Related to this story: The Pacific Decadal Oscillation Time Series from the University of Washington, seen below. Emphasis points mine. h/t to WUWT reader Richard Heg. – Anthony
Monthly Values for the PDO Index, January 1900 to September 2008. Positive (red) index values indicate a warm phase PDO; negative (blue) index values indicate a cool phase PDO. While short-term flips in PDO phases do occur, evaluation of 20th century instrumental records has shown that PDO phases generally persist for 20-30 years, as indicated in this figure. To download the data, see Nate Mantua’s PDO page.
Changes in Net Flow of Ocean Heat Correlate with Past Climate Anomalies
Physicists at the University of Rochester have combed through data from satellites and ocean buoys and found evidence that in the last 50 years, the net flow of heat into and out of the oceans has changed direction three times.
These shifts in the balance of heat absorbed from the sun and radiated from the oceans correlate well with past anomalies that have been associated with abrupt shifts in the earth’s climate, say the researchers. These anomalies include changes in normal storm intensities, unusual land temperatures, and a large drop in salmon populations along the western United States.
The physicists also say these changes in ocean heat-flow direction should be taken into account when predicting global climate because the oceans represent 90 percent of the total heat in the earth’s climate system.
The study, which will appear in an upcoming issue of Physics Letters A, differs from most previous studies in two ways, the researchers say. First, the physicists look at the overall heat content of the Earth’s climate system, measuring the net balance of radiation from both the sun and Earth. And second, it analyzes more completely the data sets the researchers believe are of the highest quality, and not those that are less robust.
“These shifts happened relatively abruptly,” says David Douglass, professor of physics at the University of Rochester, and co-author of the paper. “One, for example, happened between 1976 and 1977, right when a number of other climate-related phenomenona were happening, such as significant changes in U. S. precipitation.”
Douglass says the last oceanic shift occurred about 10 years ago, and that the oceans are currently emitting slightly more radiation than they are receiving.
The members of the team, which includes Robert Knox, emeritus professor of physics at the University, believe these heat-flux shifts had previously gone unnoticed because no one had analyzed the data as thoroughly as the Rochester team has.
The team believes that the oceans may change how much they absorb and radiate depending on factors such as shifts in ocean currents that might change how the deep water and surface waters exchange heat. In addition to the correlation with strange global effects that some scientists suspect were caused by climate shifts, the team says their data shows the oceans are not continuously warming—a conclusion not consistent with the idea that the oceans may be harboring “warming in the pipeline.” Douglass further notes that the team found no correlation between the shifts and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.
“An interesting aspect of this research is that no reference to the surface temperature itself is needed,” says Knox. “The heat content data we used, gathered by oceanographers, was gleaned from temperature measurements at various ocean depths up to 750 meters.” The team also found that the radiative imbalance was sufficiently small that it was necessary to consider the effect of geothermal heating. Knox believes this is the first time this additional source of heat has been accounted for in such a model.
The team notes that it’s impossible to predict when another shift might occur, but they suspect future shifts might be similar to the three observed. Both Douglass and Knox are continuing to analyze various climate-related data to find any new information or correlations that may have so far gone unnoticed.
Scafetta in his recent work noted that the AMO & PDO work on a 60 year cycle that correlates with the 60 year cycles of the Sun’s orbit. What is also interesting is looking at the amplitude of the PDO….it also matches the amplitude of the Suns distance from the centre of the solar system.
http://www.landscheidt.info/images/scafetta.jpg
Looking at the PDO Index it is clear that there is no correlation with sun-spot activity either – as the 1950s and 1950s (cycles 18 and 19) saw high sunspot activity.
http://www.physics.unlv.edu/~jeffery/astro/sun/surface/sunspot_butterfly.gif
“lgl (01:10:34) :
Why did the sea level rise also betweeen 1940 and 1970 if the net radiation was from the ocean? Can’t imagine it was due to melting ice”
From 1940 to 1970 the net radiation was INTO the oceans.
