Update And Changes To NODC Ocean Heat Content Data

Fantastic work!…..but..Is this “Climate Disruption” or just another cyclic and natural minimum we are in?. Just to avoid that the then Global Warmers who after became Climate Changers and now they present the phenomenon as “Climate Disruption” could surprise innocent people, which, btw, we are not, here at WUWT, thanks to real, and serious researchers like you.
So we know it: Things are getting colder but it’s Ok, let’s buy more popcorn!

Splendid work, thankyou!
K.R. Frank

Sean says: “So the really good data shows TOC stable for 7 years…”
There have been numerous corrections to ARGO data ever since the floats were deployed. “Really good” is relative, but they are more numerous.

The 1955 to June 2010 version seems to my eyeballs to show a clearer pattern as follows:
i) A general fall in OHC from 1955 to 1970
ii) a general rise from 1970 to 2000
iii) A plateau and possible beginning of a fall from 2000 to date.
I would just point out that the period of falling OHC was during a period that the jetstreams were more towards the equator, then the rising trend as they moved poleward and now possibly a falling trend once more now that the jets have shifted equatorward again.
That meshes in with the albedo thread here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/10/17/earths-albedo-tells-a-interesting-story/
where it seems that albedo declined from the 80s as the jets moved poleward and started to recover again as the jets moved equatorward again from the late 90s.
I take that as prima facie evidence supporting my proposition that it is the latitudinal position of the global cloud bands that most affects global albedo and the quantity of solar energy entering the oceans.
A poleward shift reduces albedo so OHC rises. An equatorward shift increases albedo and OHC falls.

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.

Interesting that the Arctic Ocean graph shows a low point and trend change around 1980 whereas the global chart shows a low point and trend change around 1970.
That suggests a ten year lag which approximately matches the period of time from the 1998 super El Nino to the peak summer melt in 2007.

So OHC has been dropping a bit since late 2004 instead of 2006.
I highly recommend looking at this link (very clear explanation):
ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/DATA_ANALYSIS/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/PDF/heat_content_differences.pdf
These comments from the linked slides are interesting:
• Many CTD/bottle data do not come to NODC within 3 months. Many do not come at all.
• Changes to XBT data are usually replacement of real-time data with full profile delayed-mode data, including delayed-mode quality control.
• Changes to Argo profiles are mostly pressure adjustments applied during delayed-mode quality control.
I guess this means that the Argos sensors have an internal recording capability that has much more information than what is transmitted in quasi realtime. This recorded memory is presumably accessed relatively infrequently. When the recorded data is available, it permits post processing that improves the accuracy of temp records.
I wonder what this means: “mean of five decadal climatologies to remove temporal bias”. Maybe Levitus 2009 explains it.
Bob, did you do a post about the Levitus 2009 paper?

Bob,
what unit is GJ* m**-2?
Have you (or Climate Explorer) divided the OHC by the ocean area?

I agree with Richard Verney, a summary and commentary would be helpful for us simpletons (relatively).I always feel a bit stupid after reading Bob’s posts and I have followed links. I can understand why Bob presents the evidence (data) but refuses to be become embroiled in commentary but a little help from some of you clever guys would be appreciated.

Morris Minor says: “Could you please explain to me what the unit GJ/m2 means. I assume this is the energy in a column of water with surface area 1m2… but what depth is the column?”
Sorry that I didn’t note the depths as 0-700 meters in the post but they are included in many of the graphs. And yes, the GJ/m^2 is gigajoules (1 billion joules) per square meter.

Paolo M. says: “what unit is GJ* m**-2?”
Gigajoules per square meter.
You asked, “Have you (or Climate Explorer) divided the OHC by the ocean area?”
I did the dividing based on coordinates of ocean basins. The KNMI Climate Explorer allows users to download data based on global coordinates. And they present the data in a fomat that would work on that basis and that is Gigajoules per square meter.

Hmmm, I wonder what the ratio of mass of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere is to the mass of water is the oceans. I mean, I’m just wondering. It’s really quite amazing that the reemission of photons from CO2 could warm the atmosphere, which, in turn warms the oceans (in such a short period of time). I guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention in my heat transfer classes when they covered that. Boy, those must be some really energetic photons. Oh wait, no I have that wrong. It must be all about the “positive feedbacks” — you know, perpetual motion, cold fusion, that sort of thing.

How do the warmists explain the fact that the North Atlantic is accumulating heat at twice the rate of the rest of the world? Does the difference between the two rates represent the so called missing heat?

