From Dr. Roger Pielke Senior’s Climate Sci blog, a discussion on the “missing heat” in Earth’s climate system gives me a motivation to write some silly prose:
The heat is gone, oh where, oh where?
Maybe in the oceans?
Maybe in the air?
It’s just not there.
They could not find it any-where.
Is There “Missing” Heat In The Climate System? My Comments On This NCAR Press Release
There was a remarkable press release 0n April 15 from the NCAR/UCAR Media Relations titled
“Missing” heat may affect future climate change
The article starts with the text
BOULDER—Current observational tools cannot account for roughly half of the heat that is believed to have built up on Earth in recent years, according to a “Perspectives” article in this week’s issue of Science. Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) warn in the new study that satellite sensors, ocean floats, and other instruments are inadequate to track this “missing” heat, which may be building up in the deep oceans or elsewhere in the climate system.
“The heat will come back to haunt us sooner or later,” says NCAR scientist Kevin Trenberth, the lead author. “The reprieve we’ve had from warming temperatures in the last few years will not continue. It is critical to track the build-up of energy in our climate system so we can understand what is happening and predict our future climate.”
Excerpts from the press release reads
“Either the satellite observations are incorrect, says Trenberth, or, more likely, large amounts of heat are penetrating to regions that are not adequately measured, such as the deepest parts of the oceans. Compounding the problem, Earth’s surface temperatures have largely leveled off in recent years. Yet melting glaciers and Arctic sea ice, along with rising sea levels, indicate that heat is continuing to have profound effects on the planet.”
“A percentage of the missing heat could be illusory, the result of imprecise measurements by satellites and surface sensors or incorrect processing of data from those sensors, the authors say. Until 2003, the measured heat increase was consistent with computer model expectations. But a new set of ocean monitors since then has shown a steady decrease in the rate of oceanic heating, even as the satellite-measured imbalance between incoming and outgoing energy continues to grow.”
Some of the missing heat appears to be going into the observed melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as Arctic sea ice, the authors say.
Much of the missing heat may be in the ocean. Some heat increase can be detected between depths of 3,000 and 6,500 feet (about 1,000 to 2,000 meters), but more heat may be deeper still beyond the reach of ocean sensors.”
Trenberth’s [and co-author, NCAR scientist John Fasullo], however, are grasping for an explanation other than the actual real world implication of the absence of this heat.
- First, if the heat was being sequestered deeper in the ocean (lower than about 700m), than we would have seen it transit through the upper ocean where the data coverage has been good since at least 2005. The other reservoirs where heat could be stored are closely monitored as well (e.g. continental ice) as well as being relatively small in comparison with the ocean.
- Second, the melting of glaciers and continental ice can be only a very small component of the heat change (e.g. see Table 1 in Levitus et al 2001 “Anthropogenic warming of Earth’s climate system”. Science).
Thus, a large amount heat (measured as Joules) does not appear to be stored anywhere; it just is not there.
There is no “heat in the pipeline” [or “unrealized heat”] as I have discussed most recently in my post
Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo are not recognizing that the diagnosis of upper ocean heat content changes (with it large mass) makes in an effective integrator of long term radiative imbalances of the climate system as I discussed in my papers
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55.
http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/r-334.pdf
and
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2003: Heat storage within the Earth system. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 331-335.
http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/r-247.pdf.
The assessment of ocean heat storage changes in Joules is a much more robust methodology to assess global warming than the use of small changes in the satellite diagnosis of radiative forcing from the satellites which have uncertainties of at least the same order. Trenberth and Fasullo need to look more critically at the satellite data as well as propose how heat in Joules could be transported deep into the ocean without being seen.
I am contacting Kevin to see if he would respond to my comments on this news article (and his Science perspective) in a guest post on my weblog.
UPDATE (April 16 2010) WITH RESPONSE BY KEVIN TRENBERTH PRESENTED WITH HIS PERMISSION
Dear Roger
I do not agree with your comments. We are well aware that there are well over a dozen estimates of ocean heat content and they are all different yet based on the same data. There are clearly problems in the analysis phase and I don’t believe any are correct. There is a nice analysis of ocean heat content down to 2000 m by von Schuckmann, K., F. Gaillard, and P.-Y. Le Traon 2009: Global hydrographic variability patterns during 2003–2008, /J. Geophys. Res.,/ *114*, C09007, doi:10.1029/2008JC005237. but even those estimates are likely conservative. The deep ocean is not
well monitored and nor is the Arctic below sea ice. That said, there is a paper in press (embargoed) that performs an error analysis of ocean heat content.
Our article highlights the discrepancies that should be resolved with better data and analysis, and improved observations must play a key role.
