I found Bob’s Arctic Ocean Heat Content graph quite interesting as it may explain why we are seeing a recovery in sea ice for the last two years. It also reminds me a lot of the graph seen of the Barents Sea water temperature plotted against the AMO which WUWT recently covered here.
Update of NODC (Levitus et al 2009) OHC Data Through June 2009
Guest post by Bob Tisdale
INTRODUCTION
On October 1, KNMI updated the NODC Ocean Heat Content (Levitus et al 2009) data that’s available on Climate Explorer.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere
These updates are not shown on the NODC’s Global Ocean Heat Content webpage:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/index.html
The updates also aren’t shown in the table of Global Analyzed Fields (ASCII files):
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/OC5/3M_HEAT/heatdata.pl?time_type=yearly700
But the single 22.4 MB dataset at the top of the table does contain the January through March and the April through June data, which were updated (added) on September 14, 2009:
GLOBAL, HEMISPERIC, AND OCEAN BASIN GRAPHS
Global OHC has dropped back to its 2003 levels.
http://i34.tinypic.com/dev5ld.png
Global OHC
North Atlantic OHC is continuing to decline from its 2004 peak.
http://i36.tinypic.com/ddkeas.png
North Atlantic OHC
The recent drop in the South Atlantic OHC was sizeable, but not outside of the range of its normal variability.
http://i36.tinypic.com/2m5fais.png
South Atlantic OHC
And of the remaining OHC datasets, the only two that showed increases over the past six months are the South Pacific and Southern Ocean OHC
http://i35.tinypic.com/1ys415.png
South Pacific
############
http://i38.tinypic.com/34f19p2.png
Southern Ocean
Here are the remaining OHC subsets without commentary.
http://i38.tinypic.com/j79h1i.png
Northern Hemisphere
############
http://i35.tinypic.com/cqr13.png
Southern Hemisphere
############
http://i37.tinypic.com/2wlxz09.png
North Pacific
############
http://i38.tinypic.com/6e0oax.png
Indian Ocean
############
http://i38.tinypic.com/9u417d.png
Arctic Ocean
CLOSING
Two earlier posts illustrated the impacts of natural variables on OHC. These included the ENSO-induced step changes in the OHC of numerous oceans and the effects of the NAO on high-latitude North Atlantic OHC:
1. ENSO Dominates NODC Ocean Heat Content (0-700 Meters) Data
2. North Atlantic Ocean Heat Content (0-700 Meters) Is Governed By Natural Variables
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As the El Nino is warm surface water returning eastward in a Kelvin wave when the trade winds weaken, how can it alter the ocean heat content? Surely all it does is redistribute the heat from the West Pacific to the East Pacific there is no heat added into the surface waters. Therefore, if there is a spike in OHC when there is an El Nino – it shows an error in the methodology for determining the OHC.
Stephen Wilde (07:11:00) :
solar input was still high in historical times but as we now know destined for a fall.
Solar activity in the mid-19th century and mid-18th century was not significantly lower than in the mid-20th century. And solar activity 108 years ago was just what it is today. The coldest part of the LIA was during the high solar activity around 1600. The variation of solar ‘input’ is of the order of 0.1% and account for 0.07K. Even with an amplification factor of, say, 3, that is still only 0.2K. It cannot be much more that that because we don’t see a solar cycle signal larger than that. You mention SC20, but temperatures were declining well before that, so unless you postulate that our climate is a good predictor of future solar activity …
Ian W: You wrote, “As the El Nino is warm surface water returning eastward in a Kelvin wave when the trade winds weaken, how can it alter the ocean heat content? Surely all it does is redistribute the heat from the West Pacific to the East Pacific there is no heat added into the surface waters. Therefore, if there is a spike in OHC when there is an El Nino – it shows an error in the methodology for determining the OHC.”
Your explanation misses some of what transpires during an El Nino event, because the heat is added during the recharge portion, the La Nina. Refer to the OHC of the tropical Pacific compared to NINO3.4 SST anomalies:
http://i33.tinypic.com/2h55ixv.png
El Nino events release heat from the tropical Pacific to the atmosphere, lowering OHC. During El Nino events, warm water is also redistributed from the tropical Pacific to the extratropics of the Pacific, lowering OHC in the tropical Pacific but raising it in the extratropics. And the subsequent La Nina recharges the lost heat in the tropics. If there is a multiyear La Nina, the tropical Pacific OHC rises in a “step”.
Leif Svalgaard (08:15:14) : So, clearly [on that flimsy evidence], sunspots have little [if any] measurable impact.
