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.
I think this speaks for itself:
“Climate models are complex… and you don’t need a model to understand the basic science behind global warming…”
DFTT
I am amazed by the alarmist claim that 2010 is the warmest year on record.
Could you provide a cite? For some temp records, 2010 is the warmest on the record ‘so far’. I haven’t seen anyone making a more absolute pronouncement than that.
cleanwater,
Your claims are completely off the charts ridiculous. I think there are many people who would take issue with your clearly falsified anecdotes and I suggest you remove them as even individuals who read this site know the difference about the Greenhouse effect.
Tamino won’t be happy about this. You can’t say global warming has stopped even when it has stopped. The only way you can say it has stopped is if you balance out the long term warming trend, with a severe cooling, so that the long term trend has dropped to zero.
REPLY: Tammy is a great litmus test, if he’s unhappy about it, then we know it’s right. – Anthony
I think someone forgot to close of their italics html. Hopefully this rectifies it.
Testing in 1, 2…
Second attempt…
REPLY: That didn’t work, but I fixed the offending characters in Alvin’s comment above – Anthony
jeez:
Every AGW proponent who cites this video [referring favorably to Pascal’s Wager, I assume] either goes to church every single Sunday or they don’t really believe the logic contained within.
Nice catch! Great for a very personal one-liner, I think. “Hey, buddy, God might be watching your every move!”
What difference does it make if the email address is real or not? The comments are perfectly valid and contain no abuse.
The email policy is merely a way for you to avoid posting comments that you dislike or that contradict you.
I repeat: Skeptical Science is a purely scietific site and you do yourself a disservice by allowing lies to be told about it. Do the right thing and remove the comments and practice what you claim to preach.
REPLY: The difference is that I need to be able to contact any commenter. If a commenter like yourself says something that becomes a legal issue, I need to be able to get in touch. You’ve been warned about this previously.
Tough noogies if you don’t like the policy. Thousands of others have no problem with it. Don’t talk to me about lies when you are one yourself. Last chance to provide a valid email, next stop is banned. – Anthony
isthereintelligentlifeintheuniverse says:
September 11, 2010 at 12:23 pm
“Smokey
You don’t trust the science… and science is the evidence.”
That’s not accurate at all. Empirical evidence is “evidence.” Real world, testable, raw data, such as ice cores, or unadjusted, signed and dated temperature records like B-91 forms are examples of evidence. Computer climate models are not evidence — but they are scientific tools. Science is not ‘the evidence.’ Science is verified via the scientific method.
If an hypothesis is not falsifiable, or refutable, or testable, it is not science. It is merely a conjecture; an opinion. See Popper and Feynman.
Read the WUWT archives. There are only 3 years of them. Get up to speed, otherwise it’s too easy to deconstruct your comments. It’s not much fun if there’s no challenge.
(Thanks for sorting out the formatting upthread, Anthony)
Well, 4 data years is pretty meaningless in terms of climate (20 – 30 years). I doubt Pielke would disagree. But I can at least demonstrate that the global warming trend didn’t slow down after 1998, using statistically significant time periods WRT climate, using as much data as possible here.
If you run the same analysis using 2003 as one of the endpoints, the overall trend gets lower in this case, but ‘no warming since 2004’ is about weather variations, not climate.
I realize I’ve plotted land+oceans, when Roger’s point is that oceans provide a better metric. Even so, 4 years is not enough. For interests sake, I plotted the 1998 ‘turning point’ using SSTs only here. No drop-off in trend.
Again, if you run SSTs using 2003 as an endpoint, the overall trend is lower, but not by much. Using statistically significant time periods, it would appear the global seas are still warming at pretty much the same rate, but low confidence is attached to that qualification due to only 4 years data being the difference.
Because we are sceptics, not censors. It’s the warmists who wish to stifle debate.
