From NASA JPL, signs that “the boy” isn’t leaving. Perhaps he’s receiving too warm a welcome.
El Niño 2009-2010 just keeps hanging in there. Recent sea-level height data from the NASA/European Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 oceanography satellite show that a large-scale, sustained weakening of trade winds in the western and central equatorial Pacific during late-January through February has triggered yet another strong, eastward-moving wave of warm water, known as a Kelvin wave. Now in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, this warm wave appears as the large area of higher-than-normal sea surface heights (warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures) between 150 degrees west and 100 degrees west longitude. A series of similar, weaker events that began in June 2009 initially triggered and has sustained the present El Niño condition.
JPL oceanographer Bill Patzert says it’s too soon to know for sure, but he would not be surprised if this latest and largest Kelvin wave is the “last hurrah” for this long-lasting El Niño.
Patzert explained, “Since June 2009, this El Niño has waxed and waned, impacting many global weather events. I, and many other scientists, expect the current El Niño to leave the stage sometime soon. What comes next is not yet clear, but a return to El Niño’s dry sibling, La Niña, is certainly a possibility, though by no means a certainty. We’ll be monitoring conditions closely over the coming weeks and months.”
An El Niño also causes unusual changes in atmospheric circulation and convection around the globe. JPL’s Microwave Limb Sounder instrument on NASA’s Aura spacecraft captured a large eastward shift of deep convection from the current El Niño, indicated by large amounts of cloud ice in the upper troposphere.
NASA’s Aura Sees El Niño’s Effects on the Atmosphere
An El Niño is characterized by an abnormal warming of sea surface temperatures in the equatorial central and eastern Pacific Ocean. This sea surface temperature change is accompanied by anomalous atmospheric circulation and convection changes around the globe. The 2010 El Niño reached maximum strength during January and February 2010. The Microwave Limb Sounder instrument on NASA’s Aura spacecraft observed a clear eastward shift of deep convection, indicated by large amounts of cloud ice in the upper troposphere. The enhancement of cloud ice from 13 kilometers (approximately 40,000 feet) and above is the greatest since Aura launched in July 2004.
On July 15, 2004, NASA’s Aura spacecraft launched from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base on a mission to study Earth’s ozone layer, air quality and climate. Aura’s data are helping scientists address global climate change issues such as global warming; the global transport, distribution and chemistry of polluted air; and ozone depletion in the stratosphere, the layer of Earth’s atmosphere that extends from roughly 15 to 50 kilometers (10 to 30 miles) in altitude.
Aura is the third and final major Earth Observing System satellite. Aura carries four instruments: the Ozone Monitoring Instrument, built by the Netherlands and Finland in collaboration with NASA; the High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder, built by the United Kingdom and the United States; and the Microwave Limb Sounder and Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer, both built by JPL. Aura is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
The Microwave Limb Sounder is a second-generation instrument that is helping scientists improve our understanding of ozone in Earth’s stratosphere, especially how it is depleted by processes of chlorine chemistry. The instrument measures naturally occurring microwave thermal emission from the edge of Earth’s atmosphere to remotely sense vertical profiles of atmospheric gases, temperature, pressure and cloud ice.
For more information on Aura on the Internet, visit http://aura.gsfc.nasa.gov/.
For more information on the Microwave Limb Sounder on the Internet, visit: http://mls.jpl.nasa.gov/.
- An El Niño is characterized by an abnormal warming of sea surface temperatures in the equatorial central and eastern Pacific Ocean. This sea surface temperature change is accompanied by anomalous atmospheric circulation and convection changes around the globe. The 2010 El Niño reached maximum strength during January and February 2010. The Microwave Limb Sounder instrument on NASA’s Aura spacecraft observed a clear eastward shift of deep convection, indicated by large amounts of cloud ice in the upper troposphere. The enhancement of cloud ice from 13 kilometers (approximately 40,000 feet) and above is the greatest since Aura launched in July 2004.
