This paper is to be published on-line on Friday in Physics Letters A Dr. Douglas graciously sent me an advance copy, of which I’m printing some excerpts. Douglas and Knox show some correlations between Top-of-atmosphere radiation imbalance and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The authors credit Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. with reviving interest on the subject due to his discussions on using ocean heat content as a metric for climate change.
Abstract
Ocean heat content and Earth’s radiation imbalance
D.H. Douglass and R, S, Knox
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, PO Box 270171, Rochester, NY 14627-0171, USA
Earth’s radiation imbalance is determined from ocean heat content data and compared with results of direct measurements. Distinct time intervals of alternating positive and negative values are found: 1960–mid-1970s (−0.15), mid-1970s–2000 (+0.15), 2001–present (−0.2 W/m2), and are consistent with prior reports. These climate shifts limit climate predictability.
Introduction:
A strong connection between Earth’s radiative imbalance and the heat content of the oceans has been known for some time (see, e.g., Peixoto and Oort [1]). The heat content has played an important role in recent discussions of climate change, and Pielke [2] has revived interest in its relationship with radiation. Many previous papers have emphasized the importance of heat content of the ocean, particularly the upper ocean, as a diagnostic for changes in the climate system [3–7]. In this work we analyze recent heat content data sets, compare them with corresponding data on radiative imbalance, and point out certain irregularities that can be associated with climate shifts. In Section 2 the conservation of energy is applied to the climate system and the approximations involved in making the radiationheat content connection are discussed. In Section 3 data sources are enumerated. Section 4 gives the radiation imbalance for the Earth’s climate system. In Section 5, climate shifts, radiative imbalances and other climate parameters are discussed. A summary is in Section 6.
Discussion:
…
What is the cause of these climate shifts? We suggest that the low frequency component of the Pacific Decade Oscillation (PDO) may be involved. The PDO index changes from positive to negative near 1960; it remains negative until the mid-1970s where it
becomes positive; then it becomes negative again at about 2000. This mimics the FTOA data. The PDO index is one of the inputs in the synchronization analysis of Swanson and Tsonis [43]. One would like to be able to predict future climate. Such predictions are based upon the present initial conditions and some expectation that changes in the climate state are continuous. However, if there are abrupt changes such as reported by Swanson and Tsonis then this is not possible. These abrupt changes presumably
occur because the existing state is no longer stable and there is a transition to a new stable state.
Summary:
We determine Earth’s radiation imbalance by analyzing three recent independent observational ocean heat content determinations for the period 1950 to 2008 and compare the results with direct measurements by satellites. A large annual term is found in both the implied radiation imbalance and the direct measurements. Its magnitude and phase confirm earlier observations that delivery of the energy to the ocean is rapid, thus eliminating the possibility of long time constants associated with the bulk of the heat transferred. Longer-term averages of the observed imbalance are not only many-fold smaller than theoretically derived values, but also oscillate in sign. These facts are not found among the theoretical
predictions.
Three distinct time intervals of alternating positive and negative imbalance are found: 1960 to the mid 1970s, the mid 1970s to
2000 and 2001 to present. The respective mean values of radiation imbalance are −0.15, +0.15, and −0.2 to −0.3. These observations are consistent with the occurrence of climate shifts at 1960, the mid-1970s, and early 2001 identified by Swanson and Tsonis. Knowledge of the complex atmospheric-ocean physical processes is not involved or required in making these findings. Global surface temperatures as a function of time are also not required to be known.
That’s a kind of anchovies’ horoscope 🙂
Bob Tisdale, I’ve just been having a look at your blog post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/06/rss-msu-tlt-time-latitude-plots.html
In 2003 & 2004 the North Pacific High locked-in to produce months of continuous sunshine during a time of the year when the days are 18 hours long (at my latitude of 49N). While those 2 particular years stand out, there really wasn’t much cloud or rain in summer for several years [post 1998 step] until 2007 & 2008, which were notably comfortable in *sharp* contrast (beautiful La Nina summers – very comfortable for outdoor rec – no multi-week or multi-month paralyzing-heat sunshine-lock-in periods). I was working as a guide in the mountains for a number of years during this period and I sea-kayak year-round, so I tend to pay very careful attention to what is going on – lives depend on it. The atmosphere was turbulent in winter 2006/2007 (record winds mowing trees down in domino chain-reactions, cluttering local waterways with debris, including scores of whole-trees) and then an abrupt change in SST occurred mid-September 2007. A number of local kayakers died in cold waters early that fall. I switched to wearing a wetsuit & using pogies mid-September, but many are guided by the norm (based on the calendar & conventional wisdom) that mid-October is the time to switch – a very costly mistake for some in 2007. The main point I am making (with supplementary anecdotes) is about mid-latitude long-day summer-insolation having a hand in guiding the path of interannual anomaly retention & longevity – i.e. the signal is not purely of tropical origin, although El Nino pulses certainly play a dominating role.
