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
Capn jack,
NIWA here in New Zealand are wantin’ good Post Normal writers, yea be welcome here down under.
We’re to the left of Australia, a suburb of Sydney, or a Duchy of Canberra or somesuch….
Kevin the Rudd be our Overlord in waitin’, while Little Johnny Key be our Underlord in Absentia, maybe you could be a scribe to the Lords of Fonterra, Dairy Miners they be.
The seams of full cream run deep in our loam, easy pickings for a hardworking man, or a dodgy Chinese conglomerate – whichever offers the lowest price for our treasures,….he be the winner.
Where has the heat gone? It has died. Their god, Heat, has died – known as the “Heat is dead” theory, which is obviously the tipping point for our Universe’s heat death … well … it makes as much sense as anything else comming out of AGWer’s mouths – or elsewhere. With the smell of sulfur around the globe these days, it’s hard to tell.
IF kEVIN IS RIGHT WE MAY HAVE A HOT HALLOWEEN THIS YEAR!
Maybe Trenberth should be measuring the exhalations of all his colleagues and politico paymasters. No shortage of hot air there…
When the question in that line
has been satisfactorily answered, will we then throw the might of scientific investigation into answering the puzzlement in the following line?
Post Normal Science says we probably will.
p.s. Remember when you used to bend your mind to bringing reality to great visions, America? Such as going to the moon and thence the stars?
May I hope you are just taking a brief rest period?
Maybe, the heat isn’t there because it went back out into space.
You know, radiated into space.
Which would suggest, if true, that Man-made global warming just isn’t happening.
Kind of like a boring party.
A little music to pick up the party:
Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah
Some call me the gangster of love
Some people call me Maurice
Cause I speak of the pompitous of love
People talk about me, baby
Say I’m doin’ you wrong, doin’ you wrong
Well, don’t you worry baby
Don’t worry
Cause I’m right here baby, right here, right here, right here at home…
— Steve Miller band, Album: Best Of 1968-73
Joule thieves, eh?
If I remember my movies correctly, the “Pink Panther” was a joule.
And who did they send out to track down that notorious joule thief?
No wonder they can’t find the missing heat…
“Until 2003, the measured heat increase was consistent with computer model expectations.”
Maybe the computer models are wrong?
We know the heat is missing.
Its a travesty we cannot measure it.
What we need are new instruments.
Thermometers are so yesterday!
Quote:
>>> Yet melting glaciers and Arctic sea ice, along with rising
>>>sea levels, indicate that heat is continuing to have profound
>>>effects on the planet.”
Ummm – I thought the Arctic sea ice was increasing. Silly me it must be just thinning out, even though every chart says it has a much larger extent.
My 2 cents-
1) The Team seems to have problems with both S’s in KISS.
2) The Team’s arrogance does not allow them to realize they are buying their own B***S***.
3) The Team is working directly for the POLS in a plot from “1984”.
Maybe 5 cents-
>>Where oh where has my little heat gone?
It has all super-concentrated itself in the Door to Hell. Put a cap on this hole and we will be saved… Glory be to Gaia – etc: etc:
http://englishrussia.com/images/darvaz_door/8.jpg
It’s a travesty that we can’t hide the decline but I’ll think of something nebulous and nefarious. Et Voilà
I have so many takes on this, it ain’t funny!
1. My thoughts first went to astronomy’s Dark Matter and Dark Energy, which some day will also include Dark Anti-matter and Dark Black Holes. AGW is not the only scientific discipline that has a favored theory/construct telling them that “something” is out there “somewhere;” it just HAS to be! Kudos to all who beat me to the punch.
2. @Henry chance (16:41:59) :
Priceless! Surely, there is an S. Holmes out there who can sleuth down these missing joules. Perhaps the tobacco type or a hair sample is lying around in plain sight, where a properly studious investigator would see what others have missed.
Trenberth = Inspector Lastrade.
But then it brings to mind Holmes’ case of a missing aristocrat who turned out to have been spending his days as a beggar in a prominent London area because it paid so well. In other words, the missing joules are out there, just disguised as the sinking cold water NEAR ICELAND.
3. Surely that is the first place they should look – where they know the warmest waters dive into the depths. Unfortunately, even though that is the most famous point at which water is transported to the depths, the joules are missing! But since they know EVERYTHING about that conveying of water in the deep ocean, surely it couldn’t be down there.
I mean, surely if they understand the Oceanic Conveyor so well (ask them!), how could they miss this transport?
4. This is beginning to remind me of archeologists, who, whenever they find something they can’t explain, they label it a ritualistic or temple artifact. (That drives me up a freaking wall, when they do that.)
5. (My It’s a Wonderful Life reference now…) Perhaps George Bailey/Kevin Trenberth set it down on the table and Old Henry Potter found it and just wanted to make kindly young George/Kevin sweat. If so, all Kevin’s friends will start pitching in (as he knows they will), and before you know it, they will all send Kevin just TONS of joules, and everyone in the Bedford Falls CRU will have a happy Christmas and live happily ever after. The End.
6. Now THIS is the height of panicking alarmism. Not only is the heat MISSING – but it is going to jump out of a dark alley some night – at some unknown time, to some unknown degree and devastate us all! It is the ULTIMATE Emperor’s Clothes. CO2 wasn’t – after Climategate – going to get the job done, because they got busted, so now it will be this missing heat that will be the Bogeyman, the troll under the bridge, the Big Bad Wolf, the ticking time bomb.
