NOAA: Scientists Find 20 Years of Deep Water Warming Leading to Sea Level Rise
Sea-level rise has the potential to reshape the coastal environment. Credit: NOAA)
Scientists analyzing measurements taken in the deep ocean around the globe over the past two decades find a warming trend that contributes to sea level rise, especially around Antarctica.
Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, cause heating of the Earth. Over the past few decades, at least 80 percent of this heat energy has gone into the ocean, warming it in the process.
“Previous studies have shown that the upper ocean is warming, but our analysis determines how much additional heat the deep ocean is storing from warming observed all the way to the ocean floor,” said Sarah Purkey, an oceanographer at the University of Washington and lead author of the study.
This study shows that the deep ocean – below about 3,300 feet – is taking up about 16 percent of what the upper ocean is absorbing. The authors note that there are several possible causes for this deep warming: a shift in Southern Ocean winds, a change in the density of what is called Antarctic Bottom Water, or how quickly that bottom water is formed near the Antarctic, where it sinks to fill the deepest, coldest portions of the ocean around much of the globe.
The scientists found the strongest deep warming around Antarctica, weakening with distance from its source as it spreads around the globe. While the temperature increases are small (about 0.03°C per decade in the deep Southern Ocean, less elsewhere), the large volume of the ocean over which they are found and the high capacity of water to absorb heat means that this warming accounts for a huge amount of energy storage. If this deep ocean heating were going into the atmosphere instead – a physical impossibility – it would be warming at a rate of about 3°C (over 5°F) per decade.
“A warming Earth causes sea level rise in two ways,” said Gregory Johnson, a NOAA oceanographer at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, and the study’s co-author. “The warming heats the ocean, causing it to expand, and melts continental ice, adding water to the ocean. The expansion and added water both cause the sea to encroach on the land.”
Sea level has been rising at around 3 mm (1/8 of a inch) per year on average since 1993, with about half of that caused by ocean thermal expansion and the other half because of additional water added to the ocean, mostly from melting continental ice. Purkey and Johnson note that deep warming of the Southern Ocean accounts for about 1.2 mm (about 1/20th of an inch) per year of the sea level rise around Antarctica in the past few decades.
The highly accurate deep-ocean temperature observations used in this study come from ship-based instruments that measure conductivity through salinity, temperature and depth. These measurements were taken on a series of hydrographic surveys of the global ocean in the 1990s through the World Ocean Circulation Experiment and in the 2000s in support of the Climate Variability program. These surveys are now coordinated by the international Global Ship-based Hydrographic Investigations Program.
The study, “Warming of Global Abyssal and Deep Southern Ocean Waters between the 1990s and 2000s: Contributions to Global Heat and Sea Level Rise Budgets,” authored by Sarah G. Purkey and Gregory C. Johnson, will be published in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Climate.
NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Find us on Facebook.
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Here is the abstract:
2 NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle WA 98115, USA
| Abstract |
|---|
We quantify abyssal global and deep Southern Ocean temperature trends between the 1990s and 2000s to assess the role of recent warming of these regions in global heat and sea level budgets. We compute warming rates with uncertainties along 28 full-depth, high-quality, hydrographic sections that have been occupied two or more times between 1980 and 2010. We divide the global ocean into 32 basins defined by the topography and climatological ocean bottom temperatures and estimate temperature trends in the 24 sampled basins. The three southernmost basins show a strong statistically significant abyssal warming trend, with that warming signal weakening to the north in the central Pacific, western Atlantic, and eastern Indian Oceans. Eastern Atlantic and western Indian Ocean basins show statistically insignificant abyssal cooling trends. Excepting the Arctic Ocean and Nordic seas, the rate of abyssal (below 4000 m) global ocean heat content change in the 1990s and 2000s is equivalent to a heat flux of 0.027 (±0.009) W m−2 applied over the entire surface of the Earth. Deep (1000–4000 m) warming south of the Sub-Antarctic Front of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current adds 0.068 (±0.062) W m−2. The abyssal warming produces a 0.053 (±0.017) mm yr−1 increase in global average sea level and the deep warming south of the Sub-Antarctic Front adds another 0.093 (±0.081) mm yr−1. Thus warming in these regions, ventilated primarily by Antarctic Bottom Water, accounts for a statistically significant fraction of the present global energy and sea level budgets.
