Global Average Sea Surface Temperatures Poised for a Plunge
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
Just an update…as the following graph shows, sea surface temperatures (SSTs) along the equatorial Pacific (“Nino3.4″ region, red lines) have been plunging, and global average SSTs have turned the corner, too. (Click on the image for the full-size, undistorted version. Note the global values have been multiplied by 10 for display purposes.)
The corresponding sea level pressure difference between Tahiti and Darwin (SOI index, next graph) shows a rapid transition toward La Nina conditions is developing.
Being a believer in natural, internal cycles in the climate system, I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that global-average SSTs will plunge over the next couple of months. Based upon past experience, it will take a month or two for our (UAH) tropospheric temperatures to then follow suit.
“R. Gates says:
May 20, 2010 at 3:31 pm
And I’m wondering why the AGW skeptical group is not talking about this major study on the overall warming trend of the oceans (not the cyclical rise and fall of temps based on the cycle of El Nino/La Nina):
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7296/pdf/nature09043.pdf
So while it is interesting to note the ENSO cycles, PDO, etc., more important for the long term climate are the longer term trends.”
The first sentence from the cite states:
“A large (~1023 J) multi-decadal globally averaged warming signal in the upper 300 m of the world’s oceans was reported roughly a decade ago1 and is attributed to warming associated with anthropogenic greenhouse gases”
The claim that the multi-decadal rise is due to greenhouse gases is a postulation.
Here is an alternate explanation: In Little Ice Age the oceans were cool, then at the end of the LIA the Earth starts warming (for some reason) as the oceans warm the solubility of CO2 in the oceans reduces (cf. Henry’s Law) and CO2 out-gasses from the oceans. So the warming leads to a steady rise in atmospheric CO2 that has continued to this day as the oceans have been warming. This matches with the observed geological pattern of the Earth warming then, some years later, atmospheric CO2 increasing.
The apparent correlation of CO2 with atmospheric temperatures is therefore not a causal relationship but atmospheric CO2 concentrations are a lagging indicator of ocean temperatures.
The timescales and lag of atmospheric CO2 increases starting after the LIA also matches the ‘start of the industrial period’ that is used in the AGW hypothesis as the reason for the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
The AGW hyppthesis cannot therefore be sustained.
Dr. Spenser is going to be shown to be correct.
Larger fluctuations in melting sea ice will produce more cold to the ocean currents. The massive high pressure systems that have been stable for months now over the regions have increased the expansions of sea ice yet will have increased the melt as well. Surface air temperatures have declined allowing greater fluctuations and greater masses to form.
I am not a big fan of satelite temperature data if it cannot differentiate the surface temperatures from the atmospheric temperatures.
The new meme is the heat bypasses the 700m layer undetected and stealthily reveals itself below? So the “physics as we understand it” is wrong, and the upper 700m of ocean does not contain ~85% of the heat storage of the planet? The science community has been lying to us?
R Gates and Anu, would you mind explaining how ocean heat suddenly decided in 2003 to stop increasing in the upper 700m and hide away for another day, completely undetected? Contrary to your claim R Gates, this is not in agreement with climate models.
If that is true, then the equatorial OHC in the upper 300m somehow miraculously disappeared as well, again completely undetected through the upper 700m.
I think Richcar’s 10:15pm post hit the nail on the head. Look to Argo data to explain much of our current medium term weather fluccuations. I wouldn’t be surprised to a net loss (in joules) to our world’s oceans the next 18 months.
Mark highlighted this from BoM
The map for the 5 days ending 10 May shows a large volume of cooler than normal water below the surface of the tropical Pacific, with anomalies more than 3°C cooler than normal for this time of the year. Two weeks ago there were no areas with anomalies of below −2°C.
For R Gates and Anu
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/comment-from-josh-willis-on-the-upper-ocean-heat-content-data-posted-on-real-climate/
Per Josh Willis:
“There is still a good deal of uncertainty in observational estimates of ocean heat content during the 1990s and into the early part of the 2000s. This is because of known biases in the XBT data set, which are the dominant source of ocean temperature data up until 2003 or 2004. Numerous authors have attempted to correct these biases, but substantial difference remain in the “corrected” data. As a result, the period from 1993 to 2003 still has uncertainties that are probably larger than the natural or anthropogenic signals in ocean heat content that happen over a period of 1 to 3 years. However, the decadal trend of 10 to 15 years seems to be large enough to see despite the uncertainties. Because Argo begins to become the dominant source of temperature data in about 2004, the period from 2000 to 2005 is especially worriesome because of the transition from an XBT-dominated estimate of ocean heat content.
