One of the great things about running this blog is that people send me things to look at. Sometimes I see connections between two things that were initially unrelated by the original messages. This is one of those cases.
Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. suggested back in 2003 in a peer reviewed BAMS paper, that “…it is the change in ocean heat content that provides the most effective diagnostic of global warming and cooling.” Recently at ICCC 2009, Dr. Craig Loehle did a presentation titled “1,500-Year Climate Cycles, Broken Hockey Sticks, and Ocean Cooling” (PowerPoint) which talked about the ocean heat content.
I was reminded of one of his graphs from that presentation by a recent post on Jennifer Marohasy’s blog. For your viewing pleasure, using graphic editing tools, I created a slightly larger and annotated version, shown below:
The next day, on an email list I subscribe to, Alan Siddons sent along this graph with this note:
“Thought you’d like to see the Mauna Loa rate of CO2 change up to now. Kind of odd these recent years.”
I didn’t think much of Siddons’ graph initially, but as luck would have it, I happened to have Loehle’s graph open in a desktop window from Jennifer’s blog. I noticed something interesting and unexpected looking at the two.
Here is Alan Siddons’ graph of recent MLO CO2 data that shows the changes in the rate of CO2 with their measurements. I added some annotation and a title to make it clearer as to what this graph is:
What interested me about Alan’s MLO CO2 rate of change graph was the period from 2004 to the present. There’s a noticeable downturn in the peaks. I’ve bracketed the area of interest below and added an eyeball trend line for the peaks:
When you take the bracketed period from Alan Siddon’s MLO CO2 rate of change graph, and compare it (again using graphical editing tools) to Loehle’s Ocean Heat content graph, there appears to be some correlation:
It makes sense, as the heat content of the oceans drops, CO2 solubility in seawater increases, and thus we see an absorption of CO2 and dampening of the annual peaks in the rate of change. Obviously this is just a simple visual analysis, and I don’t pretend to know everything there is to know about either of these subjects or datasets, but I thought the serendipity of these two pieces of initially independent and unrelated graphs of data was interesting and worth discussing.
Of course there will be those that argue that “the oceans have not cooled” and cite the work by Josh Willis on catching some errors in the ARGO floater data. I won’t dispute his work here since I’m not an expert on the ARGO project. I’ll leave that to Dr. Roger Pielke Sr., as he wrote in this post on his Climate Science blog:
Josh Willis is a well respected scientist and his view merit consideration. In this case, however, Climate Science concludes that he is misinterpreting the significance of his data analysis. He agrees that
“Indeed, Argo data show no warming in the upper ocean over the past four years”.
He dismisses this though by claiming that
“…but this does not contradict the climate models. In fact, many climate models simulate four to five year periods with no warming in the upper ocean from time to time. “
Where are these model results that show lack of upper ocean warming in recent years? There is an example of a model prediction of upper (3km) ocean heat content for decadal averages in Figure 1 of
Barnett, T.P., D.W. Pierce, and R. Schnur, 2001: Detection of anthropogenic climate change in the world’s oceans. Science, 292, 270-274,
but they did not present shorter time periods. Nonetheless, since Figure 1 is presumably a running 10 year average, the steady monotonic increase in the model prediction of upper ocean heat content (the grey shading) suggests that no several years (or even one year) of zero heating occurred in the model results. The layer they analyzed in the figure is also for the upper 3 km but in Figure 2 the Barnett et al study showed that most of this heating was in the uppermost levels.
Thus the lack of heating in the upper 700m over the last 4 years does conflict with at least the Barnett et al model results!
What the upper ocean data (and lack of warming) actually tells us is that if global warming occurred over the last 4 years, it was in the deeper ocean and is thus not available in the short term to the atmosphere.
Indeed, if it is in the deeper ocean, it likely more diffused and therefore could only enter the atmosphere slowly if at all. This heat could also have exited into space, although the continuation of global ocean sea level rise suggests that this is less likely unless this sea level rise can be otherwise explained.
The other heat stores in the climate system are too small (and the atmosphere has clearly not warmed over the last few years). Global sea ice cover is actually above average at present (the Antarctic sea ice is at a near record level). The continued sea level rise indicates that the heat is in the deeper ocean (which is not predicted by the models).
Finally, there is also no “unrealized” heat in the system. This is a fallacy of using temperature trends as the surrogate for heat trends as has been reported Climate Science (e.g. see, see and see).
