From Roger Pielke Sr’s Climate Science Website
Is There Climate Heating In “The Pipeline”?
A new paper has appeared (thanks to Timo Hämeranta for alerting us to it!)
Urban, Nathan M., and Klaus Keller, 2009. Complementary observational constraints on climate sensitivity. Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L04708, doi:10.1029/2008GL036457, February 25, 2009. in press,
which provides further discussion of this question.
The abstract of this paper reads
“A persistent feature of empirical climate sensitivity estimates is their heavy tailed probability distribution indicating a sizeable probability of high sensitivities. Previous studies make general claims that this upper heavy tail is an unavoidable feature of (i) the Earth system, or of (ii) limitations in our observational capabilities. Here we show that reducing the uncertainty about (i) oceanic heat uptake and (ii) aerosol climate forcing can — in principle — cut off this heavy upper tail of climate sensitivity estimates. Observations of oceanic heat uptake result in a negatively correlated joint likelihood function of climate sensitivity and ocean vertical diffusivity. This correlation is opposite to the positive correlation resulting from observations of surface air temperatures. As a result, the two observational constraints can rule out complementary regions in the climate sensitivity-vertical diffusivity space, and cut off the heavy upper tail of the marginal climate sensitivity estimate”.
A key statement in the text of their paper reads
“Surface temperature observations permit high climate sensitivities if there is substantial unrealized “warming in the pipeline” from the oceans. However, complementary ocean heat observations can be used to test this and can potentially rule out large ocean warming. Ocean heat observations are compatible with high sensitivities if there is substantial surface warming which is penetrating poorly into the oceans. Again, complementary surface temperature observations can test this, and can potentially rule out large surface warming.”
By “unrealized warming in the pipeline”, they mean heat that is being stored within the ocean, which can subsequently be released into the ocean atmosphere. It is erroneous to consider this heat as ”unrealized warming”, if the Joules of heat are actually being stored in the ocean. The heat is “realized”; it would just not be entering the atmosphere yet.
As discussed in the Physics Today paper
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55,
there has been no heating of the upper ocean since mid-2003. Moreover, there has been no heating within the troposphere (e.g. see Figure 7 of the RSS MSU data).
Thus, there is no “warming in the pipeline” using the author’s terminology, nor any heating within the atmosphere! Perhaps the heating that was observed prior to 2003 will begin again, however, it is scientifically incorrect to report that there is any heat that has not yet been realized within the climate system.
The answer to the question posted in this weblog “Is There Climate Heating In “The Pipeline”? is NO.
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It’s more the heat capacity (amount of heat per mass that the solid rock can “hold” compared to same mass of water)
+
the heat transfer ability (of a large mass of “solid” rock firmly fixed above the molten magma below the continental crust vs ocean floor). Include in this factor relative thicknesses of ocean floor vs continental masses. Rock compared this way acts more like an insulator than a conductor, so the internal temperature below a column of rock will be hotter than below an equal column of water. (Go an equal depth below the water-rock interface, and temperatures start rising again.)
+
the heat transfer motion of continental rock (fixed mass vs mobile water) once heated. This seems like the above, but consider that as soon as any mass of water is heated, it moves away from the heat source by convection and current floor. The heated mass is replaced immediately by cold water. Therefore (even very close tot he ocean floor rifts, ocean water temperatures are very low. Continental rock, on the other hand, if heated, stays on top of the lower magma for millions of years – moving away only by continental drift. So, the continental rock will be hotter.
-> this creates a virtual “insulation layer” above the magma under continents – which is where we place deep mines, which is where we notice and measure the hotter temperatures.
—
Earth’s core is being heated (continuously, but at ever decreasing rates) by radioactive decay and by the initial compression of the original plasma clouds that formed the planets.
There is much questioning about why Jupiter is “hotter” than it is supposed to be by these same “radiative balance” calculations – which are the same (coincidently also wrong?) IR balance calculations that begin the AGW greenhouse programs that Hansen is using. Some think Jupiter is “trying” to create a fusion reactor at its core from compressing H2 together – but it doesn’t seem to be big enough to do that either. If Jupiter were larger? Yes, fusion becomes possible – even probable.
Mary hinge:
you write:
“Wasn’t Denmark submerged under ice sheets and is still rising? Why don’t you discuss the original point, that is of a GLOBAL mean?”
Mary, this is a good point.
However, the dataset from Denmark released from DMI HAS BEEN corrected for landrise.
And this shows NO sealevel rise at all, almost, for 115 years.
(DMI is definetely pro GW)
The graph is not from one point but from 5-6 different points around Denmark.
There has been an discussion about the methods etc of creating sealevel data. heres just a 100% true R E A L dataset that shows no sea level rise. Its not global, but its real, thats the relevanse.