This is interesting information. My biggest curiosity isn’t the actual change in the values. The tiniest changes to measured temperatures will translate to changes in energy when large columns of water are involved.
The ENSO cycle trigger very large changes in energy, but what powers those changes. Understanding the driving factor of the ocean oscillation would be very helpful. I have often wondered about how much energy is dissipated by an EL Nino. The energy transferred around evaporation and the warming of the atmosphere is significant.
So much energy is on the move that the atmosphere is still warm almost a year later. These events are very interesting.
John Kehr
The Inconvenient Skeptic

Thanks for the head exploding amount of data Bob!
I’m going to have to read this three times to get the big picture.
Thanks for the hard work.

Change Is Universal says: “Is it possible to compare OHC at different depths. For example, 50m intervals for the tropical Pacific. Would be nice even if we can only use Argo data…”
That’s a tremendous amount of data to sort through, even with the depth intervals provided by the NODC. I doubt very much that NOAA will ever present it that way through their NOMADS system for that reason.
For the ARGO data, there is software that allows users to sort through their data, but I haven’t looked into it. Also, it’s my understanding that the ARGO data they provide has not been corrected, and they’ve also stopped updating it, last update was sometime this summer. Refer to the “Global Marine Argo Atlas” webpage:
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Marine_Atlas.html

Bob …..?????
Any direct involvement in the work of the Pielke’s Family.
(april >>>>september)
thanks.

Brego says: “Bob, what effect did these changes have on the linear trend for global OHC since 2003 (when the ARGO network came online)? My eyeball thinks it changed a flat or slightly negative trend and turned it into a positive trend. Is that right?”
Yup, the dip in 2004 helps the postive trend. Let me see if I can dig up the old yearly data through 2009 and compare it to the present data.

“”” Paolo M. says:
October 18, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Bob,
what unit is GJ* m**-2? Paolo; no mystery; the unit is GigaJoules per square metre; as in G, standard prefic for 10^9, J standard symbol for Joules (energy), and m standard unit for Metre (length), so it is energy per unit area.
rather simple actually.

Fernando (in Brazil) says: “Any direct involvement in the work of the Pielke’s Family.”
In what way would the Pielkes have been involved?

Neville says: “I can only agree that Bob allows we slower members a chance to read and understand more info as it becomes available, BUT I wish a short summary and conclusion was part of the package.”
A cut-and-paste summary:
1, the National Oceanographic Data Center has updated itsOCEAN HEAT CONTENT (OHC) data.
2, The update to the OHC data also included major changes, which have reduced the long-term rise in OHC.
3, the linear trend for the Northern Hemisphere OHC data only dropped approximately 2%, while the Southern Hemisphere linear trend dropped about 16%. And the linear trend globally dropped about 9%.
4, The recent changes to the OHC data have not had noticeable effects on the timing of the major variations…that should be attributable to natural variations.
Neville, Dr T G Watkins, and Richard Verney: I’ll try to include summaries in future posts.