Josh Willis too easily dismisses the significance of his research findings.
The interesting thing about what I’ve pointed out above is that we have two independently analyzed datasets (Oceanic heat content and MLO CO2 rate of change) that appear to demonstrate the same thing: the oceans appear to have cooled in the past 5 years. That is also partially consistent with a third dataset, the RSS global temperature anomaly (or fourth if you want to count UAH same data, different method) which shows there has been a flat trend in the past few years. The graph below is both for land and ocean data:
RSS Data Source is here
Even Josh Willis’ own graph of corrected -vs- uncorrected ARGO data illustrating sea level change due to thermal expansion shows a flat trend during this period:
Clearly something is happening to heat content within our oceans, whether it is a flat trend or yet unrecognized loss of heat, remains to be hashed out. The year 2008 was a cooler year globally, and there is quite a bit of measured as well as anecdotal (weather event) data to support that. Our oceans are in fact the planet’s largest heat sink, and it has been routinely demonstrated that changes in that heat sink status (AMO, PDO, El Nino and La Nina) do in fact affect our weather and climate.
So to paraphrase Josh Willis in his rebuttal of his own data: “Is it me, or did the oceans cool”?
UPDATE 4:45 PM 3/21: Allan Siddons has provided two additional graphs. The first being an overlay of MLO monthly data on MSU oceans data
The second is a 12 month average of MLO CO2 rate overlaid on my RSS MSU land and ocean graph posted originally. It seems clear that there is a CO2 rate of change response that mirrors global temperature.
Bob Tisdale has also provided some similar graphs via many links made in the comments. Be sure to have a look. – Anthony
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Eric (11:15:33)
Check out the evidence that the oceans have not gotten cooler, in the graph on figure 1 on page 17 of the link.
That is a correction for XBT instrument bias only.
XBT = Expendable Bathythermograph
Kennedy same conference
Conclusion The assumption that the errors on sea surface temperature measurements are uncorrelated is likely to be unjustified and will therefore lead to underestimates of grid-box average uncertainty.Regional average SST uncertainties will also be larger not only because individual grid box uncertainties are higher but also because the errors are correlated from one grid box to another. In order to reduce uncertainties in SST it is necessary to have a diverse and numerous measurement fleet.New techniques will need to be developed to adapt current interpolation schemes to account for these correlations. When the correlations are not taken into account, these schemes will tend to underestimate the uncertainties.
gary gulrud (11:13:53) :
Said
Eric said,
” that are a result of the decay of vegetation in the northern hemisphere?”
Huh? Have you even thought through your demonstration of this as fact? Start with the low in decay of October gaining pace through the frozen months of Jan. and Feb.”
This knowledge is old and accepted science. It is not for me to “demonstrate”, and my opinion or your opinion of my opinion doesn’t mean anything.
It is based on measurements. There is nothing that one can think through here.
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/sub_program_history/charles_david_keeling_biography.html
Charles David Keeling Biography
“…One such discovery, which was already evident within a year of the first measurements at Mauna Loa, was the existence of a regular seasonal cycle in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Keeling also showed that the cycle in CO2 concentration was accompanied by a cycle in the 13C/12C ratio, bearing the clear signature of land-plant photosynthesis and respiration he had observed earlier in forest air. This demonstrated convincingly that the cycle was mostly caused by the seasonal cycle of growth and decay of land plants. This cycle is now recorded at dozens of stations globally, and forms a valuable benchmark for testing our understanding of the response of land ecosystems to climate change. Recently, for example, Keeling and co-workers have drawn attention to the fact that the amplitude and phasing of this cycle have changed significantly over the past few decades, demonstrating that spring in the Northern Hemisphere is now arriving about one week earlier than it did back in the 1960s.
Another early discovery was that the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 varied significantly from year to year. In 1976, Bob Bacastow, working in Keeling’s group, pointed out that these small interannual variations were evidently associated closely with El Nino/Southern Oscillation phenomena. With the addition of isotopic measurements and longer records, Keeling was able to show that the El Nino related fluctuations were driven largely by interannual variations in the growth and decay of vegetation on land, with a smaller counteracting component due to the oceans. These fluctuations thereby provide a second important test, along with the seasonal cycle, of climate response of land ecosystems, and are widely used today for model validation studies. ..”
maksimovich (11:43:23) :
Eric (11:15:33)
Check out the evidence that the oceans have not gotten cooler, in the graph on figure 1 on page 17 of the link.
