Bob Tisdale points out the reality versus projection disparity. It would seem, that we have a GISS miss by a country mile. Where’s the heat? – Anthony
First-Quarter 2011 Update Of NODC Ocean Heat Content (0-700Meters)
Guest post by Bob Tisdale
(Update: I added the word “Anomalies” to the two graphs. )
OVERVIEW
The NOAA National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) has updated its Ocean Heat Content (OHC) data (0-700Meters) for the first quarter of 2011. The quarterly data for the world oceans is now available through the NODC in spreadsheet (.csv ) form (Right Click and Save As: all months). Thanks, NODC. That’s a nice addition to your website.
This is a quick post that shows the long-term quarterly OHC data and the ARGO-era OHC data compared to GISS Projections. I’ll provide another look when the data has been uploaded to and becomes available through the KNMI Climate Explorer, and that should be toward the end of the month. It’ll be interesting to see if the tropical Pacific OHC has rebounded yet.
DATASET INTRODUCTION
The NODC OHC dataset is based on the Levitus et al (2009) paper “Global ocean heat content(1955-2008) in light of recent instrumentation problems”, Geophysical Research Letters. Refer to Manuscript. It was revised in 2010 as noted in the October 18, 2010 post Update And Changes To NODC Ocean Heat Content Data. As described in the NODC’s explanation of ocean heat content (OHC) data changes, the changes result from “data additions and data quality control,” from a switch in base climatology, and from revised Expendable Bathythermograph (XBT) bias calculations.
THE GRAPHS
Figure 1 shows the Global NODC data from the first quarter (Jan-Feb-Mar) of 1955 to the first quarter of 2011. There was a minor uptick in the past three month period.
Figure 1
Looking at the NODC OHC data during the ARGO era (2003 to present), Figure 2, the uptick was nowhere close to what would be required to bring the Global Ocean Heat Content back into line with GISS projections. For the source of the 0.7 Joules*10^22 GISS projection, refer to the discussion of “ARGO-ERA TREND VERSUS GISS PROJECTION” in the post ARGO-Era NODC Ocean Heat Content Data (0-700 Meters) Through December 2010.
Figure 2
And for those wishing to discuss the draft of Hansen et al (2011), please first refer to the post for Notes On Hansen et al (2011) – Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications. It was cross posted at WattsUpWithThat as On ocean heat content, Pinatubo, Hansen, Bulldogs, cherrypicking and all that.
SOURCE
As noted above the updated quarterly NODC OHC data is available through their website:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
Specifically their Basin Time Series webpage:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/basin_data.html
Scroll down to the “all months” link under “World”.
Doug Proctor says: “In viewing your references and your comments I see that we are not really in disagreement. An 8-year period of time is indeed too short a period to determine whether the modeled results diverge significantly from observational data. The question of when we start our inspection for divergence is the key.”
But we’re not necessarily in agreement, either.
If causation is taken into acccount, then the model results diverge from observations from the start of the OHC dataset. The models, as I understand, assume Downward Longwave Radiation and changes in aerosols caused all of the rise in OHC. The GISS Model E used to study OHC did not include ENSO. I also do not believe GISS included AMOC and shifts in Sea Level Pressure. Yet ENSO, AMOC, and changes in Sea Level Pressure made significant contributions to the rise in OHC since the 1970s. One can’t look at Global OHC in order to determine their effects. Those effects are, however, plainly visible when the global oceans are broken down into basin subsets, and further subdivided into the tropics and extratropics. Refer to the posts:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/enso-dominates-nodc-ocean-heat-content-0-700-meters-data/
And:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/north-atlantic-ocean-heat-content-0-700-meters-is-governed-by-natural-variables/
And:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/north-pacific-ocean-heat-content-shift-in-the-late-1980s/
I also have a summary post that illustrates why the GISS projections are diverging from observations:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/why-are-ohc-observations-0-700m-diverging-from-giss-projections/
Ian L. McQueen says: “Bob: Isn’t it only the Fig 1 that is anomalies? Fig 2 looks to be a what-do-you-call-it ordinary graph.”
Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the same data. I’ve just shortened the time period in Figure 2.
Dodgy Geezer (May 9, 2011 at 12:34 am)
“if another start is picked…”
Bob Tisdale used the linear trend from 1993-2002 extended to the present as his “GISS projection”. Thus any possible start date must be post 1993. Here is the data properly presented by Tamino.
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/pred.jpg?w=500&h=325
Care to suggest, and justify, another start date that you think would support the false impression given by Tisdale’s Figure 2 above?
So.. has anybody proved that a bit more long-term IR warms the ocean? Because if not, OHC is purely a matter of albedo and/or changes in ocean circulation.
Bob
Do we know how the Argo data compare with the data from other sampling since it was deployed?
Ed
Slioch;
No. What your post shows is that you will swallow anything from anonymous propogandists.
