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.
Nedhead,
This NSDIC site shows the increase in arctic sea ice from 2008 to 2009 as 25% or 1.08 million sq km. That should have released a lot of heat due to the laws of heat of fusion. The largest decline was for the year 2008 at -23 %. The long term decline from 1978 is about -10%. However many of us think based on declining arctic ocean SST’s we will likely have thirty more years of adding sea ice. The satellite data began in 1978 when the Arctic Ocean SST was at a thirty year low.
http://nsidc.org/sotc/sea_ice.html
Anu says:
May 20, 2010 at 9:42 pm
I’d like to see something like a vertical wall of Argo floats measuring how much heat moves from the North Atlantic Ocean into the Arctic Ocean each year:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Arctic_circle.svg/1000px-Arctic_circle.svg.png
I think this is the main cause of the vanishing Arctic sea ice:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png
Note that there is already less sea ice than in summer 2007.
I agree that water movement from the Atlantic is a key determinant of Arctic ice. Ocean currents around the Arctic can indeed be expected to have equal or greater effect on ice extent than air temps – this point is made repeatedly on this site when debates on Arctic ice get confined to air temperature and winds only.
“Be careful what you wish for”. If tomorrow there could be the “vertical wall of Argo floats measuring how much heat moves from the North Atlantic Ocean into the Arctic Ocean each year”, I can guess quite confidently what they would see: decreasing heat movement Arcticward. Why? A strong clue was given in a paper by Levitus et al 2009 concerning the Barents Sea, posted here last October:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/08/new-paper-barents-sea-temperature-correlated-to-the-amo-as-much-as-4%C2%B0c/
Look at the first graph with black (Barents temps 100-150m) and red (AMO) lines. Strong correlation between Barents subsurface temps and the AMO. Cyclical warming of Barents water with up to 4C magnitude can only be from ocean currents (tail end of the north Atlantic drift) not air weather. Forcasting the sinewave forward its not hard to predict that as AMO now heads south, so will Barents water temps, reflecting reduced warm input from the Atlantic. And thus the Arctic ice recovery will continue.
phlogiston says:
May 21, 2010 at 7:43 am
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”?
For what it’s worth Gates is right, based on the most recent TSI measurement the irradiance is steadily increasing and exceeds the 2007 value:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png
Gail Combs
Now we seem to have hit the top of that cycle and are probably headed towards lower temperatures
See Fig.9.1 in page 50:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/y2787e08.pdf
This take us to the forbidden side of science:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=34190&sid=7dc1009f4b5d617fc52a4ec613528b61
So, the new science paradigm, and at the same time the “Verbum Dismissum” (The forgotten word) is Eλεκτρον.
Basil: You wrote, “In Bob’s defense…”
I never predicted that there would not be a La Nina or that there would be one. My last post on La Nina events illustrated that they rarely happen after an El Nino Modoki. Also, it’s not a La Nina…yet.
intrepid_wanders says: “Ahhh… this might be what Bob Tisdale was seeing in the SSTs.”
Bingo. It’s what I was seeing in the NINO3.4 SST anomalies in the post that Jeff linked. But it’s a two-edged sword. A La Nina helps to fuel the next El Nino.
sort of off topic but Help!
I just found this page and wonder if it may also have something to relate to sea temps and oddities lately?
It claims the sea floor of Aus is rising 13 feet a day. buoys said to be faulty, but more than one was giving the same read. and I couldnt find CSIRO temp anomaly the site mentioned..
http://abundanthope.net/pages/Ron_71/Is-the-Coral-Sea-bed-rising-Is-Lemuria-returning.shtml
My wife never said she was “25% pregnant”.
Bob Tisdale
May 21, 2010 at 9:07 am A La Nina helps to fuel the next El Nino.….but not perhaps iduring “interesting times”
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC22.htm
It looks like it follows the 80 years +-Wolf-Gleissberg cycle.
Bob Tisdale:
More on that: http://virtualacademia.com/pdf/cli267_293.pdf
R. Gates wrote: “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),” and you linked Lyman et al (2010).
The basic reason is that we’ve discussed OHC before. Many of the bloggers here understand that natural variables dominate the rise in Ocean Heat Content since 1955, which is the start year of the NODC’s OHC dataset, and that’s the OHC dataset that was released with Levitus et al (2009). All anyone has to do is break the OHC data down into basin subsets to discover what caused the rise and you can do that using the KNMI Climate Explorer:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere
Or, if you’re one of the persons who doesn’t like to investgate data, you can read three posts I’ve written on that dataset. I believe there are links to other posts within them. Start here:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/09/enso-dominates-nodc-ocean-heat-content.html
Then read this one on the North Atlantic:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/10/north-atlantic-ocean-heat-content-0-700.html
And there’s this one on the North Pacific:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/12/north-pacific-ocean-heat-content-shift.html
Regards
DR says:
May 21, 2010 at 5:56 am
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/comment-from-josh-willis-on-the-upper-ocean-heat-content-data-posted-on-real-climate/
Is Josh Willis mistaken when he infers XBT was still contaminating the ARGO data through 2004?