That is a correction for XBT instrument bias only.”
I can’t see where you get that idea. That doesn’t seem to be the case based on the lead paragraph from the Levitus et. al paper:
” We provide estimates of the warming of the world ocean for 1955-2008 based on historical data not previously available, additional modern data, correcting for instrumental biases of bathythermograph data, and correcting or excluding some Argo float data. The strong interdecadal variability of global ocean heat content reported previously by us is reduced in magnitude but the linear trend in ocean heat content remain similar to our earlier estimate.”
They are using a number of different sources for their study and the graph in Figure 1.
“Figure 1. Time series of yearly ocean heat content (1022J) for the 0-700 m layer from this study (solid) and from Levitus et al. [2005a] (dashed). Each yearly estimate is plotted at the midpoint of the year. Reference period is 1957-1990”
Eric (11:15:33) :
So you think both Willis et al (2008) and Cazenave et al (“Sea level budget over 2003–2008: A reevaluation from GRACE space gravimetry,
satellite altimetry and Argo”) are wrong about the recent trend in ocean heat content?
.
Note what Cazenave et al write in their conclusions:
The steric sea level estimated from the difference between
altimetric (total) sea level and ocean mass displays increase over
2003–2006 and decrease since 2006. On average over the 5 year
period (2003–2008), the steric contribution has been small (on the
order of 0.3+/−0.15 mm/yr), confirming recent Argo results (this study
and Willis et al., 2008).
.
Note also that Cazenave et al’s “steric contribution” includes both deep ocean heat accumulation and the 0-700 meter surface layer measured by Argo. If the deep ocean has been accumulating heat over the last 5 years, (even while the top 700 meters have not) then the amount is relatively small.
.
There remains a clear discrepancy between Hansen et al’s projected “30 years heating in the pipeline” due to ocean heat accumulation and the measured trend in ocean heat content over the past 5 years. You don’t have to be an ocean heat expert (or a climatologist for that matter) to see that recent ocean heat measurements, combined with basic thermodynamics, invalidate the model based projections of Hansen et al (2005).
Here is the updated (to January 2009) sea level data for all the ocean basins.
North Atlantic
ftp://ftp.cls.fr/pub/oceano/AVISO/indicators/msl/MSL_Serie_J1_NorthAtl_NoIB_RWT_PGR_NoAdjust.png
Mediterranean
ftp://ftp.cls.fr/pub/oceano/AVISO/indicators/msl/MSL_Serie_J1_Medit_NoIB_RWT_PGR_NoAdjust.png
South Atlantic
ftp://ftp.cls.fr/pub/oceano/AVISO/indicators/msl/MSL_Serie_J1_SouthAtl_NoIB_RWT_PGR_NoAdjust.png
North Pacific
ftp://ftp.cls.fr/pub/oceano/AVISO/indicators/msl/MSL_Serie_J1_NorthPac_NoIB_RWT_PGR_NoAdjust.png
South Pacific
ftp://ftp.cls.fr/pub/oceano/AVISO/indicators/msl/MSL_Serie_J1_SouthPac_NoIB_RWT_PGR_NoAdjust.png
And finally the only one statistically increasing (but now probably declining), the Indian Ocean
ftp://ftp.cls.fr/pub/oceano/AVISO/indicators/msl/MSL_Serie_J1_Indian_NoIB_RWT_PGR_NoAdjust.png
I would see these charts as consistent with the ocean heat content not increasing in the last five years.
Anthony,
Some of the blog comments indicate an interest in the Mauna Loa CO2 data–especially its behavior after removing seasonal effects. Last September, using least-squares (LS) estimation (I couldn’t use weighted least squares estimation because measurement uncertainties were not given with the Mauna Loa CO2 data available to me) I hypothesized several mathematical models; and for each model estimated in a least-squares sense the model parameter values that best fit the measured data. For each model, I would examine the model residuals (differences between the CO2 measurements and the model predicted CO2 values. If I detected a “pattern” in those residuals, I would identify a simple mathematical function that appeared to match the residuals. I would then modify the model that produced those residuals by adding that simple mathematical function to the model. I repeated these steps until the residuals contained no discernable “pattern”–at least not discernable to me.
