Recent Variations In Upper Ocean Heat Content – Information From Phil Klotzbach
By Dr. Roger Pielke Senior
Phil Klotzbach has graciously permitted me to post an update on upper ocean heat content in the equatorial upper ocean. He writes
“The Climate Prediction Center recently released its equatorial upper ocean heat content for April 2010. One of the primary areas that they focus on is the equatorial heat content averaged over the area from 180-100W. The decrease in upper ocean heat content from March to April was 1C, which is the largest decrease in equatorial upper ocean heat content in this area since the CPC began keeping records of this in 1979. The upwelling phase of a Kelvin wave was likely somewhat responsible for this significant cooling. It seems like just about every statistical and dynamical model is calling for ENSO to dissipate over the next month or two as well, so it’s probable that we will see a transition to neutral conditions shortly. I have attached a spreadsheet showing upper ocean heat content data from CPC since 1979. In case you’re interested, the correlation between April upper ocean heat content from 180-100W and August-October Nino 3.4 is an impressive 0.75 over the years from 1979-2009.
He has plotted the data below. An interesting question is to where this heat has gone.
It could have moved north and south in the upper ocean, however, to the extent the sea surface temperature anomalies map to the upper ocean heat content, there is no evidence of large heat transfers except, perhaps, in the tropical Atlantic [see].
The heat could have been transferred deeper into the ocean. However, if this is true, this heat would have been seen moving to lower levels, but, so far, there is no evidence of such a large vertical heat transfer.
The heat could, of course, be lost to space. This appears to be the most likely explanation.
Vincent says:
May 8, 2010 at 6:14 am
R. Gates,
You have answered posts in a most selective manner, concentrating on those that attempt to dispute (erroneously) that heat cannot be subducted into the deep oceans. You have selectively avoided responding to those more inconvenient questions. DavidmHoffer has summed up my own questions perfectly, so I will quote him here:
“Now can you explain what physical process it is that imparts so much momentum in warm water that:
1) it descends to depths of the oceans that we can’t measure
2) it does so in such a narrow column that it passes between all the argo buoys doing ocean temperature measurement all over the world completely undetected
3) it does so without causing any disturbance noticed in surface behaviour
4) the cold water that it supposedly displaces, even temporarily, does not show up anywhere on the surface nor does it pass by the argo buoys on the way up
5) How does this momentum overwhelm the natural downwelling processes of cold water sinking that we can in fact observe, and why is it that we can oberve them but not your warm downward currents?”
——————
Not being a scientist, I can’t possibly answer all those questions in any scientific and specific way. I think however, your facts are a bit erroneous, as we do see cold water disturbances on the surface that we can’t account for, and we do see warm water downwelling that is wind driven all over the planets oceans. Have the various wind speeds causing this downwelling been measured over a long term period? Perhaps they’ve increased. I think we are approaching the known limits of our understanding of deep ocean currents. In fact, a new current, previously unknown in extent, was recently discovered coming from Antartica:
http://beta.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/article410747.ece
With ocean heat conent increasing over the past 30 years, it is possible that the speed (and therefore the downwelling force?) could be increasing in the deeper ocean currents, and the deeper ocean temps and speeds also increasing? As the newly discovered current mentioned above so illustrates, there are vast areas of deeper oceans we know nothing about. Certainly we know far more about the atmosphere, and have a lot more broadly based instruments studying the atmosphere, measuring things like outgoing LW radiation etc. It is indeed a “travesty” that we don’t know more about the deeper ocean currents, and I think that your questions are all excellent ones and could (and should) be the topics of future studies.
“R. Gates says:
May 8, 2010 at 9:13 am
davidmhoffer said:
[…]“As the ice cover retreats the amount of upward LW that gets released rises exponentially with temperature, and in an area where water vapour and ozone are at a minimum as GHG effects. So small temperature rises in the arctic are huge cooling mechanisms for the planet.”
———
Please site your sources for this counter-intuitive statement– especially the last sentence.”
