NODC Ocean Heat Content (0-700 Meters) – 2007, 2008 & 2009 Corrections
Guest post by Bob Tisdale
The National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) recently updated its 4th quarter and annual 2009 Ocean Heat Content (OHC) data. The data that was presented in conjunction with the Levitus et al (2009) Paper now covers the period of 1955 to 2009. There have been changes that some might find significant.
This post presents:
1. A brief look at the revisions (corrections) to the data in 2007 and 2008 OHC data
2. A comparison of the NODC OHC data for the period of 2003 to 2009 versus the GISS projection
REVISIONS (Corrections) TO THE 2007 AND 2008 NODC OHC DATA
Figure 1 is a gif animation of two Ocean Heat Content graphs posted on the NODC GLOBAL OCEAN HEAT CONTENT webpage. It shows the differences between the current (January 2010) version and one that appears to include data through June or September 2009. So this is an “Official” correction (not more incompletely updated data posted on the NODC website discussed in NODC’s CORRECTION TO OHC (0-700m) DATA, which required me to make corrections to a handful of posts). I have found nothing in the NODC OHC web pages that discuss these new corrections. Due to the years involved, is it safe to assume these are more corrections for ARGO biases? As of this writing, I have not gone through the individual ocean basins to determine if the corrections were to one ocean basin, a group of basins, or if they’re global; I’ll put aside the multipart post I’ve been working on for the past few weeks and try to take a look over the next few days.
http://i48.tinypic.com/14e6wjn.gif
Figure 1
NODC OHC OBSERVATIONS VERSUS GISS PROJECTION (2003-2009)
One of the posts that needed to be corrected back in October was NODC Ocean Heat Content (0-700 Meters) Versus GISS Projections (Corrected). The final graph in that post was a comparison of global ocean heat content observations for the period of 2003 through year-to-date 2009 versus the projection made by James Hansen of GISS of an approximate accumulation of 0.98*10^22 Joules per year. Figure 2 is an updated version of that comparison. Annual Global OHC data was downloaded from the NODC website (not through KNMI). The trend of the current version of the NODC OHC data is approximately 1.5% of the GISS projection. That is, GISS projected a significant rise, while the observations have flattened significantly in recent years. The apparent basis for the divergence between observations and the GISS Projection was discussed in the appropriately titled post Why Are OHC Observations (0-700m) Diverging From GISS Projections?
http://i47.tinypic.com/20kvhwn.png
Figure 2
Note: The earlier version of that graph (with the NODC’s October 15, 2009 correction)…
http://i37.tinypic.com/i6xtnl.png
…shows a linear trend of ~0.08*10^22 Joules/year. The current linear trend is ~0.015*10^22 Joules/year. Some might consider that decrease to be significant.
NOTE: I DELETED THE THIRD AND FOURTH PARTS OF THIS POST…
3. GLOBAL, HEMISPHERIC, AND INDIVIDUAL BASIN OHC UPDATE THROUGH DECEMBER 2009, AND
4. TREND COMPARISONS
…UNTIL I TRACK DOWN DISCREPANCIES I CAN’T EXPLAIN. I WILL REPOST THOSE SECTIONS IN A NEW POST. I BELIEVE I UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCES, BUT I NEED TO CHECK WITH KNMI.
SOURCES
NODC Annual Global OHC data used in Figure 2 is available here:
Looks like we’ve passed a tipping point.
Stephen Wilde: You wrote, “I discern from my readings so far that Bob Tisdale, Svensmark, Erl Happ and others consider that the oceanic influences are sun and air driven but at the moment I beg to differ.”
First, please expand on your comparison of my work to Svensmark, Erl Happ and others. I find them different.
Second, I can’t speak for Svensmark, Erl Happ and others, but I will respond for myself. You can beg to differ all you like, but I have illustrated the correlation between ENSO and variations in OHC and between variations in sea level pressure and the variations in OHC in three posts:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/09/enso-dominates-nodc-ocean-heat-content.html
AND:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/10/north-atlantic-ocean-heat-content-0-700.html
AND:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/12/north-pacific-ocean-heat-content-shift.html
And to counter the correlation-is-not-causation argument, I’ve illustrated and discussed how these variables can and do cause changes in SST and OHC in a number of posts, including:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/11/more-detail-on-multiyear-aftereffects.html
AND:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/11/more-detail-on-multiyear-aftereffects_26.html
AND:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-detail-on-multiyear-aftereffects.html
I’ve created almost two dozen videos to illustrate oceanic processes that agree with the preceding, including variations in tropical Pacific Ocean currents:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/02/equatorial-currents-before-during-and.html
and variations in tropical Pacific sea level anomalies:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/12/animations-of-aviso-tropical-pacific.html
and the variations in the equatorial Pacific cross-sectional temperature profiles during EL Nino events in two posts:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/02/cross-sectional-views-of-three.html
AND:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/02/cross-sectional-views-of-three.html
As I’ve replied to you before, Stephen, unless your hypotheses can be backed by data that YOU present in some form (graphs preferably) that YOU create and include in your posts and comments, you present conjecture.