My first model consisted of a simple offset and slope (first derivaive with respect to time). My second model added an acceleration (second derivative with respect to time. For my third model, I added a cosinusoid term. Finally, for my fourth model, I added a second cosinusoid term. I wrote a report summarizing that work and generated a PDF version of that report. If you or your readers are interested, I would consider it an honor to post that report on this blog. If you so desire, I will send the report to you for your review before posting on this blog. However, if you decide to post my PDF file, my internet skills are minimal, so I’m not sure I know how to include a PDF file as a comment to this blog. Any advice you can give me on the mechanics of that posting would be appreciated.
The only aspects of the LS fit that struck me as unusual were the frequencies of the two cosinusoids: 1.000550 cycles per year and 2.000480 cycles per year. Both of these frequencies are to better than three decimal places almost exactly integer muliples of one cycle per year. That struck me as odd.
Reed Coray
Steve Fitzpatrick (12:36:26) :
wrote,
“Eric (11:15:33) :
So you think both Willis et al (2008) and Cazenave et al (”Sea level budget over 2003–2008: A reevaluation from GRACE space gravimetry,
satellite altimetry and Argo”) are wrong about the recent trend in ocean heat content?
.
Note what Cazenave et al write in their conclusions:
The steric sea level estimated from the difference between
altimetric (total) sea level and ocean mass displays increase over
2003–2006 and decrease since 2006. On average over the 5 year
period (2003–2008), the steric contribution has been small (on the
order of 0.3+/−0.15 mm/yr), confirming recent Argo results (this study
and Willis et al., 2008).
.
Note also that Cazenave et al’s “steric contribution” includes both deep ocean heat accumulation and the 0-700 meter surface layer measured by Argo. If the deep ocean has been accumulating heat over the last 5 years, (even while the top 700 meters have not) then the amount is relatively small.
.
There remains a clear discrepancy between Hansen et al’s projected “30 years heating in the pipeline” due to ocean heat accumulation and the measured trend in ocean heat content over the past 5 years. You don’t have to be an ocean heat expert (or a climatologist for that matter) to see that recent ocean heat measurements, combined with basic thermodynamics, invalidate the model based projections of Hansen et al (2005).”
I am not an expert on this literature. I did look at the Willis paper, which I take to be,
In Situ Data Biases and Recent Ocean Heat Content Variability
http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/Pdf/hc_bias_jtech_v3.pdf
It has some graphs of ocean heat content which cover a very narrow range of time,
2003 to 2006.5, which is a much shorter interval than the Levitus paper, which goes right through 2008 starting in 1955. Willis 2008 seems to raise more questions than it answers given the discrepencies in ocean heat content between the different methods that is shows in Fig 4.
Given all of the discrepancies I have seen, there are likely to be more revisions of data on sea level and ocean heat.
The trend since 1970 based on Levitus et. al is .40X10^22 J/year since 1970 the low point on his graph, but there are some down years and flat spots along the way.
I flat spots and the down trends are not well understood, and whatever the mechanism may be, it is not going to be included in any models. It could be real or it could be some kind of data artifact.
I suppose you are referring to this paper by Hansen et. al.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2005/2005_Hansen_etal_1.pdf
Their model simulation average in figure 3 shows an overall trend matching the data of Willis et. al. 2004, (ref 20) for 1993 to 2003.
That time period also shows a larger than average rate of increase on figure 1 in the Levitus paper about .6*10^22 J/year.
Steve Fitzpatrick (08:26:55) : Very Interesting.
I’d add that the annual average temperature of the Southern Hemisphere is 5C cooler than the NH despite the much higher solar insolation received by the SH.
As you point out, the only cause can be the much greater albedo of land relative to ocean.
We know different land surfaces vary greatly in their albedo, but one of the lowest albedos is natural forest and one of the highest is tilled land without crops (bare earth), although not as high as snow/ice of course.
Which points to land use changes as the primary anthropogenic effect on climate (both globally and regionally). It’s a pity no one has tried to quantify this effect on a historical basis in say the Russian Steppe, the American Great Plains, or the Australian Wheatlands. Or more recently in the palm oil plantations of SE Asia, where I can tell you anecdotally, daytime temperatures are noticeably hotter in the palm oil plantation compared to the adjacent tropical forest .
Eric (14:02:34) :
The Willis paper is: Willis J. K., D. P. Chambers, R. S. Nerem (2008), Assessing the globally averaged sea level budget on seasonal to interannual timescales, J. Geophys. Res., 113, C06015, doi:10.1029/2007JC004517.