The Stefan-Boltzmann law says that the amount of radiation rises with the 4th power of the temperature. This is exactly why the theory of AGW posits that it will be the arctic regions that will show the most warming. Whether this really happens is largely unknown because we don’t have good measurements up there, only Hansen’s extrapolated gridded stuff.
Obviously more radiation means more cooling or more transport of energy to space. This may seem counterintuitive but it is accepted science; it’s thermodynamics. For the layman, feedback mechanisms often seem counterintuitive. They seem to have problems especially with negative feedback mechanisms.
“Would an increase in the trade winds have an effect on upper OHC?”
Yes, the heat blew away through increased evaporation.
R. Gates
Upper oceans are cooling? You must be talking about some very regionalized short term phenomenon, yes? Certainly we know that over the longer term, quite the opposite is true:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/>>
Sir,
For starters, your entire post completely ignored the main point of my comment which was that there is no physical mechanism for LW to enter the ocean in any significant amounts. You ALSO haven’t responded to my 5 questions in a previous comment. Now you seize on one of my comments and make a sarcastic rebuttal based on the posted link. Congratulations on ignoring 95% of what I said and picking the 5% that you think you can argue with, I guess you thought it was a cherry.
You’ve been prattling on ad naseum about short term changes to ice coverage, but faced with short term changes to ocean heat content that don’t support your position, you suddenly want to talk long term. The last four years of ocean heat content are in decline, CO2 is at itz maximum during this period. Explain. Long term the historical record shows that ice coverage was even lower than the lowest we’ve had recently, and the temps in the arctic higher than anything we’ve had recently. So, if we go even longer term that your prescious graph based on well documented historical references, then the over all “trend” is in decline in opposition to the increase in CO2. Explain.
You closed your comment with a complaint that I had no references to cite regarding increased negative feedback in the arctic. After ignoring my 5 questions, and ignoring my points about LW not being able to heat the ocean, your only rebuttal to this is to ask me to cite something? Is there something about discussing the physics that frightens you, you can only argue by proxy? Here are the facts do with them what you will:
1. Equatorial temperatures have shown very little variability while arctic regions have shown the most variability over the temperature record (since 1860). Confirmed by all the major temp records broken down by latitude.
2. CERES, ERBE and so on all show that the earth retains energy in the equatorial regions and loses it at the poles.
3. The amount of energy radiated to space is related to the temperature in degreees K raised to the power of FOUR.
4. As a consequence of 1,2 and 3 above, a small variation in the earth’s temperature results in a LARGE variation in energy emitted to space from the poles.
5. Warming in an ice covered area must drive energy into the ice in order to melt it. As a consequence, any ice covered area tends to hover at the feezing point until ALL the ice is gone, and then the temperature rises quickly. See point 3 above.
6. A major increase in radiated energy at the poles is much more likely to escape into space than at the equator due to an absence of GHG. Water vapour is THE dominant GHG, but water vapour declines with temperature and so the arctic regions being cold, there is a fraction of the amount of water vapour than exists at the equator in the air. Ozone is also depleted in the arctic regions by comparison to the equatorial, that’s why we keep on hearing about ozone holes.
None of the above changes my original points however, which are that major amounts of energy can’t be moving from one layer of the ocean to the other without being detected in transit, and LW has no physical mechanism to warm the oceans significantly in the first place.
Anthony said to R. Gates:
“REPLY: Please learn to spell “cite” before admonishing others. -A
————
Anthony, I appreciate your acting as spell checker, and I’ve admitted my spelling deficiences in the past, but my request for him to “cite” his references is hardly meant as an admonishment…but rather true curiousity.