On July 15, 2004, NASA’s Aura spacecraft launched from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base on a mission to study Earth’s ozone layer, air quality and climate. Aura’s data are helping scientists address global climate change issues such as global warming; the global transport, distribution and chemistry of polluted air; and ozone depletion in the stratosphere, the layer of Earth’s atmosphere that extends from roughly 15 to 50 kilometers (10 to 30 miles) in altitude.
Aura is the third and final major Earth Observing System satellite. Aura carries four instruments: the Ozone Monitoring Instrument, built by the Netherlands and Finland in collaboration with NASA; the High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder, built by the United Kingdom and the United States; and the Microwave Limb Sounder and Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer, both built by JPL. Aura is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
The Microwave Limb Sounder is a second-generation instrument that is helping scientists improve our understanding of ozone in Earth’s stratosphere, especially how it is depleted by processes of chlorine chemistry. The instrument measures naturally occurring microwave thermal emission from the edge of Earth’s atmosphere to remotely sense vertical profiles of atmospheric gases, temperature, pressure and cloud ice.
For more information on Aura on the Internet, visit http://aura.gsfc.nasa.gov/. For more information on the Microwave Limb Sounder on the Internet, visit: http://mls.jpl.nasa.gov/.
Steve Koch (13:55:39) : You asked, “Would the planet be a bit hotter without El Ninos (since heat would not be as efficiently transferred to the poles where it is more efficiently radiated to space)?”
Sounds logical, though I have never seen it presented that way.
You asked, “Is it true that stormy weather is more efficient at radiating energy to space than calm weather?”
Dunno. Sorry.
Anu and Bob Tisdale, a recent comment by Trenberth in Science Perspective contains this chart of measured net TOA radiation versus the changes in Ocean Heat Content down to 2000 metres and other measures.
There is a lot of “Missing” or Unaccounted for energy in the Ocean Heat Content and surface temperature data versus that expected.
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/7316/trenberthmissingheat.png
Schuckmann is suspiciously not referenced and the OHC data used is not consistent with Schuckmann’s data. [I always assumed there was a problem with the adjustments done since it is not consistent with the upper 700 metres].
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/Tracking%20Energyv5.pdf
@Bob Tisdale (15:23:52) :
Do you find anything in my posts or in the accompanying graphs that imply that “large amounts of heat disappears for awhile?”
Yes, from the upper 700m of the ocean, for instance
http://i34.tinypic.com/1zgx284.png
The brown curve, Global Ocean Heat Content, goes down in part of the 60’s and 80’s – this heat either goes deeper into the ocean for awhile, or is transferred to the continent or atmosphere. The point is, what is described as “natural variability” could be described much more precisely, if the measurements were there. That is what Trenberth was talking about in his famous stolen email.
You wrote, “25% to 55% of the heat of the ocean sloshes across that 700 m layer boundary, according to Murphy 2009.”
Please clarify how you derived those percentages. They do not appear in Murphy et al.
For the purposes of this paper we estimate that from 1950 to 2003 the increase in the heat content of the ocean deeper than 700 m was 40 ±15% of the increase from 0 to 700 m.
Murphy et. al. page 2
If the top 700 meters shows no signs of anthropogenic warming,
I’m saying that the top 700 m of the ocean is warming:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
warming about 17 * 10^22 joules in 50 years, and that periods where it seems to be cooling might be explained by heat being sloshed to lower depths of the ocean. Yes, the Argo global-coverage measurements of this deep ocean level did not arrive till the early 2000’s, and so we cannot look at 5 decade trends for this more comprehensive data, but look at what it does show:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/ocean-heat-2000m.gif
(from the Schuckman et al 2009 paper, page 51)
http://www.euro-argo.eu/content/download/49437/368494/file/VonSchukmann_et_al_2009_inpress.pdf
During 2004 to 2010, when the OHC of the upper 700m of the worlds oceans seem to not warm, we see that if you look at the more inclusive upper 2000m, they do warm, showing the importance of vertical ocean currents in moving heat around the vast oceans. As Murphy et al said:
On the other hand, the error bars would underestimate the uncertainty if
most of the warming took place in poorly sampled regions such as the Southern Ocean.