Your posts complement the biased & bland literature (which doesn’t trigger nearly as many new thoughts as a more liberal publication system might). Thank goodness for blogs (speeding things up).
I’ve no preference as regards ocean heat content as against ocean energy content but I do consider that the energy content of the oceans is only expressed as heat when it moves from ocean to air i.e. the transfer of energy raises the temperature of the air.
If oceanic energy fails to move from ocean to air then there is similarly a lack of heat in the air by which is meant a lower temperature even though strictly speaking one should say that air at a lower temperature contains less energy.
As Leif says, use the term which is most useful in expressing meaning even if there might be a more appropriate and technically correct terminology.
Whilst I’m at it, I seem to detect resistance to my contention that the oceans themselves, unforced by changes in the air, can alter the rate of energy transfer from oceans to air.
Is there such resistance to my suggestion and if so why ?
Tallbloke, it is not a matter of selecting a study of new dam construction affects on sea level to believe. If it is perhaps you know which study the IPCC relied upon to leave this factor or any of the other factors I mentioned out of the attribution tables. The relationship between the individuals that did the study and the IPCC I have no knowledge of nor interest in.
Leif Svalgaard (13:31:26) :
So blinded is Nasif that he was trying to convince us that the units for ‘amount of heat’ is Watt and not Joule. I see no reason to nitpick against the use of the term ‘ocean heat content’ as being misuse. Correct use is what is being used by researchers in a field.
Why are you insisting on pulling me into your ignorant conceptualization of science? I said that I won’t write on this issue again, but you are as insistent as ignorant in thermodynamics.
Here is not a matter of sensibility, but of good and correct science.
The unique thing I have gotten from your arguments against thermal science is that a solar physicist you, Leif, doesn’t know what is heat, confounds heat with kinetic energy, and heat with temperature.
Mark T (12:12:30) :
I also have come to accept the abuse of the verb heat, as I have come to accept the abuse of feedback terminology and the abuse of the adjective proven.
Not really worth arguing over if you understand what they’re really trying to say..
DaveE.
Ninderthana (06:31:27) “Correction – that should have read ~ 2014 – 2018 (+/- a few years), Sorry.”
I was glad to see this correction.
Supplementary:
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/ClimateRegimeChangePoints.PNG
–
Ninderthana (06:25:06) “No they actually occur because of long-term changes in the Earth’s rotation rate, that are being driven from outside the Earth. Why are most of you ignoring this fundamental result?”
I wouldn’t have challenged this assertion: “These abrupt changes presumably occur because the existing state is no longer stable and there is a transition to a new stable state.” (….but I agree with your challenge otherwise.)
Also, it’s not just LOD. It’s Earth Orientation Parameters (EOP) more generally. We should keep in mind that the 5 EOP are not independent (3 can form a basis). It is not disputed that weather/climate affects EOP and it is also not disputed that solar system dynamics affect EOP. I don’t think it will be much longer before mainstream scientists pile on this now that we know Chandler wobble phase reversals indicate broad-scale solar insolation phase-relationship reversals. [This is where people have to snap-to & clue in.] Gross is already acclaimed for pointing out ocean-bottom pressures – it’s not much of a step from there to noting how the SS asymmetries & LNC combine to influence the terrestrial fluid shells. Btw you don’t need to use asymmetries; r” (a very simple measure) captures that info [compare the plot I posted with your asymm curve to see this …and more…]
Btw: re the 6-8 year lag – that’s just the polar motion group-wave (averages 6.4a, hits 8a +/- a decade centred on ~1931) …and there is another variable that leads LOD by a 1/2-cycle despite decadal variations in instantaneous period.
This is all coming together quite nicely…
…about to run another wavelet analysis using an amazingly-useful filter that should yield new insight into ENSO….
This sort of puts nails in AGW’s major claims.
Will the APS go through with backing down from its prior, radical, stand on AGW?
Kevin Kitty,
When the heat latent in the oceans feed a tropical cyclone, or an El/La Nina, PDO, etc. etc. etc., that heat content is doing a lot of work.
OK, let me try this again….
[clean physics] If I gave you my current planetary co-ordinates, time of day and the date, you as a quick minded Physicist, knowing the incoming W/m^2, should be able to give me a fairly exact calculation as to what the instrumentation in my hand (on the ground) should be reading…. [dirty Physics] It would be wrong because I am under a bunch of low level cloud made around Florida a week ago and my reading is 1/3 of your calculation.
I am trying to make some sense of why people completely ignore our planet wide, dynamic, water based, energy transfer engine in favour of [clean] “black body” equations.
So.. on a planetary scale is the suggestion valid that anything going on within the atmosphere is irrelevant and that viewed from outside only “clean” physical equations matter? (ln(co2), T^4…). If so could you explain why.