R. Gates says:
May 8, 2010 at 10:05 am
Anthony, I appreciate your acting as spell checker, and I’ve admitted my spelling deficiences in the past, but my request for him to “cite” his references is hardly meant as an admonishment…but rather true curiousity.>>
If your curiousity is sincere then check out Willis’ various posts on earth’s thermostat. A gory detailed explanation of what I am getting at in regard to negative feedback in the arctic regions is here, complete with actual data and calculations:
http://knowledgedrift.wordpress.com/theory-do-the-poles-regulate-earth-temperature/
I don’t think one needs to propose substantial downwelling of heat energy into the ocean depths. All one needs is slight temperature variability along the horizontal path of the thermohaline circulation. Variations of less than 1C would be quite enough to explain all that we have directly observed so far.
As the returning water resurfaces it would be subject to influences from surface winds and solar input and would no doubt pool into even warmer or even cooler sea surface areas showing the patterns of warming and cooling so thoroughly investigated and recorded by Bob Tisdale and others.
davidmhoffer says:
“If your curiousity is sincere…”
———
Thanks for the link. I’m 100% sincere! I’ve stated many times that I’m only 75% convinced that AGWT is likely correct. Meaning I’m a 25% skeptic and so I at least give a glance to every link that someone provides. I am constantly looking for data that will shift that 75/25 split one way or another, and I do respect the knowledge of people like yourself, who might know a thing or two that would help move that percentage. If AGW is happening on a degree that some believe, then one would think the data should be increasingly easy to see and obvious. One of the great barriers to getting these facts seems to be weeding out the political smoke from the scientific fire. The more politics mixed with someone’s post or statement, the less I listen, regardless of which side they’re on.
One thing that I’m especially keen on fully understanding is the role, nature of, and intensity of positive and negative feedback mechanisms, and if the (geologically speaking) surge of human created CO2 might not overawhelm these mechanism. I’ve read Willis’ posts on his thermostat theory, and certainly the idea seems obvious and perhaps not all that unique and provides a nice negative feedback mechanism to prevent overheating, but I sense that perhaps there are other mechanisms, both positive and negative feedback in nature, that are at play, and again, the issue to me is how much of a true “shock” to these natural feedback systems are anthropogenic GH gases, specifically CO2.
The heat probably hasn’t gone anywhere – more likely it wasn’t produced in the first place. This argument is much like turning down the thermostat of your electric room heater, inputting less energy into the system, and then wondering where the heat has gone.
Think of the Earth as a resistor in an electric circuit – less current less heat produced.
The problem seems to be in the continued use of Victorian era gas light physics – while ignoring electricity; this will continue as long as “cosmic rays” are believed to be “cosmic rays” instead of moving electrically charged particles, AKA electricity.
(Oh astronomers usually dismiss electricity occurring in space but then they haven’t experimented with a Geissler tube, or for that matter a cathode ray tube or TV – if they had, they would realise electricity seems to have no problem traversing “space”).
R. Gates;
One thing that I’m especially keen on fully understanding is the role, nature of, and intensity of positive and negative feedback mechanisms, and if the (geologically speaking) surge of human created CO2 might not overawhelm these mechanism. >>
The feedbacks are well known but get lost in all the shouting about trend lines and modeling and so on. Here are, in my opinion, the biggest ones:
1. C02 effects on longwave are logarithmic. Consider that you have several pairs of sun glasses, each which block 50% of the light. Put two in a row, do they block 100%? No. The first one blocks 50% and the second one 50% of what is left, leaving 25%. Put another pair in the row, you are now blocking all except 12.5%. CO2 has the same problem. What ever number of watts/m2 CO2 actually adds, we’ve increased CO2 levels by 100 ppm over the last century, and if we add another 100 ppm it will have HALF the impact of the first 100 ppm in terms of watts/m2.
2. Earth Radiance increases exponentially. Stefan’s Law is that P (power) in watts per meter squared rises in proportion to temperature in degrees K raised to the power of 4.
So consider just 1 and 2 together. For easy figuring, let’s say the first 100 ppm (which already happened) caused +2 watts/m2 which caused +0.5 degrees. The NEXT 100 ppm causes only +1 watts and only +0.1 degrees. Starting to see the problem with a tipping point?
