ocean temperatures” says Mr Cowan. “For many years aerosols have masked the direct surface warming induced by greenhouse gases in many Northern Hemisphere regions, however in the Southern subtropical Indian Ocean both aerosols and greenhouse gases have historically conspired to produce a net oceanic cooling, and now the reverse of some of these processes is occurring.”
Mr Cowan said that despite the observed rapid ocean warming, quantifying exactly how much is due to declining aerosols or increasing greenhouse gases remains difficult, but as human-generated air pollution is all-together phased out, this will undoubtedly reveal the full impact of greenhouse gases.
The research has been supported by the CSIRO Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship, The Australian Climate Change Science Program and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Climate System Science.
Read more media releases in our Media section.
Cowan T, Cai W, Purich A, Rotstayn L, England MH. 2013. Forcing of anthropogenic aerosols on temperature trends of the subthermocline southern Indian Ocean. Scientific Reports.
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Strangely, when I went to get some background for this essay, I went to NASA’s
Global Aerosol Climatology Project: Glory Science
but got this: Access denied.
Here it is in Google Cache:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LUi3pEfq84oJ:gacp.giss.nasa.gov/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
What’s so secret there?
UPDATE: (~ 6hrs later) Either my complaint cleared the way, or it was a technical issue. Either way http://gacp.giss.nasa.gov/ is working now. -Anthony
“What makes this work fascinating is the fact that human-emitted aerosols have such a large impact on remote ocean temperatures” says Mr Cowan. “For many years aerosols have masked the direct surface warming induced by greenhouse gases”
###
Post normal thinking, and these guys think they are scientists?
This link seems to return this page from the Goddard Institute:
Global Aerosol Climatology Project (GACP)
http://gacp.giss.nasa.gov/
however they show an around 30-year delay in the warming in the Indian Ocean” said Mr Cowan.
“This delay in the modelled Indian Ocean warming is likely due to the presence of atmospheric aerosols, generated through transport emissions, biomass burning, and industrial smog, together with natural emissions of sea salt and dust – these were also the main cause of the late twentieth century subtropical Indian Ocean below-surface cooling” said Mr Cowan.
================
Upwelling is a seasonal phenomenon in the Indian Ocean because of the monsoon regime. During the southwest monsoon, upwelling occurs off the Somali and Arabian coasts and south of Java. It is most intense between 5° and 11° N, with replacement of warmer surface water by water of about 57 °F (14 °C). During the northeast monsoon, strong upwelling occurs along the western coast of India. Midocean upwelling takes place at that time at 5° S, where the North Equatorial Current and the Equatorial Countercurrent run alongside each other in opposite directions.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/285876/Indian-Ocean/22775/Upwelling
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-130707.gif
Looks like NASA are on to you, Anthony – the link works fine for everyone else 😉
We see the usual lame claim of aerosols being a major factor in the discrepancy between ‘evil CO2’ vs. reality being recycled. Didn’t we just get a post where Steve Mac showed that a low aerosol effect model did a better job of forecasting the current global temperature anomaly than the high aerosol effect models?
What I find interesting is the map and the large amount of salt aerosols near Antarctica. Since it’s actually chlorine, not CFCs that breaks down ozone, it appears likely from the figure that it’s NaCl that delivers chlorine into the ozone layer above Antarctica.
Amazing how all the models show that so many things can hide the warming. This one is particularly “good” in that it shows it is actually human activity controlling the oceans as well as the old canard about aerosols hiding the warming.
Can they get it narrowed down to red vs. blue state for culpability and ability to pay up? Zip code level modeling and related redistricting processes would also benefit from such fictional modeling engines.
Simulations based on simulations? Does this mean if I simulate $1 million. Then simulate it’s my $1 million that it is my money? I’M RICH!!!
Somewhat OT, but made Drudge, and seems to be the epicycle of the moment these days:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/has-global-warming-stopped-no–its-just-on-pause-insist-scientists-and-its-down-to-the-oceans-8726893.html
I miss a lot of posts these days. Has someone effectively trounced the claim that the deep ocean is sequestering a lot of ‘extra’ heat?
