By Dr. Roger Pielke Senior
There is a weblog called “Skeptical Science – Getting Skeptical About Global Warming Skepticism” that has a misleading post on ocean heat content titled
Ocean cooling: skeptic arguments drowned by data
The post starts with
In 2008, climate change sceptic Roger Pielke Sr said this: “Global warming, as diagnosed by upper ocean heat content has not been occurring since 2004”. It is a fine example of denialist spin, making several extraordinary leaps:
•that one symptom is indicative of the state of an entire malaise (e.g. not being short of breath one day means your lung cancer is cured).
•that one can claim significance about a four year period when it’s too short to draw any kind of conclusion
•that global warming has not been occurring on the basis of ocean temperatures alone
So much for the hype. What does the science say about the temperature of the oceans – which, after all, constitute about 70% of the Earth’s surface? The oceans store approximately 80% of all the energy in the Earth’s climate, so ocean temperatures are a key indicator for global warming.
No straight lines
Claims that the ocean has been cooling are correct. Claims that global warming has stopped are not. It is an illogical position: the climate is subject to a lot of natural variability, so the premise that changes should be ‘monotonic’ – temperatures rising in straight lines – ignores the fact that nature doesn’t work like that. This is why scientists normally discuss trends – 30 years or more – so that short term fluctuations can be seen as part of a greater pattern. (Other well-known cyclic phenomena like El Nino and La Nina play a part in these complex interactions).
The post starts by mislabeling me as a “climate change sceptic” and a “denialist”. Not only is this completely incorrect (as can be easily confirmed by reading our article
Pielke Sr., R., K. Beven, G. Brasseur, J. Calvert, M. Chahine, R. Dickerson, D. Entekhabi, E. Foufoula-Georgiou, H. Gupta, V. Gupta, W. Krajewski, E. Philip Krider, W. K.M. Lau, J. McDonnell, W. Rossow, J. Schaake, J. Smith, S. Sorooshian, and E. Wood, 2009: Climate change: The need to consider human forcings besides greenhouse gases. Eos, Vol. 90, No. 45, 10 November 2009, 413. Copyright (2009) American Geophysical Union),
but it sets the tone of their post as an ad hominem attack, rather than a discussion of the issue.
The author of this post documents in the figures that they present, that upper ocean heat, in terms of its annual average, did not accumulate during the period ~2004 through 2009. This means that global warming halted on this time period. There is no other way to spin this data.
The claim in the post (apparently written by Graham Wayne) Does ocean cooling prove global warming has ended? that
“The most recent ocean measurements show consistent warming”
is false (unless the author of this post has new data since 2009 which may show warming). The recent lack of warming (the data do not support a cooling, despite what the Skeptical Science weblog reports) does not prove or disprove whether global warming over a longer term has ended.
However, the ocean heat content provides the most appropriate metric to diagnosis global warming in recent (since ~2004 when the Argo network became sufficiently dense) and upcoming years, as recommended, of example, in
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55.
The author of the post on Skeptical Science continues to present misinformation in their Intermediate level post where it is stated
“Early estimates of ocean heat from the Argo showed a cooling bias due to pressure sensor issues. Recent estimates of ocean heat that take this bias into account show continued warming of the upper ocean. This is confirmed by independent estimates of ocean heat as well as more comprehensive measurements of ocean heat down to 2000 metres deep.”
This is an erroneous statement. There was not continued warming for the time period 2004 to 2009, as confirmed by Josh Willis in
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55.
Recently, Josh Willis reported that an updated analysis will be available this Fall.
What the Skeptical Science fails to recognize is that with respect to the diagnosis of global warming using Joules of heat accumulation in the oceans, snapshots of heat content at different times are all that is needed. There is no time lag in heating or cooling. The Joules are either there or they are not. The assessment of a long-term linear trend is not needed.
For example, if the ocean lost its heat in one or two years (such as from a major volcanic eruption), the global warming “clock” would be reset. The Skeptical Science statements that
“Claims that the ocean has been cooling are correct. Claims that global warming has stopped are not.”
illustrates their lack of understanding of the physics. If ocean cooling does occur, it DOES mean global warming as stopped during that time period.
What would be useful is for the weblog Skeptical Science authors to discuss the value of using (and issues with using) the accumulation of Joules in the climate system as the primary metric to monitor global warming.
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BTW I am not a troll
Don’t try to convince me the science is wrong, it isn’t, it’s founded in basic physics.
