There is a lot of wailing an gnashing of teeth today over this Associated Press story title:
Please take a moment to read that story above as I can’t post it here. AP has declared war on bloggers.
First a few caveats:
- Yes (as mentioned about the northeast USA beach water temperatures in the AP article) we have some very warm sea surface temperatures this summer, we also had the coolest summer surface temperatures on record in many places in the USA.
- The AP story is written by Seth Borenstein. Seth tends to report the warmest side of things in the worst way, so take the story with a grain of salt. For example, Portland Maine also set a new record low for July Temperatures, see here. I don’t think Seth covered that one nor the -50°F all time statewide Maine record low on January 16th, 2009 seen here. One should also note that NOAA reported “July Temperature Below-Average for the U.S.” How quickly we forget. I’m not trying to pick a weather -vs- climate food fight, but simply pointing this out for balance. We’ve had some cold events this year also.
- Sea temperature spikes like this have have happened before. More on that later.
In the story Seth says: “The result has meant lots of swimming at beaches in Maine with pleasant 72-degree water.”
To check that out, I utilized the Rutgers SST satellite page here. This image showing coastal Maine from NOAA-15 on August 18th seemed fairly representative and was one of the few that was almost completely filled with SST data. As you can see on this summary page, there is a lot of missing data. With this much missing data, one wonders if SST data averages are accurate.
I’ve annotated the image to give you landmarks and cities. Our warmer buddy “Tamino” lives in Portland, I wonder if he’s taking a dip. As you can see, indeed there is some 72 degree water around Portland. But up in the Bay of Fundy and tip of Nova Scotia, there’s some pretty cold water also, and it is in the 45 to 55 degree range.
A wider view SST of the northeastern US shows the reason for this juxtaposing of opposite ends of the sensing range:
I’ve also annotated this image to give you landmarks and cities.
Note the prominent tongue of warm water and the eddies and swirls. That is the warm water of the Gulf Stream mixing with the cold water of the north. In the middle mix, pleasant swimming temperatures. The earth is doing what is has always done, transporting warm water northward via the Gulf Stream. Yes it is a little stronger this year and maybe a little closer to the coast than usual.
Here’s a view of the source in the Gulf of Mexico, Oh…wait…I had to use a different source since the NOAA/Rutgers imagery was missing so much data in the Gulf – see for yourself here
This Weather Underground plot of buoy based sea temperature measurements shows that indeed the Gulf is warm and around the 90 degrees indicated in the article.
But the question is: is this warmth an event to be concerned about? From the Rutgers map above, it appears that the Gulf Stream has come closer to shore than it normally does, which of course makes it more noticeable to people recreating in the water.This of course generates attention, and reporters naturally pick up on these things. The question is: weather or climate?
Here’s a NOAA Ocean Explorer SST image from a 2005 article that shows how the Gulf Stream tends to hang off the coast a bit more.
And of course, we have an El Nino going on, so a warmer Pacific is certainly not unexpected.
Note the the temperatures above are anomalies, not absolute measurements.
As the AP article mentions, the last time we saw ocean temperature this high was in 1998 during the super El Nino.
What I find most interesting though is this NOAA Hovmoller graph as pointed out by Paul Vaughn in Bob Tisdale’s thread:
Hovmollering the SST: T-shirt tie-dye design or climate science?
Just looking at the 1982-1983 and 1997-1998 SST spikes, it does seem like we are due for another at the bottom doesn’t it?
The point I’m making here. Yes the ocean is warm, it has gotten warm before. Should we panic? No.
A couple of closing points. The AP article that I referenced at the beginning of this post makes no references as to sources other than generally mentioning NCDC.
However I did find a more in depth NPR/AP article that did reference the NCDC sources which you can read here.
The two sources listed were:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?reportglobal&year2009&month7
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/dsdt/cwtg/all.html
But there is no mention of this on either source:
“The average water temperature worldwide was 62.6 degrees, according to the National Climatic Data Center”
The latest summary NCDC offers ( which AP referenced: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?reportglobal&year2009&month7 ) is for July 2009 where they say this:
The global ocean surface temperature for July 2009 was the warmest on record, 0.59°C (1.06°F) above the 20th century average of 16.4°C (61.5°F). This broke the previous July record set in 1998. The July ocean surface temperature departure from the long-term average equals June 2009 value, which was also a record.
So that makes me wonder, did NCDC give Seth Borenstein some inside information for the middle of August that the rest of us aren’t privy to? Or, could it be a misprint or C to F conversion error?