“”” bob says:
October 18, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Hmmm, I wonder what the ratio of mass of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere is to the mass of water is the oceans. I mean, I’m just wondering. It’s really quite amazing that the reemission of photons from CO2 could warm the atmosphere, which, in turn warms the oceans (in such a short period of time). I guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention in my heat transfer classes when they covered that. Boy, those must be some really energetic photons. Oh wait, no I have that wrong. It must be all about the “positive feedbacks” — you know, perpetual motion, cold fusion, that sort of thing. “””
Well bob it is a mistake to think of “reemission” of photons from CO2.
The lifetime of the excited state of CO2 caused by the surface (or atmospheric) emitted LWIR photons captured by the CO2, is much longer than the mean time between molecular collisions in the lower atmosphere; so the CO2 molecule almost never gets to re-emit the photon it absorbed. Instead when the CO2 molecule next collides with an N2 or O2 molecule or perhaps even and Ar atom, there will be mechanical energy and momentum exchanged between the two molecules, and some of that captured energy will become increased kinetic e3nergy of the molecule it collides with. So the captured energy is basically thermalized by collisionsso there isn’t the energy left to re-emit the captured photon.; even if such a transition is allowed.
In the much rarer atmosphere of the stratosphere, the mean free path between molecules is long enough that re-emission can occur. But since the molecular density is so low up there the amount of energy involved is small. Most of the intercepted LWIR radiant energy is thermalized, and becomes mechanical motion of a Temperature increased atmopsheric molecule.
The warmer atmosphere eventually emits a thermal continuum LWIR spectrum that is characteristic of the Temperature.
The original Jeans calculation of the radiation spectrum emitted by heated matter, calculates the total number of modes of oscillation in some mass of matter (say a mole); whcih is some factor times Avogadro’s number of degrees of freedom, and then a certain energy is assigned to each mode of oscillation. In Jeans Calculation the energy was assumed to have any continuous value. The result was Jeans formula predicts an infinite amount of energy at very short wavelengths; known as the “Ultra-Violet Catastrophy”.
Planck’s innovation was to quantize the amount of energy per degree of freedom rather than let it have any continuous value; and that is what eliminated the UV catastrophe and gave us the Planck Black Body Raiiation law, and the start of quantum Physics. Now I’m just roughing this out since I am writing from memory that goes way back to the Plasticine era. I’ll let the PhD Physicists dress it up properly.
But an important thing to note, is that neither Jeans earlier work; nor Planck’sd erivation involves in any way; and atomic structure or electron orbitals; or anything to do with the energy states of any atom; it is quite independent of material atomic structure.
So in particular it isn’t capable of predicting any line spectrum of a similar nature to that emitted by atoms or ions in excited states.
It is a result of the mechanical energy of atomic or molecular motions; that we describe as “heat”. I’m given to understand that in the Classical Physics the origin of the thermal radiation simply results from the acceleration of electric charges.
A moving charge (constant velocity) comprises and electric current; which in turn creates a magnetic field, along with the electric field that results from the charge itself. So a varying current (and magnetic field) is the result of electric charge undergoing acceleration; and classical theory predicts that it must radiate energy.
That is exactly how radio antennas work to radiate EM waves.
You could take a superconducting antenna wire at near zero K, and apply a varying AC current to it, and you should get electromagnetic waves radiated form that antenna; even though it is basically at zero K.
In all materials above zero Kelvins the thermal motion of the atoms or molecules results in accelerated charge and classical theory predicts a continuously radiated field.; solely as a copnsequence of the accelerated charge.
The whole reason for the Stanford Electron accelerator being linear; rather than circular, is that high energy electrons running around a circle are in continuous acceleration (remember Velocity is a vector so a change in direction is an acceleration) and the electron stream would constantly lose energy to radiation; which would eventually limit the energy of the electrons, since they would lose all the energy you give them during the next trip around the ring.. It’s also the reason the LHC is so damn big, because even heavy particles at those energies will radiate while going in circles so they have to be big circles.
So it is a mistake to believe that gases like the atmosphere don’t emit thermal black body like radiation; they do, and it isn’t because of electrons jumping orbitals in the atom; but just due to the acceleration of thermal motions) mostly at the time of collisions.
Well the PhDs can sanitize this for you but this is the general idea.

Thanks Bob.
FYI, here is the Python code for my naive calculation of the temperature change based on a change in GJ of 0.4 .

cc = 10e6 #cubic cm per cubic metre
temp = 293.
cal = cc * temp
deltaGj = 0.4
print “cal “, cal
joules = cal / 4.184
print “joules “, joules
gj = joules / 1e9
print “gj per cubic metre”, gj
print “gj in 700 M column “, 700 * gj
print “percent “, 100 * deltaGj / (gj * 700)
print “delta Temperature “, temp * deltaGj / (gj * 700)

Here’s the output.

cal 2930000000.0
joules 700286806.883
gj per cubic metre 0.700286806883
gj in 700 M column 490.200764818
percent 0.0815992198927
delta Temperature 0.239085714286

Both my naive calculation and Levitus et al (2005) give a very small change in energy compared with the total. In both cases, the temperature change seems to me to be well within a reasonable value for measurement error.
I guess my question is: How much importance should we give the energy accumulation in the ocean? Can we just treat the ocean as a giant (roughly) constant temperature heat sink?
Anyway, if we’re going to have runaway global warming, the atmosphere will have to do it independently of the oceans. There simply isn’t enough energy to warm the ocean very much over a hundred years.

Barry Day says: “I would like to hear your thoughts on how much or what percentage,Earth’s core heat from >”increased” 1 km), implying that ~24,000 (60%) remain to be discovered. .(END QUOTE)”
I haven’t studied the papers or webpages you linked and can’t comment.

So what difference in temperature from whatever base is assumed, produces an anomaly of, for example, .078 gJ/m^2 in 700m depth of sea water.
.078 gJ = 18642 kcal which, in 700 m^3 of water implies ~.027C.
Thus we are talking about differences on the order of hundredths of a degree C.
Should this be so, how does this difference compare to the expected errors of measurement and averaging, given that the measurements are from a few buoys floating around the ocean?
Would somebody set me straight if I did the conversions wrong?