But this article is being critical of a scientific blog that is respectfully correcting the mistakes of the skeptics.
Which is a cop out when it comes to discussing any of the real issues, such as sensitivity, feedbacks, and metrics, all of which are quite complex, and while it uses “basic physics”, is quite subject to different formulations and interpretations.
Tell me isthereintelligentlifeintheuniverse,
How does one calculate cloud feedback from basic physics? What are the equations?
isthereintelligentlifeintheuniverse says:
“Don’t try to convince me the science is wrong”
Ironic, no?
Joe Crawford:
Way back in the early fifties when I was in engineering school we referred to them as “heat sinks”.
“For the sake of your children, you had better be right.”
Is this the new poly bears?
isthereintelligentlifeintheuniverse
The last defense of shaky science is the precautionary principal.
Unfortunately CAGW will have to get in line with other potential candidates with a much better cost/benefit ratio.
The earth WILL get hit by an asteroid which will destroy all of civilization if we don’t prepare a defense against it. The question is not if just when ! The cost is mere billions and the benefit is civilization itself.
We should be practicing moving asteroids right now so the first time we do it civilization isn’t hanging in the balance.
After that AIDS world poverty and so on all give more bang for the buck. CO2 removal even if valid gives less value per dollar spent than almost any other use of the money.
There is no actual measurement which shows warming in excess of 1 ° C warming in 100 years to be in progress. Theories galore but no measurements worth believing.
Here is the data for the last 11 years where s the warming ?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1998/to:2009/plot/uah/from:1998/to:2009/trend
Climate models are complex… and you don’t need a model to understand the basic science behind global warming… which BTW has been understood since the mid 1800s.
Say you have water dribbling into a bathtub at a certain rate, and the drain set so that the water going out is the same as the water going in. The level of water in the tub will remain the same.
Then increase the water going in by a small amount, but do not change the amount going out… eventually the tub will overflow.
The natural carbon cycle was in equilibrium before we started dumping tons of CO2, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Now ma nature can’t absorb it fast enough and it is accumulating.
That’s all you need to understand.
The forcings thus far appear to be making it worse.
“Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics. That’s all she is. You cannot sweet-talk her. You cannot spin her. You cannot tell her that the oil companies say climate change is a hoax. No, Mother Nature is going to do whatever chemistry, biology and physics dictate”
“Mother Nature always bats last, and she always bats 1.000”
-Rob Watson
isthereintelligentlifeintheuniverse
Your analogy simply demonstrates that you know far less than you think you know. You have been told “it’s basic physics”, “It’s been known for over 100 years”.
These are truisms. I asked about feedback, which is just as likely to be negative as positive, and current measurements lean toward negative. Does CO2 affect the the effective albedo and absorption of energy in the system, yes (despite what some of the more adamant anti-agw advocates may say).
Yet, what is the sum total of the behavior in the system? Are there feedbacks which diminish the CO2 effect or even cancel it out? These are the unanswered scientific questions.
You can parrot “The science is basic and accepted” meme if you like, and think that makes you smart, but you have not demonstrated an understanding of the issues that matter. Perhaps you do have an understanding, but nothing you have written indicates it. Your bathtub analogy certainly does not.
The climate system has been relatively stable for millions of years even as CO2 levels in the past far exceeded those of today. This would indicate a likelyhood of stabilizing negative feedbacks in the system
jeez says:
September 11, 2010 at 1:13 pm
How does one calculate cloud feedback from basic physics? What are the equations?
before you get started with equations about cloud, understand that you are dealing with a quasi-chaotic system – some of the implications of this were discussed in a post last month:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/12/cloud-cellular-communication/
phlogiston says:
August 12, 2010 at 7:22 am
This fits in very nicely with the nonequilibrium dynamics of atmospheric transport of heat and water. Compelling and retrospectively obvious.
All the ingredients are there for nonequilibrium nonlinear pattern dynamics (NNPD): (a) a system of heat, convective and water vapour flux far from equilibrium, (b) friction (or damping or dissipation) from fluid friction and energy requirement for water condensation, (c) the inter-cloud responsiveness via adiabatic rain cooling of air and consequent convection, qualify the system as a “reactive medium” (term coined by Matthias Bertram in the context of chemical NNPD systems) which will sustain the establishment of emergent nonlinear pattern.
The pattern types described are also classics from chemical NNPD and turbulence – a blend of chaotic cellular structures with labyrinthine and dendritic patterns.