Hi Dr. Svalgaard,
Two questions:
1. Do you also think that cosmic rays have little [if any] measurable impact?
2. What is the most reliable available cosmoc rays data we have for the period 1850-2009?
Best Regards,
Invariant
Leif: You wrote, “So, clearly [on that flimsy evidence], sunspots have little [if any] measurable impact.”
It is flimsy. But it appears the significant upward shifts occur regardless of the solar cycle.
Stephen Wilde: That graph was an example of the El Nino-induced step changes in many of the ocean basins. They don’t exist in the North Atlantic or the North Pacific. Here’s a comparison of Global OHC versus sunspot number.
http://i34.tinypic.com/fdwmzb.png
Global OHC started rising in 1970, around the peak of SC#20.
My freezer is about 20 degrees. It takes about 3 hours to make a batch of ice from start to finish. It seems cold air removes heat from water pretty quickly.
Bob,
Can we see the chart without the big jump from 2002 to 2003 (adjust it out).
These are actually two different datasets. One is based on the Argo bouy system from post-2003 which was specifically designed to measure OHC. The other pre-2003 data is based on a variety of different sources.
There is no weather/ocean change reason for the big jump other than the two datasets did not match up. Levitus presumably did this properly but then one never knows. Does the detailed data show there may have been a mismatch or is the timing just coincidental.
Invariant (09:14:12) :
1. Do you also think that cosmic rays have little [if any] measurable impact?
Yes, basically because the cosmic flux has been rather constant [apart from the dips caused by high solar activity] since we have good data [1952]
2. What is the most reliable available cosmoc rays data we have for the period 1850-2009?
We don’t have reliable cosmic ray data before 1952.
Bob Tisdale (09:14:31) :
It is flimsy. But it appears the significant upward shifts occur regardless of the solar cycle.
Just my point.
Another AGWier claim destroyed… since their claim that the atmosphere was warming up was destroyed they switched to the oceans were warming up (due to us of course!) but with this… they don’t have a standing argument.
Bob Tisdale (09:32:59)
Each ocean behaves differently because of the lag which you have mentioned whereby the initial conditions in the Pacific then spread around the world.
The global chart smooths all that out and so we just see a relatively steady rise in OHC throughout the period of high solar activity.
The solar changes should not be that influential as Leif says so we must wait and see.
Makes no difference to the energy in versus energy out proposition though and makes no difference to the fact that the oceans create variations in energy flow to the air which causes climate variability.
I currently think the oceans can do it all on their own if need be but I remain puzzled on the scale and timing of the solar effect, if any.
Bob Tisdale (09:32:59) :
“Here’s a comparison of Global OHC versus sunspot number.
http://i34.tinypic.com/fdwmzb.png“
My point, again. No correlation.
Leif Svalgaard (09:51:17) :
Yes, basically because the cosmic flux has been rather constant [apart from the dips caused by high solar activity] since we have good data [1952]
In other words you think that CERN paper is nonsense?
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V11/N21/C2.php
Bob Tisdale (09:08:33) : In the year 1991 there was simultaneously a big low in low altitude cloud cover and GCR (p.77 H.Svensmark “The Chilling Stars”)
and, six years later, the 97-98 big el Nino.
All hockey sticks make use of this Nino event as an INCREASE while it was, as you say, a big lose in heat content.
Wow, all that water cooling down so quickly.
I wonder where all that heat is now ?
I hope this cooling-trend stops before we freeze our *sses of.
Invariant (10:37:34) :
In other words you think that CERN paper is nonsense?
Certainly the following statement from your link is nonsense:
“Although the evidence for a cosmic ray-climate connection grows greater by the day”
By the day?
The fact remains that cosmic rays at solar minimum [when they should have the largest effect – because there are more of them] have been nearly constant since 1952, while temps have not.
Do you think that it is really possible for anything to have an exact target; such as hitting the moon with a rocket since the moon is in a constant orbiting motion plus a very slow ratation on it’s axis? The earth orbits the sun with the speed of light, the moon is smaller than earth, earth rotates on it’s axis at 1,000 miles in one hour, all planets in our galaxy are insync with earths rotation and the gravity of the sun; all this stuff is traveling so fast in the universe that it seems almost impossible to be able to hit a target since there is constant motion.
The earth orbits the sun at the speed of light, the moon orbits the earth; plus all these other planets are in constant orbiting motion, yet connected to the rotation of the earth.
It looks in my mind like all this stuff works like the internal structure of a big wrist watch.
Ocean heat content plunges immediately before an El Nino – if you look at 1998 in the first graph, it drops like a rock.
