Tisdale on SST correlation with AGW

Bob,
Thanks for your reply to my question. Much to read, and to think about here.
But just to clarify one more thing for me, it seems that you are arguing that re-distribution of heat in and of itself (that is, without the addition of energy), can affect the average sea surface temperature. This seems plausible, as energy can be exchanged between the surface layer and sub-surface regions. What is your take on the total thermal energy of the ocean during the ENSO cycle? You seem to be saying that ocean heat content is not much changed during El Niño, and increases during La Niña. Is that accurate?

Given the rate of charge in La Ninas over the past few decades, it would take a decrease in incoming shortwave radiation to recharge less. Otherwise, SST’s will continue to step up. Seems testable.

And I think Hansen was quantifying the land only total. Unless I read that wrong.

I have a few novel suggestions.
i) I think that the ENSO cycle is directly caused by the fact that the ITCZ is situated north of the equator and not exactly above it. That introduces a solar energy input imbalance within the oceans either side of the ITCZ.. Periodically that imbalance becomes large enough to become unstable and so to restore balance a pulse of warmth is periodically released by the warmer part of the ocean south of the ITCZ to the air and to the broader global oceans on either side of the equator. The fact that the pulse of energy release is spread out across the central Pacific is due to the Earth’s rotation.
ii) Additionally under the influence of solar variability the distance that the ITCZ sits north of the equator changes. It was closer to the equator during the LIA than it was during the MWP and today.
That distance sets the potential scale of the imbalance and the total energy that must be must accumulated before the release occurs so that if there is high solar activity the mid latitude jets move poleward and the ITCZ moves further north. That makes the energy input imbalance across the oceans either side of the ITCZ larger and makes it more difficult for the release to occur so that the pulses of warmth have a greater energy content when they are released hence a bias towards stronger El Ninos when the sun is active and a bias towards La Nina when the sun is less active.
iii) The change in energy input to the oceans when the level of solar activity varies is greatest outside of the tropics and of opposite sign to the change in energy input to the oceans caused by the ENSO cycle within the Tropics.
iv) If the ENSO cycle were not to occur then the north/south oceanic energy imbalance would increase directly in line with a more active sun and the ITCZ would move further and further north until the sun became less active but in fact it does not do so.The distance northward that it can move is limited by the solar induced position of all the other air circulation components via the solar influence on the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere especially at the poles. The energy imbalance can only increase until it reaches a limit set by the strength of the solar resistance to the northward movement of the ITCZ and then it ‘pops the cork’ in the form of an El Nino. As the El Nino dies away the recharge (La Nina) process takes over until the next time.
Thus the ENSO cycle modulates the bottom up oceanic effect on the atmosphere and the latitudinal shifting of the mid latitude jets modulates the top down solar effect on the atmosphere.
All climate change is a consequence of that constant interaction but the existence of the irregular equatorial release of solar energy from the oceans is a by product of the uneven landmass distribution between the two hemispheres. It is the predominance of ocean in the southern hemisphere that allows a greater accumulation of solar energy south of the equator and it is that landmass imbalance which allows the ITCZ to be pushed north of the equator in the first place.
Over geological timescales the strength and/or existence of the ENSO phenomenon would therefore be dictated by the extent to which the landmass distribution changes.

I believe Bob Tisdale’s work is profoundly important and increases our understanding of how the earth’s climate works in the multi-decadal time frame. It also provides evidence that the “consensus” view of “global warming” is probably wrong. The most striking thing this work shows is the proximate cause of the mid 20th century cooling. It was a cyclical period of La Nina dominance that leads the cooling and not the clumsy “sulphates” excuse that always seemed a case of clutching at straws. Similarly the two warming periods of the twentieth century are seen as been directly, if not ultimately, caused by two periods of sea surface temperature rises and these were of essentially equal magnitude.
See, from Bob’s website – http://i56.tinypic.com/343r903.jpg
The early 20th century sea surface temperature rises were certainly not caused by CO2 because concentrations of CO2 were then far too low to provide sufficient forcing. Bob’s work ties in nicely with “Syun-Ichi Akasofu
Natural Science, Vol.2, No.11, 1211-1224 (2010), doi:10.4236/ns.2010.211149”
“We learn that the recovery from the LIA has proceeded continuously, roughly in a linear manner, from 1800-1850 to the present. The rate of the recovery in terms of temperature is about0.5°C/100 years and thus it has important implications for understanding the present global warming. . . .
The multi-decadal oscillation of a period of 50 to 60 years was superposed on the linear change; it peaked in 1940 and 2000, causing the halting of warming temporarily after 2000. These changes are natural changes, and in order to determine the contribution of the manmade greenhouse effect, there is an urgent need to identify them correctly and accurately and re-move them from the present global warming/cooling trend.
On the recovery from the Little Ice Age, Syun-Ichi Akasofu
Natural Science,
Vol.2, No.11, 1211-1224 (2010), doi:10.4236/ns.2010.211149”
It is clear that our understanding of the causative processes that drive these sea surface temperature changes is very poor. It is certainly not adequate to explain how much, if any, of the late 20th century sea surface temperature changes, which directly caused the measured atmospheric warming, were caused by anthropogenic factors. The current “narrative” of CO2 caused warming simply doesn’t fit the data at all. I personally fail to see how CO2 can cause ocean temperatures to rise before causing atmospheric temperatures to rise which is absolutely necessary if the 20th century warming can even possibly be attributed to CO2. To be honest, I am not at all convinced that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere can materially affect ocean temperatures in any way, which means that CO2 cannot drive climate change, it simply adds a small warming signal on top of the existing, “natural” change.