Be afraid.
Be very afraid.
I claim credit for coining the term Dark Enthalpy, back in Dec of 2008
But my final question is: Wait a minute, didn’t they tell us that THE 2000s was the warmest decade in history???
Doesn’t that mean they WERE measuring the heat?
Ohhhhhh, yes – I see, it wasn’t ENOUGH heat. The EXPECTED rise in temps didn’t happen, and they have been scratching their heads about why not. So, FINALLY they’ve FOUND IT! By finding they can’t find it, they found that THAT was why they weren’t able to measure it!
And the astronomers will eventually tell us that Dark Matter is inside invisible black holes. It is all hiding.
Re: magicjava (Apr 16 22:25),
Absolutely the CERES data could be wrong. That’s why I said it’s only my personal belief that it’s at least close to correct. While I’ve never seen satellite data that didn’t have issues, I tend to have much more confidence in satellite data than in land-based data.
I agree, my list on the wrong way land based energy budgets are computed is long.
I was placing my hopes on satellites. If 6watts/m^2 is their systematic (deduced from this energy imbalance) I was too hopeful.
“The style of climate change discourse is that we maximise the problem and minimise the solution
Solitaire Townsend*, Futerra”
The last time this missing heat came up, one scientist stated that, yes, AGW was a fact but lots of the heat was escaping into space.
JF
*My Miss Climate Change 2009 and for ever.
It’s always in the last place you look for it.
Jeff L (18:14:23) :
“There are a few visionaries & the rest just are supporting cast.”
Too true. Which is why one should always take it with a grain of salt when someone claims that umpteen zillion “scientists” agree with this or that. The vast majority of those are really no better qualified to give an opinion than an ordinary lay person. Indeed, sometimes having a little knowledge is worse than having none at all, as any parent of a teenager can tell you.
“He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”
Thomas Jefferson
I was looking for you all day
But i couldn’t find you.
I couldn’t find you.
We’re walking
And we don’t always realize
but with each step we’re falling slightly
And that is
How we can be walking
And Falling
At the same
Time.
(Laurie Anderson, Walking and Falling, on Big Science)
OK
I own up – I stole it. It in a safe deposit box in a Swiss bank.
What the hell is this all about? Warm water rises, colder water drops. Thats the way it works, why does trenberth seem to think this no longer happens and this supposed missing heat is hiding in the ocean depths? That`s not possible
To quote (from memory … errare humanum est) from an old album by Melanie :
Well, it’s been too long a ride, too high the fare.
Well, I built and climbed a mountain,
But it isn’t there.
It isnt here, dum da dum,
It isnt there,
It isnt here nor anywhere.
I think they are just looking in the wrong direction! There is no way that so much heat could be working DOWN from the surface when the specific heat of water is 1000 times that of the air above it. In any case heat travels up, not down, it can only be transported downwards by a current.
I think it much more likely that the constant stream of heat that has been eminated from the Earth’s core for 4.6 billion years builds up in the the unmeasureable depths of the oceans and the complex current systems eventually bring this closer to the surface. Only a hundredth of a degree of extra heat across all the oceans could transport enough heat to melt ocean ice and transport heat into the atmosphere. Certainly atmospheric temperatures cannot explain the Arctic ice changes of the last decade.
This evetually would change weather patterns, create more precipitation which would fall as snow in winter and begin a process whereby as the oceans continued to develop heat the increasing snow cover in winter and albedo increase would cause a DROP in atmospheric temperatures!
Now all we have to observe is an increase in snowfall and decrease in observations of global temperature trends over a decade….. oh, that would now then!
Fact is CO2 is all but saturated in it’s absorbtion spectrum, when it reradiates it does so at a wide range of wavelengths that greenhouse gases do not catch. The entire greenhouse theory is flawed, based on an idea that greenhouse gases contribute 33C to our atmospheric temperatures. This is due to applying the Stephan-Boltzmann constant to Earth and it’s atmosphere (3 dimensional gasses) when it is ONLY VALID FOR A 2 DIMENSIONAL BLACK BODY SURFACE. Therefore it is likley the balanced temperature of the Earth due to the specific capacity of the entire atmosphere is a lot higher – and CO2 actually contributes very little to our temperature and therefore any extra from humans is unmeasureable in it’s effect.
I am constantly stunned by the sheer incompetence of supposed scientists in the way they make assumptions such as applying the SB constant incorrectly and then build computer models on this inaccuracy. Such is the complexity of the climatic system an error of .01% magnifies over a period of a few years to be no better than a finger in the air guess – but their assumptions are guesses to begin with.
The entire global warming theory is nothing more than wild guess of a system we are as yet unable to comprehend.
Trenberths conjecture isn’t new. He made the same claims 21 years ago..
“Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colorado, stated in 1989, that the heat storage capacity of the oceans was so enormous, that the stored heat of the whole atmosphere could be contained in the top one to two metres of the oceans. In other words, if a +1 deg temperature increase in atmospheric temperature was put into the sea, it would only warm the top metre or so of ocean. The oceans therefore have an almost unlimited `heat sink’ capacity, being deeper than 4 kilometres in many places.”
Where have we heard the following before?
“The modellers claim that the accumulated heat generated by greenhouse warming is being stored in the deep oceans, and that it will eventually come back out and haunt us at a later time. In other words, the warming has been merely deferred, but not cancelled.”
The above from a very well detailed look at the oceans effects on surface temps from the late great John L Daly http://www.john-daly.com/deepsea.htm