I simply don’t know, but I do find it odd that I can’t find a NOAA or NCDC press release or data table that has that 62.6 degrees mentioned in it. If anyone knows where that figure came from, please post it in comments. Google is saturated with so many news stories with the keyword combination of NCDC and 62.6 that I’m unable to locate the original source. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, but if it does, I’m sure our WUWT readers will find it.
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Leon Brozyna (01:59:56) : This is a good comment because it highlights an under-recognized property of weather and climate that the media, at least, never seems to grasp-or quite possibly willfully ignores-which is that there is a very basic axiom to weather:
“Something interesting is always happening somewhere with the weather-and it’s only the bad ones that get reported”
That’s true irrespective of AGW or media bias. They just like to getting ratings/readers and weather disaster is more attention grabbing than pleasant weather that might be going on anywhere but where the cameras “happen” to be. 😉
With all these factors, it’s no wonder people (wrongly) believe the weather is getting worse (whether they take it as a sign of AGW or of the Second Coming)-it is impossible to NOT get that impression watching the news. The only place you’d get different ideas is the (gasp!) data.
Has anyone asked how much of the data comes from ship measurements?
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but the worldwide economy has slowed to the point where shipboard commerce has stagnated. Any measurements from commercial ships (oil tankers, cargo vessels) would probably be skewed toward warmer temperatures because they are spending more time in port (shallower water).
>> Caution! Reader discretion is advised! The content of the following blog entry may cause undefined maladies in persons with little or no understanding of the real world and/or those who see and live in the world as they want it to be, not as it actually – is. Read the disclaimer at the bottom first if you are of that nature or if were alive in the 60’s decade, but do not remember any of it.<>All of the above are solely the opinions and observations of the one who’s handle appears at the top of this entry and only this entry. No names have been changed to protect anyone and neither the moderator nor creator of this blog are responsible for its content, except for any snipping that might occur. Further, the blogger is NOT responsible any negative or positive re-actions that any reader hereof may suffer as a result of same said reading. Should same said reading cause a negative reaction, the reader is hereby advised to seek psychological counsel and stop watching daytime soaps.<<
Opps, forgot how the controls work. here is the entry data –
Typical of the AP the article is full of sensationalism, errors, obfuscation and non-scientific assumptions or postulations that have been proven wrong years ago.
Look back a few months, even though NOAA has not –
The Bermuda High sat over the Gulf or South Central US from March to the 1st part of July forcing fronts to the East – of course the Gulf SST is warmer! The East to West equatorial winds were almost non-existent during this same time with NO tropical storms, both factors greatly reducing the natural near-surface churning – of course the Caribbean and Equatorial Atlantic SST are warmer! Combined – of course the Gulf Stream is significantly warmer! In addition as reviewed here just a few weeks ago the total energy released by cyclones is significantly down and you have El Nino conditions. This is just 4 conditions that that would – of course affect SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES, not ocean temps. A gigantic difference the AP obviously indented to obfuscate.
Sorry. I know there is no “peer-review” $10 million studies cited in the above. But a lot of us keep a close eye on regional climatic conditions so you have a reasonable idea of what is coming your way 5, 10, 20 days out. If you live close to or on a regular basis have anything to do with the ocean, you better. Like the great seafarers of the past who were NOT inclined to do things just for fun, like taking readings of the waters surface temperature. THAT’S where that record comes from, although I believe the record goes back to the Middle Ages. AND it is very localized (mostly taken in narrow lanes and relatively few) and is, IMHO, worthless as a historical measure of GLOBAL SST.
And herein lies the only truly great talent remaining at the AP – sensationalism! They have taken the worn-out maxim, “If it bleeds, it leads” to its ninth degree and then SELL it to local papers that blindly publish its dribble. And they wonder why their business model doesn’t work….
Milwaukee Bob (08:34:47) :
Right!…and if the surface is warmer then it means COOLING…sea water loosing the remnants of its energy…central heating is off…so in the next years…just beware.
Stephen Wilde: “I was quoting someone else before commenting on what he said.”
Sorry. Didn’t see any quotes. Thought it was yours. Let me redirect it then.
Philip_B: You wrote, “SST measure the rate at which the oceans release heat to the atmosphere.”
Wrong. You’d need to include a change in time to measure rate. SST in and of itself is a snapshot of an average temperature for a given month or week or day.
To use SST in this calculation, you also assume that a change in SST over time reflects only heat released to the atmosphere. Surface waters also subduct and rise back to the surface (overturn) over time scales of days, weeks, months, decades…
You wrote, “Once the heat is in the atmosphere it is lost to space fairly quickly.”