Received: February 16, 2010; Revised: July 28, 2010; Revised: August 18, 2010
*Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory Contribution Number 3524.
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Excellent research.
‘Interesting’ analysis.
Astonishingly poor conclusion.
Trenberth is looking for about 0.8 watts/m2 of the projected increase in energy held in the Earth system that is not going into heating the surface.
Either this energy is not being held in the Earth system (and is just escaping to space and hence climate theory is not correct) or it is hiding and the most likely place for that would be the deep oceans (or continental ice sheets warming up and melting that we have not observed).
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/7316/trenberthmissingheat.png
This paper measured/extrapolated the potential heat content going into the nearly the entire global ocean below 2000 metres [It doesn’t appear they measured the Arctic bottom water but the north Atlantic does not appear to have warmed so it is likely no extra heat is going into the Arctic bottom water].
So, Table 1 in the paper shows 0.068 watts/m2 is going into the oceans below 2000 metres. Far less than the 0.8 watts/m2 Trenberth is looking for.
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/Recent_AABW_Warming_v3.pdf
We also know there is no accumulation in the last 7 years in the 0-700 metre ocean – von Schuckmann 2009 found 0.77 Watts/m2 going into the 0-2000 metre ocean (although no one seems to believe these estimates since almost all of the warming they measured was in the 0-300 metre area which is contradicted by the Argo floats).
Trenberth Missing Heat – 0.8 Watts/m2
Going into 0-700 Metre ocean – 0.0 W/m2
Going into 0-2000 Metre ocean – ? (but could be as high as 0.77 W/m2 but this contradicts Argo)
Going into the 2000+ Metre Ocean – 0.068 W/m2
Going into the 2000+ Metre Ocean from the Arctic – ? (but looks to be very low)
evanmjones says:
September 26, 2010 at 9:23 am
“Could the increase in underwater volcanic activity around Antarctica have any measurable effect?”
evanmjones, yes, the possibility you raise needs to be scientifically investigated.
There is much more underwater volcanic activity than is commonly understood and its energy dynamics & contribution to the Earth’s ocean heat content and, in turn, atmosphere heat content has not been fully explored.
There are some scientific papers on the subject, but more needs to be done.
Just so we have some point of sanity checking of all of this; my Thermal Physics Text Book carries a Table detailing the “International Practical Temperature Scale of 1968. ”
That table lists the values of the various Standard and Primary fixed point Temperatures for thermometry standardization.
The only listed Standard temperature is the Triple point of H2O; which it states specifically should have the isotopic composition of ocean water and that Temperature is given as 273.16K or 0.01 deg C and it is exact by definition.
Of the Primary fixed Points the most precisely known one is the boiling point of H2O which is 373.15 Kelvins wiht an uncertainty of 0.005 K.
No other primary reference point is less uncertain than 0.01 Kelvins.
So unless there is a newer restatement of those standards; along with a rectification of any historical difficulties if definitions have changed; I would tend to take these very low Temperature uncertainties wiht a grain of salt; that being of course a grain of salt that is typical of ocean water.
But I have a basic distrust of the statements being made about these results. I should state, that I’m willing to accept that these researchers have done their homework and that they actually have measured what they say they have measured. Subject to peer reviews and replication of this work; I’m prepared to accept their data with that Temperature uncertainty qualification.
But they have their work cut out for them trying to convince me that they know the cause.
Incoming solar energy in a spectrum where 98% of the total energy lies between 250 nm and 4.0 microns wavelength, falls on the oceans and much of it penetrates deeply into the ocean to the sort of depths they are talking about well at least out to the 700-800 nm range does; but longer wavelengths are increasingly absorbed in shallower layers.
So this is energy that is depoosited down where these researchers say they have found the warming.
LWIR thermal emission from the atmosphere; on the other hand have a spectrum where about 98% of the energy lies between 5.0 microns and 80 .0 microns, and virtually all of that radiation is completely absorbed in the top 50 microns of the ocean surface water (down to 99% absorption or 5 times the exponential decay length.)
That energy deposited in such a thin surface layer must of necessity be a primary source of the energy needed to cause prompt evaporation of water from the surface; which also results in removal of vast amounts of latent heat of evaporation from the ocean surface.