You might also comment that there is another easily available estimate besides that of Levitus et al. (the one shown in this blog entry). The other long-term estimate is from Domingues et al. and can be downloaded from CSIRO: ”
Is Josh Willis mistaken when he infers XBT was still contaminating the ARGO data through 2004?
How is it then any conclusion can be made that OHC has transcended (does heat rise?) to below 700m when the data used is riddled with so much uncertainty prior to 2004? What we do know is this year OHC is going to drop significantly as evidenced by recent data from the equatorial upper 300m.
Would should also take note from 2008 to 2009, global OHC dropped. It is going to drop again in 2010. I’d still like to know if heat is accumulating below 700m, how is it going undetected.
R Gates and Anu, please explain this phenomenon as it appears to be counterintuitive.
stevengoddard says:
May 20, 2010 at 9:12 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/05/flashback-to-2007-sst-to-plunge-again/
In Bob’s defense, the rapidity of this change is catching most everybody by surprise, I think, even those who thought we’d have La Nina before year end. Looks like it is coming much sooner.
I took the coward’s bet in that thread, and said that while I wouldn’t (at the time) bet on La Nina before year end, I wouldn’t bet against it, either.
Declines in Global Temperatures and changes in Ocean and Continental ‘Weather’ take seemingly ‘strange’ twists over the course of hundreds of years. At the end of the MWP in the 13th Century, the ‘changes’ did not suggest cooling. When one or more of the AGW Faithful suggest that the ‘Weather’ is going to get worse they’re right, but not for the reason they think. The following quote from “Climate4You.Com” is very informative about “Global COOLING”:
“Inhabitants of Europe presumably first noticed an increased frequency and severity of mid-latitude storms as climate began to cool in the late 13th century. Especially around the North Sea the increased incidence and severity of storms and sea floods became apparent. In at least four sea floods of the Dutch and German coasts the death toll was estimated at around 100,000 or more; in the worst case the estimate was 306,000. In southwestern Denmark it was reported that sixty parishes accounting for over half of the agricultural income of southern Slesvig (at that time part of Denmark) had been ‘swallowed by the salt sea’. In some of these strong storms the Zuiderzee in the Netherland was formed. The dimensions of the island Helgoland in the German Bight was seriously reduced by coastal erosion. In the year 800, Helgoland is reported to measure about 60 km across; yet around year 1300 this was reduced to 25 km only. Exposed to severe coastal erosion by the many storms characterising the following Little Ice Age, Helgoland now only measures 1.5 km across. ”
http://www.climate4you.com/
(At this link connect to “Climate + History”)
PS: Climate moves at a Snail’s Pace;-(
Kirk Myers says:
May 20, 2010 at 5:52 pm
The cool PDO (20 to 30 years) has resumed, so we should see more La Ninas, weaker El Ninos, and cooler temperatures ahead, according to Joe D’Aleo and Joe Bastardi.
So according to your latest post (below) it hasn’t resumed yet but the computer model says that it’s got a ~50% chance of going negative in a couple of months? The 20-30 years duration where does that come from?
Kirk Myers says:
May 20, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Here is NOAA’s PDO forecast, which shows it entering negative territory during the April-May-June seasonal timeframe.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/forecasts/sstlim/for1pdo.html (click on “numerical forecast”)
richcar 1225 says:
May 20, 2010 at 8:01 pm
Richcar, can you please prove that the ice cap has grown at a record rate since 2008? (and faster than the decline from 1993-2008)? What months are you basing this analysis on?
Here is the ERSST PDO Index just sent to me by meteoroligist Joe D’Aleo. It shows the PDO re-entering in its negative phase in March and April as the last El Nino continued to dissipate.
ftp://eclipse.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/ersstv3b/pdo/pdo.1854.latest.situ.v3b.ts
Oops. That should have been “meteorologist.” Typing too quickly.
blackswhitewash.com says:
May 21, 2010 at 2:23 am
I guess you missed the fact that it took Amundsen more than 2 years to traverse the
the Northwest Passage whereas in 2007 a sailboat did it in a several weeks.
Jim Clarke says:
May 21, 2010 at 1:01 am
What major rebound of Arctic ice are you talking about? I haven’t seen any evidence of a rebound. And Antarctic is still warming. Where are you getting your facts from?
Joe says:
May 21, 2010 at 4:50 am
Joe you have it backwards, A low pressure over the Arctic Basin is what favors ice divergence, not a high pressure.