The oceans reduced the release of energy to the air so the air cooled and energy in the oceans increased.
There are exceptions to the rule however because what matters is the balance between solar activity levels and the ocean phase state so one can get increasing energy in the oceans whilst the oceans are nevertheless releasing energy strongly which happened from 1975 to 2000.
At present the negative oceans are reducing energy flow to the air so the oceanic energy content should increase but in fact it is decreasing slightly because the weak sun is not supplying full replacement.
New paper: LNC drives PDO.
There has been general acknowledgement that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is now in its negative phase and that this means a colder climate for North America.
The following table shows how air temperatures, precipitation, and related effects in North America have been correlated with extreme PDO anomalies.
Climate Anomalies Warm Phase PDO Cool Phase PDO
Ocean surface temperatures in the northeastern and tropical Pacific Above average Below average
October-March northwestern North American air temperatures Above average Below average
October-March southeastern U.S. air temperatures Below average Above average
October-March southern U.S./northern Mexico precipitation Above average Below average
October-March northwestern North America and Great Lakes precipitation Below average Above average
Northwestern North America springtime snowpack Below average Above average
Winter and springtime flood risk in the Pacific Northwest Below average Above average
From: http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/645fall2003_web.dir/Jason_Amundson/trends.htm
During late April/early May this year there was a good paper, a fascinating and informative discussion and many relevant, authoritative links about the PDO on WUWT here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/28/misunderstandings-about-the-pacific-decadal-oscillation (aka http://tinyurl.com/mt5vwu ).
In a paper published in March this year, Dr. Ichiro Yasuda, Professor, Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo showed that the Luna Nodal Cycle drives the PDO.
The citation is: Yasuda, I. (2009), ‘The 18.6-year period moon-tidal cycle in Pacific Decadal Oscillation reconstructed from tree-rings in western North America’, Geophysical Research. Letters, 36, L05605, doi:10.1029/2008GL036880.
Here is the Abstract:
“Time-series of Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) reconstructed from tree-rings in Western North America is found to have a statistically significant periodicity of 18.6- year period lunar nodal tidal cycle; negative (positive) PDO tends to occur in the period of strong (weak) diurnal tide. In the 3rd and 5th (10th, 11th and 13rd) year after the maximum diurnal tide, mean-PDO takes significant negative (positive) value, suggesting that the Aleutian Low is weak (strong), western-central North Pacific in 30–50N is warm (cool) and equator-eastern rim of the Pacific is cool (warm). This contributes to climate predictability with a time-table from the astronomical tidal cycle.”
The last LNC maximum happened on September 16, 2006. According to Prof Yasuda’s finding the PDO should now be taking a significant negative value, as is being found. The climate consequences are therefore as expected.
There is substantial evidence that the LNC is a significant contributor to our planet’s climate dynamics. I include an illustrated explanation of the LNC and review a lot of the published literature about its contribution to climate dynamics in my paper “The Sun’s role in regulating the Earth’s climate dynamics” published in the Journal of Energy and Environment Vol 20 No 1 2009.
Amongst other things I wrote:
“The ocean currents generated by the northward movement of the tidal bulge, in conjunction with the rotation of the Earth through the bulges in the normal manner creating our experience of the tides, brings warmish equatorial water to the Arctic accelerating the warming that had being going on there because of other forms of solar activity as discussed below.
The LNC has maximum effect at higher latitudes, resulting in higher sea levels at these latitudes. It creates tidal currents resulting in diapycnal mixing, bringing the warmer equatorial waters into the Arctic. The LNC is therefore a major determinant of Arctic climate dynamics, influencing long term fluctuations in Arctic ice. As a result, it is a key driver of European climate.”
There is also a very good paper accompanied by useful discussion and web links about the LNC on WUWT here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/23/evidence-of-a-lunisolar-influence-on-decadal-and-bidecadal-oscillations-in-globally-averaged-temperature-trends/#more-7965
(aka http://tinyurl.com/mrjq9e )
The effect of the LNC is amplified by the distinct geography of the high latitude oceans, e.g. the North Pacific and the Bering and Okhotsk Seas.