When the authors describe these NNPD structures as “coherent structures that tend to repair themselves and resist change” what they are alluding to is Lyapunov stability, a mathematic formulation of the development of NNPD attractor-structures which establishes their fundamental robustness and stability. Lyapunov stability in terms of clouds makes cloud weather systems more stable than they might otherwise be. This is probably why one can often look out of the window in the morning and get a pretty good idea what the day’s weather holds in store.
What implications does this have for understanding and modeling climate and for AGW? “The stone that the builders rejected becomes the cornerstone”. It is no longer possible to simply bolt onto climate models some arithmetic conditions for cloud formation in conjunction with convection, and imagine that you have “done clouds”. By exhibiting NNPD behaviour with Lyapunov stability, clouds move toward being independent entities in the climate system.
A more fundamental reassesssment is needed, perhaps along the lines of the “Constructal law” described by Willis Eschenbach, emphasising attraction to a stable state and resistance to change.
What is astounding about the claim that Pielke’s baseline is too short is that this is EXACTLY the problem with looking at ‘global’ temperatures only considering the last 300 years (which is what most folks do when they want to show a “monotonically increasing” average temperature). When you start looking at temperatures at the depth of a big dip among the many ups and downs over the past 4000 years, and then attribute the start of the recovery from that dip to the industrial revolution and carbon burning, well.. you’re going to “discover” a link between human burning of fossil fuels and rising temperature.
False correlations occur in statistics all the time when you’re trying very hard to see something.
jason says:
September 11, 2010 at 12:14 pm
“For the sake of your children, you had better be right.”
I have only one child because I took the decision to minimise my future impact on our resources.
What about you, how many do you have?
Three. They’re making a disastrous impact on our fridge.
(you can be my offset for a stable population 🙂
phlogiston says:
September 11, 2010 at 10:20 am
Something I have wondered for a while – should not sea level – specifically rate of change of sea level – be an indicator of changes in OHC? So levelling off of sea level rise is confirmation of OHC decline.
I calculated the amount of energy required to account for the steric sea level rise from 1993 to 2003 and discovered it required a ~4w/m^2 forcing. This must be down to extra solar energy due to cloud reduction hitting the ocean surface, since downwelling IR can’t penetrate the ocean beyond it’s own wavelength and just causes evaporation at the surface.
Simply this: The oceans are the main storage of heat energy, by an overwhelming margin, for incoming W/m^2.
It’s common sense and back of the envelope stuff.
If the main storage shows no more charge being stored, then the logical conclusion is that equilibrium has been reached, and there is no more warming.
The oak leaves are turning NW Ca. over 1 month ahead of time as La Nina entrenches. Morning fog in lower river valleys returns 2 months ahead of time. The Western Hemisphere is showing signs of cooling season to season, so a least half the globe is cooling. It will only take a slight cooling of the Eastern Hemisphere to set a cooling phase in motion.
Swirls of slush are forming in the NW Passage areas as the Arctic temps plunge, even though the graphs show open seas, as seen from Google Planet Earth satellite photos.
Err yea… I got about as far as …climate change sceptic Roger Pielke Sr said…
Sorry Roger (if I may address you so), welcome to the wonderful world
of “denial (ism)”. While I can see that someone in your position might feel the need to respond to attacks from the shills of “Big Carbon” I would recommend that, in future, you don’t bother. Responding really is a waste of your time and energy.
What you are looking at is the output of “useful idiots”, adherents of a rapidly collapsing religion. You are either in or out here – the science/data has nothing to do with anything. In your position I would stick with the science wherever it leads you.
The reality is that, even if your next paper makes a most convincing case for (C)AGW, I would trust (even as a sceptic) that I am reading your “current best interpretation” and would treat it as such.
“…climate change sceptic Roger… ” should have given the game away really.
Dr. Pielke,
When you engage a site like ‘Skeptical Science’, you are engaging a site that is neither scientific or skeptical, much less amenable to reason.
But your integrity and good will, to say nothing of the excellent science and dedication to accurate results, shows in even higher contrast when compared to those who run that site.
Keep up the good work.
OHC is unquestionably pivotal in setting temperatures throughout the globe. Yet, I’m not convinced that it is the best metric for studying climate or detecting changes, natural or otherwise.
