Bob has done some very interesting work here, I call attention to figure 6 and figure 7 below where he asks:
If the observations continue to diverge from the model projection, how many years are required until the model can said to have failed?
January to March 2011 NODC Ocean Heat Content (0-700Meters) Update and Comments
by Bob Tisdale
INTRODUCTION
The National Oceanographic Data Center’s (NODC) Ocean Heat Content (OHC) anomaly data for the depths of 0-700 meters are available through the KNMI Climate Explorer Monthly observations webpage. 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”. 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 OHC anomaly data is provided from the NODC on a quarterly basis. There it is available globally and for the ocean basins in terms of 10^22 Joules. The KNMI Climate Explorer presents the quarterly data on a monthly basis. That is, the value for a quarter is provided for each of the three months that make up the quarter, which is why the data in the following graphs appear to have quarterly steps. Furnishing it in a monthly format allows one to compare the OHC data to other datasets that are available on a monthly basis. The data is also provided on a Gigajoules per square meter (GJ/m^2) basis through the KNMI Climate Explorer, which allows for direct comparisons of ocean basins, for example, without having to account for surface area.
This update includes the data through the quarter of January to March 2011. The Global and Tropical Pacific OHC anomalies both rose during the first quarter of 2011, as one would expect in response to a La Niña event. This relationship with ENSO is very apparent when OHC data is compared to SST data. Refer to Sea Surface Temperature Versus Ocean Heat Content Anomalies.
GLOBAL
The Global OHC data through March 2011 is shown in Figure 1. Even with the slight rise this quarter, it continues to be remarkably flat since 2003, especially when one considers the magnitude of the rise that took place during the 1980s and 1990s.
Figure 1
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TROPICAL PACIFIC
Figure 2 illustrates the Tropical Pacific OHC anomalies (24S-24N, 120E-90W). The major variations in tropical Pacific OHC are related to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Tropical Pacific OHC drops during El Niño events and rises during La Niña events. As discussed in the update for October to December 2010, the Tropical Pacific had not as of then rebounded as one would have expected during the 2010/11 La Niña event. It finally responded during the last quarter.
Figure 2
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For more information on the effects of ENSO on global Ocean Heat Content, refer to ENSO Dominates NODC Ocean Heat Content (0-700 Meters) Data and to the animations in ARGO-Era NODC Ocean Heat Content Data (0-700 Meters) Through December 2010.
BASIN TREND COMPARISONS
Figure 3 and 4 compare OHC anomaly trends for the ocean basins, with the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean also divided by hemisphere. Figure 3 covers the full term of the dataset, 1955 to present, and Figure 4 shows the ARGO-era data, starting in 2003. The basin with the greatest short-term ARGO-era trend is the Indian Ocean, but it has a long-term trend that isn’t exceptional. (The green Indian Ocean trend line is hidden by the dark blue Arctic Ocean trend line.) The basin with the greatest rise since 1955 is the North Atlantic, but it also has the largest drop during the ARGO-era. Much of the long-term rise and the short-term flattening in Global OHC are caused by the North Atlantic. If the additional long-term rise and the recent short-term decline in the North Atlantic OHC are functions of additional multidecadal variability similar to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, how long will the recent flattening of the Global OHC persist? A couple of decades?
Figure 3
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Figure 4
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Further discussions of the North Atlantic OHC anomaly data refer to North Atlantic Ocean Heat Content (0-700 Meters) Is Governed By Natural Variables. And if you’re looking into natural impacts on OHC, also consider North Pacific Ocean Heat Content Shift In The Late 1980s.
ARGO-ERA MODEL-DATA COMPARISON
Many of you will recall the discussions generated by the simple short-term comparison graph of the GISS climate model projection for global OHC versus the actual data, which is comparatively flat. The graph is solely intended to show that since 2003 global ocean heat content (OHC) anomalies have not risen as fast as a GISS climate model projection. Tamino, after seeing the short-term model-data comparison graph in a few posts, wrote the unjustified Favorite Denier Tricks, or How to Hide the Incline. I responded with On Tamino’s Post “Favorite Denier Tricks Or How To Hide The Incline”. And Lucia Liljegren joined the discussion with her post Ocean Heat Content Kerfuffle. Much of Tamino’s post had to do with my zeroing the model-mean trend and OHC data in 2003.