Prof Yasuda and his colleagues have been researching the role of the LNC for several years. Their work is meticulous and rigorous. It builds on other published research in this field over the last forty years, which I’ve reviewed in my Journal of Energy and Environment paper.
The LNC is one of the better demonstrated ways in whch the Sun regulates our climate. The main thing to consider in this regard is the interaction effects between the different solar processes. For example, the LNC may sometimes amplify the effect of other solar processes documented by Willie Soon (see Soon, W. W.-H., 2005. Variable solar irradiance as a plausible agent for multidecadal variations in the Arctic-wide surface air temperature for the past 130 years, Geophysical Research Letters, 32, L16712, doi:10.1029/2005GL023429 ).
Considering the totality of the non-linear, sometimes but not always non-stationary processes (irradiance, plasma, electromagnet and gravitational fields) by means of which the Sun has an impact on climate dynamics, the role of the Sun is significant, but depends noticeably on latitude and longitude, where the Sun induces a non-linear, non-stationary response at any given location. As a result, in response to variable solar activity, the real change in global average temperatures has been smaller than the change in the regional temperatures. Significantly, regional temperatures that have had a greater influence human history since the end of the last ice-age.
“dennis ward (04:14:22) :
Looking at the PDO Index it is clear that there is no correlation with sun-spot activity either – as the 1950s and 1950s (cycles 18 and 19) saw high sunspot activity.
http://www.physics.unlv.edu/~jeffery/astro/sun/surface/sunspot_butterfly”
It’s a matter of balancing sun and oceans. Sunspots are merely an adequate proxy for overall solar activity.
During cycles 18 and 19 the sun was highly active, as you say, but the oceans were negative and suppressed the warming of the air.
Cycle 20 was a bit weaker and so the real warming of both air and oceans did not arise until strong cycles 21,22 and 23 coincided with a warming ocean phase after 1975.
Then it all hit a wall when cycle 23 fizzled out and the oceans went negative.
Now we have negative oceans cooling the air but still no energy build up in the oceans while the sun stays so weak.
“climate science should be taken away from “climate scientists” and left to physicists.” But surely the Climate Scientologists are physicists? It’s just that they’re fifth-rate physicists.
Phillip Bratby (02:27:14) :
“All science is either physics or stamp collecting. ”
As quoted in Rutherford at Manchester (1962) by J. B. Birks
Once the AGW scam is unwound, the People are going to distrust scientists for a generation or more.
Stephen Wilde (04:15:40) :
My rewriting: From 1940 to 1970 the PDO was negative, or rather there was stronger upwelling of cold water in general (globally?) perhaps, which overruled an active Sun in setting the surface temp. 1970 to 2000 there were both reduced upwelling and an active Sun and that boosted temps. The sea level rose quite steadily all the way from 1910 because of the active Sun most of the time. Think I can buy that. Are we roughly on the same track? (I would add some CO2 also but we can leave that in this thread)
Richard Mackey (04:17:56) :
How does the 18.6 yr ‘build’ the 55-60 yr? or doesn’t it?
Very good.
“Douglass says the last oceanic shift occurred about 10 years ago, and that the oceans are currently emitting slightly more radiation than they are receiving”.
If we answer the question why our oceans are currently emitting more radiation than they are receiving? Svensmark! and Nicola Scafetti do have a theory.
Have a look at the video here: http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/century-to-decade-climate-change-created-by-planetary-motion/
Nev, you write:
“No one will be able to go through their daily lives without being represented directly or indirectly in the carbon markets. Those who control the carbon markets will effectively control the world.”
Besides this: What a huuuuuge waste of time and energy for all people. That we have to sit and use our lives on this.
