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
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“The heat will come back to haunt us sooner or later,”
Rising from its hiding place in the Deeps, bringing retribution to mankind for its sins of modernity ?
Like, uh, a giant, radioactive firebreathing reptile ??
So we are edging closer to a new paradigm – the Godzilla Hypothesis of planetary balancing mechanisms ???
Cooool !!!
Trenbirth wants to come to the ‘dark side’ but can not yet bring himself to do so.
I’ve wondered for some time why nobody seems interested in the heat content of the land surface. I gather temperatures are regarded as fairly stable beyond a few feet down for any location, but that still leaves a pretty significant tonnage of sub-surface soil and water with a substantial thermal capacity.
A quick Google on the subject reveals relatively little research in this area. But why, one must ask? Is it too difficult to arrange, too complicated to “adjust”, or is it just another assumption that, like the trivial matter of clouds, is conveniently left out of the you-beaut models on which so many climatologists place so much trust?
One paper I did find is on “An acceleration in soil heat storage across northern Eurasia” by Tara Troy and Eric Wood.
http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2010/EGU2010-5439.pdf
It’s based on a relatively sparse set of data, and that data has been tortured by a model that “replicates observed temperatures reasonably(?) well.”
It shows that: “After validation, we show that there has been a small increase in heat storage from 1901 to 1980. Following 1980, there is an acceleration in the rate of heat accumulated in the soil column that occurs through 2006, when the model simulations end.”
The acceleration since 1980 seems reasonable, since we were emerging from a cold spell. But wait – the soil heated up from 1901 to 1980? Surely that’s impossible, because there wasn’t enough CO2 around in those days to do its deadly work?
It seems there are many places to bury inconvenient data…
Did anyone else hear this missing heat garbage being talked about on NPR Science Friday today? Good Lord. The last person on Earth that will still believe in AGW will not be Al Gore, it will be Ira Flatow. A new Earth creationist being interviewed by the late Jerry Falwell would have faced tougher questioning then the climate clowns that were on today.
Surely it is time for NCAR to stop puttering around with climate science and get back to their real job of running stock car races for rednecks.
Maybe the missing heat is under the thimble where the pea is supposed to be.
@magicjava (19:03:41) :
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. ….
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”.
– – – – – – –
Are you familiar with Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC)? Have you considered endothermic heats of transition? This is energy storage due to change of phase, which is released upon reversal of the transition. You cannot measure heat stored in this manner with a thermometer, you must use a calorimeter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_transition
Well, the missing heat may be below 700m, but that’s only because it’s “rotten” heat…
This paper from last year offers some interesting insights on the inadequacy of the present understanding of heat circulation in the oceans.
http://www.ocean-sci.net/5/203/2009/os-5-203-2009.pdf
Some selected quotes
. The presence of a geothermal heat- flow, whether spatially variable or not, means that the ocean must evacuate an additional 0.03 PW, which it does in all cases by enhancing poleward heat transport
in the Southern Hemisphere, by about 10% near 50◦ S.
– geothermal heat flux is formally analogous to air-sea fluxes, and likewise, it induces a transformation of water masses (AABW in this case).
– In that sense, it is directly analogous to diapycnal mixing, both qualitatively and quantitatively. It has a similar effect on bottom water, eroding extrema of the global T- S diagram and depositing a comparable amount of heat in the abyss. On a global scale, it is in fact equivalent to
a diapycnal mixing coefficient of ∼1.2×10−4 m2 s−1 at
3500 m, i.e. the canonical value of (Munk, 1966).
The case is hereby made that geothermal heating is an important actor of abyssal dynamics. We recommend its inclusion in every model dealing with the long-term ocean circulation, for it substantially alters bottom water mass characteristics and generates a non-negligible circulation in the present-day climate
Have they tried…
“Ally Ally In Come Free”
or
“Come out, come out, wherever you are?”
Apparently they don’t know the rules of the Climate Heat “Hide and Seek” Game.
Wikipedia: In physics and thermodynamics, heat is the process of energy transfer from one body or system due to thermal contact, which in turn is defined as an energy transfer to a body in any other way than due to work performed on the body.
Somehow you climatologists have confused thermodynamic terminology. Heat is not a property of a body. Perhaps the reason it is lost is that the question is energy storage and heat in a body. A hot does not have heat in it.
Since the planet is not a closed thermodynamic system, the use of state variables such as internal energy or enthalpy cannot be assigned a value. The only heat flow is from hot to cold with supplying mechanical energy, work.
It had gone out to space, from whence it came.
————————————————————-
CRS, Dr.P.H. (16:44:49) :
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and
it is a travesty that we can’t.” Trenberth to Mann, ClimateGate email:
=================================================
I’VE CRACKED THE CODE.
