Does The Sea Surface Temperature Record Support The Hypothesis Of Anthropogenic Global Warming?
Guest post by Bob Tisdale
This post is an expansion on my earlier post Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies – East Pacific Versus The Rest Of The World. In that post, I broke the satellite-era Sea Surface Temperature (SST) anomaly data for the global oceans into two subsets. The volcano-adjusted East Pacific SST anomaly data (90S-90N, 180-80W) shows no rise for the past 30 years and the SST anomalies for the Rest-Of-The-World (90S-90N, 80W-180) rose in two easily discernable steps. I used period average SST anomalies to highlight the steps.
This post is also similar in content to the post How Can Things So Obvious Be Overlooked By The Climate Science Community? But in this one, I provided a better way to divide the decade-plus periods that run from the end of the 1986/87/88 El Niño to the beginning of the 1997/98 El Niño and from end of the 1997/98 El Nino to the beginning of the 2009/10 El Niño. This allows for a more consistent way to illustrate the actual Rest-Of-The-World SST anomaly trends between those significant ENSO events.
THE ONE-WORD ANSWER TO THE TITLE QUESTION IS NO.
The satellite-era Sea Surface Temperature record indicates they rose only in response to significant El Niño events. In other words, the Sea Surface Temperature data contradicts the IPCC hypothesis that most of the rise is caused by an increase in Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gases.
The fact that the satellite-era SST anomalies do not support AGW is very easy to illustrate with two graphs, Figure 1. They show the satellite-based sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies for two subsets of the global oceans, using Reynolds OI.v2 SST data that runs from November 1981 (the start of that dataset) to the current month of May 2011. The graph on the left illustrates the volcano-adjusted Sea Surface Temperature for the eastern Pacific from pole to pole (90S-90N, 180-80W). That area represents about 33% of the global ocean surface area. There are major variations from year to year caused by El Niño and La Niña events, but the linear trend is basically flat at +0.003 deg C per decade. In other words, there has been no rise in the volcano-adjusted Sea Surface Temperatures for that portion of the global oceans in almost 30 years. The graph on the right illustrates the volcano-adjusted SST anomalies for the rest of the world from pole to pole (90S-90N, 80E-180). The SST anomalies for this portion of the globe show two distinct upward steps with periods of relatively little (if any) rise between those steps. The upward steps are highlighted by the average SST anomalies for the periods between the upward shifts caused by El Niño-Southern Oscillation events. There is an upward step in 1987 that occurs in response to the 1986/87/88 El Niño, and there is an upward step in 1997, which is a response to the 1997/98 El Niño. Note how the Rest-Of-The-World SST data appears to be in the process of another upward step in response to the 2009/10 El Niño.
Figure 1
Figures 2 and 3 are full-sized versions of the volcano-adjusted East Pacific and Rest-Of-The-World SST anomaly graphs. These datasets were first discussed in my post Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies – East Pacific Versus The Rest Of The World, and they have appeared in my monthly SST anomaly updates since then. Two notes: The Sea Surface Temperature dataset used in this post is NOAA Optimum Interpolation, version 2 SST, also known as Reynolds OI.v2. And as noted during the discussion of Figure 1, both subsets have been adjusted for the effects of the explosive volcanic eruptions of El Chichon in 1982 and Mount Pinatubo in 1991. I performed a linear regression analysis on global SST anomalies to account for the impacts of the volcanic aerosols. This was discussed in the post linked above.
Figure 2
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Figure 3
THE REST-OF-THE-WORLD SST ANOMALY TRENDS BETWEEN THE SIGNIFICANT EL NIÑO EVENTS
Above I described the Rest-Of-The-World SST data as having two distinct upward steps with periods of relatively little (if any) rise between those steps. Actually, the linear trend for the period between the El Niño events of 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 is -0.01 deg C per decade and for the period between the El Niño events of 1997/98 and 2009/10 it’s +0.001 deg C per decade. Refer to Figure 4. In other words, the volcano-adjusted Rest-Of-The-World Sea Surface Temperature anomalies rose in response the significant El Niño events of 1986/87/88 and 1997/98, and then the sea surface temperatures did not rise over the decade (plus) periods that followed.