Kevin
MY REPLY
Hi Kevin
Thank you for your response. I am aware of the debate on the quality of the ocean data, and have blogged on the von Schuckman et al paper. Since 2005, however, the data from 700m to the surface seems robust spatially (except under the arctic sea ice as you note). An example of the coming to agreement among the studies is Figure 2 in
Leuliette, E. W., and L. Miller (2009), Closing the sea level rise budget with altimetry, Argo, and GRACE, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L04608, doi:10.1029/2008GL036010.
We both agree on the need for further data and better analyses. I have posted on this issue; e.g. see
However, I do not see how such large amounts of heat could have transited to depths below 700m since 2005 without being detected.
I am very supportive, however, of your recognition that it is heat in Joules that we should be monitoring as a primary metric to monitor global warming. Our research has shown significant biases in the use of the global average surface temperature for this purpose; e.g.
Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229. http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/r-321.pdf
Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., 114,
D21102, doi:10.1029/2009JD011841. http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/r-345.pdf
Would you permit me to post your reply below along with my response on my weblog.
Best Regards
Roger
KEVIN’S FURTHER REPLY
Roger you may post my comments. The V.s paper shows quite a lot of heat below 700 m.
Kevin
MY FURTHER RESPONSE
Hi Kevin
Thanks! On the V.s et al paper, lets assume their values since 2005 deeper than 700m are correct [which I question since I agree with you on the data quality and coverage at the deeper depths]. However, if they are correct, how much of this heat explains the “missing” heat?
It would be useful (actually quite so) if you would provide what is the missing heat in Joules.
Roger
END OF UPDATE
[quote]
Suppose this CERES imbalance of 6watts/meter^2 has been going on for ten years, this is an accumulation of 60watts/meter^2 that may suddenly jump up and start radiating a la Stefan Bolzman.
[/quote]
This is a strange calculation. Check your units.
Taking a look at the various OHC datasets
http://i44.tinypic.com/5uizit.png
I think there’s something wrong with ocean heat content data in recent years, or the analysis phase as Dr. Trenberth puts it.
David Ross (18:53:49) :
No one answered this yet? Now that is a travesty.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert, but I do read a lot of articles here and elsewhere. Also, to clear up something I see in your words, the IPCC doesn’t officially “do” anything but assemble (what they say is) existing evidence for climate change and its possible effects into formats suitable for review by the public and decision makers. Thus they have a built-in bias as their remit is to report on climate change (formerly known as global warming) rather than to formerly evaluate if it exists, they start with assuming it is real and go from there.
The interior of the Earth is cooling, there is a net loss of heat. Some forces do act to warm it up, such as radioactive decay, but as a whole it is cooling. However the cooling is a very slow process, for us the heat is negligible compared to what we receive from the Sun.
For volcanism, on the surface it doesn’t do much for warming. The heat is localized and relatively quickly it works its way out into space. But the aerosols disperse, and can cause cooling over very large areas, thus the net effect is often negative.
It’s when volcanism happens under something that things get interesting. In Iceland, that heat was soaked up by the ice resulting in melting, so that heat will stay around for awhile. Undersea volcanic activity likewise heats up water not air thus that energy stays in the system longer, some suspect it may be related to El Nino and other warm spots. Volcanic activity under the ice is suspected in the ice loss of Western Antarctica, as it shows up as having an unusual warming pattern while the rest of Antarctica is still dang cold with growing amounts of ice.
Otherwise, when talking about dry land… Just about everywhere but the more polar regions, if you dig down about 10 to 15 feet you’ll encounter rather stable temperatures around the low 50’s in degrees Fahrenheit, any season, day or night. Get closer to the poles and you’ll have to dig down further, but they’ll be there. Back up on the surface there is far more variation. That such a very thin layer, relative to the size of the Earth and the thickness of the crust, can have that effect shows how inefficient it is at transferring heat quickly. (I can’t say “insulating properties” as this relates to large amounts of mass that take in and release heat rather slowly.) Figure in the full thickness of the crust, and this should indicate to you just how low the rate of heat transfer from the interior to the atmosphere (where we notice it) actually is, and why it is normally ignored.
Oh, I don’t know exactly what IPCC diagram you’re referring to, but you’re mentioning energy flows so I think you’re referring to the one showing the “energy budget.” Well, Willis Eschenbach has a great piece here on WUWT titled The Steel Greenhouse where that diagram (or something amazingly similar) is discussed, hopefully you’ll find it good reading.
Why does Spencer show a negative radiative forcing for CO2 prior to 2004?
DeNihilist (11:11:53) : “Hmmm, at least Dr. Trenberth, has started to doubt the satellite data. This is a start.”
The Warmers would like to discard the satellite data because it is the chief check on their runaway warming scenario. Their fiddled ground measurements are increasingly discrepant from the satellites’ measurements of no long term warming. So I’ll go with the satellites, thanks.
arghhhhhhh! sorry, just found the lost heat, not enough milk in my tea.