What Trenberth is really saying to Mann is:
‘…….we’ve taken these models. Put lipstick on them, added a bit of plastic surgery, implanted a couple of Dolly Parton sized peaks at the end to make them even hotter……….and you’re telling me they turn out to be Transvestites????!!!!…’
I thought the heat is just starting with the various investigations underway? Monckton is just warming up his instruments to apply the heat.
“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.”
It’s not heat, it’s “believed heat”. It’s “conjectured heat”. It’s predicted “heat” based upon, ahem, models meaning it’s “soothsaid heat”. “Illusionary” indeed.
How about getting BETTER TOOLS for better observations before spouting off about your pet hypothesis? Oh right, GREEN grant $$$MONEY$$$.
It’s fine to have a hypothesis, but please indicate that that is what it is. It’s like the NOAA et. al. temperature anomaly graphs that use fabricated data via interpolation without labeling indicating that the visualization is based upon invented, fabricated data via statistical interpolation.
Where in the world is Joules and where did he hide the heat? Joules who? How do you hide heat? It want to radiate in all directions by default. Water or air or ice or magma or rock would need to move it.
“I’m going to guess that the heat jumped into the mantle, and that’s why Iceland popped.”
Yup must be that a cold zone (oceans) can contribute HEAT to a hotter zone (mantle with hot magma)! That’s some physics I’d like to see!
“Heat transfer is the transition of thermal energy from a hotter mass to a cooler mass. When an object is at a different temperature than its surroundings or another object, transfer of thermal energy, also known as heat flow, or heat exchange, occurs in such a way that the body and the surroundings reach thermal equilibrium; this means that they are at the same temperature. Heat transfer always occurs from a higher-temperature object to a cooler-temperature one as described by the second law of thermodynamics or the Clausius statement. Where there is a temperature difference between objects in proximity, heat transfer between them can never be stopped; it can only be slowed.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_transfer
THE THREE METHODS OF HEAT TRANSFER in RAP
Is Kevin Trenberth suggesting a NEW way of heat transfer? Via entangled quantum physics teleporting the heat across ocean layers maybe? Or maybe it’s sneaky heat?
““The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” Trenberth to Mann, ClimateGate email:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1048”
Can’t account for it according to what exactly? Why does Kevin Trenberth think there is travesty in the lack of heat? Nature isn’t here to confirm our theories, she could care less about us. It is obvious from his comment that he’s trying to find the missing heat otherwise his hypothesis crumbles to the ground in pieces. I wonder how long it will be before some of these guys give up on their hypothesis? When will they realize that their hypothesis has been falsified by Nature? What will it take for them to say the hypothesis is falsified and needs to be toss aside?
Kevin Trenberth, what specifically is your hypothesis? In full detail please.
Do the alleged climate scientists even have a notion that their hypothesis is supposed to have a test for falsification? What is their Null Hypothesis?
I’ve directly asked the following (plus a number of other) questions point blank to at least one climate scientist who works that the National Center for Atmospheric Research and haven’t received an answer yet. They don’t seem to want to answer these sorts of basic questions fundamental to the scientific method. I’m still waiting for an answer to be fair.
(1) What is AGW?
(2) How can the alleged AGW hypothesis be falsified?
(3) What is the Null Hypothesis that you work with?
DirkH thanks for the violent fems video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT4rRUONgRU). One of my favorite 100 songs that was missing, now I feel the heat of it again!!!
Heat that haunts with taunts by Trenberth et. al..
Cudos to Craig Moore for Liquid Heet! It goes where you need it!
Joule thieves is by far the best explanation. “Kevin may just be posturing. Now he goes and gets a 13 million dollar grant and looks for the joule thief.” One can buy a lot of jewels with the funds from the search for the missing joules! Nice. How do I get into that racket? Oh wait, I can’t take the heat that might come back to haunt me from the travesty of sticking to a hypothesis regardless of the counter evidence. That’s why hypotheses are supposed to have tests that falsify them, so one doesn’t get struck blind by a pet hypothesis that cripples one’s mental capacity for critical reasoning!
“Whom the gods wish to destroy they first drive mad.” Does this apply to those, such as Kevin Trenberth, who stick to their hypothesis through thick and thin? Is the real travesty that their alleged AGW hypothesis has no falsification tests, thus they are like flies to a light? It’s the light, it’s the heat, move towards it, fast before it’s lost again! ZAP! ZAP! Nature zaps all hypotheses that are false, dead, dead, dead!
The Mystery of Global Warming’s Missing Heat – March 19, 2008. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025
“Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research says [the missing heat is] probably going back out into space. The Earth has a number of natural thermostats, including clouds, which can either trap heat and turn up the temperature, or reflect sunlight and help cool the planet.”