So you have some conduction of surface heat down towards the deeper cooler layers; but then all that solar energy that is deposited in the deeper layers; must warm those layers, which then become bouyant compared to their immediate surroundings; so there is a natural convective transport of solar heated waters from the depth towards the surface.
My bet says that convection always trumps conduction; so I consider it far more plausible that solar energy depostied deeper, is convecting towards the surface; rather than a much smaller LWIR return radiation from the atmosphere iws driving energy to deeper water.
Note that the solar spectrum energy arrives nice and shiny new pristine ordered energy; is deposited deeply in the oceans; and apart from what might be absorbed in biological processes, is essentially 100% converted into low class dirty disordered heat; so it is a very efficient conversion to heat.
On the other hand; LWIR emission from the atmosphere is at least second generation energy; either starting out as incoming solar spectrum energy that was captured and thermalized by the atmospheric gases such as O2, O3, and H2O along with third generation LWIR energy that was captured by green house gases sucha s H2O, CO2, O3 and other trace (CH4) GHGs.
Those conversion processes come with an energy division. Solar absorbed by the atmospehre becomes LWIR after thermalization, and half of it escapes to space, and only half of it strikes the surface (ocen mostly). The earth surface; ocean and land is emitting second generation radiant energy by thermal emission from the surface; and it to after capture and thermalization by the GHG/atmosphere also results in a 50/50 split; with half escaping, and half returning to the surface.
And thena s I pointed out a good fraction of that LWIR gets siphoned back off as latent heat.
So I don’t buy for a minute that this deep (3,300 feet) heating is attributable to LWIR emissions from the atmosphere.
It might be present; that is NOT my issue; but proving that it is from greeh house gas heating is s pretty tall order. Once heat is present in the oceans; it doesn’t have any isotpoic signature that identifies its origin.
Wow.. sea level rise is attributed to temperature, salinity, aquaifer depletion, and land erosion. How about the corpses of all the marine plants/animals?
Gary Mount says:
September 27, 2010 at 12:26 am
Ray says: September 26, 2010 at 8:46 am
Since when warm water is denser than cold water?
I’m afraid its true, I just looked it up. Water that is between the temperature of 3.98 °C and 0 °C exhibits this behaviour of becoming denser as it warms up. (Note that the opposite is true for temperatures outside of this range.)
Pure H2O, not sea water. It’s a side effect of the geometry of the H2O molecule caused by it’s having charged local “poles”. The H2O molecules shift their inter-molecular orientation as molecular energy changes due to their peculiar geometry . Sea water has dissolved ions which give it a rather normal temperature-density curve without the hump that pure H2O does, the ions get between the H2O molecules which minimizes the need for the H2O molecules to assume special orientations to accommodate each other.
In sea water the mechanism of variable density would be salinity changes associated with freezing. When sea water freezes it loses most of it’s salt into the surrounding water, which becomes more saline and thus denser. This is the near freezing water (at maybe -2C, dissolving salt in your water in addition to changing the temperature-density curve also changes the freezing point) which is denser than surrounding water because of the increased local salinity.
What does this mean in terms of warm water sinking to the bathos due to global warming? Beats me, that’s oceanic convection currents, I only do the chemistry and associated physics. I note that water can remain liquid at much lower temperatures at higher pressure (the deeper under the ocean one goes) and freezing can be written off as a consideration below the surface. The difference in density would be mostly caused by salinity differences not temperature although salinity would be associated with temperature.
This study brings up a related issue that I have had some comments on; and came up with Dr Judith Curry’s guest posts here. My comments also got some attention from Spehen Wilde; who explained to us his “Wilde’s Law .” from his new theory of Climate. and He and Judith talked a lot about his “speed” of the hydrological cycle.
As it turns out Stephen and I are really talking about two different subjects; well I know I was (am); and mine had nothing to do with the Climatologicaql cycle or at least any “speed” of it. Let me elaborate; stick in the sand style.
Renewable energy comes to earth from the sun; much like Televisions and computers come to the western world in container ships from communist Red China.
The renewable energy comes to us as high quality shiny new energetic photons; each one carries a “Country of Origin” label, that says Made in Sol . And it carries a UPC bar code tag that tells us it has an energy of Wavelength of 619.90 nm and an energy of 2.0000 electron Volts; or some other numbers mostly in the 250 to 4000 nm wavelength range.