/Mr Lynn
I call today’s climate scientists thermodynamic anthropogenic fundamentalists. The one factor that is constant is their creative imagination on how human release of different gases and particles can explain almost anything that happens to Earth’s climate.
To mention the Sun, tidal effect or oceans cyclicity is strictly verboten.
Yet another paper for the garbage can.
No well confirmed physical hypotheses, just models. When will they get serious about science?
Lemme know when they have something other than manmade data…
The need to invoke more gods for the failure of the current god to do what the prophets claimed they would , is a very old trick. Here we seen the modem version of it , CO2 has failed to increased temperatures in the we claimed it would therefore we need to call into being another ‘god’ called aerosols to cover our rear ends
It makes me wonder what they will blame the next period of glaciation on? In the last million years, mother nature has brought them on all by herself, 11 times. But the next one? Oh no, it must be man who does it.
The article reads, “Mr Tim Cowan, lead author of the study, says his group was initially interested in the three decade long cooling below the surface of the Southern Hemisphere subtropical oceans from the 1960s and 1990s.”
I wonder what subsurface data he’s referring to for the Southern Hemisphere subtropical oceans. There are few to no subsurface temperature measurements south of 30S during that period.
Given that the ocean is hiding heat and responsible for the ~15 year pause in the rise of amospheric temperatures; why wasn’t this not understood mechanism working prior to 15 years ago?
That is, why didn’t ocean heat absorption occur prior to 15 years ago? Why did the atmospheric temperatures rise back then and not now?
Seems like this explanation raises as many questions as it supposedly resolves.
“We know that aerosols in the atmosphere generally cool the Northern Hemisphere by scattering incoming sunlight. …..[…..]…..
……….For many years aerosols have masked the direct surface warming induced by greenhouse gases in many Northern Hemisphere regions….
So, is the sunlight or the greenhouse gases warming the Northern Hemisphere oceans?
I simply don’t get the logic in calling this an explanation. Surely it simply remains an idea.
They have noted an unexpected cooling (or delay in expected warming).
They have noted the changing aerosol levels.
They have theorized the aerosols cause an amount of cooling equal to the observed data.
They apply that ‘cooling parameter’ to their models, set to that assumed level.
Hey presto …. it matches. (How could it not!!??)
At best a plausible concept.
Proof of nothing whatsoever.
Jeez. I hope I live to see 2016 so I can see what new “gods” evolve: (from Mr Lynn)
“Temperatures still expected to reach predicted 2015 levels with only a five-year delay after 12 of the 14 hottest years on record”
I’m backing my wagon up and loading the shovels in response to this report.
A very awesome automobile in the minds of many gearheads is the 427 Cobra. Mention you own one (I don’t) in a grouping of auto enthusiasts and watch the jaws drop. For quite some time it was the fastest accelerating road car that had existed. It was the brainchild of Carroll Shelby during his collaboration with Ford. He took Ford’s 427 side oiler, twin carb, V8 designed for the stock car circuits (not the wimpy 428 Thunderbird V8) and somehow stuffed it in a British roadster designed for a 4 cyl.
Anyway, the first, shall we say, test mule for the 427 Cobra was a 289 cubic inch V8 version, which, in and of itself, was no slouch. Anyway, a number of years ago I bought a kit version of the 289 Cobra from which I built a model. (Now, do you see where I’m going with this?) It’s a 1/43rd scale model which means it’s quite small. Even on a hot day, with thermal expansion, it’s not even 4″ long (a smaller dimension even then sea level rise). I’m quite proud of it. On models that size there’ll be lines scored in the bodywork moldings to indicate the doors and trunk. On mine I painted them in black; it’s called ‘lining.’ It was so convincing I’ve actually had people believe the doors and trunk could open. On the (painted) wood handled gearshift knob you can actually see (painted) white dots indicating the ‘H’ shift pattern. There’s carpets, seat belts, a three spoke wood rim steering wheel.
Too much free time and way too much money.
When it comes to global warming “science,” we are in the era of epicycles.
Correlation is not Causation. That is all.
Oh, do I hate it when I accidentally hit the post comment virtual button. Since I wasn’t done my previous comment certainly makes no sense (of course, it may not have made any sense anyway).