3. Natural processes move heat to the arctic regions. This causes stability in the equatorial regions and high variability in the arctic regions. Out of proportion (to the average) temperature increases in the arctic regions cause out of proportion increases to earth radiance, see my blog at http://knowledgedrift.wordpress.com/theory-do-the-poles-regulate-earth-temperature/
4. Increased temperatures result in increased cloud cover, see Willis Eschenbach’s Earth Thermostat http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/14/the-thermostat-hypothesis/ and keep in mind that the warmer the earth gets, the larger the area this would apply to.
5. Atmospheric window. This one is super complicated but as earth temperature changes, the peak of the emission spectrum moves. Since the temps change in the coldest parts of the globe the most, the amount of emission in the atmospheric window (the range of wavelengths where longwave is not absorbed and so escapes into space) increases.
I’m sure there are others, but the point is that all of these are much Much MUCH bigger than what is required to make a tipping point theory ridiculous, and the amount of CO2 we would have to add in addition to what we have already put in is just so out of proportion to our capacity to produce fossil fuels that it really is odd that there continues to be a debate.
R. Gates
Tongue in cheek though this may be, it really does summarize the entire debate. From the physics to the politics. Readers are strongly advised to avoid consumption of beverages while reading, I have been blamed for 7 keyboard failures so far and want no more complaints.
http://knowledgedrift.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/the-physicist-and-the-climatologist-follow-the-money-2/
Where has all that water vapour gone?
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Earth/action?opt=-p&img=vapour.bmp
Particularly Nino 1 and Nino 2 regions.
R. Gates,
“and we do see warm water downwelling that is wind driven all over the planets oceans.”
You seem to continually misunderstand the points raised. Yes, absolutely we see some warm water downwelling. Neither, I, David or Dr. Pielke have said otherwise. The key qualifier here is “some.” The observed downwelling is too little to account for the 0.85W/M^-2 radiative imbalance. So far there is about 10^23 joules of heat unaccounted for. Your argument seems to imply that this heat has somehow transited undetected, passing between the argo buoys. The probability of this happening is close to zero. How can you credibly claim to be 25% sceptical, genuinely to be seeking answers when you won’t even face this problem?
I’ll ask again: how does this heat manage to transit only between the argo buoys and not through them?
kuhnkat says:
May 7, 2010 at 7:40 pm It must be under the model!
Henry @R.Gates
I agree with you not being able to decide (25%) which side your are on. The first thing that struck me about CO2 is that everybody who believes in AGW knows the theory but nobody has any test results that would prove to me that CO2’s warming effect is greater than its cooling effect….
We have the same problem (of no test results) also with ozone.
a) we know ozone increased, due to the elimination of CFC’s. If we cannot use the antarctic data then perhaps this one?
http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&SESSION=&RCN=31685
That is a 14% rise from 1995 to 2008
b) we know that CO2 rose by 70 ppm or 0.007% during the past 50 years, that is about 6% or 7 % over the same period 1995 to 2008
These are two gases that would trap radiation from earthshine between 13 and 15 um, causing warming, bottum up.
Both gases have spectra showing absorptions in the 0-5 um range meaning it also causes cooling by deflecting radiation from the sun. Said cooling would probably be more noticable from the top.
Unfortunately we have no test results that would tell us what the net effect is of the radiative cooling and warming of each gas per gram or per mole. My best guess on that would be that the ozone is cooling slightly more than warming and that CO2 is slightly warming more than cooling. The quantity of CO2 in the air is a bit more. Taken together though that could mean that the net effect of the increase in these trace gases in the atmosphere could be close to to zero.
I admit that this is just a rough estimate – but what do you expect from me if no one did any testing?
That brings us back to where we were with the climate, ie. the sun, the cloud formation and what drives continuing overcast conditions.
On the current issue, see my post May 8, 7:38
I think the heat is in Sydney – last month of autumn here and the days are absolutely beautiful (springlike). The nights are beginning to cool (finally) but it is unseasonably warm.
Good stuff davidmhoffer (May 8)
I had a similar discussion on Skeptical Science and prior to that with a leading climate scientist.