“lgl (01:10:34) :
Why did the sea level rise also betweeen 1940 and 1970 if the net radiation was from the ocean? Can’t imagine it was due to melting ice”
I could be wrong but if the ocean water is cooling, that will cause expansion. Water, unlike just about everything else, expands as it cools and contracts when heated.
http://www.physorg.com/news167040410.html
Note that each time the rate of energy release from the oceans changes then the average latitudinal position of all the air circulation systems then follows in order to change the speed of the hydrological cycle and move the entire system back towards energy equilibrium.
When oceans release more energy to the air then the air works to push it faster to space and thereby reduce the warming of the air.
When oceans release less energy to the air then the air works to pull more energy from the oceans and thereby reduce cooling of the air.
A positive oceanic phase with faster release of energy to the air combined with weak solar input to the oceans is the recipe for fastest cooling of the entire system but that cooling is masked by the short term warming of the air.
A negative oceanic phase with slower release of energy to the air combined with a weak solar input to the oceans is the recipe for slower cooling of the entire system but we get a bit of a fright from the cooling of the air.
The issue of sensitivity is critical in this context but not in the way it is normally meant.
The changes in the solar input to the oceans may appear small in terms of total solar energy available and in terms of total energy content in the oceans but we as a species are extraordinarily sensitive in terms of our day to day perceptions and in terms of the effectiveness of our measuring techniques.
The fact is that in objective terms from the point of view of the planet itself the smallness of the solar and oceanic variations renders them miniscule on time scales of less than millennia.
It is our observational and subjective sensitivity that really matters. An objectively insensitive and relatively unvarying system still feels like a roller coaster ride to us now that we have acquired the abilities to measure, record, compare and recall for generations back.
In that respect those alive today have acquired a new and frightening relationship with our environment unique in the history of life on Earth.
The case of the missing Salmon.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/millions-of-missing-fish-signal-crisis-onthefraserriver/article1249976/
Where did all them fishies go?
“There are a lot of variations in the ocean,” she said. “They’re all interconnected, so it’s impossible to point to one reason for this happening.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gYlWSgTmTbDbwNbzTcw1DHZSjpNw
Energy and heat
This post includes the term ‘heat flow’. The question is are the words energy and heat interchangeable?
Energy is only ever used as a noun, to describe the state of a system.
Heat is used as a verb and a noun and has an opposite, to cool. So language suggests there is a difference.
The unit of energy is the joule, J. What is the unit of heat? To heat is a process, to change the energy of something. That is heat is change of energy/ time, joules/sec.
Joules/sec is the unit of power. Therefore heat is a form of power.
The term ‘ocean heat content’ leads to confusion. The term ‘ocean energy content’ is clearer.
The term ‘heat energy’ is also confusing and can be replaced by ‘thermal energy’ or ‘kinetic energy’.
‘Heat flow’ is meaningless, there is no such thing. Heat is a flow if energy. It could be ‘energy flow’ or simply ‘heat’.
There is one thing for certain: climate is very complex with many variables that are not fully understood. I find it amazing that people think something as complex as climate can be simply explained away by “more greenhouse gases = higher temperature”. There is a difference between lab work and real world work. Just because something works in a controlled labatory environment does not mean it carries over into an uncontrolled environment. To believe the AGW mantra requires you to throw away basic science.
Here’s a recent article by Emile-Geay and Madec on the role of geothermal heating in the deep oceans. The authors find the mixing effect underestimated and of the same order of magnitude of mixing due to diapycnal (density) differences. They write, for example:
“Prescribing a realistic spatial distribution of the heat ?ux 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.”
Geothermal heating, diapycnal mixing and the abyssal circulation
http://www.ocean-sci.net/5/203/2009/os-5-203-2009.pdf
Isn’t this the same Douglass and the same paper that was blogged about on ?WUWT last week?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/11/ocean-heat-content-and-earth’s-radiation-imbalance/#more-9865
The paper is now online if you have free access through a University or want to purchase a copy,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TVM-4WS2HSJ-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=342b9bd78b1f46189e8627759180620c
REPLY: Yes it is, but we did it with preliminary copy and never covered their press release. In the PR released Friday some points were made that I felt were worth covering. – Anthony
Can we infer from this that the atmospheric greenhouse gas system is indeed saturated, as some have postulated?