Richard
Moderators:
I haved made two recent posts to this thread that have disapeared. I wonder why.
Richard
[reply] Rescued – TB-mod
Basics:
All extrapolation should come with a heavy set of health warnings. Extrapolations of natural world data using a linear model is almost guaranteed to be wrong; that’s what got us into the global warming mess in the first place. To have any degree of confidence in extrapolated data needs the extrapolator to know and understand the form of the function underlying the data. Not to have such knowledge renders the extrapolation no more than guesswork and therefore meaningless, or worse, perfidious.
Wow – that’s some takedown. When in doubt, and the data isn’t going your way, best to refer to those who post actual data as believers, decry their internet anonymity, and then check for typos, which would make your own response seem careless and ill-considered. Textbook (apart from the fail on the typo).
Tamino must be quaking in his boots.
Richard S Courtney May 9, 2011 at 2:19 am
Tamino has taken exactly the same data as misused by Bob Tisdale and shown how it was misused. The misuse is simple and obvious: there is nothing complicated or difficult about it. The cherry-picking combined with moving the intercept on the extrapolated graph is obvious and undeniable. Anyone with a modicum of ability in data analysis would come to the same conclusion as Tamino.
You may not be able to understand those simple facts, Richard, but please don’t use that lack of understanding to accuse me of “swallowing anything from propagandists”.
Slioch,
Having read Bob Tisdale’s comments over the years, I know him to be careful, level headed citizen-scientist who is only interested in finding answers to complex questions. He is not funded by any NGO, and he shows no bias in his research. Your cherrypicking accusation can be applied equally to anyone who uses a specific graph, and thus is baseless whining.
Grant Foster, on the other hand, runs a climate alarmist blog that promotes the repeatedly falsified conjecture of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. The planet itself debunks Tamino’s climate alarmism: as [harmless and beneficial] CO2 rises, the temperature has been flat to declining for more than the past decade. Therefore, what we are observing is largely, if not entirely, natural climate change.
You have the same ossified mindset of the hundred Soviet scientists who signed a letter attacking Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Einstein correctly retorted that a hundred scientists were not necessary to falsify his work; just one fact was sufficient.
Provide facts that falsifiy Bob Tisdale’s work – if you can. Your accusations of cherrypicking are only a desperate attempt to attack what you have been unable to falsify.
Another fail on a takedown. Again with the true believer stuff. And then switching out the actual topic for a rather different. You get bonus points for checking for typos, but an actual takedown this isn’t.
Come on. Why would Bob choose 2003 when every other year produces a rather different trend? I could choose 2001 and ‘prove’ something exactly opposite to the stated conclusions here. But I wouldn’t, as that wouldn’t be scientific.
I really do wish we could get someone knowledgable to comment on this without the vituperation that so badly undermines the credibility of much of it.
On the face of it, the Argo OHC graph everyone appears to accept shows a lot of warming up to 2003 and very little since. Everyone appears to accept that 8 years is too short a period for this to mean all that much and everyone knows that trends are capable of being manipulated by carefully choosing start dates.
I do not really find such trend analysis of Hansen or anyone else’s projections very interesting. All I want to know is why there has been no warming at 0 to 700m in the ocean since 2003 and at what point assuming that this continues will we be able to say that there is significant evidence that the oceans are no longer warming.
I lose out this time on checking for typos ;p
Duckster,
The onus of the ‘actual takedown’ is on the alarmist contingent. Skeptics have nothing to prove. [And thanx for avoiding the easy attack on typos, which have nothing to do with the question.]
Dave W says: “The Argo OHC graph everyone appears to accept a lot of warming up to 2003 and very little since.”
That is the alarmists’ conundrum: if CO2 causes catastrophic AGW, then ocean temperatures should be rising right along with rising CO2. But they are not. Therefore, there is a serious problem right here in River City: CO2 cannot be the culprit that the alarmists claim it is – thus the demonization of “carbon” takes another hit.
>> Slioch says:
May 9, 2011 at 4:20 am
Richard S Courtney May 9, 2011 at 2:19 am
Tamino has taken exactly the same data as misused by Bob Tisdale and shown how it was misused. <<
It was Tamino who printed misused data.
Look at the huge leap in heat content in Tamino's graph, right where there was a change to Argo from the previous unreliable scattered measurements. Tamino (or was it GISS) just took the Argo data and pasted it high enough above the pre-Argo guesstimates to temporarily fit their prediction.
If GISS is correct, then CO2 should still be adding heat to the Earth and the Argo data alone would show increasing ocean heat, which is what Bob has shown is not the case. There should be no need to use the pre-Argo data, and using it the way it was done in Tamino's figure just highlights the corrupt adjusting done by the warmist camp to fit their preconceived religious beliefs.