I do not hereby say that the adjustings etc done to sattelite data are wrong. i just know that these danish data are real. I know that around the world there are datasets saying many different things…
Considering what Earth is made of; Molten ‘mantle’ and core covered with a relatively thin ‘crust’, I’m often surprised it isn’t a lot warmer in the deep oceans. Never mind all the talk of atmospheric ‘warming’.
http://chianti.geol.ucl.ac.uk/~dario/resint.htm
“sea level is rising, therefore sea temperatures are rising and/or glaciers and land ice sheets are melting.”
Well, some data show no sea level rise since 2006.
And if you consider all the water pumped out of land aquifers every day and dumped into the ocean via rivers, how much impact does that have on sea level rise? Every billion gallons pumped out of the ground from deep aquifers and dumped into the ocean would have the same impact as an amount of ice melt needed to produce that same amount of water. And that pumping continues every day 24x7x365
The benthic ocean is the world’s great climate flywheel. Changes in salinity caused by ice melt in the GIUK can affect North Atlantic Deep Water, which sinks and flows south along the bottom towards the equator. Eventually it emerges at the surface as coastal upwellings in various places. But this water circulation cycle operates in terms of centuries, not years or decades. It is a very LONG thermal pipeline.
See
http://radiocarbon.ldeo.columbia.edu/research/deepwater.htm
Mary Hinge (06:34:49) :
I’d be careful about the religious connection if I were you, the sceptic community, whether on this subject or evolution or even as was the case not that long ago, plate tectonics, are firmly wedded to the religious right. The belief being that God created man to basically do what he wanted to the Earth and only God can change the Earth etc.
How do you define this “skeptic community”? Certainly you can’t be speaking of WUWT or CA, as I’ve never seen someone here claim that man can’t change climate because only God can? Do you have some data to suggest that there is any majority of people who believe this (specifically that man has no effect on climate because only God can change the climate)? In seeking this data, please note that if a person does not believe in grand pronouncements from government and does believe in God, this does not mean they hold the former view because of the latter. Correlation is insufficient.
The key statement within the “key statement” of Urban and Keller’s paper is, I think, this: “Ocean heat observations are compatible with high sensitivities if there is substantial surface warming which is penetrating poorly into the oceans”. This implies that if the oceans happen to be mixing a bit better at the moment then we should expect a buffering of atmospheric temperature increases. Any thoughts on this?
PS on the Amazon-drying story: Note the objectionable use of “global climate change” in the quote from the story:
“increasing drought due to global climate change can cause potentially irreparable damage”
If the global temperature-change of the earth’s oceans nets out to zero, there is no “global” oceanic temperature rising, but only some sort of short-term (decadal) local oceanic oscillation. Right? Also, if it’s decadal, then it’s happened in the past, so it’s not irreparable either.
“The warming “in the pipeline” relates to the fact that an enhanced forcing produces a response that takes some time to achieve equilibrium. In this case the slow equilibration time relates to the massive ocean sink, and the fact that the full response of an enhanced forcing will only be realized once the oceans themselves come towards equilibrium with the forcing.”
Hmmm… I thought “in the pipeline” referred to the hidden heat. Maybe all that extra heat dropped through the bottom of the ocean and into earth’s core.
It sounds like our Canadian friends would like to find some of it about now.
Frank Mosher (08:01:54)
Calm reasoned debate is my choice. Having been in a debate over animal feeding facilities years ago and being called various names as well as having my properity damaged. I admit to a bias against people who are not rational during a debate.
Could undersea volcanic activity account for previous ice ages due to heating of the oceans, releasing greenhouse gases etc?
Just curious, what is the location of the image?
Thanks
REPLY: krafla geothermal in Iceland I think
Am i the only one expecting some sort of “adjustment”, to the arctic ice data seen here? http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
…ultimately probaly NOT O/T:
Another (very tiny) sunspot has formed!
HOWEVER, it is very low latitude and “backwards” polarity, so it is most likely a SC 23 left-over spot.
see http://solarcycle24.com/
Is it just me or is SC23 sticking around for a REALLY long time?
Further, is there any data out there which breaks-out the “left-over” spots from the previous cycle?
To the (solar) layman, this seems like a bad omen for SC24 cranking-up; don’t we need a strong polarity change for that? Seems like we’ve been teetering on the edge here for about 2 years.
Reminds me of the “I’m not dead yet, I think I’ll go for a walk” sequence in Python’s “Holy Grail”.
Leif, you out there? What does it all mean, Kemosabe?
foinavon (04:26:04) :
the long tail at the eigh end in possible climate sensitivities when analyses are constrained by observational evidence.
You’re pontificating again. What you mean is lack of observational evidence.
AKD (08:20:49) :
Mary Hinge (06:34:49) :
I’d be careful about the religious connection if I were you, the sceptic community, whether on this subject or evolution or even as was the case not that long ago, plate tectonics, are firmly wedded to the religious right.