Allen63 (03:40:00) wrote:
Interesting that they think geothermal heating is a factor.
A relative (here in Ohio) uses geothermal heating to heat his entire house. The heat is gathered by a heat pump at a depth of a few feet in his back yard from a grid of underground pipes.
The fact that geothermal is practical for home heating at such shallow depths using only part of the area of a “back yard” has lead [led] me to speculate geothermal is a factor in global temperature. Probably more so in the ocean where the crust is slightly thinner and, apparently, thousands of underwater magma vents exist. I wondered when a scientific study might ascertain that connection.
I make no claim to being an expert in geothermal heating, but I have read and heard a lot about it. The following are jumbled thoughts on the subject. While there is a steady flow of heat from the interior, it is low, and the surface several feet of ground are cooled in winter and heated in summer to a larger extent by the air above the ground. A relatively constant temperature is reached a few feet below the surface which is a very good proxy for the annual average temperature. (Caves have a nearly constant temperature year-round.) Heat from the interior does not play a large role near the surface.
If the ground is wet, preferably with the water flowing through it, the source of energy for heating is the water. If the ground is dry, the rate of extracting heat depends on the thermal conductivity of the soil. Local conditions determine many details of a geothermal system.
I question whether the rate of heat flow from the interior is sufficient to have any measurable effect.
I suspect current ‘El Nino’ conditions are related to increased cloudiness but am prepared to entertain other causes.
Phillip Bratby (02:27:14) wrote that climate science should be taken away from “climate scientists” and left to physicists. Why should physicists have all the fun? I would like to claim a significant place in the debate for the geological profession (Disclosure: that’s my profession). Indeed, I would go so far as to say that you can’t really understand what drives climate without understanding at least a smidgin of earth history. Most climate scientists have no time perspective, hence they can’t see or don’t understand the real demonstrable changes that have occcurred over time without CO2 exerting a major influence.
On the discussion of geothermal, it is interesting to note that about 85% of all active volcanoes are located on the sea floor – eg on mid-oceanic ridges. No climate model I am aware of incorporates submarine volcanism, either as a source of heat or various gases. And to be honest, I’m not sure that we understand enough about them to be able to quantify their effects.
The idea of ‘heat in the pipeline’ is interesting because it suggests that the oceans actually ‘store’ heat (I prefer the term ‘energy’ and will use it instead) independently of the ever changing balance from time to time between solar input and release of energy from ocean to air.
I think it is important to say that the oceans will only gain energy for so long as the energy entering them is greater than the rate of energy release by them. They will only lose energy for so long as the release of energy is faster than the rate of energy recived from the sun. All trivially obvious really.
That does, however beg the question as to the existence or otherwise of such a thing as an ‘equilibrium’ temperature for the planet as a whole.
In response I would say that such an equilibrium temperature is just that temperature which the past history of the sun/ocean energy balance has led us to at the current moment. It has no real meaning other than that.
Now, given that the ocean surfaces control the surface air temperatures according to the rate of energy release from the ocean surfaces then it becomes clear that the air quite simply has no independent equilibrium temperature of it’s own.
Thus no change in the air alone can create an independent equilibrium temperature for the air and if there is no such thing then it cannot be influenced by, say, a change in the level or relative proportions of greenhouse gases.
The current temperature of the Earth is the consequence of the past history of the interaction between sun and sea alone.
The greenhouse effect thus appears to be a trivial irrelevance.
Tyndall et al ascribed the paramount role in setting the Earth’s temperature to the characteristics of the air alone. The role of the air is in fact miniscule and probably not even measurable in terms of the entire sun and ocean driven climate system
Taking into consideration, what they say: “These shifts happened relatively abruptly” and “rogue wave” :
http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=rogue+wave
This phenomena requires much more study. Its relation to LOD, plate tectonics,etc.