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
lgl (05:47:27) :
Philip_B (17:22:04) :
SST leads OHC (700m) by a couple of years and since SST is now back to a very high level “I feel pretty confident that this data points to sharpish” rise in OHC over the next couple of years.
A bald assertion with no data to support it and unphysical as ocean heat transport is overwhelmingly upward toward the surface.
Bob Tisdale’s link above clear shows OHC leading SSTs.
http://i33.tinypic.com/2h55ixv.png
tallbloke (02:13:35) :
Hi Leif, how much of TSI is in the infrared compared to visible please?
UV 100 W/m2, visible 660 W/m2, IR 600 W/m2. But the atmosphere is also mostly transparent to near IR. The absorption [mostly by CO2] really begins at 2000 nm, and the part above 2000 nm is 80 W/m2.
lgl (06:15:57)
Satellites show that energy entering the Earth system from the sun matches energy leaving the Earth to space.
Oceans clearly try to disturb that equilibrium by varying their rate of energy release to the air, often substantially.
Equally clearly the oceanic variability fails to disturb the equilibrium and the only way that can be achieved is via an equal and opposite response in the air. I have described the proposed mechanism in some detail.
I fail to see how your incomplete summary of the global energy budget has any bearing on that issue.
I am unaware of any ongoing and developing imbalance arising as a result of the increasing CO2 in the air. The satellites are not recording it, the ocean heat content is not recording it, the current trend in global air temperatures is not reflecting it.
The variations in energy flow at the sea/air interface and at the air/space interface would appear to be the cause of observed climate change so the issue is one of internal variability whereas the Stefan – Boltzman law deals wth the relationship between the temperature of a body and the temperature of space. It does not deal with internal variability.
The processes of downwelling IR with consequent increased evaporation are internal to the system and appear to be cancelling each other out via a variable rate of energy transmission from surface to space.
steve: You asked, “I tried following the links, but can only find processed data. Does anyone know if this data comes from the Argo array?”
The ARGO data does appear in the NODC/Levitus et al (2009) OHC data. But it’s limited to this decade. Levitus et al (2009) describe the source of the remainder of the data back to 1955 in the following paper, which I forgot to link in the above post (Sorry). Here ye go:
ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat08.pdf
Does anybody know the total volume of the oceans? I am trying to calculate the thermal mass….
Geology 101 on infrared
http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geog101/textbook/energy/radiation_balance.html
infrared products and data
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/air/rad_budget.html
I posted a link to a geology 101 website that appears to have been placed in the spam file.
[Rescued & posted. ~ dbs, mod.]
Invariant (06:28:49) :
Sorry, but I do not understand why you mention Svensmark here?
You mentioned that there are delays involved. And Svensmark is the one asserting that the delay is only a few days. Anyway, the result so far [from the summary]: “the exploratory measurements provide suggestive evidence for ion induced nucleation but the experimental variables were neither sufficiently well controlled nor sufficiently reproducible to quantify the conditions under which ion processes become significant.” does not seem convincing [yet].
Leif Svalgaard (07:01:11) :
tallbloke (02:13:35) :
Hi Leif, how much of TSI is in the infrared compared to visible please?
UV 100 W/m2, visible 660 W/m2, IR 600 W/m2. But the atmosphere is also mostly transparent to near IR. The absorption [mostly by CO2] really begins at 2000 nm, and the part above 2000 nm is 80 W/m2.
Thanks Leif. Do you think most of the IR absorbed by co2 get re-emitted in the forward direction like light interacting with hydrogen, or is it different because of the more complex electron geometry of the bigger co2 molecule?
If the latter, would it be fair to say that roughly half of the absorbed-by-co2 incoming solar IR would be bounced back into space?
If so, is this accounted for in radiative forcing calcs for additional co2, and if not, why not?
Lots of questions and maybe directed at the wrong person, if so, sorry.
Philip_B (06:57:23) :
A bald assertion with no data to support it and unphysical as ocean heat transport is overwhelmingly upward toward the surface.
