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
Let’s find it before RC does.
Ya, global warming can’t be seen because it’s sinking in the ocean. I guess it’s sinking because it hit an iceberg named ClimateGate.
“The heat will come back to haunt us sooner or later,”
It’s under our beds, next to the monsters that live there.
I shake my head at the foolishness of saying global warming is sinking into the oceans.
Allan M (15:19:12) :
“A percentage of the missing heat could be illusory”
100?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Nice! 🙂
There is no missing heat. It never was there, except in the models. When are they going to admit that?
LOL…. Fitzy (17:59:30) :
Excellent post mate!…. You get the Golden Guffaw Award…..
I think I’ve busted a rib laughing.
Makes you wonder how they build climate models if they can’t get the global heat balance correct. “Fudge factors” perhaps ?
I want to ask the most naive of questions.
The interior of the earth is hot, very hot in fact. What is the rate the energy flow from the interior of the earth into our biosphere? Does that rate change over time? Does the IPCC take the intrinsic energy inside our planet into account when it does the “budget” for the biosphere?
I have been idling thinking about this, prior to the Iceland volcano. The IPCC seems to think of volcanos as “negative forcers” through the cooling effect of the aerosols released during eruptions, but at the same time they release massive amounts of heat (both by convection, directly heating the air, hence the massive plumes going so high) and by radiation (those hot lava flows and in fact just the higher temperature soils and rocks radiating long-wave IR).
Just curious and naive. I did look at the IPCC diagram but it shows the earth’s surface as a barrier really, no energy flows across it in either direction…
“Either the satellite observations are incorrect, says Trenberth, or, more likely, large amounts of heat are penetrating to regions that are not adequately measured…..”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Kevin Trenberth would have been good at measuring the Emperor’s new clothes.
😉
Maybe it got converted to mass, have they checked the mass of the planet yet for changes.
John from CA (17:10:00) :
TGSG (17:12:55) :
Caleb (17:34:13) :
My previous reply was kinda short. here’s a more detailed one.
1) The CERES satellite shows the amount of energy entering the Earth at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) to be 6 watts/meter -2 more than the the amount of energy leaving the Earth at the TOA.
2) The current estimate for Global Warming is 0.9 Watts/meter -2, so the data from CERES is more than 6 times there current estimate.
3) There are several other ways to measure the heat energy imbalance. None of them give the same answer as any other method.
4) All of the methods have large margins of error, to the point where you can ignore the data if yo so choose.
5) It is my own personal belief that the CERES satellite is somewhere in the neighborhood of correct.
6) If the CERES satellite is correct, then we don’t know where the extra heat entering the Earth is going. This is because…
7) We know where the extra heat _isn’t_ going. It’s not being absorbed by CO2 or Water Vapor. It’s not showing up in there surface, troposphere, or stratosphere temperatures. It’s not _anywhere_ where we currently measure temperature. Hence it’s called “missing”.
8) Trenberth enumerated a few places we don’t currently measure heat and thus these areas may contain this “missing” heat.
Amway cultists blamed for man-made global warming theory. News at 11.
I’m waiting for a video to be released of Kevin Trenberth searching under all of the furniture in a conference room, looking for the missing heat. (Reminiscent of the video of George W. Bush doing the same, in search of Saddam Hussein’s missing WMD’s.)
Hint: Mr. Trenberth should consult Al Gore, who knows where the missing heat is stored, i.e. the temperature of the core of the earth is now several million degrees.
This is like trying to herd cattle. Trenberth and company would lead us to think that heat roves the planet and they have to point to places where the heat herd last warmed things.
Anybody who has lived in the Midwest knows that on a clear winter night huge amounts of heat can pour out to space. The heat herd probably got away because the clouds left the gate open.
“The heat will come back to haunt us sooner or later,” says NCAR scientist Kevin Trenberth, the lead author.
Like all good cattle, the heat, too, will come home.
How much of this stupidity is wishful-thinking, opinion, and wanton speculation? The range of the answer is from 1-100% and, hint, the correct answer has 3 digits.
I think I found some of the heat… It’s in my attic here in Texas…
The absence of heat is not evidence of heat.
who you gonna believe me or your lying sensors.
There is no pipeline.
Little Bo-Peep has lost her heat
And doesn’t know where to find it
Leave it alone
And it will come home
Dragging its joules behind it
Seriously, this whole sorry episode reminds me of the soap powder adverts from the nineties along the lines of “our powder destroys hidden odours”. Hidden odours? You know; the ones you can’t smell. People caught on and the brand ceased to be within the decade – will AGW go the same way?
Depression blamed on AGW theory, pharmaceutical deaths on the rise. Patients unable to reconcile their guilt.
AGW theory leads to 1 million deaths a year in Africa. Communities banned from basic development.
Flawed AGW theory estimated to have killed 22 million worldwide since Kyoto treaty.
Do you see where I’m going with this line of thought?
Dear Roger……..
“Our article highlights the discrepancies that should be resolved with better data and analysis, and improved observations must play a key role.”
Kevin
============================
The excerpt above needs to be sent to the Library of Congress,
as a record of our current ….dilemma, regarding Catastrophic AGW.
Dear Dad
Working hard. Books and stationary expensive. Just a few more years to find the heat before it’s too late.
Please send more money.
Love Kev.
PS. I may need to go to Cancun this year. Someone mentioned they had seen the heat there. Phil, Mike and the gang are going and I can’t allow them to find it before I do.
I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for this “missing heat” to hide away in the depths of the oceans.
The ocean deep is rematkably uniformly around 1-2DegC, wether near the poles or the equator.
Physically impossible for heat to transfer into deep oceans.
But I do agree some heat has been sequestering away since 1998 in the shallow waters (down to 100mtrs, the depth sunlight can penetrate) . THAT’S THE HEAT THAT’S BEEN EXHAUSTED OUT BY EL NINO.
Once that heat is gone, and the low activity of the sun, brrrr baby brrrr for the next 30 years.
To me, it’s obvious where the heat goes: it is radiated back out into space. We see this in action every winter morning, clear sky, on cars parked in the open — the windshield is frozen and the other windows are not. This is because the ground radiates warmth onto the car windows, but the windshield is tilted toward the sky and so does not get the warmth from the ground, so it freezes. The Earth radiates its warmth back into space. This is not hard.