The issue of climate sensitivity is critical to CO2 AGW theory. It has been explained to me in these terms:
We have had approx 0.75 degC rise since pre-industrial times. A doubling of the CO2 from 280ppmv (pre-industrial) to 560ppmv will increase the surface tenperatures by 2-4 degC with most *models* agreeing at about 3 degC. If you use the IPCC’s own equation for the ‘forcing’ caused by doubling CO2 it is {5.35 ln (CO2b/CO2a)} or about 3.7W/sq.m.
The current theorized forcing by CO2 (IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4) is about 1.66 W/sq.m, so the added forcing at ‘doubling’ will be about 2.05 W/sq.m.
To radiate out to space 3.7W/sq.m using the S-B Eqan (Stefan), at an emitting temperature around 255 degK, only requires a 1.0 degK rise in emitting temperature which space sees the Earth due to the exponential power of the T^4 S-B relationship.
So how do we get a 3 degK rise at the surface from a 1 degK rise in the emitting temperature – well according to *climate scientist* that is the ‘enhanced greenhouse’ effect caused by enhanced water vapour, extra absorption of back radiation etc etc of the atmospheric column. Other contributors have said that the S-B eqan does not quite apply because CO2GHG changes the emission spectrum and it stays changed when a new equilibrium temperature is reached.
Of course all the above assumes that other forcings (mainly cooling) remain unchanged (ie those from IPCC AR4 for cloud & surface albedo, solar and other effects), and no surprise positive feedbacks (tundra methane etc) occur.
As we know from Dr Trenberth’s Aug09 paper – he gets a total imbalance at TOA of 0.9W/sq.m which equates to an energy gain to the Earth of about 145E20 Joules/year. He can only find about 80 E20 Joules/year by equating the energy absorbed in melting land ice (very small) and warming oceans by sea level rise – leaving an unaccounted residual of about 65 E20 Joules/year.
As the land and atmosphere can store little heat energy, the ‘missing heat’ must be in the oceans which change in OHC should equate to the integral WRT time of the energy flux imbalance at TOA. Dr Trenberth wonders if the missing heat is absorbed below 7-900m ie, down to 2000m.
The only paper out there which ‘finds’ the missing heat so far is that of von Schukmann and this has been criticised for the strange bumps in its OHC curve and uniform error bars, and sparse ocean coverage by Argo down to 2000m, and none at high latitudes.
I have calculated that the Argo floats (all 3500 odd) equate to one every 110,000 sq.km or one for a grid of ocean 330km x 33okm. There are hardly any above of below 60 deg N or S, and a much smaller number reading down to 2000m. I also have a question as to the accuracy of OHC calculations when the floats can move with ocean currents and report at differing times. For example if a float moves out of a grid ‘Tile’ of ocean from which it reported at Time 1, and no float enters that ‘grid’ to report at Time 2 – can that grid tile be measured at all?
Would be very interested in your comments on any of the above points.
Continuing with my negative feedback list, there is one that I have always wondered about but don’t recall seeing a discussion of. That is the reduced effect of CO2 forcing when water vapour rises. The classic IPCC explanation has CO2 forcing causing a temperature increase which raises water vapour levels which adds more forcing and more temperature increase. But I never see them reduce the CO2 forcing as the water vapour forcing rises, and it must, in fact be reduced.
CO2 competes for the same absorption spectrum as water vapour. As water vapour increases, you can’t just add the forcing of the two together. The percentage chance of an upward bound photon being absorbed and re-emitted goes up, but not by the total of the two. It is logarithmic. As an over simplified example, suppose that there is a 25% chance of a photon being absorbed by CO2, and a 25% chance of being absorbed by water vapour. Is the total chance that the photon will be absorbed 50%? No, itz more like just over 40%. (You can prove this with a deck of cards. Deal yourself four spades. A flush is 5 spades. You know where 4 of the spades are, there are 9 left in the deck out of 48 cards. The percentage chance of the next card being a spade is about 19%. If you could use either of the next two cards dealt, do you have a 38% chance of hitting a flush? No you do not. More like 32%)
The increase in water vapour can assist CO2 in theory, but in theory the effects of the two combined must statisticaly be smaller than the total of the two.