—
Er, uhm, no. Very firmly “no”.
The “conventional science” and the “overwhelming opinion of scientific experts” IS what is being referred to when the “religion of global warming” is stated.
The refusal of AGW enthusiasists/extremists/zealots to examine things scientifically and to actually look at the facts involved (the real numbers, instead of the “converted” or manipulated numbers massaged by other AGW “scientists” and politcians) ; combined with a zealotry that accepts lies and exaggerations “in the common good of forcing the RESULTS of the AGW theory to be accepted” is what is being described as “religious” in nature.
In contrast, EVERY scientific advance (polio vaccine, plate tectonics, space-time, radioactive decay, fission, fusion, even the basic shape and definition of the atom and its nuclei has been BY REJECTING “accepted scientific knowledge” and by FIGHTING the “accepted consensus” of opinion.
It is a “religion” if the person must be “converted” to a different opinion about the observed world, and not “convinced” by sound reason and by observed facts.
The “religion” of the skeptics is not at issue. Has never been at issue. Is distracting and wrong. it is NOT a valid subject on this thread – or anywhere else in this site.
The truth (or false statements) of the AGW extremists) IS what is being discussed – but not in the way you think.
foinavon (07:38:03) :
It would be more precise to replace “in the pipeline” with “still to come due to the slow equilibration times of various elements of the climate system”.
The fact/observation that the ocean heat content hasn’t changed over the last 5-6 years is a different issue altogether, and somewhat of a red-herring in consideration of the transient/equilibrium responses to enhanced forcing.
What enhanced forcing? The predicted extra water vapour in the upper troposphere needed to turn increased co2’s paltry addition to warming into a 3c sensitivity isn’t there. All we had is the now turned negative positive phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and some el nino’s spreading heat from the Pacific Warm Pool over the last couple of decades. Six years of static and cooling oceans is not seasonal or interannual variation.
‘enhanced forcing’ is a busted flush.
tallbloke (09:22:10) :
Not really tallbloke. We’ve got observational evidence. Unfortunately it doesn’t constrain the high end of the range of climate sensitivities very well. The evidence on climate sensitivity from paleodata under conditions where the earth’s temperature response is expected to be nearer equilibrium with forcings, gives us a better-constrained set of estimates on climate sensitivity.
Note that the paper that is being brought to our attention in the top blog post (Urban and Keller, 2009), is explicitly addressing the long tail at the high end of the range of climate sensitivity from observational evidence. I don’t think anyone considers that Urban Keller are “pontificating”…..
…..in any case ad hominems are third-rate “debating” tools, and not terribly useful for addressing scientific issues.
Just wondering…if the oceans act as a “sink” for heat, how does the AGW predicted rise in temperature compare to the total heat capacity of the oceans? And how much of a rise in ocean temperature would we expect to see?
That is, if any and all increase in energy is sunk into the sea, is it trivial? Important?
foinavon (07:38:03) :
The fact/observation that the ocean heat content hasn’t changed over the last 5-6 years is a different issue altogether, and somewhat of a red-herring in consideration of the transient/equilibrium responses to enhanced forcing.
So, help me on this. Approximately, by your own admission, in the last 5-6 years the oceans are not heating, nor are they rising. Gisstemps have plateaued (albiet at an elevated level), arctic and indeed global sea ice extent has increased in that time arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg but atsmospheric CO2 has increased in agreement with trend. In terms of “still to come due to the slow equilibration times of various elements of the climate system”. where is the heat to come from, or, where has the heat gone?
Do they teach classes in school these days on how to write the kind of gobbledegook that passes for the abstract of this paper.
The authors should enter this one for the Bulwer-Lytton Prize for garbage writing.
But back to the science. It seems to be a pillar of modern climatology that the oceans are a giant heat sink that continuously soaks up energy and stores it somewhere. And so far, ocean diving buoy studies can’t seem to find any of this stored energy. Would that we could access some of it and make use of it in industry.
Last time I checked, the earth’s core temperature was reputed to be something in the range of maybe 10,000 K; they don’t really know for sure.
So I’ll peg it at 5775-17,320K using the obligatory 3:1 climate fudge factor.
In any case it is much hotter than any place in the oceans. Hence over climate timescales, one can surmise that the net flow of energy must be outwards towards space.
Apparently the ocean depths, remote from volcanism sit at around +3 deg C, and that has nothing much to do with the roughly 4 deg C temperature of maximum density of fresh water at standard pressure; since salt water of normal ocean salinity has no maximum density before it freezes.
So most of the ocean water is at around 3C and just the surface layers that are warmed by the sun, get warmer than that.