See also the Roger Pielke Sr. article: http://www.climatesci.org/publications/pdf/R-334.pdf. where he updates Willis’s heat ocean heat content data through the end of 2008 (apparently via a personal communication with Willis). The updated ocean heat trend continues to show a slight decline for the upper 700 meters over a 5 year period.
The Hansen paper is Science, 308, 1431-1435 (2005), where Josh Willis is one of the authors.
The Levitus paper shows longer term trends in ocean heat which are for certain correct, at least within the accuracy of older instrumentation (and limited global data coverage). The issue is not if there has been accumulation of heat in the oceans over the last 50 years (clearly there has), but rather if the projections of Hansen et al 2005 (very high climate sensitivity to greenhouse forcing, “30 years warming in the pipeline”, etc.) are supported by the recent ocean heat content.
A key claim of Hansen et al is:
“The observed 1880 to 2003 global warming is 0.6 to
0.7C, which is the full response to
nearly 1 W/m2 of forcing. Of the 1.8 W/m2
forcing, 0.85 W/m2 remains, i.e., additional
global warming of 0.85 X 0.67 = 0.6C is
‘‘in the pipeline’’ and will occur in the future
even if atmospheric composition and other
climate forcings remain fixed at today’s values.”
This has not happened.
So regarding loops and breaks, I would take the historical data and do this:
Count the number of breaks. Record the latitude of loops that allow Arctic air to invade southern latitudes. See if there is a pattern. Overlay with Oceanic oscillations to see if there is correlation.
My hypothesis is this: La Nina’s cause more frequent lower latitude loops, allowing cold Arctic air to dip further south. El Nino’s cause stronger pineapple belt jet streams that do not break up as they move over land.
What would cause this to happen? Do stronger trade winds provide more energy for a more northern jet stream? Then does the Earth’s orbital spin friction cause these high energy loops to invade our more southern climates? When trade winds are slower, is the jet stream slower thus less prone to breakage? Jus thinkin out loud here.
What say you Steven. By the way, I enjoy reading your work.
Friends:
I write to address three of the issues discussed above; viz.
1.
The importance of scientific data to continuation of the anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming (AGW) issue.
2.
The relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration and mean global temperature.
2.
Peer review of papers published in Energy and Environment (E&E).
Firstly, there are several assertions that AGW will soon collapse because empirical evidence disproves it. These assertions are mistaken because AGW has never been a scientific issue and, therefore, scientific evidence cannot displace it. I explain this as follows.
Early in 1980 (yes, nearly 30 years ago) the British Association of Colliery Management (BACM) commissioned me to investigate the then nascent AGW issue. The main results of my analysis are reported at
http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm
but with some updates I made in 1999.
I concluded that AGW was a political issue that would become the major environmental issue whether or not AGW obtained any supporting evidence.
My reason for that conclusion was that science was an adjunct to the political/economic issue of AGW; i.e. the major feedback loops in Figure 2 at the above URL would remain if all reference to science and scientists were removed.
BACM considered this conclusion to be so extreme that they rejected my analysis and its conclusions. Since then AGW has become a (perhaps the) major environmental issue despite the failure to find any empirical supporting evidence for it. And the demise of the issue has not been engendered by much significant evidence that contradicts it; e.g. the missing ‘hot spot’, see the explanation on pages 5 to 7 of the item at
http://co2sceptics.com/attachments/ftp/Heansen-Obama_letter_comments.pdf
Secondly, it was to be expected that the rate of increase to atmospheric CO2 concentration would have reduced commensurate with the recent near stasis in mean global temperature.
Several studies have shown the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration recorded at Mauna Loa varies around a base trend of 1.5 ppm/year. A decade ago Calder showed that the variations around the trend correlate to variations in mean global temperature (MGT): he called this his ‘CO2 thermometer’. Now, Ahlbeck has submitted a paper for publication that finds the same using recent data. Reasons for this ‘CO2 thermometer’ are not known but they probably result from changes to sea surface temperature.
So, there is strong evidence that MGT governs variations in the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration but there is no clear evidence of the cause of the steady – and unwavering – base trend of ~1.5 ppm/year.
Thirdly, it has again been implied here that E&E does not conduct peer review. As a member of the Editorial Board of E&E I again write to refute this falsehood.
E&E reviewers are demonstrably regarded as expert in their fields on the basis of their publications and in the opinion of persons and organisations other than E&E who have asked them to conduct peer reviews.