I was commenting on the1/43rd scale model of the 289 Cobra I built. In continuing, might I add that this tiny model actually has a tiny model engine. Remember, this car is less than 4″ long. I actually added 8 spark plug wires coming out of a teensy distributor to 8 cylinders, each wire terminating in a teensier spark plug boot. Now, you’re probably thinking this guy’s really anal (which I hope not) or this guy built a really fantastic little model (which is what I’d like to hope you’re thinking). The best part, if I do say so myself, is that you can actually read the word, Goodyear, as raised white letters on each of the tire sidewalls. I painted that on myself.
From a photograph you might think it was a genuine 289 Cobra. But if you thought you could get in it and drive it, well… Now, maybe a large insect could take it for a rip snorting spin. But the engine’s not gonna turn over. There’s no real battery to turn over the no real starter motor. Assuming there was, there’s no pistons, conrods, or crankshaft to turn over. Did I mention the spark plug wires? You ain’t gonna get any spark outta them. If there was the most remote chance (there isn’t) that the engine did actually work (it can’t) there’s no transmission gears, differential gears, heck the wheels don’t turn.
Now, if somebody wanted to base motor vehicle or transportation policy based on my 1/43rd Cobra, well, I think they’re, and unfortunately us, are going to be in a world of hurt. Ah, but my Cobra’s so pretty, so convincing looking. Is the problem that it’s too small? Well, how about if I get a government contract and build 30 of ’em. Will that make it better? It will still be too small. It will always be too small. For instance, I’m certain you could fit quite a few Lake Michigan’s into the South Pacific alone, not considering the other oceans and seas. Lake Michigan is 4.5 quadrillion gallons. What is human contribution of CO2? 3% of a gas measured in parts per million? In the scheme of things is that larger or smaller than a 1/43rd scale model? Than a 4.5 quadrillion gallon lake, let alone ocean?
As pretty as I think my Cobra model is, I’m not so indescribably vain as to think it should drive policy.
“An aerosol is a suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in a gas.” (Wikipedia)
These ‘so called’ scientists ignore the largest concentration of aerosols present in the atmosphere which contributes the most to the heating and cooling of the earth – solid and liquid water in the form of clouds. This is an obvious example of cherry picking in order to produce an effect which we can directly blame on mankind.
Hansen >>> temperature standstill >> blame Chinese coal use increase.
Does Mr. Cowan remember the fact loooking at the temperature of the northern and the southern hemesphere, that the northern hemesphere shows a warming and the southern hemesphere a cooling. the aerosols are mostly at the northern hemesphere and the don’t live long enough to reach the southern hemesphere.
There are lots of aerosols emitting from evaporative cooling towers. I have searched for but not found a way to estimate the number and size of evaporative cooling in operation per year, but it is a large number that started increasing about 1950. The effluent from evaporative cooling towers is water saturated air, water vapor, liquid water carryover and water aerosols. This process adds heat to the troposphere when it cools and condenses.
Can someone explain to me the mechanism which, at least 15 years ago, acted to absorb more heat into the deep oceans? I’m trying to understand the surface temperature standstill.
“What makes this work fascinating is the fact that human-emitted aerosols have such a large impact on remote ocean temperatures” says Mr Cowan.
=============
Let me suggest a minor change to Mr Cowan’ statement:
“What makes this work fascinating is the fact that human-emitted [fantasies] have such a large impact on remote ocean temperatures”
“Mr Cowan said that despite the observed rapid ocean warming, quantifying exactly how much is due to declining aerosols or increasing greenhouse gases remains difficult, but as human-generated air pollution is all-together phased out, this will undoubtedly reveal the full impact of greenhouse gases.”
Should read ….
…. this will undoubtedly reveal that the full impact of man-made greenhouse gases continues to be indistinguishable from zero.
My layman mind is baffled once more. Can anyone explain to me please why is the Indian Ocean considered a ‘remote ocean’? My old school atlas shows its quite shallow, compared to other oceans, and feed in currents from Indonesia should ensure a good supply of warm water.
Maybe the warming oceans are causing recent snow in Brazil.
It’s just the weather and not the climate. I wish Warmists could say the same thing during heatwaves.