While preparing the post GISS OHC Model Trends: One Question Answered, Another Uncovered, I reread the paper that presented the GISS Ocean Heat Content model: Hansen et al (2005), “Earth’s energy imbalance: Confirmation and implications”. (PDF) Hansen et al (2005) provided a model-data comparison graph to show how well the model matched the OHC data. Figure 5 is Figure 2 from that paper. As shown, they limited the years to 1993 to 2003 even though the NODC OHC data starts in 1955. Hansen et al (2005) chose 1993 as the start year for three reasons. First, they didn’t want to show how poorly the models hindcasted the early version of the NODC OHC data in the 1970s and 1980s. The models could not recreate the hump that existed in the early version of the OHC data. Second, at that time, the OHC sampling was best over the period of 1993 to 2003. Third, there were no large volcanic eruptions to perturb the data. But what struck me was how Hansen et al (2005) presented the data in their time-series graph. They appear to have zeroed the model ensemble mean and the observations at 1993.5. The very obvious reason they zeroed the data then was so to show how well OHC models matched the data from 1993 to 2003.
Figure 5
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My ARGO-era model-data comparison graph is also zeroed at the start year, 2003, but I’ve done that to show how poorly the models now match the data. Hansen et al (2005) zeroed at 1993 to show how well the models recreated the rise in OHC from 1993 to 2003 and I’ve zeroed the data in 2003 to show how poorly the models match the data after that. I’m not sure why that’s so difficult to accept for some people. The reality is, the flattening of the Global OHC anomaly data was not anticipated by those who created the models. This of course raises many questions, one of which is, if the models did not predict the flattening of the OHC data in recent years, much of which is based on the drop in North Atlantic OHC, did the models hindcast the rise properly from 1955 to 2003?
Figure 6 compares the ARGO-era Ocean Heat Content observations to the model projection, which is an extension of the linear trend determined by Hansen et al (2005), for the period of 1993 to 2003. Over that period, the modeled OHC rose at 0.6 watt-years per year. I’ve converted the watt-years to Gigajoules using the conversion factor readily available through Google: 1 watt years = 31,556,926 joules. The model projection has risen at a rate that’s 7 times higher than the observations since 2003.
Figure 6
I asked the question in Figure 6, If The Observations Continue To Diverge From The Model Projection, How Many Years Are Required Until The Model Can Be Said To Have Failed? It’s really a moot point. Hansen et al (2005) shows that the model mean has little-to-no basis in reality. They describe their Figure 3 (provided here as Figure 7 in modified form) as, “Figure 3 compares the latitude-depth profile of the observed ocean heat content change with the five climate model runs and the mean of the five runs. There is a large variability among the model runs, revealing the chaotic ‘ocean weather’ fluctuations that occur on such a time scale. This variability is even more apparent in maps of change in ocean heat content (fig. S2). Yet the model runs contain essential features of observations, with deep penetration of heat anomalies at middle to high latitudes and shallower anomalies in the tropics.” I’ve deleted the illustrations of the individual model runs in Figure 7 for an easier visual comparison of the observations and the model mean graphics. I see no similarities between the two. None.
Figure 7
COMPARISON OF OHC ANOMALY DATA BY HEMISPHERES
I don’t recall presenting the OHC anomalies for the Northern and Southern Hemisphere on the same graph in earlier posts, so here they are in Figure 8. As always, the Southern Hemisphere data has to be taken with more than a grain of salt. There were very few observations in the Southern Hemisphere prior to the ARGO era, especially south of the tropics. But what I found interesting was the major divergence after the 1997/98 El Niño. The Northern Hemisphere data rises significantly, but there is a minor dip and rebound in the Southern Hemisphere data at that time.