Even in June 2009, with years of full Argo system operation, the Southern Ocean, with substantial vertical currents, remains “poorly sampled”.
I think von Schuckmann et al include the Willis corrections to the Argo and XBT data: it is 2 years after the errors are pointed out, and he cites the key Willis paper:
Willis, J., J. Lyman, G. Johnson, and J. Gilson (2007), Correction to ‘Recent cooling of the upper ocean’, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, doi:10.1029/2007GL030323.
I agree the ocean data is somewhat sparse, and recent. I would like to see 20,000 ocean sensors instead of 3200, more sampling of the Arctic and Southern Oceans, and sensors that could drift better with ocean currents, horizontally and vertically, for long periods before surfacing and downloading recorded data. But I wouldn’t be surprised if all the data was consistent with inexorably warming oceans. And I wouldn’t be surprised if such data, decades from now, is used to make predictions of phenomena like ENSO and PDO as precise as lunar eclipses.
Well, maybe a bit less precise.
Cheers.
Bill Illis (17:21:32) :
Anu and Bob Tisdale, a recent comment by Trenberth in Science Perspective contains this chart of measured net TOA radiation versus the changes in Ocean Heat Content down to 2000 metres and other measures.
There is a lot of “Missing” or Unaccounted for energy in the Ocean Heat Content and surface temperature data versus that expected.
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/7316/trenberthmissingheat.png
Schuckmann is suspiciously not referenced and the OHC data used is not consistent with Schuckmann’s data. [I always assumed there was a problem with the adjustments done since it is not consistent with the upper 700 metres].
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/Tracking%20Energyv5.pdf
——————-
Thanks for the citation – it’s a short paper, so I read it just now.
Trenberth mentions that:
By 2004 the ocean observing system had reached new capabilities, as some 3000 Argo floats populated the ocean for the first time to provide regular temperature soundings of the upper 2000 m, giving new confidence in the ocean heat content assessment.
but as you point out, he merely cites Levitus and his study of the top 700m:
10. S. Levitus, et al., Global ocean heat content 1955-2008 in light of recently revealed instrumentation problems. Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L07608, doi:10.1029/2008GL037155 (2009).
That paper is here:
ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat08.pdf
Levitus explicitly says he is only updating his estimates of the Ocean Heat Content (OHC) of the upper 700 meters of the ocean (which he calls OHC700). Nowhere does he deal with the full upper 2000m, which the Argo floats make available.
von Schuckmann explicitly works with the full 2000m data:
http://www.euro-argo.eu/content/download/49437/368494/file/VonSchukmann_et_al_2009_inpress.pdf
In section 3 we carry out a detailed description of long-term and seasonal hydrographic changes in the water column down to 2000m.
(from the Introduction).
I think the reason 2000m data is not “consistent” with 700m data is that heat can slosh around, vertically as well as horizontally. It’s like moving furniture from your house to your garage, and back. If you look only at the data from “the house”, furniture will seem to magically disappear and reappear. If you look at data from “the house plus the garage”, you will see all the furniture. The 1300m below the top 700m is like “the garage”. And in this analogy, the house/garage system is steadily acquiring furniture.
Levitus et al stated (in the Introduction):
We acknowledge that ocean temperature data are sparse in the polar and subpolar regions of the world ocean but we still refer to our OHC estimates as global. We do this because the OHC estimates are volume integrals so that
only relatively small contributions are expected from the polar regions to our global estimates. Nevertheless there are locally important changes in OHC in these regions such as warming of the North Atlantic Water in the Arctic Ocean
that may play an important role in climate change.
The polar oceans are where most of the vertical mixing with deep ocean layers takes place, so I expect that future, higher resolution Argo-type measurements at the poles will shed much light on the “sloshing” of heat between these two layers. Perhaps current Argo sensors do not function well in vertical conveyor belt currents, I haven’t looked into this…
These deep water ocean currents seem to be between 2000m and 4000m deep:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Deep_Water
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thermohaline_Circulation_2.png
I think Trenberth will get around to publishing a look at deeper ocean heat content, and find much of his “missing energy”.