TomJ,
Your Cobra model sounds cool. Good comment, too. Except as an airborne fertilizer, CO2 is overrated.
Here are some images of the snow in Brazil.
http://www.metsul.com/blog2012/
No mention of the ozone layer and the Pinatubo eruption reduction of ozone. No mention of the lack of eruptions prior.
DesertYote says:
July 23, 2013 at 8:23 am
“What makes this work fascinating is the fact that human-emitted aerosols have such a large impact on remote ocean temperatures” says Mr Cowan. “For many years aerosols have masked the direct surface warming induced by greenhouse gases”
Why don’t they expalin how a gas with a specific heat 1000 times lower than a liquid transfers it’s heat.
but as human-generated air pollution is all-together phased out, this will undoubtedly reveal the full impact of greenhouse gases.”
Bloody clowns, all of them.
There is nothing special about the Indian Ocean heat content series. The southern part of it is just bigger than the northern hemisphere section so will accumulate more joules.
http://s17.postimg.org/dfzc9x7in/Indian_Ocean_Heat_Content_2012.png
The North Atlantic has much the same trend despite being smaller.
http://s23.postimg.org/nrvmhqaaj/NAtlantic_OHC.png
I can’t get past the statement ” but as human-generated air pollution is all-together phased out”
As the sun’s activity wanes, the lack of impact from CO2 will be revealed.
CSIRO + Models = Junk^2
Notable – the industrial impact of South Africa. Quite a sulfate plume out into atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.
…bottom line = we don’t know what the *bleep* is going on!
So typical for climate scientists.
I went to the “Global Aerosol Climatology Project: Glory Science” link, and wasn’t denied access. Hmmmm…..maybe Anthony’s being shut out???
When this Ocean heat accumulation explanation fails as it will do when everyone wakes up to the fact that the numbers actually show the Earth and the Oceans are just not warming up as predicted, less than one-third of that predicted and at rates that will certainly not lead to any type of warming apocalypse,
[like the aerosols explanation failed before and the some climate models go off-track for 5 years so we predicted it explanation and the other ones before that], where will climate science go next to find the missing energy and the missing feedbacks.
Heating the Mantle?
The Moon is absorbing energy from the Earth?
The Koch brothers did it.
Lightning.
Will they run out of excuses? Don’t they have to at some point soon.
Mr. Lynn at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/23/ocean-warming-its-the-aerosols/#comment-1369331 asks about the article claiming that the past 15 years of “global warming” has all gone into the deep oceans. His link didn’t work but I found it here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/has-global-warming-stopped-no–its-just-on-pause-insist-scientists-and-its-down-to-the-oceans-8726893.html
The author, Steve Connor says, “However, measurements from hundreds of ocean floats released over the last decade, which descend and drift to depths of up to 2,000 metres, show that huge amounts of heat from the sea surface is now being transferred to the deep ocean, with unknown consequences for the environment, the scientists said.”
So the best this author can offer in the way of empirical evidence for the 15-year pause in global warming is that “hundreds” (in a volume of ocean of perhaps 1.347 x 10^10 cubic km) of floats released in the past 10 years “show” the transfer of the surface heat to the deep ocean. And these measurements of the past ten years are compared to what?? Presumably the measurements from the thousands of floats released in the ten years prior to 1998, right? But that’s not what it says, is it? Science writing at it’s postmodern greatest, where the reader is expected not to think about the evidence, but just to accept the conclusion.
And Jimbo ( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/23/ocean-warming-its-the-aerosols/#comment-1369423 ) asks for the mechanism of heat transference. Convection? So why didn’t we have similar convection prior to 1998? Skeptical minds want to know.
Now you understand the Federal Reserve.
What I find intriguing are the assertions of ocean warming based on shifts in the temperature versus depth profiles on the order of less than a 1/100 part of a degree Celsius per year from instruments (like those on the ARGO buoys) that have a depth resolution of metres and where the depth measurements are subject to drift (causing false indications of temperature increase even on non-faulty units).
Simulation? Model? How about some actual measured data, just like a scientist might provide?