Figure 8
So I subtracted the Southern Hemisphere OHC anomaly data from the Northern Hemisphere. Refer to Figure 9. The timing of the large variations appear to coincide with El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. I checked and found that they did, but the results were surprising.
Figure 9
Figure 10 is a gif animation that compares inverted and scaled (-0.1) NINO3.4 SST anomalies (a commonly used proxy for the timing and magnitude of ENSO events) and the difference between Northern and Southern Hemisphere OHC anomalies. The animation presents the inverted NINO3.4 SST anomalies shifted up and down. I’ve done this to align them with the corresponding changes in the hemispheric difference for the significant 1972/73, 1982/83, and 1997/98 El Niño events. The hemispheric difference leads the NINO3.4 SST anomalies during those ENSO events.
Figure 10
I have not carried the investigation any farther. Hopefully soon.
THE HEMISPHERES AND THE OCEAN BASINS
(11) Northern Hemisphere
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(12) Southern Hemisphere
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(13) North Atlantic (0 to 75N, 78W to 10E)
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(14) South Atlantic (0 to 60S, 70W to 20E)
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(15) North Pacific (0 to 65N, 100 to 270E, where 270E=90W)
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(16) South Pacific (0 to 60S, 120E to 290E, where 290E=70W)
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(17) Indian (60S-30N, 20E-120E)
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(18) Arctic Ocean (65 to 90N)
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(19) Southern Ocean (60 to 90S)
SOURCE
All data used in this post is available through the KNMI Climate Explorer:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere
RGates, I should add that Trenberth has an 09 or 10 publication where he tries to claim there’s been a substantial storage of heat in the deeper ocean.
kadaka (KD Knoebel): The USGS should talk to the people from NOAA. The Pacific Warm Pool has also been known as the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool for as long as I can remember. And there are multidecadal variations in the area and temperature of the PWP/IPWP.
I’ve converted the watt-years to Gigajoules using the conversion factor readily available through Google: 1 watt years = 31,556,926 joules.
You need to account for leap years.
1 watt years = 365.25 * 24 * 602 = 31,557,600 joules.
Superscript doesn’t work.
1 watt years = 365.25 * 24 * 60^2 = 31,557,600 joules.
Gates, back in the old days, climate zones were set in stone geographically and so described in elementary text books. It is only recently that the word “climate” has been co-opted by AGW’ers and morphed into what I understand as weather pattern variation.
Maybe it’s my age, don’t know. I live on my family’s homestead ranch. With the stories I was told plus my own 50 plus years of experience, that’s over 100 years of short and long term weather pattern variations, but the climate has not changed.
There are lots of words that have changed in meaning over time. And I don’t mind most of them. But the idea that 30 years of a weather pattern variation is now considered to be climate change is utter nonsense. No one has moved Wallowa County to a higher or lower elevation, nor has it moved longitudinally or in latitude. The Pacific Ocean is still just West of us across the state of Oregon. Our location allows us to experience both short and long term (some even longer than 30 years) weather pattern variations that cause us no fears that our “climate” is changing.
Robert of Ottawa says:
June 19, 2011 at 1:49 pm
The warmistas seem to have the following view of computer modelling. If the model is run 20,000 times, in a Monte Carlo simulation, them the average of all outputs are reality.
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It might “seem” that way to you Robert, but I believe your interpretation is incorrect. Your point sounds suspiciously like a straw man argument.
The ensemble mean acts like this.
Imagine a water slide. Some kid dives down it and oscillates from side to side randomly on the way down. A A whole bunch of kids, fat and skinny, all dive down the chute.
They all take different paths. One if these, you don’t know which one, is the real climate. The others are model runs.
The ensemble mean of these dives down the chute tells you the general shape of the chute.
You do not expect any kid to follow the centre of the chute all the way down. In the same way you do not expect actual climate to be similar to the ensemble mean. You would expect actual climate to vary from side to side around the ensemble mean.
So Bob’s question amounts to : how do we decide if the real climate kid has fallen off the side of the chute.