Furthermore, papers concerning climate science in E&E are subjected to a higher standard of peer review than in some more prominent journals; e.g. see the Wegman Report, or my complaint to Nature concerning the fundamental flaw in the methodology used in the recent paper by Steig et al. that was published in Nature.
The Editor of E&E, Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, does not permit a bunch of cronies to peer review the papers of each other and, therefore, disasters such as the publication in Nature of the recent flawed paper by Steig et al. could not happen to E&E.
Richard
Reed Coray (12:59:22) :
Wrote:
“…
The only aspects of the LS fit that struck me as unusual were the frequencies of the two cosinusoids: 1.000550 cycles per year and 2.000480 cycles per year. Both of these frequencies are to better than three decimal places almost exactly integer muliples of one cycle per year. That struck me as odd.”
Reed,
Not odd at all. The cyclical data is was found by Roger Revelle in the 1970’s to be a result of seasonal growth and decay of vegetation in the northern hemisphere. Check out my post with time stamp 12:03:21
“UHI has been resurrected by Phil Jones. ”
This is the first I’ve heard of this. I can’t find anything about it. What gives?
REPLY: See this, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/18/finally-an-honest-quantification-of-urban-warming-by-a-major-climate-scientist/
Anthony
Richard S. Courtney (4:12:05 – 3/23/09), thanks for your history of the beginning of AGW in the U.K. Also thanks to Anthony for collecting the work of those who help us understand that the oceans are not warming, but probably are cooling — Pielke, Sr., Loehle, Siddons, Tisdale. Is there a specific history to this aspect of climate science (oceans warming dangerously) that can be documented as well?
I am thinking towards the time when AGW/Climate Change (of course the climate changes)/GCMs/falsified temperatures/water vapor feedback to CO2 forcing, all are proven indisputably and undeniably false. At that time those who propped up the propaganda with their scientific creds should be shamed or banished in some way. This consequence is not the one Leif discussed where scientists put “everything” into one hypothesis and, when it is proven wrong, the hypothesis dies and everyone turns to solve the next scientific puzzle. There is no “recanting” here. This process has some integrity to it. Propaganda does not.
I don’t have a lot of time so I have to read fast — somewhere I read that a group of 75 (scientists?) got together to begin the AGW hog slop. Is this the beginning of the IPCC? Is this the beginning of the attempt to “sell” AGW-therefore-cap-and-trade to all developed nations? Are these the “ones” who began to populate the relevant bureaucracies, NGOs, environmental “charity” organizations, etc. (Among a long list, “my” national Audubon Society is completely taken over by these idiots — no more dues/contributions). Does anyone have any citations for this history?
“This knowledge is old and accepted science. It is not for me to “demonstrate”, ”
Sorry, arguments from authority are definitively fallacious. Keeling is just another dead guy. You are carrying his standard, live up to the pillar’s memory.
*******
BarryW (13:40:56) :
One thing I haven’t seen explained is the 1998 “Super” El Nino. The temp shot up. Where did the heat come from and where did the heat go?
*******
Parts of the globe have a natural “refrigerator” operating — upwelling of cold, deep water. If that upwelling is reduced, or even mostly stops (like 1998), then areas under the influence of the “refrigerator” see elevated temps. Other regions are unaffected, but of course the averaged “global temps” go up.
Once the upwelling returns to typical levels, temps quickly go back to the previous background, or even “overshoot” downward, like 1999.
Eric (05:06:59) wrote: “Reed, Not odd at all. The cyclical data is was found by Roger Revelle in the 1970’s to be a result of seasonal growth and decay of vegetation in the northern hemisphere. Check out my post with time stamp 12:03:21”
Eric the primary point of interest to me wasn’t that the CO2 data exhibit a yearly sinusoidal cycle, but rather that the estimated value of that frequency is within 0.00055 cyles per year of exactly one cycle per year.
The secondary point (although I didn’t mention this in my original post) was that the Mauna Loa CO2 data also exhibit cyclical (sinusoidal) behavior at 2.000480 cycles per year–again within 0.000448 cycles per year of exacly two cycles per year.
It is the accuracies of these estimates that was notable to me, not the basic fact that the data exhibit yearly cyclical behavior.
Finally, it may very well be that plant growth/decay is the major contributor to “yearly” CO2 fluctuations; but what is the source of the “twice yearly” fluctuations in CO2 level?