How come all past non-satellite data keeps changing in the past? Is there some temporal transmogrification mechanism that I’m unaware of that is peculiar to non-satellite data? Really, does 1950s temperature change in the 2010? And what will it be in 2011?

Bob and George,
you can’t know that, but I’m not that stupid 🙂
OHC is a mass integrated measure.
So what does that m**-2 stand for?
The original NODC file is in Joules *10**18.
Where does that denominator come from?
Has Bob (or Climate Explorer) divided for an area of something?
Or is it just a Climate Explorer typo?
Anyway, thanks both for your previous answer and the next one.

Bob Tisdale, thanks for the painstaking efforts, clarity of graphs, and generous answers to questions. I, too, am grateful for the brief summary. (I am not happy about the OHC-global linear trend dropping by about 9%.)

Bob Tisdale said:
“Therefore, most of the variability is independent of your conjecture about ITZC latitude.”
My comments have been about the combined effect of ALL the global cloud systems INCLUDING the ITCZ. I specifically referred to the ITCZ AND the jets more than once.
Please read what I say more carefully. I have found that all your adverse comments are based on subtle and not so subtle misapprehensions about what I say and then you go off at an irrelevant tangent.
I am aware that the movement of the ITCZ is very much less than the apparent shifting of the jets so it is hardly a surprise if the movement of the ITCZ on its own is insufficient to explain observations.

vukcevic says:
October 19, 2010 at 1:46 am
Thanks for the reply/explanation.

Stephen Wilde replied: “Please read what I say more carefully. I have found that all your adverse comments are based on subtle and not so subtle misapprehensions about what I say and then you go off at an irrelevant tangent.”
I don’t misread or misunderstand what you say. I specifically selected the tropics and ITCZ because you dwelled on the equator in an earlier reply when you wrote (in part), “The sun is highest overhead at the equator and therefore imparting more energy to the surface per unit of area…” and because it was easy to identify the latitudes in which the ITCZ is located. If your logic fails for the ITCZ, is there any reason to expect it to work elsewhere? No.
The curves for the ISCCP total cloud cover amount data are basically the same regardless of whether one looks at the equator (10S-10N), or the tropics (20S-20N), or the globe (90S-90N):
http://i52.tinypic.com/14161×4.jpg
So unless you can document the latitudes in which the jets have migrated and can document the variations in cloud amount at those specific latitudes, you’re simply fooling yourself. The effects you’ve claimed for the ITCZ don’t exist, yet you continue to somehow believe they exist at higher latitudes. You really need to learn to work with the data that’s available to see if your basic speculations have any basis in fact.

Stephen Wilde wrote, “Earthshine changes occurred when the jets shifted. Enough said.” But then you continued, because you apparently hadn’t said enough, “And it is not cloud amounts that are necessarily relevant but the amount of energy reflected by the clouds globally and that is primarily a function of latitudinal position so your cloud amount data is of little relevance. Another example of going off at a tangent.”
No tangent. Maybe it’s your failure to accept what’s presented that makes you think I’ve gone off on a tangent. I’ve shown you that there were global changes in cloud amount. I’ve shown you that the equatorial, tropical, and global cloud cover curves are all basically the same. And unless you somehow missed it, the cloud amount data present curves that you’ve described for the earthshine project cloud reflectivity.
You’ve assumed that the variations in the locations of the jets have caused the changes in global albedo (earthshine project), but the fact is the variations in global cloud amount caused the changes in global albedo.
And you wrote, “It simply cannot be the case that shifting all the main cloud bands equatorwards or polewards has a zero effect on albedo.”
That’s the point you need to prove, and so far you have not.