I guess a future Argo-type global ocean sensing system should look even deeper, to 4000m.
Anu said “The Argo ocean sensors were only deployed in the early 2000’s, and did not reach its target number of 3000 sensors till 2006. Analyzing the data that one has is the best you can do”
If 6 years is not good enough for a surface temperature trend change, then it is not good enough for ocean temperature either. It doesn’t matter at all whether it is “the best you can do”.
RGates said “If during the period 2010-2015 we don’t hit at least 1, 2 or 3 new record instrument high global temps, I will be shifting my opinion to 50/50.”
That sounds reasonable. I would raise my “don’t care / care”: opinion to 50/50, but I would like to see a better instrument network over that time frame. Since it is in the future, we can do it if we truly care about this issue.
Anu (20:15:28) : You replied, “Yes, from the upper 700m of the ocean, for instance
http://i34.tinypic.com/1zgx284.png
“The brown curve, Global Ocean Heat Content, goes down in part of the 60’s and 80’s – this heat either goes deeper into the ocean for awhile, or is transferred to the continent or atmosphere.”
Or there is less downward shortwave radiation reaching the oceans due to increases in cloud cover or increases in aerosols such as Saharan dust… Lots of potential reasons for the declines.
You replied, “I’m saying that the top 700 m of the ocean is warming,” to my statement, “If the top 700 meters shows no signs of anthropogenic warming…”
I did not say the global ocean was not warming. I wrote that it showed no signs of anthropogenic warming. There is a significant difference between your reply and what I wrote. I’ve shown that the warming can be explained as responses to natural factor such as ENSO and changes in sea level pressure.
You replied, “During 2004 to 2010, when the OHC of the upper 700m of the worlds oceans seem to not warm, we see that if you look at the more inclusive upper 2000m, they do warm, showing the importance of vertical ocean currents in moving heat around the vast oceans.”
And I advised that there have been multiple corrections to the ARGO data, including one as late as 2010, which could not have been included in von Schuckmann (2009), and that that correction changed the trend for the past few years from positive to negative. Here’s the gif animation again:
http://i48.tinypic.com/14e6wjn.gif
You quoted Murphy et al: “On the other hand, the error bars would underestimate the uncertainty if most of the warming took place in poorly sampled regions such as the Southern Ocean.”
The opening prepositional phrase in your quote, “On the other hand,” implies that they made the opposite point in the previous sentence.
And you quote Murphy et al, “For the purposes of this paper we estimate that from 1950 to 2003 the increase in the heat content of the ocean deeper than 700 m was 40 ±15% of the increase from 0 to 700 m,” to explain how you came up with the following in an earlier comment, “The OHC data from 2003 to 2008 for the upper 2000 m does not contradict your 700 m data, it just shows that ocean currents have vertical components that transfer heat below 700m, and sometimes up to 700 m layer. 25% to 55% of the heat of the ocean sloshes across that 700 m layer boundary, according to Murphy 2009.”
The 40 ±15% is a value assumed by Murphy et al. It was not a value they determined. Also as I discussed in my earlier comment, they calculate the heat content at depths below 700 meters as a lagged value of the top 700 meters even though an earlier study shows that there is no lag.
You made a number of references to von Schuckmann et al, including, “I think von Schuckmann et al include the Willis corrections to the Argo and XBT data”
They could not have accounted for the more recent (2010) corrections noted above, which was why I referred to those corrections in my earlier comment.
Regards
Bill Illis: You wrote, “Schuckmann is suspiciously not referenced and the OHC data used is not consistent with Schuckmann’s data. [I always assumed there was a problem with the adjustments done since it is not consistent with the upper 700 metres].”
Based on the wide variations in the representation of fundamentally the same source data, it appears that OHC over decadal and shorter multiyear periods is very dependent on interpretation and assumptions made by researchers:
http://i44.tinypic.com/5uizit.png
And based on the differences between von Schuckmann and other reports on the same data, whether OHC rises or falls over the past few years depends on whether the researchers are looking for funding for better measurement systems (Trenberth) or looking to be included in an IPCC report (von Schuckmann).