Sorry OT but this has to be the last straw….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/31/pentagon-ranks-global-warming-destabilising-force
Thanks to climategate and the contributors to blogs like these they are now starting to have to put science forward they can justify without political pressure. I note the FT had an article suggesting that the scientific advisor suggested including sceptics in the discussion, but the FT was of the opinion that they would having trouble finding sceptical scientists (presumably climate scientists). Presumably that would be true because the majority of funding for climate science is government backed to support the consensus. One has to wonder how happy scientists working in other areas at these institutions and universities are having their reputation tarred with the same brush. Their may be some interesting conversations going on in the background here. It is a shame that there can’t be some kind of differentiation made in the debate between physical science and parts of climate science. Nobody would give the same credibility to a physics scientific report as a social sciences report, and it might allow parts of the scientific community to regain their reputations – and to narrow their predictions to what can be deduced from their field.
Vincent: You wrote, “…Hansen’s prediction required an ocean heat accumulation of about 10^22 joules per year…”
Aren’t you missing a number in your statement? Shouldn’t it read 1*10^22 Joules per year?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704194504575031404275769886.html
‘Slowdown in Warming Linked to Water Vapor’
Interesting read. I wonder if the slowdown in ocean heat content has something to do with this, or the other way around?
You know, on second thought, if the sun is what has been cooling the stratosphere, and this ‘cold-point’ is moving lower, then couldn’t this be a mechanism that amplifies the effect of TSI?
I should slow down, but I also thought, couldn’t this make El Nino occur more often if the water in the hydrological cycle has less space to recycle, it would theoretically be warmer when it goes back into the ocean? Not so much stabbing in the dark as shooting wildly with a machine gun, but these all seem possible to me. Am I wrong?
As usual, correct without announcing, hoping to hide the hiding. Now, did this use the Argo buoys and are the corrections pre or post the previous corrections?
I must admit, I am a little confused. If, in my profession, a project manager was coming back to me weekly with new dates for project milestones, I would fire him, or her.
Leo G (11:39:48) :
Just an opinion, but in my mind the CRUmail release has been a tectonic shift point in climate science
Its certainly been more than a quantuum leap 🙂
I look forward to the announcement that the leak came from within, from a very senior person 🙂 Of course, I don’t expect to hear that.
A pressure sensor error will be less than 1% (or some other number), absolute, at atmospheric pressure. At 100 foot, 4 atmosphers, that error will be one quarter as a percentage. This makes pressure sensor errors insignificant for these probes.
Lucijan Rejec (11:34:58) :
I am just reading James Hansen`book “The Storms of my Grand Children”. He is competely sure about his conclusions that CO2 emissions are the main climate forcing agent. Most of the rest is a very emotional appeal for measures to be adopted to prevent the unavoidable catastrophe. He worries a lot, how to communicate his “truth” efectively
David Harington (13:08:02) :
Dr. Hansen is a religious zealot and totally immune to any opinions or evidence that questions his belief system.
For that reason attempting to debate with him is a total waste of time and energy
………..Choo choo Pacu sells porn
Hansen sells science fiction
Joe Romm has a sci fi book out.
Palin sells 2 million books. Calling it the way you see it sells bertter than fiction.
The fact that teh top 700 meters of the ocean contain 200 times teh heat of teh atmosphere does not mean, as stated above that a 1/200th degree change in the temperature of the ocean can change the temp of the air by 1 degree–the direction of heat flow is governed by the temperature difference, not the heat content difference.
What is does mean is that if the bottom of the atmosphere gets out of equilibrium with the top of the ocean, the ocean will almost immediately drag the atmosphere right back to the ocean temperature with almost no affect on the ocean. The ocean adds an immense amount of “thermal inertia” to the system. That’s why many of us are so skeptical about the role of CO2…it would have to heat the atmosphere by an immense amount to overcome the thermal inertia of the oceans.