“”” TomVonk says:
October 19, 2010 at 5:59 am
The lifetime of the excited state of CO2 caused by the surface (or atmospheric) emitted LWIR photons captured by the CO2, is much longer than the mean time between molecular collisions in the lower atmosphere; so the CO2 molecule almost never gets to re-emit the photon it absorbed. Instead when the CO2 molecule next collides with an N2 or O2 molecule or perhaps even and Ar atom, there will be mechanical energy and momentum exchanged between the two molecules, and some of that captured energy will become increased kinetic e3nergy of the molecule it collides with. So the captured energy is basically thermalized by collisionsso there isn’t the energy left to re-emit the captured photon.; even if such a transition is allowed.
This is absolutely incorrect .
If you measure the downwelling infrared radiation during the night you will measure something like 200 W/m² .
Where do you think it comes from ?
According to what you say this value should be exactly zero because all IR energy got “thermalized” and nothing is left to be emitted by CO2 and H2O . “””
Tom, I’m assuming that this is addressed to me, since the early part looks very like a cut and paste of something I recall writing.
So let me re quote what you just said:-
“”””” According to what you say this value should be exactly zero because all IR energy got “thermalized” and nothing is left to be emitted by CO2 and H2O . “””””
Why would the emission of thermal radiation from the atmosphere go to zero at night ? What has the time of day to do with the emission of thermal radiation from the atmosphere ?
The atmospheric emission doesn’t go to zero either night or day because it’s Temperature never goes to zero (Kelvins) either day or night; and that is the only thing that determines the atmospheric emission.
Presumably at night time; as in the day time, the earth surface is and continues to radiate LWIR thermal emissions upwards; which in the appropriate absorption bands will be still captured (in part) by whatever GHGs are in the atmosphere; including both CO2 and H2O. And presumably the daytime warmed surface will also for a while continue to conduct heat by contact to the atmosphere, which will then rise to higher altitudes; so the radiant heating sources, and the other thermal processes do not shut down just because it is night time.
Tru with the solar spectrum incoming energy being shut down at night that source of atmospehric heating will cease; but just because there is no sunlight does not mean the atmospheric night time temperature will drop to zero K so that atmospheric emissions cease.
If the surface upward LWIR is 390 W/m^2 as claimed by Trenberth; which is an appropriate level for a 288 K black body radiating body; and you say the atmosphere is down radiating 200 W/m^2 at night; to which we should add another 200 W/m^2 which it must be radiating upwards; then that would reasonably correspond to the expected emission from a black body at about the same 288 K Temperature. Not that the atmospheric radiation should be exactly BB like; but that at least puts an upper bound on what it could be if it is at +15 deg C; which it likely is in some locations.
Ultimately, the atmosphere does not care what the source of energy is that establishes its Temperature at any location. Whether by solar radiation capture in O2/O3/H2O and to a weak extent CO2; or by 10.1 micron peak surface emitted LWIR radiation or by direct contact conduction and convection; not to mention the import of Latent heat of evaporation from water surfaces; any of those energy sources will heat the atmosphere; even as it loses energy by its own natural thermal emission.
So the absoluteness of your assertion of incorrectness is rather questionable. I stand by what I wrote. Nothing in my (very rudimentary) explanation suggests that night time atmospheric Temperatures polunge to absolute zero shutting off all thermal emission; and the only atmopsheric heating process that does shut off, is due to the absence of solar spectrum input; which is all that distinguishes night time from daylight hours.

George E. Smith wrote:
“But it is broadband thermal continuum radiation that is emitted from that warm atmosphere including the GHG molecules, and not some narrow spectral line due to a CO2 molecular bending resonance photon emission.”
This is very plausible point and I guess it’s clearly visible in various measurements of back-radiation spectrum (eyeballing the graphs) . I have been arguing about this with two really bright guys (Roy Spencer and Science Of Doom) and both disagree strongly. Do you know why?

Bob Tisdale said:
“You’ve assumed that the variations in the locations of the jets have caused the changes in global albedo (earthshine project), but the fact is the variations in global cloud amount caused the changes in global albedo.”
Well maybe, but have you shown that that is enough on its own ? In any case the change in cloud amounts could be a result of latitudinal shifting. Simply changing the latitudinal position of the jets would cause changes in cloud cover by stretching the air mass boundaries along a greater circumference around the globe.
So we have several potential causes for the albedo change:
i) a change in the intensity of downward solar radiation that was being blocked by the clouds as they moved latitudinally and/or
ii) a change in the cloud amounts as the cloud bands were stretched out in lower latitudes.
Has anyone quantified the albedo effects of both mechanisms ?
Either way the change in Earthshine coincided with and would have been driven by the latitudinal shifting.
Unless you have other explanations for the change in cloud quantities that is. Svensmark’s proposal would be one such of course.

Ok I’ve found the global link that you provided:
http://i52.tinypic.com/14161×4.jpg
So can you separate cloud amount changes caused by shifts in latitudinal positioning stretching out the air mass boundaries from other possible causes ?
Can you then separate out the albedo effect from the cloud quantity cause and that from the changed reflectance cause ?