The fact that ocean heat has dropped one of the reasons that NOAA is still projecting a moderate to strong El Nino this year. Which is one of the reasons that GISS et al are projecting this year to be much hotter than 2008 and maybe as hot as 1998.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
So here is my problem at this point in time…
What can we attribute the current rise in temperature rise to over the last 150 years. Also what can we attribute the temperature fall to during the little ice age. At this point in time I have to agree with Dr. Svalgaard that there is next to no correlation between anything measurable with the sun and temperature fluctuations that we have experienced. We know that certain aerosols can and do have an effect on temperature by reflecting sun light back into the atmosphere. However I cannot find any correlation that would explain either the current rise ( lack of particulate matter in the atmosphere vs an increase in temperature at the same time )
CO2 does not seem to be a correct correlation because historically we know temperatures have fluctuated despite man being involved in its production. Which is the main thing that causes me to doubt it as being the driver of temperature change at this time as well…
While I have heard discussion of clouds being the primary cause of cooling/warming I have only heard a few mechanisms used to describe how this can be the case, cosmic rays being one, which however do not seem to be able again to explain the lack of serious rise or fall of these either.
Forgive me for stating the obvious but, what are we really left with? Based on Anthony’s research as to the surface stations from which we have derived the temperature data in the first place even that data is suspect as to if there is a significant rise in temperature as well…
So… is most of this just an exercise in futility? Is the temperature really increasing? If so can anyone actually refute the CO2 correlation other then historical lack of causality?
Sun is out, Co2 is out, aerosols are out ( other then temporary variations due to volcanic activity ).
Also up to this point in time I seem to recall that the average temperature is what either 14 or 16 degrees Celsius? and to date the highest fluctuation up has been .6 degrees , again based on possibly flawed input stations? which for 14 degrees average that would be a 4.5% variation to the max and if 16 degrees a 3.75% fluctuation.
I guess what I am trying to say is nothing to date fits… Based on what I am seeing from Leif the sun does not even get close to varying as much as 1%… am I correct? So the sun is out…
Sorry I am a skeptic I suppose so I just don’t see where any of the theories advanced to date actually reaches a good conclusion, not to say stop looking but every theory seems be like a sock full of holes.
Interesting information Bob, but the one thing we still don’t have is a reason for either the heat build up to begin with or now the sudden drop.
If anyone can set me straight on this and show how my thinking is flawed please do so… Again this is looking at all the information from a birds eye view, listening to what others are both saying and what their opponents are saying and seeing that no one has really been able to correlate temperature to anything.
I think most of you have basically misunderstood URIEL. Here is an excerpt from his contribution above:
Quote
The CRU/Phil Jones data is THE SOURCE. THE ORIGIN. THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS.
Everything you discuss is entirely dependent upon accepting the truth and validity of Jones’ claim that the earth warmed over the last 150 yrs.
With that debunked or disproven, the entire theory falls apart. ALL other global warming claims are thus falsified. Unquote
My interpretation is that he is the ultimate AGW denier to beat us all. He is basically saying that the CRU/Phil Jones data is the basis for the AGW theory and now that it has been debunked etc. there is nothing to debate any more. At least this is my interpretation. With the disappearance of the original data the time series has been debunked etc. and the AGW proposition dead. Maybe I am wrong but that is how I read it. He is actually ciding Mr Watts for only having one blog on this crucial issue. I am not sure he is right in view of Mr McIntyre’s efforts, but maybe this issue needs to be repeated and repeated with the advent of Copenhagen December 2009. On that he is right. Not enough is being done to highlight this major deficiency in the underlying HAD/CRU time series “justifying” the AGW proposition.
Yaakoba (11:03:16) :
It looks in my mind like all this stuff works like the internal structure of a big wrist watch.
Most of your facts are a bit wrong [that’s OK, we can’t all be experts], but I would add to your image of a watch, that it seems to have been run over by a truck, as thing are really messy out there.
Innocentious (11:35:45) :
the sun does not even get close to varying as much as 1%… am I correct?
Less than that: 0.1%
date the highest fluctuation up has been .6 degrees , again based on possibly flawed input stations? which for 14 degrees average that would be a 4.5% variation to the max and if 16 degrees a 3.75% fluctuation.
You should calculate the percentages based on the absolute temperature which is C+273, so they become: 0.6/(14+273)*100 = 0.2%
Leif Svalgaard (12:00:49) :
Innocentious (11:35:45) :
“You should calculate the percentages based on the absolute temperature which is C+273, so they become: 0.6/(14+273)*100 = 0.2%”
Which is still about 10 times as high as we expect from the Sun, as the temperature goes with the one-fourth power of the energy.
Hans Verbeek (10:52:01) :
Wow, all that water cooling down so quickly.
I wonder where all that heat is now ?
Warming up the rest of the universe.
tallbloke (12:14:46) :
“I wonder where all that heat is now ?”
Warming up the rest of the universe.
From whence it came.