R. Gates says:
June 19, 2011 at 3:20 pm
Pumping warm sea water to the Arctic is along the same lines as pumping your houses heated air outside during the winter. Especially so, since the upper atmosphere over the Tropics has not warmed according to the AGW hypothesis. Earth is driving down the road with a leaky RF tire.
Bob Tisdale says:
June 19, 2011 at 1:50 pm
Gary Pearse: With respect to your June 19, 2011 at 10:21 am comment, the 2010 corrections to the NODC OHC data lowered the long-term trend. Yup, you read that right. The NODC dropped the long-term Global OHC trend about 9% with those corrections.
Yet more fudging to bring the trend into line with co2 forcing values and exclude the solar input.
They know no shame.
@R. Gates
It is noted the Arctic OHC is plummeting. Thanks for pointing that out.
Michael Jankowski says:
June 19, 2011 at 3:43 pm
RGates,
Here’s one of the folks I’m specifically referring to…not a reputable fellow, and he’s come up on this site from time-to-time, and you’d be amazed at how many people use his site for talking points.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Kevin-Trenberth-travesty-cant-account-for-the-lack-of-warming.htm
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I’m well aware of that site, and even more aware of the full context of Dr. Trenberth’s comments. But since I don’t really follow the politics of this whole issue I am curious as to who runs the skepticalscience blog and why you find him/her disreputable?
Bob Tisdale says:
June 19, 2011 at 3:46 pm
R. Gates says: “Definitive proof that heat content has less to do with ice loss than short and long term weather patterns methinks.”
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Bob, I DID NOT say this, it was a said by Tucker, at 1:40 p.m. on this blog. My follow up to it makes it clear that I was not agreeing with it, where I said:
“… very detailed research would suggest that warming oceans have a lot to do with the decline in arctic sea ice. See:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010JPO4339.1
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But I would like to know exactly your source of data OHC of the Arctic Ocean. Please provide a link to the data source if you could be so kind…
DR says:
June 19, 2011 at 4:12 pm
@R. Gates
It is noted the Arctic OHC is plummeting. Thanks for pointing that out.
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I didn’t point it out, but would love to find a data source that can verify your sentiment. Anyone?
Michael Jankowski says:
June 19, 2011 at 3:50 pm
RGates, I should add that Trenberth has an 09 or 10 publication where he tries to claim there’s been a substantial storage of heat in the deeper ocean.
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I’ve read some of those. His famous “missing heat” is down there somewhere (at least according to him). I happen to think he’s partially correct in that we need a more accurate measurement of deeper ocean warming, and it’s a travesty that we don’t have one. 🙂
Wrong:
Bob Tisdale says:
June 19, 2011 at 1:39 pm
RobB says: “What’s going on in the Indian Ocean?”
I can’t answer your question, unfortunately. Some of it is likely due to the poor sampling in the pre-ARGO portion of the data–that is before 2003. Most of the Indian Ocean is in the Southern Hemisphere and there’s very little source data in the Indian Ocean before 2003. We’ll just have to watch it and try to figure out what makes it tick. Some of the warm waters comes from ENSO events.
Isn’t it the case that La Nina systems result in warm water along the western Pacific margin? If a significant amount of this sloshes into the Indian Ocean, then (very speculatively) a warming Indian ocean could relect predominant La Nina cycles? (Or not?)
DR says:
June 19, 2011 at 4:12 pm
@R. Gates
It is noted the Arctic OHC is plummeting. Thanks for pointing that out.
Falling Arctic OHC could mean
(1) larger area of open water in recent years causing bigger heat loss (indeed a negative feedback as commented previously)
(2) predictions of the death (spiral or otherwise) of Arctic ice are exaggerated.
R. Gates: Excuse my misunderstanding about who wrote what. You asked, “But I would like to know exactly your source of data OHC of the Arctic Ocean. Please provide a link to the data source if you could be so kind…”
As with most of my posts, the source is listed at the end. It’s also discussed in the introduction to the post. Here’s a link to the KNMI Climate Explorer again:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere
phlogiston says: “Isn’t it the case that La Nina systems result in warm water along the western Pacific margin? If a significant amount of this sloshes into the Indian Ocean, then (very speculatively) a warming Indian ocean could relect predominant La Nina cycles? (Or not?)”