OK. So we have a takedown of Bob’s argument by Tamino. So far no one here has responded to it really at all – apart from a few a hominem ‘true believer’ attacks.
Tamino has a graph showing they are.
Your turn. The onus is on you. Right now.
Bob Tisdale wrote:
“Ian L. McQueen says: “Bob: Isn’t it only the Fig 1 that is anomalies? Fig 2 looks to be a what-do-you-call-it ordinary graph.”
“Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the same data. I’ve just shortened the time period in Figure 2.”
Bob-
Sorry to be sticking to this subject, but it looks to me as if Figure 1, anomalies, is based on Fig 2, but the latter is a straightforward graph with a linear Y-axis and an implied Y=0 at the origin. I really don’t think that Fig 2 represents anomalies, otherwise it would be varying about a zero point somewhere around midway up the Y-axis.
IanM
Thanks Bob.
Hansen is now saying (and has been for a few years now) that the degree of ocean heat mixing is over-estimated in the climate models.
What does this mean exactly?
Generally, it sounds reasonable. We think we know what he means by this. We know it will take a long time for the deep oceans to catch up for example.
But what he is really saying is that the oceans are not taking up as much heat as expected. It might take them 1500 years to fully catch up to the surface.
What this really means is that the oceans are not absorbing 0.8 watts/m2 from the atmospheric GHG forcing that fast-ocean-mixing climate models expect. It means there is not as much imbalance in surface temperature versus calculated forcings as expected. It means the theory is missing something.
Technically, he is holding contradictory positions here. There cannot be both an imbalance of 0.8 watts/m2 while the oceans mix slow and only absorb 0.3 watts/m2. Hansen is just restating the “missing energy” problem again while he doesn’t fully outline what that means.
Simplistic Solar/Climate Theory:
1) Observed TSI is the “base” for global temperature.
2) The radical changes in Solar UV drive upper atmospheric “thickness”
3) Thicker upper atmosphere, more heat retention; thinner upper atmosphere, less heat retention.
4) Solar activity at ~100 Flux -> -0.1C/2.5 years Global temperature decrease. This is accumulative. It takes, on average, ~184 Flux -> +- 0.0C , i.e., no Global temperature change.
5) Only the top 700 meters of ocean temperature count. The rest is cold at 3C. This thin surface layer gives up [absorbs] heat on a time cycle of about 2.5 years at about +-0.1C/2.5 years.
This information is easily verified by looking at max/min solar cycle [flux] as related to Global temperature. Typical Global temperature swing is about +-0.05C over the 11 year cycle [average Sun spots over 11 years -> .6 * 220 peak = 132 ][average Flux over 11 years -> 70 + .6*(260-70) = 70 + 114 = 184 ].
Note: Low Solar UV activity, verified reduced upper atmosphere thickness.
Wow. Bob Tisdale, you s/b ashamed of yourself.
Anthony, Here’s another example to add to my list of posts you personally should not allow if you want to boost WUWT credibility.
REPLY: Our credibility is just fine (outside of a select few like yourself). Your bud, “Tamino”, might benefit from having the courage to put his name to what he writes, particularly when he calls people “liars and deniers” (his main theme these days) that could boost his credibility. – Anthony
Slioch:
In your post at May 9, 2011 at 4:20 am you say to me;
“You may not be able to understand those simple facts, Richard, but please don’t use that lack of understanding to accuse me of “swallowing anything from propagandists”.”
But you do not present any “facts” (simple or otherwise). You merely assert that the propagandist who writes under the alias of “Tamino” is right so – according to you – Tisdale must be wrong.
However, as I explained at May 8, 2011 at 11:59 pm
“… So, by posting information on his blog under his alias of Tamino, he proclaims
(a) he thinks the information is so unworthy that it would not obtain publication in the refereed literature
and
(b) he thinks the information is so unworthy that he is not willing to put his name to it.”
You want me to consider stuff that its provider proclaims to be rubbish? Why would I or any other sensible person waste time doing that?
Richard
Seen Pat’s @ur momisugly Jeff’s? Off-topic, but closing in.
==========
Dodgy Geezer said: “I wonder what Tamino says about this?”
And Fred B, Richard S Courtney, Slioch, Duckster, and Smokey have discussed Tamino’s rebuttal post here:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/favorite-denier-tricks-or-how-to-hide-the-incline/
I will be replying to Tamino’s post soon, maybe later today if I get the time. Once again, Tamino’s criticisms fail. He misses the very obvious and the not-so-obvious. But we can discuss that after I post it.
Regards
Dusckster asks: Why would Bob choose 2003 when every other year produces a rather different trend? I could choose 2001 and ‘prove’ something exactly opposite to the stated conclusions here. But I wouldn’t, as that wouldn’t be scientific.
Homogeneity of the data (ie, gathered via the same device), versus inhomogeneity. In other words, apples versus oranges comparisons. Oh, why a duck?