Amundsen took 3 years to sail west through the Northwest Passage (1903-1906). The St. Roch took 2 years to sail east through the Northwest Passage (1940-1942).
Amundsen was trapped in ice each of three winters. He came and went from his ship, and learned Arctic survival skills from the local Netsilik people that would later prove useful. For example, he learned to use sled dogs and to wear animal skins in lieu of heavy, woolen parkas.
Due to water as shallow as 3 ft (0.91 m), a larger ship could never have used the route Amundsen travelled. This says more about 7 guys with enough money and supplies to wait for years until the shifting ices of the Canadian coast allow them to slip through, than the Arctic being “ice free” 104 years ago.
Same for the St. Roch, which took the same path Amundsen did, going in the other direction. Neither man/ship made their historic journeys in one summer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen#Northwest_Passage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Roch_(ship)
Since “sea ice extent” defines a 15% filled gridbox as “sea ice”, there are probably plenty of opportunities to sail the Northwest passage in a couple weeks in recent years:
http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/images/20070926_extent.png
There seems to be only a few bottlenecks among the Canadian islands where a ship would have to sail among ice floes. This is probably unprecedented in historical times.
FergalR :
May 20, 2010 at 4:20 pm
“It’s really strange for SST to be this high with SOI to so low, provided you’ve only been observing the planet for 30 years. If I were Dr. Trenberth I’d be saying “We don’t understand” right now, as per usual.”
The quiet sun is suppressing energy loss to space thereby creating a nore negative polar oscillation pressing all the air circulation systems equatorward.
That leads to a SOI lower than would normally be expected for an El Nino of the moderate size just experienced. That El Nino has been restrained from pushing the ITCZ and the mid latitude jets jets poleward as much as a similarly sized El Nino would have done whilst the sun was more active.
The energy from that El Nino is being held nearer the equator and that could lead to the more active hurricane season some expect. However we have not seen such a global air circulation system since before satellites. The whole satellite era to date has been dominated by a positive polar oscillation so we cannot be sure that the current setup will necessarily translate into more hurricanes.
Meanwhile the three main cloud banks of the ITCZ and the two mid latitude jet streams are nearer the equator than before 2000 (because of the more negative polar oscillations). The result is that global albedo is higher and less energy is entering the oceans to replace that lost during the recent El Nino.
So as long as the sun stays quiet the position of the cloud banks will keep the solar input to the oceans lower than is required to replace energy released by the oceans.
The quiet sun might slow down energy loss to space but it also reduces energy input to the oceans by moving those cloud banks equatorward.
“And Antarctic is still warming.”
Where are YOU getting YOUR facts from???
According to the climate prediction center, parts of the US are likely set for cooler than normal (ok, 30 year average) summer:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/30day/
I’ve been checking their site for close to two years and have never seen them predict such any significant area to be cooler than normal in the summer, especially for JJA…
Jim Clarke says:
May 21, 2010 at 1:01 am
“R. Gates,
You say that the ocean warming from 1993 to 2008 is just what the AGW models predicted. Fine. It is also what we expected from natural climate variation….
So why are you only 25% skeptical of a theory that only explains 1-2% of the last 2,000 years? Shouldn’t you be 98-99% skeptical based on the observations alone?”
________________________________________________________________________
R.Gates is NOT 25% skeptical, even though (s)he says he is. That is just a useful argument device. The true objective is to place doubt in peoples minds and recruit them to the AGW cause. Here is R.Gates without his sheep’s-clothing, on his favorite subject arctic ice.
“In addition to the complete destruction of the ecosystem going on in the Arctic, what people don’t realize is the extremely critical function the sea ice plays in regulating the temperature of the whole world. It:
1) Reflects sunlight, keeping the earth’s albedo in a constant range.
2) Keeps the ocean temperature is check (like an ice cube in your summer drink)
When the ice cap melts completely, you can be certain that RAPID global warming is immenent. An ice free arctic will mean massive warming from the loss of temperature control (like breaking the thermistat in your home), as well as the POSITIVE FEEDBACK of releasing massive amounts of methane from the arctic region.
All this is assured, and already too late to stop.. .and still the fools are arguing about who will get all their precious oil reserves from the arctic…as though it will be business as usual in the future…such a foolish, blind, narrowminded, and selfish species.
Gaia will be bringing on the culling soon.
God Bless you all.