Re: “I miss a lot of posts these days. Has someone effectively trounced the claim that the deep ocean is sequestering a lot of ‘extra’ heat?” [Mr. Lynn at 8:54AM 7/23/13]
Yes!
J. Friday (above at 3:12PM) does some nice trouncing.
For the SLAM-DUNK — Ocean Heat Myth Smashed to Smithereens Arguments see the following:
1. Bob Tisdale has some EXCELLENT articles both on his own website and on WUWT. Here are two for your convenience (type “ocean heat” into the search box of WUWT, BTW, and you’ll get lots of good threads) — the comments are usually full of great information, too:
(1) Bob Tisdale
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/is-ocean-heat-content-data-all-its-stacked-up-to-be/
(2) Bob Tisdale
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/03/ocean-heat-content-0-to-2000-meters-why-arent-northern-hemisphere-oceans-warming-during-the-argo-era/
2. [Read this next one mainly for the comments which are EXCELLENT]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/24/updated-climate-sensitivity-estimates-using-aerosol-adjusted-forcings-and-various-ocean-heat-uptake-estimates/
We Europeans are happy with the Gulf-stream but I hope that you US guys stop exporting those sulfates for free with it 🙂
in Australia the CSIRO HAS LOST ITS WAY we do not believe in anything they say about the global warming scam
The Oceans are absorbing far less heat than the climate models estimate. The “lack-of-warming-excusers” have a good misdirection going right now with the ocean heat uptake rationalization but the numbers are much smaller than the theory builds in and they are far off what the climate models assume (while the models are still getting 0.23C per decade warming at the surface).
Here are the actual Ocean Heat Content uptake numbers from the NODC. In the Argo era,
–> 0-700 metre ocean –> 0.12 W/m2
–> 0-2000 metre ocean –> 0.49 W/m2
http://s10.postimg.org/ndav3htqx/OHC_700_2000_M_Q1_2013.png
I don’t see any acceleration in those numbers that would explain the current warming hiatus either.
What do the climate models have for Ocean Heat Content accumulation:
0-700(750) metre ocean (source) [3 to 4 times higher]:
–> GISS Model ER (RealClimate)–> 0.88 W/m2
–> CCSM4 (Trenberth) –> 0.78 W/m2
–> All models (Meehl 11 2 scenarios) –> 0.75 W/m2
0-2000 (bottom) metre ocean [2 to 3 times higher]:
–> GISS Model ER (RealClimate)–> 1.07 W/m2
–> CCSM4 (Trenberth) –> 1.4 W/m2
–> All models (Meehl 11 2 scenarios) –> 1.32 W/m2
So, it is just fake misdirection to keep the followers following. The scientists themselves know what the numbers are supposed to be. [Now I admit, you have to work with this data for some time before you can get your head around it because it is 10^22 joules and 10^23 joules/decade and W/m2 etc but the above are the numbers].
http://www.realclimate.org/images/ohc11.jpg
http://s16.postimg.org/ryzem5kh1/CCSM4_OHC_Rise.png
http://sustainabilitymonitor.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/hiatus-copy.png
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Staff/Fasullo/my_pubs/Meehl2011etalNCC.pdf
Then we could compare the Ocean, Land-Ice- Atmosphere heat accumulation to what the net human-made forcing is supposed to be right now (they keep trying to compare it to the top-of-the-atmosphere energy imbalance but the oceans and atmosphere are supposed to be responding to the lower atmosphere forcing). We don’t get to 3.0C per doubling without +3.7 W/m2 of CO2 forcing in the lower atmosphere. Ocean Heat Accumulation does not explain why most of the GHG-less-offsets forcing is missing and is heating/accumulating at a tiny rate.
http://s12.postimg.org/urxw7cq71/OHC_Accum_vs_Forcing_1955_2013_Q1.png
Tom J says:
July 23, 2013 at 10:58 am
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But it is very green so could be something for the government to push. Does not use much petrol between fill ups and therefore does not needlessly deplete a limited and valuable resource, no nasty polluting emissions (so great for major cities such as LA and beijing) and no nasty noise. No delete the latter observation, a growling V8 is music to one’s ears. At any rate, all but those who are atuned to the symphony of the V12 of the GTO.