I consider (for many reasons) that ocean temperature is the significant metric of global warming and because of this, I consider that the land based temperature record which has additionally been allowed to become so bastersized would be better ditched. I consider it necessary that more effort is made to see what extent there is any warming of the oceans and to better understand the processes involved. For my part, I consider that to the extent that there has been any significant warming in ocean heat content during the last 50 years this is overwhelmingly likely to be due to changes in cloud cover and thus the amount of solar energy reaching the oceans.
It seems to me that not enough thought has gone into the question whether the radiative warming theory/conjecture can actually work with respesct to the oceans. I say this since there is a fundamental difference between how the land and air over the land warms/can warm, and how the oceans and air over the oceans warm/can warm.
In this regard, it is necessary to bear in mind the following:-.
1. It is almost certainly impossible for DWLWR to warm the ocean. Due to the wave length of downwelling LWR, it can, at most, penetrate but a few microns and there is no sensible theory how energy that penetrates to that depth only can be mixed and absorbed into the first 10 to 30 m depth of the ocean (and thence down into the deep ocean)..
2. The first few microns of the ocean is in any case little more than windswept spray and spume and therefore the DWLWR does not even get to the surface skin. Such DWLWR that may make its way to the first few microns of the ocean skin merely heats this layer and is immediately ‘burnt’ off/carried away in evaporation and convection and therefore does not penetrate the ocean and can therefore not become well mixed into the deep ocean .
3. It follows from the above that it is overwhelmingly likely that all heat in the ocean is the result of solar energy (and not that of DWLWR).
4. But the warmists would argue that even if solar energy is the source of ocean heat, backradiation/DWLWR in the atmosphere above the oceans slows down the rate at which the oceans would otherwise give up their heat, ie., it slows heat loss. Whilst, this argument may have some validity with respect to how heat is lost from the surface land and how the atmosphere over the land behaves, it does not necessarily work with regard to the oceans.
5. The air temperature over land whilst influenced by the amount of energy received by the land, the latent heat capacity of the land/its ability to retain and give up its heat, is also signifiicantly influenced by atmospheric circulation patterns. There is usually a large diurnal temperature range over land.
6. Contrast the position with respect to the oceans. The air temperature above the ocean is usually very close to the ocean temperature. Usually, there is all but no diurnal temperature difference. The ocean is a huge heat reservoir and because of this almost limitless source of heat, it usually maintains a steady air temperature above it at all times during the day and night. Thus the air above the ocean does not insulate the heat loss from the ocean but rather the air temperature is the temperature that it is directly because of the amount of solar energy absorbed by the ocean (over time) and the heat loss from the ocean. .
7. Further to 6 above, it is easy to see the difference between land and ocean with an every day example. Over land a cloudy sky at night can insulate and reduce heat loss such that night time temperatures may ‘hold up’ on a cloudy night, so too possibly DWLWR can slow the heat loss from the land. However, over the oceans a cloudy sky at night does not make the night any warmer. It does not insulate the ocean or such insulating effect that it may have is completely dwarfed by the huge heat reservoir of the ocean itself. Likewise, the effect of DWLWR, if any, is completely dwarfed by the immense heat reservoir of the ocean itself.
8. Thus unlike the land/air above land (where there is significant difference between air temperature and the land, for example consider a tarmac road, or even hot sand verses air temperature and the significant diurnal range over land), the ocean/air above ocean is in equilibrium balance subject to convection and evaporation. Additionally, if so called ‘greenhouse’ gases were an important factor, again unlike the position over land, water vapour would dominate (the levels of water vapour being generally higher over water) and would dwarf the effect of CO2.
In summary, I consider there are many reasons to consider that CO2 has little (or very probably no measurable effect) on ocean temperatures.

Our rather rampant sun and the el Ninos of the of recent history has pumped a few calories into the oceans. This warmness of the waters is slowly but inexorably being depleted by the underside of the floating ice sheets, thus giving some a false impression of global warming when the reverse is true. The temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic melt very little ice, it is our thermostat kicking in to dump the heat. The ocean is both a heat bank and the source of our refrigerant, the phase changes of water in both ice and water vapour in the atmosphere are the thermostats that fight continually a chaotic open piped heat pump trying to balance itself, in the face of ever changing inputs and out puts, thus we have weather. Mr Tisdale the anthropological part of global warming is a fiction for control of people and not climate.

Very interesting to look at the western pacific warm pool right now. It doesn’t look warm at all after a fairly strong La Nina. I don’t think anyone has a definitive answer on this topic yet.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif

“Obviously if it was to continue tropical temperatures would soon rise beyond the rqange compatible with biology and ocean hypoxia would cause a mass extinction event. ”
Do you even have the slightest idea on how high temperatures would have to rise to fit that requirement?
Do we know that unidirectional warming has never occurred before? – IE before we started measuring things well…if it was of short duration, it probably wouldn’t even be seen.
That is a lot of conjecture Izen..and maybe there is something there, but I think you should rest easy and remember just because we have not seen something does not mean its a cause for worry, study yes, but panic later when we know that the panic is warrented….
As for stopping a process, good luck.
I don’t think there is anything here that is driectly scary or anything. Rest easy, it will be ok.

How do we know that anthropogenic greenhouse gases aren’t lessening the severity/extent of La Nina and increasing that of El Nino?
Changes in wind patterns are a large factor in whether ENSO is cooling, warming, or by how much. It would seem anthropogenic activities of various sorts could have an effect on wind patterns although I suspect land use changes have more effect than GHGs.
In any event you can’t just say ENSO exists in a vacuum outside of human influence and not offer substantiating evidence any more than the usual climate boffins can say it is influenced by human influence without substantiating evidence. No double standards please.