Isn’t that what Lindzen and Choi have shown and quantify in their paper, “On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data”?
Does this mean that Trenberth is agreeing with Lindzen?
“If you draw a boundary between the outer atmosphere and space and treat the planet (with atmosphere) as a closed system, at equilibrium the amount of energy released through the boundary must be equal to the amount of energy passing into the boundary from the sun. As a baseline, everyone assumes that the amount of energy passing into the system from the sun remains constant. If the temperature of the system inside the boundary is to increase, it is absolutely necessary that the total energy passing through the boundary must go down, at least temporarily, permanently trapping the energy in the system and raising the system temperature. Dr. Lindzen’s paper shows that once a temperature increase occurs — regardless of the reason — the system responds by moving out of equilibrium and releasing more energy into space than is provided by the sun. Thus, the temperate falls from the new (perturbed) temperature to a level between the initial equilibrium and the post-perturbation temperatures, until the equilibrium is reestablished.
Any model that results in a system temperature above the initial perturbation (above roughly 1C for doubling of CO2) MUST, mathematically, do so by reducing net radiation released into space below the equilibrium point so that the additional energy can accumulate and the temperature can rise. Only by reducing net energy released into space can the system heat itself. All other forms of heating must, by definition, simply move energy within the closed system resulting in redistribution of energy but no net heating. The author of the note above notes “Models that assumed otherwise [from increased radiation resulting from increased temperature] would have near infinite temperatures.” Dr. Lindzen addresses this explicitly in his paper. “Indeed, Figure 3c suggests that models should have a range of sensitivities extending from about 1.5C to infinite sensitivity (rather than 5C as commonly asserted), given the presence of spurious positive feedback. However, response time increases with increasing sensitivity [Lindzen and Giannitsis, 1998], and models were probably not run sufficiently long to realize their full sensitivity.” – Jim, http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2009/11/lindzen-choi.html.
For your further enjoyment, where the joules went and how: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuJI2VBiqic.
Kevin Trenberth et. al., NATURE, as in The Objective Reality of Nature and not the magazine, is always the final judge of a hypothesis, not your peers! Stop paying attention to your peers and start paying attention to Nature! Thanks.
Layne Blanchard (15:25:59) :
I’m going to guess that the heat jumped into the mantle, and that’s why Iceland popped.
…and why the core of the earth has warmed up to 10,000,000 °C recently.
I know where it be. the Kraken ate it, ate the heat, and we all know the Kraken very rarely breaks 1000 fathoms, unless it’s for revenge.
THe walker circoolation is gonna go Maelstrom, aargh.
It’s Doom, now all I need is a Disney contract. I smells an acadmey award and a Nobel Gunpowder Prize, on the wind Nor be Nor West.
The parrot seems to be missing some heat. Perhaps it is dead.
You find Waldo and you will find the missing heat.
My longish comment as an article:
“Whom the gods wish to destroy they first drive mad with a hypothesis lacking falsification tests”
http://pathstoknowledge.net/2010/04/16/whom-the-gods-wish-to-destroy-they-first-drive-mad-with-a-hypothesis-lacking-falsification-tests/
That great prophet George Orwell misnamed his book. It should have been 2010 not 1984. The sheer lunacy of the warmest cult defies description.
On another note, the literary tone of this blog has improved considerably since Climategate. We have people in this one thread writing poetry [including Anthony] and quoting BB King and the immortal Ella. I for one love it. So do my birdfeeder visitors who get more seed when I’m in a good mood.
magicjava (19:03:41) :
Normal science teaches us to examine the evidence. If we find our measurements show a net imbalance of a considerable amount of energy entering and leaving a system, and yet absolutely no evidence whatsoever, and I mean ‘whatsoever’, of an increase in energy within the system, we really should be examining our methods of measurement closely rather than fumbling in the dark for some ‘explanation’ for the ‘invisibility’ of this ‘missing’ energy.
KISS!
Don’t worry Kevin, I just hooked up with me ol mate Nemo, as parte’s to the code and we will poon that monster heat eater fishy for yer, we will let yer cut it up to get the heat out.
But we needs some of them Grant Doublooms, act fast the world is doomed and only me and me matey Nemo can saves all the widows and orphans and Fancy swells as well polar bear cubs being ate by vultures.
Almost forgot,
Aaargh.
Phil’s Dad (19:21:40) :
I like it! Carbon Taxes – the way to destroy the ‘Hidden Global Warming’.
I will now change my TLA (Three Letter Acronym) to refer to this religion from AGW to HGW forthwith!
Jerome, the final “S” in “KISS” is what seems to be getting in the way of the alleged climate scientists implementing the “KISS” approach! [:)]