Anu,
Good stuff but maybe you could write a few words about why the missing ocean heat content is such a big deal. Back in 2005, Hansen predicted OHC would go up by (IIRC) 10^22 joules/year for several years. It did not come close to happening, in fact OHC leveled off and has even declined recently.
Isn’t it past the time for Hansen to be honest with the public and admit that this AGW hypothesis was falsified, that the GCMs still don’t have the ability to accurately model the climate, and that the science of AGW is not settled? Maybe at the same time he could define in public a new falsifiable hypothesis for AGW.
@Bob Tisdale (04:00:14) :
Or there is less downward shortwave radiation reaching the oceans due to increases in cloud cover or increases in aerosols such as Saharan dust… Lots of potential reasons for the declines.
This would be covered under “this heat either goes deeper into the ocean for awhile, or is transferred to the continent or atmosphere.” If the upper 700m of the oceans lose heat, it has to be going somewhere.
I did not say the global ocean was not warming. I wrote that it showed no signs of anthropogenic warming. There is a significant difference between your reply and what I wrote. I’ve shown that the warming can be explained as responses to natural factor such as ENSO and changes in sea level pressure.
ENSO is just a redistribution of existing ocean heat. Even the 700m data from the 50’s shows longterm warming. Saying this is due to “natural factors” is no explanation – you must propose where the heat is coming from. Energy must be conserved.
And how does “changes in sea level pressure” cause ocean warming ?
Yes, corrections to graphs on NODC websites are disconcerting,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/31/nodc-revises-ocean-heat-content-data/
but since the site still says:
Data distribution figures, temperature anomaly fields, and heat content fields updated from the paper Global ocean heat content (1955-2008) in light of recent instrumentation problems published in Geophysical Research Letters. See the manuscript below for details.
it is just as likely that the NODC webmaster made a mistake generating the graph from the paper’s data, as the paper was further corrected by unspecified Argo corrections.
Until I see any actual Argo float data corrections from Jan 2010, I will assume the von Shuckmann results for the upper 2000m stands:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/ocean-heat-2000m.gif
And the fact remains, even with the OHC700 subset of data, the oceans have been warming since 1955. ENSO-like sloshing around of heat can’t explain such longterm warming.
The opening prepositional phrase in your quote, “On the other hand,” implies that they made the opposite point in the previous sentence.
There is no need to guess what Murphy said before my quoted section, I gave you the URL for the entire paper:
http://www.knmi.nl/~laagland/KIK/Documenten_2009/murphy_jgr_2009.pdf
Don’t forget that PDF readers have a “search” function built-in.
The 40 ±15% is a value assumed by Murphy et al. It was not a value they determined.
The paper says “we estimate”, not “assume”. Yes, too bad research papers are not hyperlinked to more detailed, underlying notes, data and procedures. It is hard to parse research papers line by line without being in the field. Not to mention that research papers are “owned” by journals that do not even want them on the Web for people like you and I to read for free.
Yes, that lag stuff Murphy talks about seems weird. I don’t pretend to understand every single sentence in the Murphy paper. von Schuckmann doesn’t mention it at all – I don’t see why measured temperatures in the 1300 meters below the top 700m should depend in any way on the history of the temperature of the top 700m.
Again, I have not seen any “corrections” in January 2010 to Argo data – I just see that NODC made an error on some graph on some webpage. Hardly conclusive. Presenting results to the public on the Web are a low priority for active scientists, and probably some low level employee at NODC made a mistake in some plotting software.
(Although, if it turns out there was another small correction to Argo data, I wouldn’t be too surprised. Seems like they are still settling in since the system got up to speed in 2006. Oh well.)
p.s You have nice graphics on your blogspot. Maybe you can consult for NODC 🙂
Steve Koch (08:53:50) :
Anu,
Good stuff but maybe you could write a few words about why the missing ocean heat content is such a big deal. Back in 2005, Hansen predicted OHC would go up by (IIRC) 10^22 joules/year for several years. It did not come close to happening, in fact OHC leveled off and has even declined recently.