“”” Allan Kiik says:
October 20, 2010 at 2:09 am
George E. Smith wrote:
“But it is broadband thermal continuum radiation that is emitted from that warm atmosphere including the GHG molecules, and not some narrow spectral line due to a CO2 molecular bending resonance photon emission.”
This is very plausible point and I guess it’s clearly visible in various measurements of back-radiation spectrum (eyeballing the graphs) . I have been arguing about this with two really bright guys (Roy Spencer and Science Of Doom) and both disagree strongly. Do you know why? “””
Allan, it is very difficult to figure out why some scientists say what they say; often it is just miscommunication. I don’t know who or what “Science of Doom” is; but I have a high opinion of Dr Roy Spencer; and Professor John Christy too; but I must admit, that I am perplexed that they seem to spend an inordinate amount of time tying to support the concept of “Climate Sensitivity”, and a logarithmic CO2-Surface Temperature link. I can’t find any empirical or Physics theoretical support for such a simple mathematical relationship. Dr’s Roy and John seem to support much smaller values for cs than the IPCC and Hansen promulgate; but I think we would make much more progress by just abandoning the whole notion. The water cycle is clearly what is regulating the earth’s comfort range; and preventing the Temperature from ever going above +22 deg C no matter how much CO2 there is.
But I read everything that Spencer and Christy put out that I can get my hands on. Now I haven’t read anything from them about the spectrum of atmospheric radiant emissions.
All the text book data that I can find (mostly from the Infra-Red Handbook) which might be a bit dated, shows an external view of the earth that is quite black body spectrum like although distorted since it is of course not isothermal; and those spectra show the dips due to the ozone and CO2 bands; but there is no indication of any bright line emissions such as a decay from an excited resonance state like the CO2 bend mode.
Now Phil, who has been noticeably absent for a while, has pointed out that in the stratosphere; where the densities and Temperatures are much lower, the mean free path or alternatively the mean inter-collision time is long enough compare to the mean lifetime of the ecited CO2 state (the bend mode oscillation) that it can spontaneously decay, and emit a photon with a specific energy; which would have some Doppler broadened line width of course.
But the total atmospehric emission spectrum should range from around 4-5 microns upt to 80-100 microns for most of the energy.
Now Spencer and Christy are using some microwave Oxygen frequency, as a proxy for Temperature in their satellite measurements. I can’t claim to have an intimate understanding of exactly what they are doing or the physical basis; but Roy has explained it a couple of times; and I don’t have one iota of discomfort in accepting that in that work they do know what they are doing.
So it is not that molecular or atomic spectral lines are absent from the atmospehric emission; I’m sure they are there; but the thermal continuum is there also; and it depends only on the atmospheric Temperature.
Tom Vonk’s point about the GHG molecule energies also being thermalized by collisions with N2 or O2 is of course quite true; I’ve never claimed that the CO2 or H2O doesn’t emit some of the downward (and upward) thermal radiation; but it is small potatoes since they are a small fraction of the atmosphere; and it really isn’t disturbing the total spectrum. But because of the very short mean free path in the lower atmosphere; they seldom get a chance to simply re-emit the original exciting photon they captured. Well it is not clear to me that the spontaneous decay is simply a reversal of the excitation transition. I know in atomic spectra, the decay from an excited state often ends up on a different energy level than the original ground state; so the emission photon energy may be different from the original excitation energy if the excited stated was caused by photo absorption. I’m almost totally rusted out on all that Pauli selection stuff; that determines what transitions are allowed; and I’m pretty weak on molecular spectra. I’m not sure if Anna is up on atomic or molecular spectra; or whether she luxuriates only in that inner snctum of the nucleus.
Roy Spencer invests a lot of time in the “Political” front line of this whole climate thing, in his support of the talk radio hosts; who need a credible source boost from time to time; so I can see that he is busy with other issues; and not easy to get into a one on one chat with.
I’m hoping to make one of those annual events that Anthony has attended so I can get some up close with some of those people; and pick their brains; or maybe bend their ears too.
One thing is that places like WUWT are a great resource for opening the windows, and seeing what blows in.
My understanding of the Black Body Radiation theory Alan, is that it mostly follows classical Physics of Electro-magnetic fields; and about all Planck did was to insist that the amount of energy assigned to each degree of freedom of all the “oscillators” must be quantized; rather than any continuous value, which is what led Jeans to an untenable conclusion. But you see, there isn’t any “energy level” quantum stuff that I can see; becuase the theory; doesn’t get into the nature of matter at all; there’s no discussion of atomic properties at all a far as I know. While Temperature needs matter to have any meaning; it apparently doesn’t need to know anything about matter besides mass; and if you introduce electric charge; then you have all that is needed for EM radiation given the motions of particle collisions. I can see that the collisions between molecules which is a Temperature effect, involve changes in momentum, velocity, and energy and this must then involve acceleration of electric charges during the encounter; and that may be the entire source of the Thermal spectrum emission.
I work with a whole basket full of PhD Physicists; but to a man they seem to know more and more about less and less; and unfortunately none of their specialties (which they are damn good at) seems to lie in the field of thermal radiation Physics; so I pretty much have to wallow around in the mud by myself. I have a couple of knowledgeable contacts; but I hate to bother them with stuff that must seem rather trivial to them; and so far I haven’t found any Rosetta Stone text books.