If cold Pacific waters push the Jet Stream further north, initially it makes no sense that we here in the 45th parallel would be colder. Plus the overall change in PDO water temperature is less than the deep cold we experience on land. Unless one were to study loops and breaks in the Jet Stream flow. If by pushing it north, deeper loops and more open breaks allow Arctic air to rush southward, instead of staying in its own territory, the mechanism for cooler temperatures and dryer air may be hypothesized. This seems an easy thing to measure. Number of breaks and depth of loops would be a start. If both numbers go up during La Nina’s (which are more frequent during cold PDO’s), while going down during El Nino’s (which are more frequent during warm PDO’s), predictability of colder dryer winters and cooler summers seems within our grasp.
The overlay of MLO monthly data on MSU oceans data isn’t perfect, but it’s darn close. It would be an odd coincidence. Frankly, I think the fit is FAR better than the CO2 vs. global temperature anomoly graphs we see ad nauseum.
“See this, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/18/finally-an-honest-quantification-of-urban-warming-by-a-major-climate-scientist/
Anthony”
Thanks, Anthony! Man, I totally missed that! ::embarrassed::
Note on 13C.
http://www.creators.com/opinion/alexander-cockburn/the-greenhousers-strike-back-and-strike-out.html
Sorry for the late reply, a few days busy and already 170 comments…
Philip_B (21-03-2009, 18:18:02) :
The significance of this is that, while there is no question that human emissions of CO2 are the major driver of atmospheric CO2 levels in the short term (say less than 10 years), Ocean temperatures drive CO2 levels in the medium term and longer (more than say 10 to 20 years).
There is no question that human emissions of CO2 are the major driver of atmospheric CO2 levels over the past 150 years. Ocean temperatures over short term give a CO2 reponse of about 3 ppmv/°C around the trend, on longer term (MWP-LIA and ice ages / interglacials) about 8 ppmv/°C. Thus the recent trend is at least for 90% caused by the emissions.
See: http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html
Keith Minto (21-03-2009, 18:25:36) :
Just another thought, why is the Mauna Loa trend line so linear?
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
is there anything else so linear in nature? especially as the dreaded CO2 is being generated (I imagine) exponentially?
The Mauna Loa data are not linear, but going slightly up with increasing emissions in a near perfect ratio of about 55% of the emissions.
See: http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_co2_acc_1900_2004.jpg where the CO2 data until 1959 are from ice cores and after that from Mauna Loa.
As nature never is that perfect, that is one of the indications that the emissions are the cause.
Ellie in Belfast (22-03-2009, 04:16:43), E.M.Smith (14:25:36) :
“Ellie in Belfast (13:16:18) : This got me thinking, but as usual questions to which I do not have an answer: – is CO2 adsorption by oceans (roughly) linear with temperature?
Seems surprisingly linear over very long time spans in the Vostok ice core (420,000 years), including changes in vegetation/ice sheet area’s and changes in (deep) ocean currents. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/Vostok_trends.gif
Pamela Gray (22-03-2009, 08:22:23) :
We do not have a matched control yet for CO2 measuring stations. Nor do we have a matched set of measures that adequately covers sinks. Until we have stations placed where CO2 never rises or sinks, and stations that measure sinks, the Mauna Loa graphs are worthless as indicators of global CO2.
I can only hope that the quality control procedures for surface temperature measurements were as rigorous as for CO2 measurements. Mauna Loa and nine other baseline stations represent about 95% of the atmosphere within 2 ppmv in each hemisphere and within 5 ppmv for NH/SH yearly averages. All show the same trends within a fraction of a ppmv/year. The MLO data are controlled with 3 independent flask sample series + a flask series at sea level, by different people in different labs and with different methods. See the above link about CO2 measurements and directly for the MLO methods and controls:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.html
Raw, uncorrected nor filtered hourly averages can be seen of 4 baseline stations, including MLO, at: ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/in-situ/
The satellite data are far less accurate, but may show where the sources and sinks are exactly located, but the global trend is known with good accuracy, as well as the main source of the increase with reasonable accuracy…
Stephen Wilde (22-03-2009, 09:30:16) :
I also agree that ocean temperature is likely to be a far greater contributor to CO2 variability than anything humans can achieve and if the oceans do start to cool then at some point I would expect CO2 levels in the air to begin to fall whatever mankind is able to emit.