The data is all over. Here is Bob’s OHC together with NCDC ocean temp from Junkscience: http://virakkraft.com/OHC-SST.jpg
and it’s of course physical that most variations start at the surface and is delayed at 700 meters.
tallbloke (08:20:16) :
would it be fair to say that roughly half of the absorbed-by-co2 incoming solar IR would be bounced back into space?
Yes, i would think so.
If so, is this accounted for in radiative forcing calcs for additional co2, and if not, why not?
You can count on people [scientists] doing these calculations to do it correctly. Just like you can count on us [measuring solar magnetic fields] to do it correctly [‘correctly’ means to the best of available knowledge].
Lots of questions and maybe directed at the wrong person, if so, sorry.
definitely not something I would pontificate [more than I already have] on. If you have disagreements with some people on this, better direct your questions to them.
Richard: You asked, “If this be so, can we assume the transfer of heat between the surface and deeper layers to be more or less constant?”
I don’t believe that’s a reasonable assumption. Meridional overturning circulation occurs in all oceans but it’s most significant and most studied in the North Atlantic. As the surface and subsurface temperature of the North Atlantic vary over a period of 50 to 80 years (the AMO), the heat transfer between the upper and lower ocean would vary with time, too. The volume of water transported by AMOC also varies with time.
You continued, “…and most of the heat loss due to loss of heat content from the surface layers into the atmosphere?”
Based on the above reply, the answer should be that it’s not a reasonable assumption.
You asked, “What is the relationship between the Ocean heat content and Global temperatures? Have you tried to plot the correlation region-wise and globally?”
Beyond the comparison graphs of OHC and NINO3.4, NOA, and Sato Index data in the links in the closing of the post above, I have only plotted OHC and SST:
http://i36.tinypic.com/o70r9w.jpg
Here are the links to those posts again:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/09/enso-dominates-nodc-ocean-heat-content.html
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/10/north-atlantic-ocean-heat-content-0-700.html
You asked, “Why do we take the heat content of the ocean upto a depth of 700 metres?”
It appears to be based primarily on data availability. In “Global Decadal Upper Ocean Heat Content as Viewed in Nine Analyses”, Carton and Santorelli (2008) write, “A second limitation of the historical temperature data set is its changing vertical sampling. MBTs measure temperature above 280m, while XBTs generally extend to 400m or 700m. Thus, of the 1.1 million profiles collected during the 1960s when MBTs were the primary instrument, only 100,000 extended to 500m (Boyer et al., 2006).”
And in “Warming of the World Ocean, 1955-2003” Levitus et al (2005) write, “Figure 1 shows yearly estimates of ocean heat content for the upper 300 and 700m layers and pentadal estimates for the upper 3000 m of the world ocean. It shows that a large part of the change in ocean heat content during the past 50 years has occurred in the upper 700 m of the world ocean.” Here’s a copy of their Figure 1.
http://i36.tinypic.com/4gjct3.png
Leif Svalgaard (08:10:43) : does not seem convincing [yet].
I like the word yet. 😉
Stephen,
I fail to see how your incomplete summary of the global energy budget has any bearing on that issue.
No bearing on your strawman, no, but the real issue is what’s keeping the ocean at 16 C. My energy budget is almost complete regarding the surface, only missing 340 W/m2 downwelling. Where does it come from and why?
We have a very nice and consistent account of C02 in the atmosphere, and a good record length. My understanding of C02 is that is quickly disperses and mixes with any addition/reduction.
What about H20 and how much is that varying globally?
What Leif suggests is that C02 reflects 1/2 of what IR is incoming, and that’s a qualitative assessment. Need one of those for H20 molecules airborne.
What is missing is a quantitative assessment.
We know how much C02 is up there and can give it a reasonable quantity.
Do we have anything for, say, the last 5 years on H20 content?
You can see what I am after: The density of C02 & H20 available to pre-screen and how much is reflected out to space before it hits. The retention on the nightside is then part of the budget.