Stephen Wilde: With respect to your October 20, 2010 at 4:58 am, your October 20, 2010 at 5:44 am, October 20, 2010 at 5:55 am, and your October 20, 2010 at 9:05 am replies, I’ll respond to one of your requests. It seems to be the all-encompassing one in my view. You wrote, “So could you please prove to me that the changes in albedo are a result of changes in total global cloud amounts and not simply changed reflectance as the clouds moved to areas of more or less intense sunlight.”
In a number of papers, Project Earthshine members have compared their data to ISCCP Cloud Amount data, and as you know, I’ve used one of the ISCCP Cloud Amount products for the graphs on this thread. Here’s a link to the Project Earthshine Bibliography webpage:
http://bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/bibliography.htm
You’ll likely find some of the reasons for the similarities and differences between the Project Earthshine and ISCCP Cloud Amount based reflectance data in Pelle et al (2008). They have a link to the in-press version at the top of their bibliography.
I know I didn’t answer your question, but the links in the bibliography will allow you to research their papers to see if they found whether any latitudinal changes in clouds were the cause for the changes in albedo. I’ve done a few spot checks and couldn’t find anything.

George E. Smith says: “And the gist of my question for Bob Tisdale was did he have some comparative numbers for the contribution of LWIR down radiated energy versus solar; since I am not saying the former is zero.”
George, I was not a participant in your conversations about LWIR on this thread. You’re referring to the other Bob, I assume. Please correct me if I somehow missed a question.
Regards

Bill Illis:
Agreed, thank you. One of my past comments in other threads refers to the expansion and contraction of the polar air masses due to top down solar effects, then the expansion and contraction of the equatorial air masses due to bottom up oceanic effects, with the jets being pushed and pulled to and fro between those two interacting forces.
Richard Holle:
Yes, I’ve noted your views on how those other factors might be involved in affecting the overall scanario but as yet I haven’t formed a view because it doesn’t really matter to my hypothesis as to exactly how the top down and bottom up forcings might be modulated thereby. I might need to address that at a later date but at the moment I have to concentrate on and hopefully deal with the top down objections from Dr.Svalgaard and the bottom up objections from Bob Tisdale.
If the Haigh findings are verified that deals with Dr. Svalgaards objections so I am just waiting on that.
With regard to Bob’s objections I think they would be partially disposed of if indeed the latitudinal shifting of the jets is the primary cause of observed albedo changes either by changing overall reflectance or changing total cloud quantities or more likely both. Changing albedo alters energy input to the oceans and thus directly impacts ENSO and so if caused by latitudinal jet shifting that could partly deal with Bob’s assertion that ENSO is essentially an internal system phenomenon of a free standing nature.
I can’t find much data on that and so will have to await developments.
Ascertaining whether there are any significant temperature discontinuities along the track of the thermohaline circulation would also impact on the supposed free standing nature of ENSO.
I’m happy that Bob is right as regards ENSO on an interannual basis or up to 30 years. From 30 to 60 years the ENSO variations could be either free standing or externally forced. Over more than 60 years I don’t see that Bob can account for those longer tterm changes from MWP to LIA to date without invoking external forcings and I accept his reasons for not wishing to try.
Bob Tisdale:
I couldn’t find anything either but thank you for trying. In the absence of data, conjecture based on observation is valuable because it narrows down the data that should be sought.