R. Gates
[Response to R. Gates comment:]
The time is coming when many people will follow the exemplary behavior Zephyr, Glen Barry and R. Gates by speaking out loudly and clearly for something, for anything at all to do with the preservation of life as know it and Earth, even though it is not politically convenient and economically expedient to do so, even though thousands of greedy kings and self-proclaimed masters of the universe eschew such open expressions as well as maintain that “silence is golden.”
Soon people will be heard speaking out often in many places for something, for anything at all that does not have to do with the unbridled and soon to become unsustainable growth of the global political economy.
The silence regarding the threat of rampant economic globalization is deafening. How much longer will it continue?
Climate Ark: Arctic Going to Hell in a Hand-Basket
No I do not think our R Gates has a skeptical bone in his body.
Nedhead says:
Richcar, can you please prove that the ice cap has grown at a record rate since 2008? (and faster than the decline from 1993-2008)? What months are you basing this analysis on?
——————————————————
http://www.climate4you.com/index.htm
The recovery began in 2008 after the 2007 fall minimum. We do not know how much volume was added. The new ice sat satellite should help. Heat released from the growing ice should have contributed to an increased in ocean heat content from 2007 onwards.
stevengoddard says:
May 20, 2010 at 9:12 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/05/flashback-to-2007-sst-to-plunge-again/
I had a look at this earlier thread that Steve cited – there are some interesting quotes from it:
R Gates
February 5, 2010 at 2:11 pm:
I think we might see some “see-saw” effect in 2010, but there is at least one very important difference between now and 2007. In 2007 we were seeing a sun that was becoming less active as it headed for the minimum we saw last year. Now we are seeing an increasingly active sun with its irradiance steadily increasing toward the solar max of 2013. Plus of course, we have more CO2 and methane in the atmosphere than in 2007, so with any heat released, the more that will be trapped and continue to warm the troposphere. So far at least, there are no signs that 2010 will cool down like 2007 did…but we all can track it daily which makes this so fun & interesting…
O dear – what happened to the “increasingly active sun with its irradiance steadily increasing”? Spotless again today. Still no “signs” that 2010 will cool down?
There was also on the thread some betting action or at least macho betting talk from Tom P:
Tom P says:
February 7, 2010 at 4:49 pm
Steve Goddard (16:15:50) :
I’m willing to bet that 2010 is likely to be one of the warmest years recorded, if not the warmest. That’s hardly agreeing with your prediction of UAH temperatures. And I think the composition of the atmosphere would certainly play an important part in that warming.
Steve Goddard says:
February 7, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Tom P,
I’ll take you up on that bet. Based on UAH temperatures. 2010 will not be as warm as 1998.
I think Tom would be better advised to take his chances on the stock exchange than putting any actual money behind warming predictions just now.
We are heading rapidly into La Nina conditions.
The Pacific subsurface cool anomalies are a little ahead of the normal schedule but only a month or so. The La Nina peak could be in late October to November.
There is a definite pattern in how the equatorial Pacific subsurface anomalies oscillate between El Nino and La Nina.
Yesterday’s cross-section is showing -5C and -6C in some areas. There is enough cool anomalies at 130E to 150E (at the beginning of the circulation pattern) to sustain a La Nina until early 2011.
http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/getchart/catalog/products/forecasts/ocean/real_time/xzmaps!20100520!Anomaly!Temperature!chart.gif
Compare yesterday to the same time last year when an El Nino was building.
http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/getchart/catalog/products/forecasts/ocean/real_time/xzmaps!20090520!Anomaly!Temperature!chart.gif
Compare the 2008-09 La Nina peak (followed by an El Nino in 2009)
http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/getchart/catalog/products/forecasts/ocean/real_time/xzmaps!20090107!Anomaly!Temperature!chart.gif
… with the same map at the 2009-10 El Nino peak.
http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/getchart/catalog/products/forecasts/ocean/real_time/xzmaps!20091223!Anomaly!Temperature!chart.gif
This is what the map looks like 8 months before an El Nino peak.
http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/getchart/catalog/products/forecasts/ocean/real_time/xzmaps!20090320!Anomaly!Temperature!chart.gif
This is what the map looks like 8 months before a La Nina peak.
http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/getchart/catalog/products/forecasts/ocean/real_time/xzmaps!20100220!Anomaly!Temperature!chart.gif
JeffBrown
“And Antarctic is still warming.”
I thought we were talking about the Earth here? To what planet does this refer?
Sorry, links didn’t work. Here is the main page they came from.
http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/charts/ocean/real_time/xzmaps/
Even an oil spill cleanup team has to be politically correct these days: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OIL_SPILL_PROFESSOR?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US