The rise in Northern Hemisphere Mid-to-High Latitude TLT anomalies that resulted from the 1997/98 El Nino lasted at least until the El Nino of 2002/03, which bumped them up again, so “fairly quickly” needs to be clarified.
The jet stream meanders up and down the US. There are “tracks” it follows in a general sense, depending on oceanic conditions that send it up or down. Land sensors stay behind while the jet stream moves. Meaning that the sensors are detecting land temperatures out from under the jet stream, or directly in its path. Ocean sensors have much the same issue but are not as tied to one spot as Suzie Q’s sensor in her back yard next to the BBQ. These ocean sensors I believe are anchored and stay within a fairly well defined area, and are thus affected by the movement of currents in and out of their sensor area. I am not impressed by sensationalism regarding ocean temperature changes measured by precious few buoy floats. But more than that, unless GHGs are causing the Sun to rev up, there is ONLY one reason why the area around a sensor in the ocean heats up: weather pattern conditions.
The weather conditions are causing our Sun’s steady state solar shortwave radiation to beam into a rather calm ocean surface, instead of being reflected back out to space. If the sea is hotter anywhere it is measured, the sky is cloudless and the wind is dead around the sensor. GHG’s have no input.
Hmmm, this must be why the hurricane season got off to such a quick start this year. Thanks Mr. Borenstien. It all makes sense now.
I wanted to send a comment to the Associated Press, but I couldn’t get to first base. When I clicked on info@ap.org, it said the default mail client had not been installed. Actually, their whole web site is 99% how can we tell you something.
From reading their primer on how to send a message to them, it sounded like they only want you to correct their spelling. No negative feedback appreciated.
My guess is, I would never hear back from them anyway.
My bottom line is, I never believe anything they say about science, and I hope that the American populace is coming around to that same conclusion. Let the drop in funding continue until Seth Borenstein doesn’t have a job at the AP.
barry,
When people talk about a news bias towards “warming” stories, they are usually referring to mainstream media. At least, this is the way I perceive it. I neither know nor care how many cooling vs warming hits appear in Google as most of that is put their by individuals and does not tell us anything about Editorial Bias. Studies have been done by parsing news paper and tv articles (sorry but I can’t think of them specifically) and the conclusion is pretty clear: pro AGW stories outnumber skeptical stories by 3 or 4 to 1.
Returning to Google, maybe there are more “cooling” stories, and if there are then all that shows is how the individual is fighting back against the ministries of truth. Viva la internet!
I calculated the PERCENTRANK for AMO and Nino 3.4 for July. AMO was ~.90, Nino 3.4 was ~.85
If these are two of the more varying indicies, then it’s no surprise that Global SST’s are at least at near record temps. Given the reliability issues with the historical data, however, I wouldn’t firmly state “record” or “unprecedented”.
An interesting thought just occurred to me so I thought I would throw it out for others to consider.
As mentioned above, SST measured by satellite is actually the skin temperature of a very thin layer at the ocean surface. This temperature is effected by several factors, among them total solar intensity on the ocean surface, mixing of the upper layers of the water, and evaporative cooling due to local wind conditions.
It just occurred to me that I never hear mention of the effect or water clarity on the depth of solar heating of the upper ocean layers. If for example the water is highly turbid, the solar energy will be absorbed in a relatively shallow layer near the oceans surface, and little radiant heating will occur deep in the layer. If mixing is absent or reduced due to low wind conditions (which would also reduce evaporative cooling of the surface), you could have a condition where the temperature profile of the upper layer is skewed. Most heating would occur in a thin layer near the surface.
In this condition, with more solar heating in the upper layers (increasing SST) but actual heat content of the full 750 meter thick upper layer is reduced. I would think that to properly evaluate the meaning of SST measurements, and what it means, you would have to understand the temperature profile (as gained from the buoy measurements).
If you did not have the buoy measurements, do the satellites have the ability to indirectly measure the absorption depth where the suns energy is deposited in the ocean water?
In highly turbid water, all the solar energy could be absorbed in a few mm of water, where in crystal clear waters of the Caribbean, the water would be heated to considerable depth by the same energy input from the sun. The difference in these absorption profiles and the resulting temperature profiles with depth would very significantly influence the significance of an increase of SST.
Something as simple as an algae bloom could drastically alter this heating to depth profile for days, weeks or longer. Likewise flood runoff of muddy water, or large inputs of wind blown dust would also effect the surface temperature profile with depth due to the resulting changes in transparency of the water.