To begin with, we simply don’t have a historical baseline of global OHC data even in the well-mixed layer, let alone down to 700m, which is quite isolated from processes at the surface. Second, because IR is completely absorbed within a fraction of a millimeter of the surface, changes in backradiation scarcely affect OHC. Backscattered IR energy largely feeds evaporation from the ocean surface. Because of the great thermal “inertia” of the oceans, OHC should respond very slowly to great changes in atmospheric temperatures. Thus, we’re looking for minute changes in a very large number, whose determination even with the ARGO program is not very certain.
For practical analytic work, give me the surface energy fluxes (not just dry-bulb temperatures) instead of OHC.
Dr. Pielke-
I am very proud to reveal that I have been banned at that other website. I’m not even allowed to log in.
I bothered them with too many facts from the scientific literature that did not match their political agenda, so eventually they blocked me.
Orkneygal says:
September 11, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Congratulations 😉
sky says:
September 11, 2010 at 2:09 pm
I have sympathy with your views of measuring energy not just temperature. It’s a view I have expressed several times here over the past few years.
DaveE.
Curiousgeorge says:
September 11, 2010 at 9:20 am
30 years is no more valid for discerning a “trend” or a “significant” shift than 3 years.
_____
Hmmm…and so where do you draw the line of a valid period of time? 30 years is almost 3 solar cycles, and just about the length of time of the Dalton minimum. I guess then we can discout this peroid as not “significant”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunspot_Numbers.png
I would suggest that when looking at climate, you should look to periods of time in which known forces that act on climate can show themselves. A change which is consistent over a few decades is certainly long enough as it goes beyond weather cycles such as ENSO.
James Sexton says:
September 11, 2010 at 8:54 am
While energy and temps are simply different forms of expression for essentially the same thing,
No, no and hell no. Specific heat, latent heat, differing masses, and differing mixtures (think humidity) all completely shoot that down in flames.
After that, there’s the more complicated differences.
Z says:
September 11, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Seconded!
DaveE.
Lets start with the proven fact the “greenhouse effect and the “greenhouse gas effect” are totally different. The” greenhouse effect” has been proved by R.W. Wood to be caused by “confined space heating” not by back IR radiation. The Greenhouse gas effect is a 200 year old Hypothesis that has never been demonstrated by creditable experimental data. In fact it has been shown by many physicists that the concept violates fundamental of physics thus it can never be demonstrated by any experimental data. References will be provided for anyone wanting to learn the Facts including Roger Pielke Sr.
Now let’s talk about the lack of scientific knowledge and discussion above.
1. The oceans are heated by at least three sources- the sun, the magma of the earth’s core, and biological oxidation. It appears that at least two of these heat sources are totally ignored.
2. The oceans are cooled by at least four common actions of “nature” Conduction to the atmosphere, convection, evaporation; wind action affects these- evaporation, convection, evaporation, and radiation. The effects of thunderstorms, hurricanes, Tornadoes (water spouts) and snow / ice storms are beyond our ability to even begin to calculate.
3 .Cloud cover a significant variable is affected by air temperature, solar radiation, Solar flares (new research being investigated) and Evaporation (humidity).
You will notice that there is no mention of “ghg’s” because there is no such thing as “ghg’s”-there are IR absorbing materials, that include Water in three phases of Mater, liquid, vapor and solids then there are about 5000 IR absorbing gases (IRag, IRam), of which two are found in measureable quantities in the atmosphere-CO2(a gas approximately 300 ppm a significant variable) and Methane(CH 4,also a significant variable about 4-10ppb-this is absolutely un- important. as the “ghg effect does not exist)
With the number of variables that can affect water and air temperatures, it is impossible for any existing computer and “climate Model” to predict any temperature conditions next week let along 100 years from now. The IPCC is absolutely a bunch of crocks. Anyone that believes that the “ghg effect” exists is either mentally ill or smoking dope. True scientists want data to prove Hypotheses not circumstantial innuendos!
List of references:
The paper “Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 greenhouse effect within the frame of physics” by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner is an in-depth examination of the subject. Version 4 2009
Electronic version of an article published as International Journal of Modern Physics
B, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2009) 275{364 , DOI No: 10.1142/S021797920904984X, c World
Scientific Publishing Company, http://www.worldscinet.com/ijmpb.
Report of Alan Carlin of US-EPA March, 2009 that shows that CO2 does not cause global warming.
Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis Violates Fundamentals of Physics” by Dipl-Ing Heinz Thieme This work has about 10 or 12 link
that support the truth that the greenhouse gas effect is a hoax.