Like all commercial trade channels; when these photon shipments arrive at the docks; in this case the earth’s non gaseous surface; they first of all have to pass incoming inspection in the shipping and receiving department run by Al.
This guy Al Bedo knowsd a good photo9n when he sees one, and nothing gets through unless he inspects it. So he rejects a lot of photons; maybe 305 of the total shipments; so he stamps his “Rejected by Al Bedo.” inspection tag and puts it in the return to sender out basket. So its still has its Made in Sol Label, and its bar code tag; so it hasn’t changed; it justn’t was accepted. In fact Al Bedo has a policy to never change anything he rejects.
The renewable energy products that he accepts get put into the system, and almost immediately get converted into some other product; like wind and waves, heat, and some of them get ingested by things like plants or solar cells that use those high quality energy photons to convert them to quite high efficiency to something useful like electricity or flowers and fruit.
Now as always happens in any system of commerce, there are Pirates, and Highjackers who prey on photon shipments before they get the Al Bedo and his inspection crew.
Things like O2, O3, and H2O in the atmosphere and to a lesser extent CO2, like to raid the shipmentws and grab some of the merchandise through the Molecular absorption process. Like all theives, these Pirates don’t really have a use for their booty; so they quite soon decide to fence the stuff and get rid of it to other passers by; so it gets shoved around from one fence to another in the form of molecular collisions and thermal vibrations and the like; which of course causes some damage and lowers the quality of the product; turning it into waste heat.
Now I’m only interested in the prime produce that Al Bedo has approved and sent off to absorption in the variosu factories of the earth; including the deep oceans.
Now the heating of the oceans leads as described by Wentz et al to evaporation of H2O into the atmosphere to raise the atmospheric water content, which ultimately leads to an increase in precipitable clouds, and more precipitation. In the process the clouds produce darkness, and other forms of piracy and the net effect is that more energy gets rejected by Al Bedo, and the highjackers snatch even more good photons so they never reach the surface and the waiting factories.
As a consequence more clouds; no matter where they are or what their nature; they ultimately reduce the total number of high quality renewable energy photons that reach the surface of the earth where living things and weather reside.
Clouds are a 100% always losing mechanism of pristine Made in Sol photons that reduce the total energy available to do everything on earth. There is no way that clouds can increase the total number of Made in Sol photons that reach the earth.
SO CLOUDS ALWAYS REDUCE THE ENERGY INPUT.
Now unless Leif Svalgaard knows something the rest of us don’t know about the Sol Photon Manufacturing Company; any reduction of the total number of its products that persists over climate time scales (30 years or whatever) due to ANY increase in the total global cloud covberage over such times, must result in a lowering of the total renewable energy received by the earth; and ultimately must lead to the establishment of a lower equilibrium Temperature (by how much I don’t know but likely by about 0.7% for a 1% loss of energy.”
Now THAT is ALL that I have been talkign about with regard to the import of the paper by Wentz et al; “How Much more Rain will Global Warming Bring ?”. The only issue I have been addressing in saying that “Clouds Always Cool” is the sole issue of the total nukmber of Made in Sol photons that directly reach the earth surface.
Now as to what happens to all the pirated photons that are cut up into variosu black market lower value products like LWIR photons and other heat products; those are something different and it is that which is involved in Stephen Wilde’s thoughts about speed of the hydological cycle; and is raised in issues like whether high clouds heat of cool, and whether the higher the cloud is, the more it warms the surface of the earth.
Well we learn that it takes 200,000 years for a speed of light neutrino to finally escape from the center of the sun. So how long does it take for a GHG intercepted Made in Sol photon or an earth emitted thermal radiation photon to finally escape. It is during that delay time that Sol keeps shipping prisitne photons to earth that results in an increase in Temperature.
But at night when the high clouds are supposedly delaying the cool down of the surface via the escape of LWIR; there isn’t any Sol shipments coming in, since Sol doesn’t ship to night time locations.
So even if the clouds result in a slowdown of the cooling they still result in a net loss of soalr energy reaching the surface so they still result in cooling; ALWAYS.
So it’s two difefrent problems.