Just another consideration regarding SST. Increasing SST does not necessarily mean an increase in upper layer heat energy content, it may only represent a situation that concentrates heating in a smaller volume of water.
Larry
Well the reason for the Portland warming is obvious; it’s the residual heat from Ted Kennedy’s car engine that he drove off the bridge, that is warming the water; or maybe the heat he dissipated while making his epic swim to summon help.
Just one small detail about SSTs. What is the current measurement technique; isn’t it read from satellites; essentially thermal imaging; optical pyrometry or whatever you want to call it. They couldn’t possibly map those areas to that detail by in the water thermometry.
So that brings us to the simple fact that because of the extremely high water absorption coefficient of long wave IR radiation, optical pyrometry can only be reading the very surface layer temperature; as in a few microns. That is the water layer that could be warmed by downward thermal radiation from the atmosphere; but also cooled by evaporation.
I’ve never seen any microclimate data on sea surface temperature versus depth, that would show what goes on in the top few cm of water down to the micron level.
My WA guess would be that the very surface is somewhat warmer than even 10 cm deep,a nd the top ten microns could be the very hottest temperatures. If it was windy, then evaporative cooling might make the very top a bit cooler due to the evaporative cooling. But as I said it’s a WA guess, since I’ve never seen any peer reviewed datya on such things.
George
Philip_B (00:26:07) :
The former. As is regularly pointed out here, it is physically impossible for the atmosphere to warm the oceans.
It can slow the rate of cooling.
“”” hotrod (09:33:05) :
An interesting thought just occurred to me so I thought I would throw it out for others to consider.
As mentioned above, SST measured by satellite is actually the skin temperature of a very thin layer at the ocean surface. This temperature is effected by several factors, among them total solar intensity on the ocean surface, mixing of the upper layers of the water, and evaporative cooling due to local wind conditions.
It just occurred to me that I never hear mention of the effect or water clarity on the depth of solar heating of the upper ocean layers. If for example the water is highly turbid, the solar energy will be absorbed in a relatively shallow layer near the oceans surface, and little radiant heating will occur deep in the layer. “””
Didn’t see your post earlier hotrod. Actually,t he Optical absorption of sea water has been fairly well documented in the past,a dn a lot of data is available in “The Infra-Red Handbook” edited by Wolfe and Zissis.
It is interesting in that the spectral absorption by sea water is somewhat like the inverse of the solar spectrum. Minimum absorption occurs at around 470 nm, slightly short of the solar peak at 500 nm. The coefficient is listed as about 0.0001 cm^-1. By 300nm and 800nm, the absorption ghas risen to 0.01 cm^-1. Below 180 nm the absorption coefficient is somewhat greater than 10 cm^-1 and in the infra-red at 3.0 microns for example sea water has an absorption coefficient of around 8000 cm^-1, and it is around 1000 cm^-1 from about 2.5 microns out to forever.
There’s some more detailed data for distilled, fresh water, oceanic water, coastal; even for Chesapeake Bay which is apparently pretty scungy. But oceanic water is not far removed from distilled water, and probably depends mor3e on plankton content.
If there was a way to post pictures here, I could put the graphs here; I have to photograph them with my digital camera to get them into computerese; and I can post those on some other web sites I prowl around.
But the long and the short of it is that solar spectrum radiation penetrates deeply into oceanic waters. An absorption coefficent of 0.01 would mean the intensity drops to 1/e (37%) in one metre of depth; and that is at the 800, and 300 nm points; so the most energetic part of the solar spectrum goes much deeper. the bulk of the solar spectrum energy is capable of penetrating beyond ten metres.
Of course it all is eventually absorbed by something which makes the deep oceans nearly a black body absorber, with just about a 3% Fresnel reflection loss (diffuse) from the surface. The normal reflectance of water is only 2%; but the oblique reflectance climbs to unity,a s the Lambertian flux distribution drops to zero, so you end up with about 3% total reflectance of incident solar energy.
But that IR absorption of 1000 cm^-1 from about 2.7 to 10 microns means a 1/e penetration of 10 microns, and at 3 microns the 1/e penetration is only 1.25 microns depth. But there isn’t much 3 micron thermal radiation from the atmosphere.
The water absorption spectrum is key to climate theory, since it clearly demonstrates that the treatment of thermal radiation energy from the atmosphere (including clouds) is a totally different phenomenon from the solar spectrum energy treatment.