[hope that makes more sense]
Mark T (12:12:30) :
OMG! The possessive apostrophe!
as in, “that’s Jones’ car”
DaveE.
O/T, but very important.
Per U.N.; we now have only 4 months to save the planet:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocus/sgspeeches/statments_full.asp?statID=557
JimB
Basil: You wrote, “What do I have to say to get you to acknowledge that the PDO is more than just an artifact of ENSO?”
Provide some papers that disprove the findings of Newman et al and Zhang et al. As we’ve discussed via email, Miller et al is not one. Miller et al confirms Newman et al and suggests additions to the simple Newman model to make it more inclusive.
Miller et al write, “Adding a lagged KOE response pattern, mimicking the gyre-scale spin-up delay, may improve the fit of the Newman et al. (2003) simple model. Alternatively, midlatitude ocean-atmosphere, or ocean-atmosphere- ecosystem, feedbacks may be important.”
You wrote, “More heat gets moved around the earth by atmospheric circulation than by ocean circulation, and faster, too.”
Do you have a comparison of atmospheric circulation versus ocean circulation, including the amount of heat transported by AMOC?
You wrote, “So when things disturb, or change, long term patterns of atmospheric circulation, we get climate change.”
The two largest factors that impact year-to-year and decadal variability of climate are volcanic aerosols and ENSO. ENSO events, even subtle changes in equatorial Pacific SST, change atmospheric circulation patterns.
Re: tallbloke (13:58:06)
Are you sure you’ve got the chicken & the egg in the right order?
Mark T (12:12:30):
Misplaced apostrophes are nowhere near as outrageously misleading as the misapplication of feedback concepts in “climate science.” 🙂
Re: tallbloke (14:14:31)
Do you mean semi-annual?
Oceanic energy comprises more than just heat, it also includes kinetic energy
“”” 3×2 (15:44:15) :
Leif Svalgaard (10:20:24) :
3×2 (07:50:00) :
I have always been more than a little uncomfortable with applying “clean” physical laws to dynamic planet wide systems particularly ours.
I think that all systems obey the ‘clean laws’.
OK, let me try this again….
[clean physics] If I gave you my current planetary co-ordinates, time of day and the date, you as a quick minded Physicist, knowing the incoming W/m^2, should be able to give me a fairly exact calculation as to what the instrumentation in my hand (on the ground) should be reading…. [dirty Physics] It would be wrong because I am under a bunch of low level cloud made around Florida a week ago and my reading is 1/3 of your calculation.
I am trying to make some sense of why people completely ignore our planet wide, dynamic, water based, energy transfer engine in favour of [clean] “black body” equations.
So.. on a planetary scale is the suggestion valid that anything going on within the atmosphere is irrelevant and that viewed from outside only “clean” physical equations matter? (ln(co2), T^4…). If so could you explain why.
[hope that makes more sense] “””
There’s nothing wrong with the physics; seldom is; what is wrong is the model of this planet that leaves out little nuisances like those clouds. The planet itself does not ignore those clouds which is why the models always get the wrong results.
So climatologists play with statistics trying to fit the curves to their model ins tead of playing with the physics to make the model conform to the reality.
Urban Heat islands are only a problem for climate modellers; because their models are wrong. UHIs are not a problem for the climate, in fact they are a great assistance in cooling the planet during the daytime hot periods. But an airport runway sensor in silicon valley, is not a good temperature sample for Loreto Mexico. I can assure you that that portion of the planet surface around Loreto Mexico, couldn’t care less what the runway temperature is at Moffett Field in Sunnyvale, CA.
****************
Vincent (14:31:11) :
I was taught in physics that energy is the capacity to do work. I also learned in thermodynamics that heat can only do work if there is a heat gradient.
*******************
The Earth is in the middle of a heat gradient defined by the Sun on one side of the Earth and the blackness of space on the other. In the conversations concerning radiative balance, there seems to be an underlying assumption that the day side of the Earth is being considered. Obviously, the night side must also be considered. A lot of radiation must escape at night. How is that figured into the “radiative balance?”
All of this discussion about the real definition of heat started over a confusion (not mine, but Leif’s confusion) between kinetic energy and heat.
After I explained him what the difference between heat and kinetic energy is, another confusion emerged (again, not mine) between heat and temperature.
Then that I tried to explain the new confusion, another confusion rose, now related with storage of energy and “storage” of heat. Again, the it was not my confusion.
Now that… person… is talking about “sensibility and kindness”. Come on! We are scientists!
Nasif Nahle (14:53:01) :
I said that I won’t write on this issue again
Well, stop then. I have not made any such declaration.
Curiousgeorge (10:20:50) :
Not to put too fine a point on it, but there is some heating as a result of volcanic activity – black smokers, island building, and the like. I’d be curious to know if anyone has a clue about that. Is it significant enough to take into account?