And as for those tauting the ARGO floats data as currently unreliable…
* Thermometre records left in the hands of advocates are OK
* Temp. proxies deduced from 1000yr old stumps dug out of bogs in the hands of advocates are OK
* Impending doom predicted by green advocacy groups are OK
But ARGO are no good
But satellites are out of calibraton
But the hot-spot is there, we just can’t measure it
But the heat is missing, it must be in the oceans….deep deep oceans
yada yada yada
get a life you lot, it’s the only one you’re gunna get
Meanwhile at the Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/amazon/7996749/The-truth-is-getting-lost-in-the-Amazon.html
they say that Amazon has discarded all skeptic books and only charts warmist books in their ranking of global warming books even when the skeptic books hugely outsell warmist books. Theocracy is getting in the way of business
Dr Pielke never said 4 years was ample regards climate. He did say 4 years is enough regards OHC, and he is absolutely correct.
Unlike the atmosphere, which warms and cools due to many factors, and mixes and churns in many ways, the oceans mix very very slowly and can (reasonably) only be heated by direct sunlight. Therefore, 4 years of data is sufficient to allow reasonable determination of OHC.
Dr Pielke is going somewhere with this. If/when he convinces people that OHC is the most important factor in determining our climate, where he is going will be abundantly clear. (He is “very likely”{90% probability} a sceptic)
What does the latter sentence mean? What is 4 years ‘enough’ to establish as opposed to say, 2 years or 6 months? What does it relate apart from itself?
I think he uses the term ‘global warming’ in the post in a way that confuses. ‘Global warming’ in these here debates refer to climatically significant periods, not fluctuations. The globe could be cooler today than yesterday, but does that tell us anything other than the globe was warmer yesterday? Pielke uses the phrase to describe short-term events. I think this should be more clearly distinguished. He sort of does it here:
But, looking at following commentary in this thread, this is not the message that got through.
barry says:
September 11, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Dr Pielke never said 4 years was ample regards climate. He did say 4 years is enough regards OHC, and he is absolutely correct.
What does the latter sentence mean? What is 4 years ‘enough’ to establish as opposed to say, 2 years or 6 months? What does it relate apart from itself?
According to Phil Jones, there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995.
Get over it.
isthereintelligentlifeintheuniverse says:
September 11, 2010 at 1:26 pm
You’re first comment is right – climate models are complex – and that’s because the climate itself is very complex.
While the effect of increasing CO2 – on its own – is likely to increase global temperatures, the reaction of the overall climate system may be very different. You might like to read Dr Roy Spencer’s latest paper here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Spencer-Braswell-JGR-2010.pdf
… which examines the feedback effects of water vapour/clouds in the climate system and which indicates that the feedbacks to increasing CO2 are negative, meaning that the overall influence of CO2 is limited. You might then also like to ask yourself the question of how big the influence of CO2 actually is relative to all the other things in the climate system. Remember that the biggest greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is actually H2O.
As for the idea that anything in the climate system “is in equilibrium” – that is simply a fallacy akin to the belief that there was in the past some “golden age” when everything was perfect. The global climate has been changing – and substantially – on any time scale that you care to examine. It has been warmer and a (lot) colder within the past million years or so, let alone over the longer history of the Earth – and CO2 levels have similarly varied substantially.
As for my children and grandchildren, I’d prefer to base decisions on the best information available rather than on a knee-jerk reaction to the latest scare story. It is not at all clear that human CO2 emissions are having a significant impact on the climate – neither is it at all clear that the current changes in the global climate are any different to those that have taken place in previous interglacial periods (note: the last 4 interglacials have ALL been warmer than the current one – and who is to say that we have reached the warmest point in the current interglacial?).
We may well face a warmer future. However, I am not convinced that we can do anything about it – so that it would be best to prepare ourselves for what that might bring. On the other hand, the real doomsday scenario is actually the ending of the current interglacial and the beginning of the next ice age. The disappearance of our hugely productive croplands under snow and ice will for sure mean that many fewer humans could be supported on the planet. That will not be a pleasant experience.