“”” Bob Tisdale says:
October 20, 2010 at 2:22 pm
George E. Smith says: “And the gist of my question for Bob Tisdale was did he have some comparative numbers for the contribution of LWIR down radiated energy versus solar; since I am not saying the former is zero.”
George, I was not a participant in your conversations about LWIR on this thread. You’re referring to the other Bob, I assume. Please correct me if I somehow missed a question.
Regards “”””
Bob, it looks like I got a couple of threads crossed. You had described the ocean heat content as consisting of stored solar plus downwelling LWIR sourced; and that tweaked me to ask if you had numbers for each (solar and down LWIR) in J/m^2 or whatever you use. I understand the solar part somewhat; but have always thought that the LWIR results mostly in evaporation rather than ocean storage; so I was curious if you had separate contribution nmubers. If not it doesn’t matter; don’t do any research to find it.
As to Stephen Wilde’s theory of latitudinal cloud shifts; I have no opinion on that other than I’m not aware of any observational data that supports or otherwise such a theory.
I have offered that Wentz et al’s report of the 7% increase in Evap/Atmospheric H2O/Precip for a one deg C Surface Temperature increase; implies a similar % increase in (precipitable) cloud cover, since such clouds must go hand in hand with precipitation.
And I elaborated that the (7%) increase could be comprised of any combination of cloud area, cloud optical (and water) density, and cloud persistence time; to which could be added that if existing levels of cloud coverage, did shift to more moisture rich environments such as over warm oceans, that the “cloud cover” as I describe it would of course increase.
But what Wilde describes is adequately covered by my combination of area/water density/lifetime. His shift to warmer climes would likely result in higher water content, but also with area and time components.
So like I said, I have no opinion on his theory; except that it doesn’t conflict with what I conjectured; or add to it either unless Stephen actually has observational data to support the occurrence of his latitude shift effect; and I gather you feel there isn’t supporting data.
Stephen disagrees with my conjecture in favor of his thesis, and his “New Climate Theory”, while others have simply asked whether I can say which changes, the area, or the water content, or the persistence time; which suggests to me that they just don’t understand the concept. I don’t know; and I don’t care which it is; but some climate researcher might want to know or find out. I’m only interested in the net combined effect; which I believe is the major climate (Temperature) regulating mechanism on earth.
How the heat moves around in all these cycles, and where it hides out (in the oceans) is certainly of importance for local climates; but doesn’t really come into play much in the overalll energy balance of the planet; which is about the limit of my real interest (and knowledge).
Regards
George

As to ITCZ shifts:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h3p1736qm55vm080/
As to jet stream shifts:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h3p1736qm55vm080/
but in fact by the time of publication in 2006 the jets were already going back equatorward and only now is the mainstream realising what I first noticed around 2000.
http://scienceblog.com/1203/changes-in-jet-stream-storm-tracks-linked-to-prairie-drought-patterns/
then this one covers the period up to 2001 when I contend it went into reverse:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24228037/
So all the bits of data are out there. One just needs to join the dots.

George E. Smith says: “Bob, it looks like I got a couple of threads crossed. You had described the ocean heat content as consisting of stored solar plus downwelling LWIR sourced…”
I did? I don’t believe I’ve ever described OHC as having a component of longwave infrared.

0.5 degrees latitude over 22 years is not a great deal but as I’ve said many times it is a slow and irregular process process and it really comes into its own over that 500 / 1000 year cycling from MWP to LIA to date. The cycle could even be up to 800 / 1600 years as per that delay between temperature rises and subsequent CO2 responses. That would fit the 1500 year climate periodicity noted by some. It’s early days in our consideration of such matters.
Being an irregular process over a period 20 or 30 times longer than the period of observation I doubt that that 22 year period is truly representative so there is plenty of scope for a total shift of 1000 miles or much faster short term shifts especially if the oceanic and solar contributions were to be supplementing one another for a while such as during a period of La Nina plus an active sun or El Nino plus inactive sun.
That would come to about 10 to 20 degrees latitude in all or around 1000 miles and the significance is that it changes net warming to net cooling which accumulates the climate effect over time.
As to being noticeable the fact is that people quickly start noticing and regional agriculture is soon affected if the jets overhead shift just a couple of hundred miles. In UK we can all see a difference between the climate of London and the climate only 200 miles north. The distance between London and the north of Scotland is around 1000 miles and that is a big climate difference in terms of human perceptions..
Although we have seen some shifts during our lifetimes we have been lucky to not yet have seen how large and fast the shifts can be.
As to the other questions they are all sensible but one really needs to ask the authors. However I would expect the shifts to be greater on the eastern side of ocean areas for example the jets approaching western Europe can shift anywhere between Gibraltar and Icealnd. The reason being that I see the bottom up oceanic effects as being more powerful and the Earth’s rotation as it is the effect accumulates as the prevailing winds cross the oceans. Its quite a large effect on the west of the Americas too is it not ?