A couple of months ago, moved by a similar question, I set about trying to find what I could about the state of knowledge of the geothermal contribution to the oceanic heat balance. Although my personal survey hardly rises to the level of superficial, I’ve seen enough to lead me to suspect that the current thinking that the geothermal input is negligibly small is probably erroneous. I even located a recent paper that seems to support this notion.
http://www.ocean-sci.net/5/203/2009/os-5-203-2009.pdf
Abstract. The dynamical role of geothermal heating in abyssal circulation is reconsidered using three independent arguments. First, we show that a uniform geothermal heat
flux close to the observed average (86.4 mW m−2 ) supplies
as much heat to near-bottom water as a diapycnal mixing rate of ∼10−4 m2 s−1 – the canonical value thought to be
responsible for the magnitude of the present-day abyssal cir- culation. This parity raises the possibility that geothermal heating could have a dynamical impact of the same order. Second, we estimate the magnitude of geothermally-induced circulation with the density-binning method (Walin, 1982), applied to the observed thermohaline structure of Levitus (1998). The method also allows to investigate the effect of
onto the bottom, thereby altering the density structure that supports a geothermal circulation. For strong vertical mix- ing rates, geothermal heating enhances the AABW cell by
about 15% (2.5 Sv) and heats up the last 2000 m by ∼0.15◦C,
reaching a maximum of by 0.3◦C in the deep North Pacific.
Prescribing a realistic spatial distribution of the heat flux acts to enhance this temperature rise at mid-depth and reduce it at great depth, producing a more modest increase in overturning than in the uniform case. In all cases, however, poleward heat
transport increases by ∼10% in the Southern Ocean. The
three approaches converge to the conclusion that geothermal heating is an important actor of abyssal dynamics, and should no longer be neglected in oceanographic studies.
realistic spatial variations of the flux obtained from heatflow
measurements and classical theories of lithospheric cooling.
It is found that a uniform heatflow forces a transformation of ∼6 Sv at σ4 =45.90, which is of the same order as cur-
rent best estimates of AABW circulation. This transforma- tion can be thought of as the geothermal circulation in the absence of mixing and is very similar for a realistic heat- flow, albeit shifted towards slightly lighter density classes. Third, we use a general ocean circulation model in global configuration to perform three sets of experiments: (1) a ther- mally homogenous abyssal ocean with and without uniform geothermal heating; (2) a more stratified abyssal ocean sub- ject to (i) no geothermal heating, (ii) a constant heat flux of
86.4 mW m−2 , (iii) a realistic, spatially varying heat flux of
identical global average; (3) experiments (i) and (iii) with en- hanced vertical mixing at depth. Geothermal heating and di- apycnal mixing are found to interact non-linearly through the density field, with geothermal heating eroding the deep strat- ification supporting a downward diffusive flux, while diapy- cnal mixing acts to map near-surface temperature gradientsonto the bottom, thereby altering the density structure that supports a geothermal circulation. For strong vertical mix- ing rates, geothermal heating enhances the AABW cell by
about 15% (2.5 Sv) and heats up the last 2000 m by ∼0.15◦C,
reaching a maximum of by 0.3◦C in the deep North Pacific.
Prescribing a realistic spatial distribution of the heat flux acts to enhance this temperature rise at mid-depth and reduce it at great depth, producing a more modest increase in overturning than in the uniform case. In all cases, however, poleward heat
transport increases by ∼10% in the Southern Ocean. The
three approaches converge to the conclusion that geothermal heating is an important actor of abyssal dynamics, and should no longer be neglected in oceanographic studies.
I’ve tried to raise this paper for discussion here a number of times without much success, which I’ve found a bit suprising, since to me it seems to indicate a fundamental flaw which may exist in any of the calculations that include the present thinking on oceanic geothermal input,which would probably include most of the GCMs out there. Moreover, since the authors of the paper used the most conservative assumptions to arrive at their conclusion, it seems probable that the error may be even more significant than they assert.
tallbloke (13:58:06) :
The long term changes in LOD (multi-decadal) affect long term changes in SST (multi-decadal).
‘affect’ is a weasel word. By what mechanism? Does Gross claim this too? Why not?
Leif Svalgaard (13:31:26) :
“Correct use is what is being used by researchers in a field.”
No question about it. Don’t waste your time debating semantics. Anybody who has burned a finger on a hot surface or later cooled that finger with an ice cube understands the title of the paper.
Leif Svalgaard (23:27:06) :
If so, debunks the idea [kicked around many times on this blog] of the oceans storing the heat of past high solar cycles to release it when cycles are low.
Something changes the temperture. Gee, maybe the source of the energy that maintains that temperature, the sun, is the cause. Just a crazy hypothesis.