Figure 4
To establish the periods between the significant El Niño events, I used the NOAA Oceanic Nino Index(ONI) to determine the official months of the 1986/87/88, 1998/98, and 2009/10 El Niño events.. There is a 6-month lag between NINO3.4 SST anomalies and the response of the Rest-Of-The-World SST anomalies during the evolution phase of the 1997/98 El Niño. So I lagged the ONI data by six months and deleted all of the Rest-Of-The-World SST data that corresponded to the El Niño events of the 1986/87/88, 1998/98, and 2009/10 El Niño events. Then I performed the trend analyses on the data for the two periods that remained.
There will be those who will attempt to downplay the trend analyses shown in Figures 4 by stating that I’ve excluded the data after June 2009 to hide a rise in SST anomalies. In reality, I’ve excluded that recent data because the 2009/10 El Niño appears to be causing yet another upward step as shown in Figure 3.
CLOSING
Unless Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gases only impacted Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies during the 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Niño events, there is no evidence of Anthropogenic Global Warming in the satellite-era Sea Surface Temperature data. The volcano-adjusted East Pacific Ocean Sea Surface Temperature anomalies have not risen in 30 years. For the Rest Of The World, the volcano-adjusted Sea Surface Temperature anomalies rose only during the El Niño events of 1986/87/88 and 1997/98, but between the 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Niño events and between the 1997/98 and 2009/10 El Niño events, there was no rise in the volcano-adjusted Rest-Of-The-World Sea Surface Temperatures.
I have presented and described ENSO and the multiyear aftereffects of ENSO in numerous posts over the past years. Links to many of them are listed under the heading of FURTHER INFORMATION.
ENSO is a process that periodically discharges heat from the oceans and redistributes warm waters from the tropical Pacific. ENSO also recharges the tropical Pacific Ocean Heat through a periodic increase in Downward Shortwave Radiation. In that respect, ENSO events are fueled by a periodic increase in natural radiative forcing (solar energy) over the tropical Pacific. When El Niño events dominate a multidecadal era, indicating the tropical Pacific is releasing and distributing more ocean heat than “normal”, global surface temperatures rise. The opposite holds true during epochs when La Niña events dominate.
SOURCES
SST anomaly data is available through the NOAA NOMADS website:
http://nomad1.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh
or:
http://nomad3.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh?lite
The GISS Global Stratospheric Aerosol Optical Thickness data is available here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/strataer/tau_line.txt
FURTHER INFORMATION
My first detailed posts on the multiyear aftereffects of ENSO events are:
Can El Nino Events Explain All of the Global Warming Since 1976? – Part 1
And:
Can El Nino Events Explain All of the Global Warming Since 1976? – Part 2
And:
Supplement To “Can El Nino Events Explain All Of The Warming Since 1976?”
And:
Supplement 2 To “Can El Nino Events Explain All Of The Warming Since 1976?”
And for those who like visual aids, refer to the two videos included in:
La Niña Is Not The Opposite Of El Niño – The Videos.
The impacts of these El Nino events on the North Atlantic are discussed in:
There Are Also El Nino-Induced Step Changes In The North Atlantic
And:
Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation Data
I’ve also written a rebuttal post to Tamino’s AMO Post. I hope to have a new post on the North Atlantic posted sometime soon.
The posts related to the effects of ENSO on Ocean Heat Content are here:
ENSO Dominates NODC Ocean Heat Content (0-700 Meters) Data
And:
North Atlantic Ocean Heat Content (0-700 Meters) Is Governed By Natural Variables
Additional detailed technical discussions can be found here:
More Detail On The Multiyear Aftereffects Of ENSO – Part 1 – El Nino Events Warm The Oceans
And:
More Detail On The Multiyear Aftereffects Of ENSO – Part 2 – La Nina Events Recharge The Heat Released By El Nino Events AND…During Major Traditional ENSO Events, Warm Water Is Redistributed Via Ocean Currents.