David Alan Evans (09:25:33) :
thank you;
so given surface of Earth is ~5E14 m^2 (and surface area at TOA yet a bit more), it’s something like 1E23 missing joules per year.
that’s quite a lot, ~ two billion Hiroshimas.
of course, ‘Hiroshima’ is a tiny unit when used on processes of planetary scale. formation of calcium carbonate (which is an exothermic reaction) alone in Earth’s oceans releases something like 1E15 joules per year – or twenty Hiroshimas.
[all calculations approximate, and any and all of them might be utterly wrong]
NOTE: I have self-identified as” not smart enough to post here” by previously posting this under the wrong article.
Could it be that the missing energy could be found in the graves of Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Bohr Einstein etc, where incoming solar energy has somehow induced the remains of these scientific giants to spin rapidly around their(formerly) vertical axis’?
If as much as half of the temperature increase observed in the 20th century is attributable to natural causes such as continued emergence from the last ice age, changes in solar intensity, etc., and as much as half half of the expected heat is missing, where does that leave the anthropogenic hypothesis? Whose heat is missing, natures or ours?
Grego
“Trenberth’s idea is just insane – or there is a lot of really weird science I don’t know anything about and need to catch up on pronto.”
Trenberth isn’t just making things up; even Pielke recognizes there are mechanisms by which heat could be advected into the deeper oceans, but he believes this movement would have been detected. Others disagree: http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/guest-weblog-by-leonard-ornstein-on-ocean-heat-content/?preview=true&preview_id=3810&preview_nonce=0cb721adc0
@ur momisugly anna v (11:17:33) :
I wonder how much energy the biosphere consumes in photosynthesis.
charles the moderator (03:32:32) :
I claim credit for coining the term Dark Enthalpy, back in Dec of 2008
I also see where you foretold the coming ice age as well. Things can get very cold very fast!
I found it! I found the missing heat. After massive investigation and dogged research through seemingly endless climate archives, after reading thousands of blogs and visiting hundreds of websites I found the missing heat. It was in the lost and found at Walmart…
David Douglass (yes, 2 ss) has a paper in press I believe on this question. He and coauthors evaluate the radiative balance and show that there is no missing heat, just incorrect assessments of radiative heat loss over the globe. Don’t have it in hand right now.
Trenbreth’s position is anathema to the scientific method. He’s so tightly married to the CAGW theory that contradictory data is explained away in theories that get progressively more bizarre.
Well, my theory is that this missing heat is being siphoned into Hell through a trap door and the devil is creating a heat bomb that will explode one day and blow us all to, well, Hell.
DocMartyn (06:29:14) :
“About 105 GT C/yr is fixed; about 426 gC/m²/yr on land and about 140 gC/m²/yr. 6 watts/m2 is only 190 MJ/m2/yr; 426 grams of carbon is 1 kg of glucose is 5.9 moles and on combustion will give 5.9 * 2830 kJ/mol, about 16.7 MJ.”
Right (I guess), but then degradation also occurs, and so the energy is released back, I suppose.
So, the total biological mass would have to increase enough to explain the energy absorption (I doubt that), and … ta-da… one day, it would be released back when the biosphere mass would reajust to less mass… and the hidden energy would come back to haunt us all. Na — I don’t like it 🙂
@Dave F anna V
This is a very good question. I recently read a study out of the University of Wisconsin that reported that aspen trees were growing significantly faster than in pre-industrial times. A similar study was released in the last year on forests along the East Coast. If total biomass is growing it could explain the location of the missing heat, as photosynthesis is an endothermic reaction. The heat would literally be hiding in the woods. (and of course in the kelp beds) It could also be an explanation for the for some of the missing temperature increases, relative to projections, as today’s photosynthesis is storing energy coming from the sun today, reducing today’s air temperature. This of course would reduce the actual CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and oceans, relative to models that assumed a constant amount of carbon in natural storage. All quite trivial I am sure, but trivial is a relative term. It should be remembered the the entire AGW scare consists of a prediction that atmosphere will warm between 1% and 3% (K) in the next one hundred years.
[quote Robert S (12:37:28) :
Why does Spencer show a negative radiative forcing for CO2 prior to 2004?
[/quote]
Hmmm…. looking a little closer at Dr. Spencer’s graph, not only does it show negative forcing for CO2, it doesn’t match the 6.4 watts/meter -2 that Trenberth references (and is peer reviewed).
So I’d say ignore Spencer’s graph unless he shows up to explain what he means. And I apologize for not doing a better job checking it out before I posted it.
But the take-away point that the TOA energy balance changes is still valid.
I hate making stupid questions but this time for the sake of my own peace of mind I won’t mind the rotten fruit.
I hope everybody is taking into account that W/m^2 = J.s/m^2, and that if a surface gets say, 5 W/m^2 it will have received 10 J per every m^2 in two seconds, etc. 15 in three, etc. and a large-ish number after a year.