Energy storage in the ocean must be virtually all solar spectrum energy; but SST (satellite) measurments would be expected to strongly represent atmospheric emission of LW IR energy; but that would seem to promote surface evaporation, rather than energy storage.
So IMHO, SST is a poor metric of oceanic energy storage (“heat”).
This site has had me looking at SST anomalies and I have a question, what could cause a could cause a cold spike in the middle of the equatorial atlantic, I animated the SST anomalies page from the Danish meteorological society web page and saw this spot pop up litterally overnight and fade over 2 days. being a true layman I am asking the smart folks here for tha answer. The link to the site is http://ocean.dmi.dk/satellite/index.uk.php. I ran this for a past 30 day period and the cold spike was around 16N and 45W.
Your educating me on this is appreciated.
hotrod (09:33:05) :
It’s an active area of research in oceanography. The awareness in the climate community seems to be growing more recently.
The solar energy is nontheless absorbed, so barring other factors you would still have the same heating integrated over 750 m.
That would be a fair thought.
There’s work on trying to infer the “state” of the water from satellite measurements, e.g., from the color of the ocean as seen from space. Obviously, this is not an easy proposition.
Other things you can do include loading expendable probes onto ships of opportunity or using more autonomous instruments (like Argo).
John T: About your anomalous cool spot: I went looking for a website that tracked where Hurricane Bill had been but all I can find is forecasts. That sudden cooling may be an artifact of it.
Hopefully someone knowledgeable about hurricanes will find your 11:10:02 question.
A LITTLE HURRICANE HELP HERE, PLEASE!!!
Let’s try that.
Hmmm…… All this talk of Hurricanes and warm oceans has caused me to ponder:
a) The Hurricane season so far this year has been a dud.
b) Hurricanes move a LOT of energy from the ocean to the stratosphere.
c) Hurricanes mix a lot of hot “skin” water with deeper cooler water.
d) The Sea Surface Temperature has been a bit high.
Could A,B, & C be the CAUSE of D?
Could it just be that SST is an inverse proxy for Hurricane density? And that as hurricanes pick up (if they do) we’ll get back to “normal” SST?
It would be a cruel irony if a generally warmer climate lead to lots of hurricanes and lower SST, while a cooling world led to fewer hurricanes, so a (temporary?) rise of SST…
Anyone have a correlation map / chart of SST vs Hurricane energy with a lead / lag on which comes first?…
Perhaps someone in the know will be able to enlighten me on this,
I thought that, given prior articles on thei site, when the Sun was in it’s minimum phase, lower solar activity allowed more cosmic rays to enter the solar system and thereby the Earths atmosphere. This increase in cosmic rays was supposed to lead to an increase in lower level cloudiness and thereby lower temperatures with less ocean surface warming (mainly due to the increased cloudiness).
We have been in a deep solar minimum with little to no spot activity for at least the last 42 days and no visible spot activity on the horizon. How does decreased solar activity equate to an increase on ocean surface warming and northern polar ice melt that is currently at third lowest levels. (only 2008 and 2007 had less ice in the arctic.) And Antarctic ice is still lower than 16 or 17 of the last 20 years?
Bob Tisdale (11:46:06) :
One of my favorite sites is simply a .gif of lifetime tracks of active tropical storms.
http://www.solar.ifa.hawaii.edu/Tropical/Gif/atl.latest.gif
E.M.Smith (12:04:20) :
> Hmmm…… All this talk of Hurricanes and warm oceans has caused me to ponder:
> a) The Hurricane season so far this year has been a dud.
Not so much a dud, September is the peak of the average season.
> b) Hurricanes move a LOT of energy from the ocean to the stratosphere.
And a lot a lot poleward. There were some papers about that and polar temperatures being higher in the winter after an active season, IIRC.
> c) Hurricanes mix a lot of hot “skin” water with deeper cooler water.
And evaporate a lot of surface water. Hurricanes that stall often weaken as the local SST declines unless they stall over the Gulf Stream.
> d) The Sea Surface Temperature has been a bit high.
>Could A,B, & C be the CAUSE of D?
Klotzbach and Gray use SSTs as one of their key predictors along with ENSO.
Bryan (12:40:49) : It simply doesn’t equate. What equates indeed is that you have been fooled by the dark prophet of doom. Wonder who?…He has not appeared this summer, which is meaningful.
Dennis Sharp (09:13:06) :
The problem indicated by the “default mail client not installed”, message is at your end.
In your browser you need to go to Tools–>Internet options–>Programs–>E-mail and select an email client that IS installed on your computer.