“Shutdown or slowdown of the thermohaline circulation is a postulated effect of global warming.” a’la Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulation
_________________
Of course, the big problems with that statement are the claim itself and the reference it is found in. AGW claims everything and anything is subject to, and caused by, AGW and the folks at Wikipedia are so pro AGW that they lack all balance, some would even say integrity. You really can’t take much of what they say about climate without first swallowing a cup of salt.
Variations in the thermohaline circulation reflect variations in the level of the earth’s store of heat in the earth’s biggest heatsink, the oceans. We’re not very close to getting a handle on THC variation. It falls in the “What We Know We Don’t Know” AND the “What We Don’t Know We Don’t Know” categories mentioned by Willis at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/08/climate-actually-changes-film-at-1100/#more-19303
Were we now able to monitor variation in the THC on a global scale we would have a much better “cause and effect” picture of atmospheric weather and be able to better predict short term climate variation.
Upwelling will need to be recognised as a major climate player – as will deep ocean circulation in general of which upwelling is a component. There are complexities and patterns including time patterns over decadal and century scales involving upwelling and deep-to-surface heat transfer of which at present we know next to nothing. It is likely that the various oscillatory forcing or entraining factors such as solar related, orbital and planetary/gravitational, may exert their influence on climate oscillatory behaviour on medium to long timescales via the deep ocean circulation.
Its worth noting that for the deep ocean (temperature 0-3C) to “suck” down all the climate warmth so that temperatures at the sea surface and troposphere were nowhere more than 2C, the resultant increase in deep ocean temperature would only be about 0.4 C.
Downwelling of warm water on a globally significant scale to join the deep circulation is of course a physical impossibility – the only water that downwells significantly to join the THC is cold arctic / antarctic water with increased salinity due to ice formation. It is amusing that AGWers are now appealing to the fiction of warm water downwelling to account for the “dude – where’s my heat?” problem.
Climate oscillation-wise we are at the crest of the roller-coaster, its white-knuckle time, hold on to your hats.
Ken Lambert;
Following is over simplified for brevity:
CO2 doubling = 3.7 watts = +1 degree
But Stefan Boltzman yields +6 watts earth radiance
Answer = CO2 absorbs LW and re-emitts it in a random direction, some up, some down, some sideways. So CO2 has to absorb about 6 to send 3.7 back.
Water vapour feedback
The mount of water vapour that the atmosphere can hold increases exponentially with temperature (about doubling for every 10 degree rise). So, IPCC calculates +ve feedback from expected rise in water vapour.
Problems
1. Earth isn’t flat, it spins and it has seasons. Applying 3.7 w/m2 and calculating an average temperature rise is ridiculous. The temperature range from poles to equator is 100 degrees, the range in daily temps as much as 20 and seasonal as much as 80. +1 degree in the middle of the night in the arctic in winter at -50C is completely different from +1 degree at high noon at the eqautor at +40C.
2. Just because the atmosphere CAN hold more water vapour doesn’t mean it WILL hold more water vapour. Itz more complicated than that and the assumption that increased capacity will be filled 100% is ridiculous. Actual measurements show that in fact this is not what happens.
3. The earth isn’t flat, it spins, and has seasons. The change in water vapour capacity in the arctic at -40….you get the idea..