The XBT data is separate from the Argo data – it does not “contaminate” it. There is a similar situation when stitching together the data from satellites that give temperature data for the troposphere, for instance – each satellite has slightly different instruments, orbits, calibration, and often trying to stitch the datasets together uncovers some subtle problem that wasn’t realized before. The multiple-satellite raw data used by Dr. Spencer at UAH, for instance, was incorrectly reduced for about 27 years (RSS found significant errors in 2005). Luckily, once a problem is uncovered, researchers can go back and redo the data processing correctly.
Trying to combine the Argo data with the XBT data, similarly, uncovered some subtle problems with the XBT’s:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/
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?
Do you mean ‘descended’ ?
As I said above, the first Argo floats were deployed in late 1999, and the Argo array did not reach its full planned coverage of at least 3000 floats until late 2006. Not all the floats are equal – about 66% dive to at least 1500 meters, and 46% to 2000 meters.
Before 2004 the array was not fully deployed. And not all the floats give the full 2000m data.
Ocean heat changes below 700m are directly measured, by about half of the Argo floats. Since there are 3255 floats as of 21-May-2010, that is more than half of the planned 3000 float array.
The main point of the 2000m ocean heat content rising (2003-2009), while the 700m data shows a pause to warming or a slight cooling, is that vertical currents are significant in moving ocean heat – upwellings and downwellings.
What we do know is this year OHC is going to drop significantly as evidenced by recent data from the equatorial upper 300m.
No, I don’t know that.
OHC is for the entire world’s oceans, down to 2000m. A transition from El Nino to La Nina in a single year is not guaranteed to cool the entire world’s oceans. What happens this year will be clear in 2011.
Would should also take note from 2008 to 2009, global OHC dropped.
No it didn’t.
It is going to drop again in 2010.
No it’s not.
I’d still like to know if heat is accumulating below 700m, how is it going undetected.
It is detected by half of the Argo floats. See above.
R Gates and Anu, please explain this phenomenon as it appears to be counterintuitive.
Ocean currents form closed loops in three dimensions – heated surface water downwells, heated deep water eventually upwells. To start the loop again.
What happens when the cold water from the oceans depths starts the surface portion of its loop 0.1°C warmer than the last time this water was on the surface ? The SST has gone up.
There are plenty of different loops, of different periods and locations. The topography of the vast oceans is complicated, and the oceans are on a spinning planet.
Murray Carpenter says:
May 20, 2010 at 2:53 pm …They speak of a “robust warming”, guess they will be “robustly fired” by the new government.☺
Phil. says:
May 21, 2010 at 8:41 am
Be careful not to get your knuckles rapped by the sun high priest Svalgaard for suggesting that minute and insignificant TSI changes can affect climate. Check the hymn sheet you are singing from.
According to solarcycle24, solar flux is on a downer, sunspots flat out at zero, but planetary A index is showing a small rise (but it was much higher 3 weeks ago).
http://www.solarcycle24.com/index2.htm
Of course there will be a 2013 peak no-one argues with that, just its looking a very weak and sputtering rise.
Its amusing that AGWers are looking to the sun for solace, when pre-2004 there was a universal chorus of AGW ridicule and abuse at any proponents of a role for the sun in climate.
Gail Combs says:
R.Gates is NOT 25% skeptical, even though (s)he says he is.
Gail, I agree 100%. If R. Gates is 25% skeptical, I sure don’t want to meet a 0% skeptic.
Roger Pielke is commenting on the Nature paper.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/
He points out that 40 % of the OHCA for the 1993-2008 period was found from 2002-2003 where to many of us there appears to be a suspicious jump in OHC where the XBT data merges with the ARGO data.
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/global_change_analysis.html#temp
Roger asks why Ocean Heat accumulation due to AGW should occur in such bursts. He also points to the lack of warming since 2004.
“Gaia will be bringing on the culling soon. — R. Gates”
Wow, I used to have a grudging respect for R. Gates, supercilious but at least civilized, but this is quite revealing. Anyone spouting ‘Gaia’ nonsense and such anti-human ‘culling’ language loses all credibility in my book to their claims of being some sort of ‘rational inquirer’.
Gail, thanks for posting, that was a public service.
Phil. says:
May 21, 2010 at 8:41 am
O dear – what happened to the “increasingly active sun with its irradiance steadily increasing”?