——————
Yes, if the oceans were not warming, that would be a big problem for the AGW crowd, since their measurements and calculations of radiative imbalance caused by the buildup of CO2 require that the retained solar heat go someplace, and 85% to 90% of that heat would be in the oceans.
However, as I’ve said above in this thread, the Ocean Heat Content of the upper 2000m shows just that, whereas the upper 700m shows a recent stall in the decades-long, on-again, off-again warming of the oceans.
Figure 11 (page 51) of:
http://www.euro-argo.eu/content/download/49437/368494/file/VonSchukmann_et_al_2009_inpress.pdf
shows a warming of 0.75 * 10^8 Joules/m^2 for Jan 2006 to Dec 2008.
Given an ocean area of 3.61 * 10^14 m^2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean
this is a total warming of 2.7 * 10^22 Joules.
Hansen was correct.
Isn’t it past the time for Hansen to be honest with the public and admit that this AGW hypothesis was falsified, that the GCMs still don’t have the ability to accurately model the climate, and that the science of AGW is not settled? Maybe at the same time he could define in public a new falsifiable hypothesis for AGW.
Perhaps it is time for the people criticizing Hansen to step up their game and learn what’s actually going on, so they don’t become funny historical footnotes:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/22/the-guardian-sees-the-light-on-wind-driven-arctic-ice-loss/#comment-350967
I predict that one day, Dr. Hansen will be on a postage stamp, too:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Stamp-robert_h_goddard.jpg
There is already a TV show based on him:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3102/2827189481_d6edb26115.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/ywdlrr
Anu (09:28:44): You replied, “This would be covered under ‘this heat either goes deeper into the ocean for awhile, or is transferred to the continent or atmosphere.’ If the upper 700m of the oceans lose heat, it has to be going somewhere.”
Wrong. Read what I wrote again. “Or there is less downward shortwave radiation reaching the oceans due to increases in cloud cover or increases in aerosols such as Saharan dust…” OHC can also decline if there is less Downward Shortwave Radiation (visible light) warming the oceans.
You replied, “ENSO is just a redistribution of existing ocean heat. Even the 700m data from the 50’s shows longterm warming. Saying this is due to “natural factors” is no explanation – you must propose where the heat is coming from. Energy must be conserved.”
I have proposed where it’s coming from. You must not have read the posts I linked earlier. There will be more links in this comment that will reinforce them.
You wrote, “it is just as likely that the NODC webmaster made a mistake generating the graph from the paper’s data, as the paper was further corrected by unspecified Argo corrections.”
Really? Nice try at spinning that, blaming a graphing error on the webmaster. Actually, I checked with the NODC via email before I posted my most recent update. The data is correct. And you can verify the current values of the NODC OHC data through the KNMI Climate Explorer. It’s available on a gridded basis, and it’s identified as “1955-now: NODC 0-700m” about two-thirds of the way down the page:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere
Here, let me save you the trouble. The following OHC update was also posted here at WUWT:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/02/ohc-linear-trends-and-recent-update-of.html
Your other option if you continue to think the webmaster made a mistake is to notify him by email. The NODC, like most researcher institutions and individual researchers, does return emails from the public. And in my experience, they’re helpful and more than willing to share information or point you in the right direction.
You wrote, “ENSO-like sloshing around of heat can’t explain such longterm warming.”
There’s much more to ENSO than the “sloshing around of heat”. ENSO warms the oceans remote to it, like the North Atlantic, through changes in atmospheric circulation. ENSO warms the oceans adjacent to it through changes in atmospheric circulation and through the redistribution of warm waters by ocean currents (your sloshing). El Nino events discharge heat from the surface (and below the subsurface to depths of 300 meters) of the tropical Pacific and La Nina events recharge it by reducing cloud cover and allowing more downward shortwave radiation to warm the tropical Pacific. Here, these three posts will help:
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
And the posts I linked in my earlier reply also illustrate the long-term effects on OHC of changes in sea level pressure, specifically in the North Atlantic and North Pacific.