The oceans and vegetation both are the main causes of the variability of CO2 uptake around the trend, but these are not the cause of the trend themselves, as the short to long term influence is too small: about 3 ppmv/°C (short term) to 8 ppmv/°C (-very- long term). One need to have a continuous cooling of about 0.5°C/year to absorb the total of the yearly emissions…
1. There are places on Earth that are not showing such CO2 increases and are in stasis. Please put your measuring devices there and post the graph along with your sources. 2. It is hypothesized that outgassing sources are more restricted then sinks, so in the former, measures will show larger increases, and in the later, smaller decreases. Why? Sinks are spread out. Sources, not so much. Please put your measuring devices where the sinks are (you will have to put a LOT of them out and about) and have them calibrated for the much more spread out way in which CO2 is absorbed out of the atmosphere.
Your contention above, without data, is talk. Show me the unmodified table of raw data with direct (not modeled or hypothesized) measures of sources, sinks, and stasis.
gary gulrud (24-03-2009, 05:14:21) :
Note on 13C.
http://www.creators.com/opinion/alexander-cockburn/the-greenhousers-strike-back-and-strike-out.html
From that source:
Alexander Cockburn is completely wrong on this item. There are only two sources of low d13C in nature: current biosphere material and ancient biosphere material (fossil fuels). All other sources (-deep- ocean water, calcite deposits, volcanic degassing/eruptions,…) are higher in d13C than the atmosphere (even with a fractionation of isotopes at the ocean surface in the two directions). Thus the oceans can’t be the origin of the decrease in d13C found in atmosphere AND upper oceans. Neither is the current biosphere, as more oxygen is produced than used, thus the uptake of (preferentially) 12CO2 increased and relatively more 13CO2 is left in the atmosphere. The only source of the d13C decrease thus is the burning of fossil fuels…
See further: http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sponges.gif
Pamela Gray (07:10:54) :
1. There are places on Earth that are not showing such CO2 increases and are in stasis. Please put your measuring devices there and post the graph along with your sources.
I am not aware that there is any place on earth that shows no CO2 increase over the past year, years or decades. Even at the largest sink area, the NE Atlantic, air measurements agree with the MLO data, with the same increase (but with a larger seasonal signal, comparable to Barrow and Alert). Probably because the refresh rate of the atmosphere is faster than the sink rate of CO2 via the THC. Any reference to such a place?
2. It is hypothesized that outgassing sources are more restricted then sinks, so in the former, measures will show larger increases, and in the later, smaller decreases. Why? Sinks are spread out. Sources, not so much. Please put your measuring devices where the sinks are (you will have to put a LOT of them out and about) and have them calibrated for the much more spread out way in which CO2 is absorbed out of the atmosphere.
Human and vegetation sources/sinks are mainly restricted to land and measurable in the lowest few hundred meters (5% of the atmosphere). Above that there is full mixing with the rest of the atmosphere. At ground level this gives a problem of a positive bias, as at night with inversion, there is an increase of CO2 from all sources (including vegetation), while during the day the warming of the surface gives more turbulence and reduction of CO2 from mixing with higher air levels + uptake by vegetation. See e.g. a few days at Linden/Giessen (Germany, semi urban and agriculture), compared to a few baseline stations (from near the north pole to the south pole, all uncorrected, raw data):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/giessen_background.jpg
As you can see, there is little variation in the “baseline” stations (an increase of 1.5 ppmv/year is unmeasurable over a day), but there is an extreme variation over land near sources/sinks. The latter is like measuring temperature near sources/sinks of heat and has no purpose to know “global” CO2 levels.
There are 400+ stations over the world, aimed at trying to measure the fluxes in/out the lower atmosphere. For e.g. the US, one can find a lot of them at:
http://public.ornl.gov/ameriflux/available.shtml
Several places use tall towers to measure the CO2 flux over a larger area, e.g. in Europe at Cabauw (The Netherlands):
http://www.chiotto.org/cabauw.html
And over the oceans, we had several cruises and since a few years ago a lot of floating buoiys which are measuring ocean/air pCO2:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/oceans/home.html
And some interesting abstract of the oceanic findings from Feely e.a.:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml
and following pages, including graphs of oceanic uptake and release of CO2.
Your contention above, without data, is talk. Show me the unmodified table of raw data with direct (not modeled or hypothesized) measures of sources, sinks, and stasis.
Work to do for you, with all these links…