You can see that La Nina effect on the Indian Ocean in the post I had linked earlier:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/argo-era-nodc-ocean-heat-content-data-0-700-meters-through-december-2010/
But the release of the warm water from below the surface of the PWP during the significant El Nino (before the La Nina) also has to be taken into consideration.
RGates,
It might be down there…of course, who knows how long a significant amount of heat has been down there, too. Trenberth only uses the ARGOS data, which covers less than a decade. Seems a bit apples-to-oranges to use the deep ocean for radiative balance from 2002 to present and ignore the past.
John Cook runs that site. There used to be a link there to his background, but I can’t find it (think he has a undergrad in physics and masters degree in int’l relations or something). If you seach for him on WUWT, you’ll find him mentioned a number of times.
Thanx all. Bob, I should know by now that you use 65*N. Will try not to be so air headed next time.
🙂
R. Gates says: June 19, 2011 at 3:01 pm “Probably best to let Dr. Trenberth speak for himself, right from his official web page on this issue:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/statement.html.”
R- Thank you for the reference- I am rather new to the science being discussed here hence I enjoyed reading a referenced paper as well- Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001.
My take on Dr. Trenberth comment- ” …….A climate information system that firstly determines what is taking place and then establishes why is better able to provide a sound basis for predictions and which can answer important questions such as ‘Has global warming really slowed or not?’ Decisions are being made that depend on improved information about how and why our climate system is varying and changing, and the implications.”- is that the current models are not able to answer the question- Has global warming really slowed or not?
Living in CA I completely agree with Dr. Trenberth’s comment on decisions and I would expand his comment to note that decisions have already been made based on the models
Lazy Teenager says this about climate models:
“They all take different paths. One if these, you don’t know which one, is the real climate. The others are model runs.”
That’s just a version of the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy: draw a circle around the bullet holes you shoot in a barn door, then shout, “Bulls-eye!”
Let’s see the same model that happened to get closest to the actual climate accurately predict temperatures over the next 3, 5 and 10 years. No tweaking in the mean time. No 20,000 Monte Carlo runs. Make the prediction, and we’ll see if the model can accurately predict the climate.
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Mark,
Here’s an interesting comment by Kevin Trenberth:
“The null hypothesis should now be reversed, thereby placing the burden of proof on showing that there is no human influence.”
Trenberth wants to turn the scientific method on its head by putting the burden of ‘proof’ on scientific skeptics. He wants to do that because he has no evidence that human activity influences the climate. Otherwise, he would produce the evidence and leave the null hypothesis the way it’s always been.
Thanks Bob, easily understood. The Indian ocean usually lags behind after El Ninos or La Ninas, but our temperatures along the coastal area of Western Australia have dropped rapidly, and are consistently been below average over the last 6 months, after 2 years of being above. In Broome, June to date is around 4C below last year and 2 to 2.5C below the mean.
Bob Tisdale: “If the observations continue to diverge from the model projection, how many years are required until the model can said to have failed?”
Good question. How long has Paul Ehrlich been wrong about his “population bomb”? Last I checked, he has yet to be laughed out of academia.
I’ve read somewhere that the energy required to melt a given volume of ice could raise the temperature of an equal volume of water by 80F.
In regard to arctic sea ice melt, the net short term response is to cool the oceans. The arctic ocean is essentially a huge ice bath. Until the ice is gone most of the energy it receives goes toward melt. This cold water mixes with the Atlantic or Pacific oceans.
It would seem quite possible that what we’re witnessing is a result of a melting arctic acting as a negative feedback. But there’s not an unlimited supply of sea-ice. If it disappears all that energy that presently goes towards melting the ice will go towards warming the arctic waters.
Has anyone read any research on how the melting arctic sea ice is affecting world ocean temperatures?