Teh ONLYT one I have been addressing is what happens to the original Made in Sol Photons that incoming inspector Al Bedo allows to proceed to earth’s energy consuming factories and processes; and Clouds ALWAYS reduce thsoe shipments.
Now I don’t ignore those other black market channels in pirated merchandise; and the processes of evaporation and latent heat transport. Dr Chris de Freitas raised those same other near surface thermal processes and energy transfers here at WUWT; that area is his specailty at the University of Auckland.
So I haven’t ignored those processes or stephen Wilde’s thoughts about his Wilde’s Law; in fact from time to time I have talked about the evaporation cycle also.
But it is important to keep clear in the mind that my analysis regarding the observations of Wentz et al in their most important SCIENCE paper; and extension of that to say that more clouds always cool; relates ONLY to the computation of how may net “Made in Sol” photons reach the earth surface; and ALL clouds no matter where they are, always reduce that number.
“”” max says:
September 27, 2010 at 11:40 am
Gary Mount says:
September 27, 2010 at 12:26 am
Ray says: September 26, 2010 at 8:46 am
Since when warm water is denser than cold water?
I’m afraid its true, I just looked it up. Water that is between the temperature of 3.98 °C and 0 °C exhibits this behaviour of becoming denser as it warms up. (Note that the opposite is true for temperatures outside of this range.)
Pure H2O, not sea water. It’s a side effect of the geometry of the H2O molecule caused by it’s having charged local “poles”. The H2O molecules shift their inter-molecular orientation as molecular energy changes due to their peculiar geometry . Sea water has dissolved ions which give it a rather normal temperature-density curve without the hump that pure H2O does, the ions get between the H2O molecules which minimizes the need for the H2O molecules to assume special orientations to accommodate each other. “””
Both of you guys have been asleep at the switch. It is very well known that the phenomenon oaf a maximum water density at 3.98 Deg C applies only to pure fresh water; it is also equally well known that ocean water with a salinity of more than 2.47% has NO maximum density before it freezes; and normal sea water is about 3.5% salinity so it always sinks when it gets colder.
So the Temperature turnover of fresh water lakes is a lake phenomenon only; and does not occur in the oceans.
George E. Smith
Triple points of water and gallium have ITS90 temperature uncertainties of 0.1 mK and 0.25 mK.
See: Temperature Measurements according to the International Temperature Scale of 1990 and Associated Uncertainties, Steffen Rudtsch, PTB
http://www.ptb.de/de/org/3/31/313/230ptbsem/230ptbsem_ptb-rudtsch.pdf
For those modeling sea water, see the new:
The International Thermodynamic Equation of Seawater 2010 (TEOS-10): Calculation and use of Thermodynamic Properties, T.J. McDougall et al., 19 Aug. 2009
http://www.scor-int.org/Publications/Thermodynamic_TEOS-10_Manual_GOSHIP_19Aug09.pdf
Numerical implementation and oceanographic application of the thermodynamic potentials of liquid water, water vapour, ice, seawater and humid air–Part 1: …
http://www.ocean-sci.net/6/633/2010/os-6-633-2010.pdf
Numerical implementation and oceanographic application of the thermodynamic potentials of liquid water, water vapour, ice, seawater and humid air–Part 2: …
http://www.ocean-sci.net/6/695/2010/os-6-695-2010.pdf
“”” David L. Hagen says:
September 27, 2010 at 3:04 pm
George E. Smith
Triple points of water and gallium have ITS90 temperature uncertainties of 0.1 mK and 0.25 mK. “””
Well I cited what is listed as the International practical Temperature Scale of 1968; which does not even list the triple point of Gallium. It goes from Triple point of Hydrogen at 13.81 Kelvin to melting point of Gold at 1337.58 Kelvins. It gives an uncertainty of 10mK for Hydrogen and 200 mK for Gold with eight other things in between.
It also states that Triple point of water is 273.16 K exactly by definition; so I don’t know how exact can be uncertain by 0.1 mK.
I can believe we might not be able to measure it to better than 0.1 mK; but sicne 1968 unless recently changed it has been exact; as is the value of c and a couple of other Physical constant that taken together yield c.
But yes I’m not surprised to see that measurment technology has improved.