When solving the heat equation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_equation
for a plane wall, cylinder or sphere, we usually can obtain an approximation on the form:
T(t) = T1 + [T0 – T1] exp(-t/tau), where the characteristic time constant is something like:
tau = 1/2•(r•cp/k)•L^2
Applying water properties http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_(properties)
r = 1000 kg/m³
cp = 4200 J/kg K
k = 0.6 W/m K
L = 700 m (characteristic depth of oceans)
We obtain:
tau = 1/2•(r•cp/k)•L^2 = 1/2•(1000•4200/0.6)•700^2 = 55000 years.
Obviously this is wrong due to the low thermal conductivity of water. Actually a better approach would be to use the Nusselt number and an effective thermal conductivity,
k_eff = k•Nu
But what Nusselt number should we use for the oceans with a characteristic depth of L=700 m? I have no idea! Guessing that the Nusselt number could be 1000, we obtain:
tau = 1/2•(r•cp/k)•L^2 = 1/2•(1000•4200/600)•700^2 = 55 years,
This in the same range as the natural oscillations in our oceans:
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/CumuSumAMO.png
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/CumuSumPDO.png
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/CumuSumPDO_AltDataSource.png
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/CumuSumALPI.png
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/CumuSumGLAAM.png
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/CumuSumAO70.png
CO2 is not well-mixed. It does not lay in an even carpet throughout our atmosphere. Neither is ozone well mixed. CO2 is relatively heavy and tends to move in globular bunches along jet stream tracks. It can dissipate but our atmosphere just doesn’t do a good job of that due to the frontal systems and pressure gradients that define our climates and weather patterns.
Leif Svalgaard (08:46:56) :
tallbloke (08:20:16) :
would it be fair to say that roughly half of the absorbed-by-co2 incoming solar IR would be bounced back into space?
Yes, i would think so.
If so, is this accounted for in radiative forcing calcs for additional co2, and if not, why not?
You can count on people [scientists] doing these calculations to do it correctly. Just like you can count on us [measuring solar magnetic fields] to do it correctly [‘correctly’ means to the best of available knowledge].
Lots of questions and maybe directed at the wrong person, if so, sorry.
definitely not something I would pontificate [more than I already have] on. If you have disagreements with some people on this, better direct your questions to them.
Thanks Leif, most helpful.
I would like to think as you do that we can rely on climate scientists to get it right. Unfortunately there seem to be some sloppy, some secretive, and some downright bad apple practitioners out there. I’ll check this one out.
Invariant (09:02:29) :
“does not seem convincing [yet].”
I like the word yet. 😉
As is evident, I’m a reasonable guy. Always willing to be convinced, once the evidence is there, which it isn’t [yet].
tallbloke (11:30:31) :
I would like to think as you do that we can rely on climate scientists to get it right. Unfortunately there seem to be some sloppy, some secretive, and some downright bad apple practitioners out there. I’ll check this one out.</i?
They usually monkey with the data [or their proxies] rather than with the radiative properties of gases, which are well-known from fundamental theory and direct laboratory experiments.
tallbloke (11:30:31) :
I would like to think as you do that we can rely on climate scientists to get it right. Unfortunately there seem to be some sloppy, some secretive, and some downright bad apple practitioners out there. I’ll check this one out.
They usually monkey with the data [or their proxies] rather than with the radiative properties of gases, which are well-known from fundamental theory and direct laboratory experiments.
Ok, someone help me out here: why are the units on the graphs GJ/m^2? If we are talking about heat content in the oceans, shouldn’t it be energy/volume?
Thanks
Re: Pamela Gray (19:22:52)
My M.Sc. thesis contains errors. I was aware of them (some are substantial) and I wanted to fix them, but the powers wanted to rush me through. I did not sign the consent forms – and yet somehow…
My experience of grad-school was that it is 85% politics & funding issues. The “education” I got was not the one for which I (thought I) signed up.
–
You make an important point about research inspiration-sparks. Had your work (weaknesses & all) been obstructed (for whatever reason), an important seed might not have been sown. Thanks for the note.
Grad school wasn’t the issue. I then to went to work as a research Audiologist in a major medical facility. The research facility was the issue. It is a dog eat dog system geared towards preditorial carnage.