Phlogiston says:
—————-
The oceans store approximately 80% of all the energy in the Earth’s climate
Actually, no, its about 99.8%. This is if you assume:
– mean ocean depth 3800m
– oceans occupy 66% of earth surface
– heat capacity of water 4.2 (J/g.K)
– heat capacity of air 1.0 (J/g.K)
– water 784 times more dense than air
– atmosphere approximated as 10 km layer of air at 1 atmosphere (sea level pressure)
– air contains 1% water by mass (but still counted as “air” heat)
—————-
you included the ocean depths but not the heat capacity of the land?
tallbloke says:
September 12, 2010 at 12:29 am
According to Phil Jones, there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995.
Get over it.
Indeed he did. But snapshots of upper level ocean temperatures from an imperfect monitoring system are perfectly significant to declare that global warming has stopped?
In my mind the important part of the lack of heat accumulation in the oceans, even for a few years, is in regards to the radiative imbalance which has been used to justify the CAGW hypothesis. How does one not get warming when the only reason we aren’t much warmer is ocean lag? The lack of warming indicates that the lag of the oceans is not as great as some have presumed or that natural variability is much greater then these individuals presumed.
A sceptic, I read argumements for and against AGW,by contributors on both sides much more knowledgable than myself. if I feel my scepticism beginning to waver I take alook out the bloody window! very little has changed in the past 60 years,with the possible exception that summer temperatures aren’t as searingly hot as they were back in the 1960’s. MMGW? Bah humbug indeed!
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. The shorter the time scale the more likely it is that all you are seeing is insignificant bumps. An ant approaching a 3″ deep pot hole in the road would see it as a huge crater, yet we roll over those at 80mph and barely notice it. Why not 300, or 30,000, or 3o,000,000 years? Because we are like the ant looking at the pothole.
______________________________________________________________-
Especially given the KNOWN 60-70 year ocean oscillations. The Spin Meisters know their days are numbered and are already discussing “global cooling” in private.
Global Cooling on the Agenda:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/jun/14/charlie-skelton-bilderberg-2010
Discussion of the Bilderberg Group in the EU Parliament:
http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/daniel-estulins-historic-speech-on-bilderberg-group-in-the-european-parliament/
They already made the change from “Global Warming” to “Climate Change” I wonder what the planned spin is for when a cooling world becomes obvious to the “The Great Unwashed“ as they relate to us?”
—————–
isthereintelligentlifeintheuniverse,
Yes, there is intelligent life in the universe. That is why the position you are taking is losing in the intelligence discussions of open, independent, un-biased science (thanks Anthony for creating a place to do so). That discussion is why my children will be protected as much as any adult is ever able to protect their children.
John
Tim Williams says:
September 12, 2010 at 3:50 am snapshots of upper level ocean temperatures from an imperfect monitoring system are perfectly significant to declare that global warming has stopped?
The ARGO data is as good or better than anything the hockey jockey’s have been using to make doom prophesies with. Josh Willis says no warming of the upper 700m of the ocean since 2003. Craig Loehle finds a slight cooling from his look at the data.
It fits with my own calculations and hypothesis too. My calcs show the ocean isn’t going to acquire heat when the sunspot number is below around 42. It has been below this value since mid 2003.
Back radiation from the atmosphere doesn’t heat the ocean because it can’t penetrate the surface beyond it’s own wavelength. It therefore just causes evaporation at the surface. The sun heats the ocean, the ocean warms the atmosphere, the atmosphere loses heat to space. Water vapour and the clouds it forms are the biggest factor in modulating the rates at which these things happen by a long way. Co2 is a bit part player.
That’s the physics of the big picture, no matter what statistical games people play.
LazyTeenager says:
September 12, 2010 at 2:36 am
you included the ocean depths but not the heat capacity of the land?
An important point, this overlooked factor must be a big player. Land heat capacity is linked to land / soil water levels or moisture, as well as land temperature. Since Willis Eschenbach demonstrated some months back that cave temperatures (and consequently isotope ratios in stalagtites / speleothems) are integrators of air temperature for a few years, they must play a role in storing and releasing heat.
But how do you quantify it? Maybe a global network of underground thermometers and hygrometers.
steven said (September 12, 2010 at 4:06 am):
The lack of increase in ocean heat content says that there has been no radiative imbalance. Heat loss of the entire earth system must have equaled heat gain for the time period.