4. Missing heat, maybe its in the oceans. I don’t know why there’s missing heat, maybe it has to do with missing measurements? But if we’re going to find it in the oceans, what has that got to do with CO2? CO2 emitts longwave, and longwave can’t penetrate more than a millimeter of water, so almost everything that longwave emitts gets pulled back up into the atmosphere via evaporation. So… if there IS missing heat, and it IS in the ocean, it is a function of natural variation not LW from CO2. In brief, the oceans can heat the atmosphere, but the atmosphere can’t heat the oceans. (someone will of course yelp about conductance to which I respond the oceans’ mass is 1400 times that of the atmosphere, so conduct away for a thousand years or so to get a 1 degree change)
Argo buoys – now there I do share your thoughts. If they drift, there’s nothing to say that specific natural currents might bias the drift toward colder or warmer water. I’ve never really looked into it but the question did cross my mind. That said, you other point is more important I think. The bulk of the buoys are in the equatorial and temperate zones. The equatorial zones show the LEAST climate variability and the arctic zones the MOST variability, so if we want to know what is going on, I would think we would want to expend the bulk of our resources studying the variable parts, not the stable parts. But who would apply for a grant to go to Tuk tu yuk Tuk when they can get one to go to Tahiti?
@hoffer
“CO2 competes for the same absorption spectrum as water vapour. As water vapour increases, you can’t just add the forcing of the two together. The percentage chance of an upward bound photon being absorbed and re-emitted goes up, but not by the total of the two. It is logarithmic. As an over simplified example, suppose that there is a 25% chance of a photon being absorbed by CO2, and a 25% chance of being absorbed by water vapour. Is the total chance that the photon will be absorbed 50%? No, itz more like just over 40%.”
I hope you’re also accounting for the various rotational transitions of water, which really do add up. More scary is the fact that a single molecule of a chlorofluorocarbon will have more absorptive impact than 10,000 molecules of CO2 due to the same reasons you posited here.. CFCs absorb elsewhere and exhibit linear dependence.
The thing is, there are so many competing processes, it’s difficult to create a good model. I mean, we still assume all aerosols are sulphates in most models.
Here are repeats of my posts from a week ago – nice to be ahead of the game for once. (I wonder what’s happening to sea level just now?)
phlogiston says:
May 3, 2010 at 12:33 pm
There was a little noticed posting on the site “climate sanity” suggesting that “sea level rate rise leads global temperature”:
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/sea-level-rise-rate-leads-global-temperature/
albeit from a limited recent period. There is a plausible (speculative) basis for this – sea level rise rate (not sea level per se) could be an index of the rate of energy flow into the upper ocean. Thus the current slowdown in rate of sea level increase could reflect decreased heat input into the upper ocean. This in turn could be predictive of a downturn in tropospheric temperatures and a cooler climate. Anyway – we will find out in due course.
phlogiston says:
May 5, 2010 at 1:02 am
David Middleton says:
May 3, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Now… What could possibly warm the oceans?
stevengoddard says:
May 3, 2010 at 2:48 pm
David Middleton
What warms the oceans is sunshine and clear skies, something which GCMs have very little skill at modeling.
Less cooling by upwelling can count as warming, combined with – as Steve says – sunshine and clear skies. Take the east Pacific and the ENSO system as an example. Note that deep water below the thermocline is 0-3C in termperature, above the thremocline (by definition) water is a hot-tub by comparison, especially near the tropics. In a La Nina year, you get big-time upwelling of deep ocean water off the Peruvian coast – it fuels plankton blooms and a massive anchovy fishery. But in an el Nino year, the trade winds which pull the upwelling in a La Nina year are absent, so no cold upwelling and increased unemployment among Peruvian fishermen. The big warm patches on the pacific that everyone gets excited about are due to the absence of the “normal” upwelling. As Pamela Gray once pointed out, the sub-tropical sea surface in the doldrums can heat up very fast under the tropical sun.
So the balance of downwelling and upwelling tied to the THC can cause changes in heat exchange between deep and surface ocean water, with the possibility of century-scale oscillation in this exchange due to the timescale of THC.
Temperature alone seems inadequate, when it comes to a true measure of the energy budget of our amazing planet.
For example, what holds more energy? Air at a temperature of 90F, in a dead calm, or air at a temperature of 89.9F, in a gale?
Simple question. I haven’t any answer but common sense, which is that wind holds a lot of energy which thermometers don’t measure.