You wrote, “There is no need to guess what Murphy said before my quoted section, I gave you the URL for the entire paper”
I didn’t guess. I read the paper years ago, and I still have a copy. My comment was a different way to suggest your view was one sided.
You replied, “The paper says ‘we estimate’, not ‘assume’.”
Do they say it’s a calculated value? Nope. Do they provide any calculations? Nope. Are there large error bars? Yup. And as noted in the following, their estimated value not only exceeds their references in that paragraph, or leans to high end, they also appear to misquote the values presented by one of those references.
You wrote, “I don’t see why measured temperatures in the 1300 meters below the top 700m should depend in any way on the history of the temperature of the top 700m.”
Murphy et al is not using measurements below 700 meters. They’re making the assumption that there is a lag and calculating the OHC below 700 meters using that lag with their “estimate” that it will be 40% of the OHC to 700 meters. But the comparison graph of measured OHC to three different depths that I posted earlier shows the three datasets mimic one another—with no lag. Here it is again:
http://i40.tinypic.com/2mchst0.png
You’ve quoted the Murphy et al “estimate that from 1950 to 2003 the increase in the heat content of the ocean deeper than 700 m was 40 ± 15% of the increase from 0 to 700 m.” Murphy et al state, “Another estimate[Kohl et al., 2007] based on an ocean model assimilation of temperature, wind stress, and other data leads to a 40% correction for heat transported deeper than 700 m,” but the referenced paper reads, “Over the last 30 years the heat content increases by about 35×10^22 J, of which 25×10^22 J result from the top 700 m, and 10 x 10^22 J from the depth range 700-3000 m.” (10/35=28%) So the Murphy 40% appears to overstate Kohl et al.
Murphy et al also appears to refer to the wrong Levitus et al paper in that paragraph, paragraph 8. Murphy et al write, “In addition to heating of the top 700 m, some heat is transported to the deep ocean. The heat content to 3000 m depth has been estimated to add about 30% to 40% to recent increases above 700 m on the basis of limited deep ocean temperature data [Levitus et al., 2001].” But Levitus et al (2001) “Anthropogenic Warming of Earth’s Climate System” only deals with the depths of 0-3000 meters. The depth of 700 meters does not appear in it.
http://fire.pppl.gov/GCC_Levitus_Barnett.pdf
If we assume Murphy et al meant to refer to Levitus et al (2005), their 40% still appears high. The change in global OHC of the 0-700meter depth in Table T1 of Levitus et al (2005) is 77% of the 0-3000 meter depth. The global OHC trend of the 0-700meter depth in Table T2 of Levitus et al (2005) is 69% of the 0-3000 meter depth. But those trends are not for similar time periods and Levitus et al does not provide the data for the comparable terms. Even if we assume Murphy et al’s approximation of Levitus et al (2005) values (30 to 40%) is correct, their “estimate” of 40% is still toward the high end of their reference.
Would the lag and an over estimation of OHC from 700 to 3000 meters skew their results, Anu?
You wrote, “Again, I have not seen any ‘corrections’ in January 2010 to Argo data.”
Let me ask, where would you expect to find it? Maybe in an update to an OHC dataset? And who makes the corrections, the data supplier or the user? If ARGO data is anything like land surface and sea surface temperature data, it’s up to the user (GISS, NCDC, Hadley Center) to correct the data. And again, the NODC corrected the OHC data for 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 in January 2010, as I noted in an earlier comment.
You wrote, “You have nice graphics on your blogspot.”
Thanks.
Regards
R. Gates (12:09:31) said in response to my “Could it be that the world is warming naturally?”:
“Naturally would imply by natural causes and known cycles. Every known factor that affects the earth’s climate has been pretty thoroughly accounted for in AGWT, from solar cycles, astronomical, ocean heat, etc., and working together, these paint a pretty well understood pattern of climate variability. ” Really! I am amazed. You mean you can predict an El Nino event? You can explain why the century on century standard deviation of temperature during the last glacial period was around 4 deg C, as opposed to 0.4 deg C during this interglacial? Could you provide some evidence for your success?