As I recall, in 1968 the value given for TSI due to Thekaikara et al was 1353 W/m^2; which is the value I grew up with.
Now I am quite prepared to accept those kinds of numbers (0.1mK) as laboratory capabilities; but I’d be very surprised that you can stick any thermometer down 1300 feet in the ocean and measure the Temeprature of anything down there to 0.1 mK.
But if YOU know that is possible or standard practice or whatever, I’d be really interested to learn that.
George E. Smith says:
Both of you guys have been asleep at the switch. It is very well known that the phenomenon oaf a maximum water density at 3.98 Deg C applies only to pure fresh water; it is also equally well known that ocean water with a salinity of more than 2.47% has NO maximum density before it freezes; and normal sea water is about 3.5% salinity so it always sinks when it gets colder.
Unfortunately not all sea water, especially arctic and antarctic sea water is normal sea water (in terms of salinity). IIRC the salinity of antarctic sea water can drop as low as 2.0%, which does exhibit a temperature-density curve hump. I have no idea if it is true in the Antarctic, but in the Arctic there often forms a layer of colder water on the surface which doesn’t sink below the warmer water because the warmer water is more dense due to a higher salinity.
This has probably been previously noted above, but the conclusion for the sub Antarctic has this confidence level, 0.093 (±0.081). Gives me a lot of confidence..not.
“”” max says:
September 27, 2010 at 9:40 pm
George E. Smith says:
Both of you guys have been asleep at the switch. It is very well known that the phenomenon of a maximum water density at 3.98 Deg C applies only to pure fresh water; it is also equally well known that ocean water with a salinity of more than 2.47% has NO maximum density before it freezes; and normal sea water is about 3.5% salinity so it always sinks when it gets colder.
Unfortunately not all sea water, especially arctic and antarctic sea water is normal sea water (in terms of salinity). IIRC the salinity of antarctic sea water can drop as low as 2.0%, which does exhibit a temperature-density curve hump. I have no idea if it is true in the Antarctic, but in the Arctic there often forms a layer of colder water on the surface which doesn’t sink below the warmer water because the warmer water is more dense due to a higher salinity. “””
Max, I don’t know that (wasn’t aware of it); but I’m perfectly happy to take your say so; in which case I would certainly agree with your statement that the less saline surface water may not sink.
I have argued that when the sea ice freeze gets going, the expulsion of salts from the ice must make the surrounding waters even more salty, and even further lower the freezing point; so it is no wonder that when the refreeze gets going that it really gets going in a hurry since the temperature has to drop a lot lower (in the water) to freeze the saltier water.
And of course, when the melt starts, all that fresh water dumped at the interface would lower the local salinity to create the effect you just described.
So thank you for your input; those numbers are useful to remember.
Well according to a certain law of thermodynamics, some work has to be done…but then entropy, entropy, entropy you can’t just hide that heat away until some warmist needs to discover it…
I’m thinking of stealing the water density argument as an example of how science should work and the problem of theorizing with too little information.
Colder sea water should sink to the bottom of the sea because
1) the density of liquids increases as temperature decreases
but wait a minute
2) Some liquids like ammonia and water have temperature ranges where density decreases with temperature rather than increasing
but wait a minute
3) That range doesn’t exist for seawater instead of pure water
but wait a minute
…
Peeling away the layers of an onion to get to the truth, each time applying more obscure information, never sure there isn’t another “but wait a minute” lurking to ruin the theory that cold seawater sinks or doesn’t sink.
“Sea level has been rising at around 3 mm (1/8 of a inch) per year on average since 1993, ”
Just been looking at sea level rise around NZ.
Bell 2000 – 1.3 mm per year
Hannah 2004 – 1.6 mm per year
IPCC AR4 Regional – 1.7 mm per year
Looks like there’s a surge coming.
Is there any possibility that this warming of the deep oceans could be do to increased volcanic activity in the deep ocean? My impression was that the deep oceans only cycle through to the surface, and vice-versa, over a couple of centuries, and wouldn’t warm by convection from above. Heat rises, after all. So that leaves warming from beneath the oceans as a possible source of heat. Could this explain this data (and possibly some significant amount of warming over the last century)?
Is Trenberth predisposed to conclusions that require missing data?
http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/LandseaResignationLetterFromIPCC.htm