R.W.Wood
from the London, Edinborough and Dublin Philosophical Magazine , 1909, vol 17, p319-320. Cambridge UL shelf mark p340.1.c.95,
The Hidden Flaw in Greenhouse Theory
By Alan Siddons
from:http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_hidden_flaw_in_greenhouse.html at March 01, 2010 – 09:10:34 AM CST
The below information was a foot note in the IPCC 4 edition. It is obvious that there was no evidence to prove that the ghg effect exists.
“In the 1860s, physicist John Tyndall recognized the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect and suggested that slight changes in the atmospheric composition could bring about climatic variations. In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first speculated that changes in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect.”
After 1909 when R.W.Wood proved that the understanding of the greenhouse effect was in error and the ghg effect does not exist. After Niels Bohr published his work and receive a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. The fantasy of the greenhouse gas effect should have died in 1909 and 1922. Since then it has been shown by several physicists that the concept is a Violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Obviously the politicians don’t give a dam that they are lying. It fits in with what they do every hour of every day .Especially the current pretend president.
Paraphrasing Albert Einstein after the Publishing of “The Theory of Relativity” –one fact out does 1 million “scientist, 10 billion politicians and 20 billion environmental whachos-that don’t know what” The Second Law of thermodynamics” is.
The bottom line is that the facts show that the greenhouse gas effect is a fairy-tale and that Man-made global warming is the World larges Scam!!!The IPCC and Al Gore should be charged under the US Anti-racketeering act and when convicted – they should spend the rest of their lives in jail for the Crimes they have committed against Humanity.
Web- site references:
http://www.americanthinker.com Ponder the Maunder
wwwclimatedepot.com
icecap.us
http://www.strata-sphere.com
SPPI
many others are available.
The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.”
—Albert Einstein
.
isthereintelligentlifeintheuniverse says:
September 11, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Smokey You don’t trust the science… and science is the evidence. It’s like telling a creationist evolution is real… it can’t be done.
There is no evidence that climate now is any different than periods of climate in the past. It’s been much hotter, and a lot colder too, but life has adapted and survived.
Back in the 1970’s they thought we were heading for an ice age, and had computer models to ‘prove’ it too. Today they scream we are going to fry! In both cases climate scientists have been fooled by the deterministic chaos inherent in our climate, and have no understanding of the energy balance at any moment in time or how the different climate mechanisms interact to produce weather/climate.
My own view, base on the 200y warm/cool quasi-cycle, is that the planet will be cooling for the next 90 years of so (see table below). It is no good trying to plan for tomorrow, as nobody in the world knows what it is going to bring. Live for today and be prepared to jump if you find a bus heading your way.
Long term weather/climate regimes:
1410-1500 cold – Low Solar Activity(LSA?)-(Sporer minimum)
1510-1600 warm – High Solar Activity(HSA?)
1610-1700 cold – (LSA) (Maunder minimum)
1710-1800 warm – (HSA)
1810-1900 cold – (LSA) (Dalton minimum)
1910-2000 warm – (HSA)
2010-2100 (cold???) – (LSA???)
cleanwater says:
September 11, 2010 at 3:12 pm
cleanwater, should this be published or posted 😉 Quite a work, but I like it.
It’s so fustrating that we just don’t have accurate enough data to settle these questions in the short term.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/02/gore-sat-satellite.html
…. warning; this link contains a reference to Al Gore.
I understand that the leap in the global ocean heat content 2003 – 2005 is due to the stitching together of the Argo and the previous series.
=======================================================
“…..that one symptom is indicative of the state of an entire malaise (e.g. not being short of breath one day means your lung cancer is cured)….” John Cook.
Sort of begs the question doesn’t it.
In Mr Cook’s mind, a 0.4 – 0.5°C temperature rise in 30 years is an indication of a ‘global disease’.
The lung cancer/CAGW analogy is often mentioned, mainly for the benefit of the hoi polloi.
It has a special resonance because you can also drag in The Heartland Institute’s alleged support from and for the tobacco industry.
Until the early 20th century, lung cancer was a very rare disease and the correlation with the smoking (mainly a 20th century habit) is solid.
Also, many people still identify CO2 with smoke, soot and smog — all associated with breathing difficulties.
This is where the ‘hockey stick’ graph has been so useful. It was a very powerful image which lingers and implies that until the 20th century, there was little temperature variation. I often come across comments in the MSM referring to this year or decade as “the hottest ever”.