If anything, people use the concept of “wind chill” to state wind is “colder” than calm, as if a gale holds less energy.
I imagine there are all sorts of other ways energy changes state, moving from an area thermometers can measure to an area outside the reach of thermometers.
Some changes can be measured by math, such as the creation of latent energy when an H2O molecule changes from liquid state to gas.
However other changes seem to defy measurement. For example, this daybreak I look out over a landscape lush with spring greenery which wasn’t there, a month ago. The branches actually bend under the burden of new leaves.
If, rather than gushing poetry, I attempt to become mathematical, I quail at the prospect of measuring, in numbers, the energy that went into the creation of those tons upon tons of leaves. All sorts of sunlight went into the creation of something my thermometer fails to measure.
davidmhoffer May 9.
David, I appreciate your detailed comments.
I conducted a Question and Answer with same leading climate scientist re the CO2 doubling sensitivity and S-B and here are the Q&A’s:
Question 1:
“The IPCC quotes the Eqan for the extra CO2 forcing from doubling as F = 5.35 ln(2) W/sq.m = 3.71 W/sq.m. The existing figure from Fig 2.4 of AR4 is 1.66 W/sq.m. Doubling CO2 to say 560 ppmv from current levels would cause a net rise in positive forcing of 3.71 – 1.66 = 2.05 W/sq.m.”
Answer 1:
*Yes 3.7 W m-2 is the best accepted number for doubling CO2, but CO2 is not the only player.*
Question 2:
“If S-B is applied to the pre-industrial temperature of 253.9degK and OLR of 235.7 W/sq.m with a 3 degK rise the sum becomes; (256.9/253.9)^4 x 235.7 = 247.04 W/sq.m. 247.04 – 235.7 = 11.34 W/sq.m. The net rise in emitted radiation from present would be 11.34 – 2.8 = 8.54 W/sq.m.
This effective negative feedback increase of 8.54W/sq.m would not be offset by the extra CO2 forcing of 2.05 – a rise in other positive forcings of about 6.5 W/sq.m would be needed from other GHG or other positive feedbacks (water vapour & Ice albedo etc).”
Answer 2:
*Yes but this is not OLR: it is the local radiative loss for such an increase in temperature, but then all the air around is radiating at the same rate as well and so more is received (the greenhouse effect), and water vapor increases. The net loss to space is more like 1.25 W m-2 per K warming or about 3.75 W m-2 for 3 deg warming. The increase in CO2 and water vapor has a much bigger effect in terms of the downwelling radiation than on the radiation to space, which is why it warms.*
Question 3:
“If all other forcings remained the same as present, the extra temperature rise to lift the S-B calculated radiative emission by 2.05W/sq.m above current levels would be (240.55/238.5)^0.25 x 254.65 = 255.19 degK. Increase 255.19 – 254.65 = 0.54 degK.
Using 255 degK as the current temperature and 238.5 as current OLR the sum is (240.55/238.5)^0.25 x 255 = 255.55. Increase 0.55 degK. Add that to the 0.75 degK increase since pre-industrial era and the equivalent temp rise is 1.3 degK from a doubling of CO2.
The 3 degC increase from doubling CO2 seems a difficult proposition if S-B applies to negative radiative feedbacks without very big increases in other positive forcings.”
Answer 3:
*The 3 deg C surface value is very much a consequence of increased water vapor. You can not do it the way you are trying very well. You need a 3 D atmosphere, or at least one with detailed structure with height.
For a 1 deg C increase in temperature there is about a 7% increase in water vapor. In general at the surface, the increase in downwelling radiation from temperature increase above alone is about 4 W m-2, but the water vapor contribution is 4 to 6 (highest in tropics), while surface radiation up ranges from 0 to -4 (cooling; biggest in tropics), and the net is 4 to 6 W m-2 warming which is what amplifies evaporation and drives an increased hydrological cycle (and thus evaporative cooling).*
David, I would be very interested in your comments on the above.