GaryPearse said “on the third hand”
Dude, the proper idiom is “on the gripping hand”
See Nivien&Pournelle ‘The Mote in Gods Eye’
Re: Robert of Ottawa (17:22:59) :
“A pressure sensor error will be less than 1% (or some other number), absolute, at atmospheric pressure. At 100 foot, 4 atmosphers, that error will be one quarter as a percentage. This makes pressure sensor errors insignificant for these probes.”
Robert, the folks at ARGO disagree with you. Please see the following:
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Acpres_drift_apex.html
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/seabird_notice.html
http://www.seabird.com/technical_bulletins/ReturningArgoCTDInstructions.htm
Just wondering… since “NODC revises ocean heat content data – it’s now dropping slightly” can we expect to see some of those famous foggy days in London town? Don’t you just miss those old movies?
If the “real” enemy are the wackos at “The National Academy of Sciences (which) controls the purse strings of federal research agencies” and “US’s research agencies have been transformed into propaganda generators, just like the UN’s IPCC.”, shouldn’t more attention go toward the NAS – or is that too big a can of worms?
Henry chance (17:30:37) :
So, the Earth, according to Hansen, is warmed out of the Ice Ages by massive population explosions of animals and volcanoes. Upon being hit by an asteroid, the extinction of land animals is the tipping point and back to the Ice Age we go.
So, that’s what’s wrong with the Ice Cores. They are upside down. Pancake flipped by the last asteroid hit.
Bob Tisdale (14:17:26) :
Sean: You asked, “Would it be possible to put some shading in the period covered which showed which were Argo, which were determined from a different data sets and different analytica methods.”
Sorry. I don’t do shading.
HOW ’bout a line then? give us a break eah?
MrCPhysics (17:34:49) :
Between the lines: the energy necessary to raise the top 700m of the oceans 1/200th of a degree is approximately equal to energy necessary to raise the temperature of the atmosphere one degree. Better?
James F. Evans (11:56:26) :
So, the Sun’s total energy output is down as evinced by a lack of Sunspots and evinced by decreased solar magnetic flux (and has been for a while).
The total solar energy output is given almost exclusively by TSI, which varies very little [0.1%] . The energy in the solar wind and the magnetic field is a million times smaller and has therefore no discernible influence on the total energy output, and therefore very little to do with the weather. Why do people not get this?
Leif Svalgaard (20:14:36) :
But Lief, I think they do get it, though not may years have gone by at this reduced TSI and the effects are just starting to be felt. Some are jumping the gun a bit. 1366 TSI time 0.1% is 1.366 W/M^2. And If the sun’s activity stays relatively low, the impacts (cooling) will have it’s effect over the years and decades. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen, and hope that the sun will kick back up by 2011-2012. Otherwise, I think, the sun is then basically in a skipping-cycle mode (a minimum, showing only as small bumps on the long term graphs). For 1.366 W/m^2 over a year is ~5.5e+24 joules and around half of that is now no longer being received as it was in period of 1970-2000 when the sun was frothing. Just my view.
wayne (20:50:45) :
But Leif, I think they do get it, though not may years have gone by at this reduced TSI and the effects are just starting to be felt.
The 0.1% reduction drops the temperature 0.07K or so, but once. It does not keep dropping, because TSI does not keep falling. Think of it this way: for a million years TSI was 1361.0, that resulted in temperature T, for the next million years TSI is 1360.0, and the temperature will be T-0.07K. There may be lags etc, but that just means that the 0.07K decrease will take so many years [pick your own number: 1, 10, 100, 1000, …] to play out.
wayne (20:50:45) :
For 1.366 W/m^2 over a year is ~5.5e+24 joules and around half of that is now no longer being received as it was in period of 1970-2000 when the sun was frothing. Just my view.
So, in my example over a million years you think we will be missing half of 5.5e+30 joules. Over a billion years: 5.5e+33 joules.
Bob Tisdale (16:51:00)
Thank you Bob, I’ll browse through those links.
However on first glance I don’t see anything that directly addresses my point.
Are you able to exclude internal variations within the oceans as a driver of the events in the atmosphere above that you analyse in such admirable detail ?
I’m not so concerned about the ENSO cycle but rather the PDO phase changes (admittedly an ENSO artifact but a real world phenomenon nevertheless) and also the possibility of a longer term oceanic cycle sufficient to have driven the ITCZ nearer the equator during the depths of the Little Ice Age.
The only comparison between your work and the work of others that I commented on was the apparent conclusion that the variations in sea surface temperatures are driven by events in the air and not by events within the oceans.
It is that issue which I am trying to resolve.
The oceans being as large and mobile as they are I find it difficult to exclude them as a climate driver in their own independent right.
Great job on the Ocean Heaving Content- voluptuous even….