[ducking]
It sank to the bottom of the ocean then the Talking Heads removed it from the bottom of the ocean, they carried it away. But they said they’ll only do it once in a lifetime. So that heat could still come back to haunt us.
This is the same Kevin Trenbreth who, when confronted a couple of years back on NPR (yes, NPR) with the question of this missing heat, commented that perhaps the heat radiated back into space.
A great deal rests on this question since 85% of projected global warming would reside in the seas. Without a significant latent heat bucket effect threatening to boomerang in 50 – 80 years, we mightn’t expect some imminent climate apocalypse.
One possible mitigating factor in sea temperatures could be ice melt but seems to me that would pose a marginal point source impact. Another question I have is how additional heat might possibly penetrate expected thermocline and halocline layers. If these layers aren’t as absolute as expected could benthic heat sources also play a larger role in contemporary sea temperatures (as with increased sea floor vulcanism)?
[quote NZ Willy (12:39:40) :
DeNihilist (11:11:53) : “Hmmm, at least Dr. Trenberth, has started to doubt the satellite data. This is a start.”
The Warmers would like to discard the satellite data because it is the chief check on their runaway warming scenario. Their fiddled ground measurements are increasingly discrepant from the satellites’ measurements of no long term warming. So I’ll go with the satellites, thanks.
[/quote]
Just to clear things up for all the folks thinking this “missing heat” is the result of climate model calculations: it’s not.
The “missing heat” of 6.4 watts/meter -2 is from the results of satellite measurements of incoming and outgoing energy.
The current estimate of 0.9 watts/-2 is what comes from the climate models.
Also, I’ve been trying to get into the NASA Langley Atmospheric Science Data Center so I could post some real data from the satellite, but their server seems to be down.
magicjava (14:24:28) :
[quote Robert S (12:37:28) :
Why does Spencer show a negative radiative forcing for CO2 prior to 2004?
[/quote]
Hmmm…. looking a little closer at Dr. Spencer’s graph, not only does it show negative forcing for CO2, it doesn’t match the 6.4 watts/meter -2 that Trenberth references (and is peer reviewed).
I’m not sure I’m interpreting it correctly, but I think Spencer is suggesting that the reason that the heat is presumed to be missing is that they are operating from assumed levels of climate sensitivity that are vastly over stated.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/satellite-and-climate-model-evidence/
Chris Riley (14:22:09),
You make some very good points. I agree that much energy is being stored in the biosphere as a direct result of additional carbon dioxide, which clearly causes plants to grow bigger and faster: click
That appears to be where much of the missing heat is going. Prof Freeman Dyson gives a good explanation in his review of two books on global warming for the NY Times: click
Dyson’s article came out before Climategate revealed the climate science orthodoxy to have feet of clay: where they were formerly insufferably rude, arrogant, and condescending to skeptical scientists, they are now seen as self-serving grant hogs controlling the climate peer review system for their own personal gain, and they are now desperately trying to avoid explaining why their records of raw data were so incredibly sloppy, and why they filled in missing data, and why they refuse to show how they “adjust” the raw data, and why they conspired to protect obvious frauds like Dr Wei-Chyung Wang — who is suddenly under the gun again because of this decision: click
[Wang was the climate scientist and colleague protected by Jones, Wigley, Mann, etc., and who preposterously claimed that reams of nineteen year old raw data that he used in his peer reviewed paper, taken from dozens of different weather stations, was kept not on paper or on a hard drive, but in the memory of someone living deep in China.]
Prof Keenan has been after the despicable Wang [see climategate emails/Wang] for committing scientific misconduct for years. Now, because of climategate, Keenan appears to be on the verge of cornering Wang: click
The worm turns. Slowly. But it turns.
As I was reading this flood of posts, our local ABC (Aussie) radio came on with a report about salinity evidence from ocean float measurements. It was clear evidence they said, that AGW was occurring, and at even faster rates than models predicted!
THERE WAS NO MENTION OF TEMPERATURE OR HEAT MEASUREMENTS!
The ABC is fully funded by the Australian Federal government, and calls itself “Our ABC” !!!
[quote Dave Wendt (15:34:42) :
magicjava (14:24:28) :
I’m not sure I’m interpreting it correctly, but I think Spencer is suggesting that the reason that the heat is presumed to be missing is that they are operating from assumed levels of climate sensitivity that are vastly over stated.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/satellite-and-climate-model-evidence/
[/quote]
My honest reply is A) I simply don’t know what Dr. Spencer is trying to say in that paper, and B) I really should have checked his work better before referencing it. I assumed he was just posting the satellite data. I didn’t realize his graph was drawn up to support some other point he wanted to make.
The CERES data are just instrument readings. Those readings should be independent of any climate model or assumptions about feedback loops or climate sensitivity.