The solar energy that is incident and almost totally absorbed in the deep oceans (about 97%) propagates deepest at the highest irradiance wavelenghts of the solar spectrum, and goes less deep for shorter and longer wavelengths; in fact the ocean absorption curve looks just like the solar spectrum turned upside down.
Once those photons are absorbed in the ocean including some being taken up by ocean plants; seaweed and plankton for example, the rest heats up the local water, which therefore expands, since as I said above sea water has no temperature of maximum density, and it has a positive coefficient of expansion, so that sets up an upwards convectional flow, that tends to return those warmed waters back to the surface, while at the same time conducting energy in every direction, including down and up, and sideways.
It is not a particularly fast process, but neither is stalagmite formation in dripping limestone caves.
Infra-red radiation returned from the atmosphere, on the other hand, is absorbed in the top ten microns or so of the ocean surface and promotes quite prompt evaporation from the surface, which cools that surface layer, allowing the slowly rising convective layers to move in and displace the surface waters.
Now I don’t have any idea what rates these various flows have, but I don’t see any simple thermal mechanism for pumping thermal energy from the surface into the deep to store it up “in the pipeline”. I see exactly the opposite; a thermal barrier to heating processes propagating downward.
And evidently these newer buoy studies seem to confirm such a notion.
Now this isn’t rocket science; it’s pretty much plain common sense; which unfortunately doesn’t seem to be as common as it used to be.
So forget about this mythical ocean energy storage pipeline; it hasn’t proved its very existence as far as I can see.
Remember the latent heat of evaporation of water at say +15 deg C (global mean) is around 590 cal per gm; ok it’s 587.6; and ranges from 595.4 at 0 deg C up to 538.7 at 100 deg C.
I’ll leave it to the reader to convert that into SI units, or climatology units like “forcings”, “anomalies”, or “sensitivities”; your choice.
The oceans are disgorging astronomical amounts of energy into the atmosphere in the form of latent heat of evaporation, plus the combined effects of water and atmospheric convection and conduction. Did I say that convection always trumps conduction in heat transfer (check your car’s water system) Ok so its a power assisted convection.
Hurricanes and cyclones, and typhoons whatever they call them are some of nature’s finest refrigerators, cooling the oceans and transporting energy back out towards space.
If there is a pieline, it is flowing outward; to balance the radiative input from the sun; which it is well known doesn’t have any effect on earth’s climate at all.
George
Decadal Temperature Trends
“Globally averaged trends computed over latitudes from 82.5S to 82.5N (70S to 82.5N for channel TLT) are shown in the table below, and include data through January, 2009:”
Lower Troposphere TLT 1979 to 2009-01 0.157 K/decade
Middle Troposphere TMT 1979 to 2009-01 0.091 K/decade
Troposphere / Stratosphere TTS 1987 2009-01 -0.029 K/decade
Lower Stratosphere TLS 1979 to 2009-01 -0.335 K/decade
The lower and middle troposphere temperature trends are positive while the troposphere/stratosphere and lower stratosphere temperature trends are negative.
There is a growing increase in the temperature lapse rate.
This suggests increasing cooling from the upper stratosphere that corresponds to the declining global relative humidity.
Conversely the increasing lower tropospheric temperature needs to be compensated by an increasing heat loss. i.e. by increasing convection and precipitation.
See: The new climate theory of Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi and
Global Warming Theory in a Nutshell by Roy Spencer
{PS these temperature trends are from:
Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) Description of MSU and AMSU Data Products
tallbloke (09:52:59) :
I don’t think the evidence supports that, tallbloke. The moistening of the upper troposphere in response to tropospheric warming seems pretty well characterized. The 2000’s are warmer than the 1990’s. No doubt the 2010’s will be warmer than the 2000’s. One of the things that might make us stop to consider is that 2008 with a strong La Nina, negative PDO indices and a sun smack at the bottom of the solar cycle was still pretty warm (8th warmest on record, or whatever).
As for a period of static temperatures or slight cooling in a warming trend, one only has to look at the data on the thread just below (the Tisdale solar forcing thread) to see that that’s pretty much what one might expect (see Figure 5):
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/05/ipcc-20th-century-simulations-get-a-boost-from-outdated-solar-forcings/#more-6046
Frank Lansner (03:58:09) :
“Why do we still not have 100% free access to the ARGO data??? Is there a very good explanation howcome we after 6 years still are not allowed to see these data?? Should not this be changed?”
From the ARGO website:
“A real time data delivery and quality control system has been established that delivers 90% of profiles to users via two global data centers within 24 hours. A delayed mode quality control system (DMQC) has been established and 50% of all eligible profiles have had DMQC applied.
Argo has developed a large user community in universities, government labs and meteorological/climate analysis/forecasting centers. ”
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/
Agreed. Minimally the real time data, like other publicly funded data, should be available to… the public. Is there no university publishing this?