______________________________________________________________________
For what it’s worth Gates is right, based on the most recent TSI measurement the irradiance is steadily increasing and exceeds the 2007 value:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png
_________________________________________________________________________
The indicators are all heading back down again as the sun goes back into a funk Leif’s data
F10.7 is not as high as in 1954 F10.7 at Minima 1954 and 2008
Here is reconstructions of historic TSI for 1600 to 2000 Lean:2000, Wang: 2005, Leif: 2007
The big question is if the sun is headed into a grand solar minimum.
jeff brown says:
May 21, 2010 at 6:43 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?”
Cryosphere Today is the source I have been looking at the longest. Here is the link:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
I believe this may be the most ‘pessimistic’ of the sites and have seen them make a ‘correction’ or two that seemed to increase the downward slope of the trend, but, none-the-less, I still look at cryosphere. Anyway, it is pretty obvious that 2007 was a record low year. Since then, the minimums each year have been significantly higher. The maximums each year have been steadily increasing and reached the 30 year ‘normal’ level this spring. That’s a rebound, no matter how you slice it. Will it continue? I believe it will, but that is irrelevant to my statement.
As far the Antarctic, I am well aware that the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed considerably and that some papers have used statistical methods that spread that highly localized warming to half the continent. I discount these studies. Other studies that aren’t entirely agenda driven, have indicated that about 95% of the continent has been either steady or cooling for the last 60 years. Certainly, the warming of the Arctic Peninsula can not be explained by AGW. It is an extremely local effect that is very likely the result of an ocean influence.
In addition, Cryosphere Today clearly shows a gradually expanding ice cover at the bottom of the planet:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
A few more years of recovery at the North Pole and a continuation of the trend at the South Pole and we will likely be setting record high sea ice extent, approaching a tipping point where the Earth’s dramatically increasing albedo will topple us into the next ice age by 2100. (Okay…I made this last paragraph up. I don’t really believe that. I just wanted to try writing like a ‘warmest’ to see what it felt like. I think I need a shower!)
Gail Combs said:
“No I do not think our R Gates has a skeptical bone in his body.”
__________
Incorrect. I am only 75% convinced in the validity of the theory of AGW and therefore, 25% skeptical. Furthermore, I’ve stated many times on WUWT that the next few years a critical in deciding which way that percentage will be leaning, specifically if we do not see a new summer low in the Arctic sea ice extent (the September low going below the 2007 level) by 2015 and a we also see a recovery in sea ice volume in the Arctic, I’ll likely lower my level of conviction in AGW.
A “true believer” or someone who is 100% convinced in their views will not lower their level of conviction regardless of the facts presented to them– as seems to be the case with the faithful true believers on both sides of this issue. I come to WUWT to learn about alternative viewpoints…weeding through all the political nonsense to get to the real science.
Anu says:
May 21, 2010 at 9:32 am
“heated surface water downwells”
No it doesn’t.
Downwelling significant to THC only occurs at locations such as the Norwegian sea and one or two other locations such as the Southern Ocean south of Australia & New Zealand. You need near freezing temperatures and increased salinity from ice formation for significant downwelling of the type that drives THC.
You cant push warm water down into cold, no matter how much political support you have. That is why ocean currents above and below the 3.5 degree isentrope are separate.
Amusing how AGWers are all of a sudden fancying themselves as oceanographers and concocting this wild myth of warm water downwelling. Desperate stuff.
The new Lyman nature paper shows there are only about 14 different ways to correct the errors in the XBT data so we should just start using the Argo floats data only (which show no heat accumulation since 2004).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7296/fig_tab/nature09043_F2.html
Gail Combs,
Thanks for the ‘heads-up’ on R. Gates. These are the kind of people who are driving the AGW crisis myth. (It is somewhat ironic that they portray themselves as ‘voiceless’ when all their wacky claims regularly appear on the front page and they have almost managed to financially hamstring the entire Western Hemisphere with carbon mitigation nonsense.) These are also the type of people that I want to talk to the most. Their arguments are so easily refuted, that the more we (respectively) engage them, the more everyone else can see that there is no AGW crisis.
R. Gates responding to Gail Combs:
May 21, 2010 at 11:28 am
“Incorrect. I am only 75% convinced in the validity of the theory of AGW and therefore, 25% skeptical. Furthermore, I’ve stated many times on WUWT that the next few years a critical in deciding which way that percentage will be leaning, specifically if we do not see a new summer low in the Arctic sea ice extent (the September low going below the 2007 level) by 2015 and a we also see a recovery in sea ice volume in the Arctic, I’ll likely lower my level of conviction in AGW.”
Fair enough. But why do you need to wait for the next few years when there are no observations in the last 2,000 years (or 2 million, or 2 billion) that support the theory, except perhaps for the last 20 or 30 years? And even then, the observed warming does not fit the pattern prescribed by the AGW Theory, despite 20 years and billions of dollars of research money spent on trying to find the AGW fingerprints. It just doesn’t seem to make sense to have so much faith in a theory that has so little success at explaining observations.