And:
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Bob Tisdale has worked long and hard to provide well researched and informative content for us all here. May I suggest you buy him a beer? – Anthony
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Bob Tisdale says:
July 15, 2011 at 5:45 am
Geoff Sharp: Excuse me for assuming the error in attribution was your fault. But it had been in place for 2 hours before I replied, and you apparently had seen no need to correct the error.
Some of my posts were not published, but it seems you have an inside knowledge?
Something smells around here. You have made a new friend Bob.
[Reply] Geoff: please clarify: have any of your posts still not been published, apart from the one complaining that one had been deleted when in fact is was just in the queue with everyone elses? TB-mod
Bob Tisdale says:
July 15, 2011 at 5:45 am
You have attempted to illustrate your knowledge of ENSO but all you managed to do was cast a spotlight on your misunderstandings of it. I have been very patient with you, Geoff, but you apparently have no wish to push aside your misunderstandings.
So the new boy upsets the self appointed guard?
Your credibility is falling off you. But don’t worry I will probably be banned soon.
Geoff Sharp says:
Your credibility is falling off you. But don’t worry I will probably be banned soon.
But if not I have a challenge for you. Lets go head to head with Anthony as a moderator so we can deal with things in a scientific matter.
A separate thread where we debate your theory on the La Nina heating that feeds El Nino? I have provided evidence that is in opposition, are you up to the task?
[Reply] Anthony doesn’t have the time for this. Take it to email or another venue. TB-mod
Pamela Gray, if the solar cycle has any effect on Earth – ANY effect whatsoever – then changing nonstationary beats with natural internal oscillations are 100% generalizable. The generalizability INCLUDES natural oscillations with IRREGULAR periods.
Terrestrial observations are consistent with generalizability:
1. http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/vaughn_lod_fig1b.png
2. http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/vaughn_lod_amo_sc.png
3. http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/scl_northpacificsst.png
[SCL’ represents solar cycle acceleration/deceleration.]
Hydrology is a function of absolutes, not anomalies, and EOP (which integrate climate GLOBALLY) are there arbiters of climate disputes. Observation suggests there’s a SIMPLE north/south-asymmetric terrestrial maritime-continent-contrast gas-pedal/brake effect on pole-equator heat/water cycling.
For mechanistic nuts & bolts, see Leroux (1993), Sidorenkov (2003 & 2005), and LeMouel, Blanter, Shnirman, & Courtillot (2010).
Regards.
Geoff Sharp says:
July 15, 2011 at 7:01 am
[Reply] Anthony doesn’t have the time for this. Take it to email or another venue. TB-mod
Thanks tallbloke, an easy escape for the man that has no email contact point on his blog?
Geoff Sharp says:
July 15, 2011 at 6:42 am
[Reply] Geoff: please clarify: have any of your posts still not been published, apart from the one complaining that one had been deleted when in fact is was just in the queue with everyone elses? TB-mod
wow…an old comment with a reply.
The comment below was not posted?
http://www.landscheidt.info/images/1.png
I have never had my posts actually changed before publication by a mod on this site. The gesture may have been in good faith, but the ramifications show how important free speech must be protected.
[REPLY – Geoff, the file ‘1.png’ contains 2 comments. I am pretty sure that it was me that approved the first one, and that there were 30+ comments awaiting moderation when I first logged in. So it can unfortunately take a while for a comment to get approved – especially if there is something that needs to be checked first. Bob, the ‘2 hours’ you mention, it is possible that the comment was awaiting moderation hence not visible for the 2 hours. – mj]
mj says: “Bob, the ‘2 hours’ you mention, it is possible that the comment was awaiting moderation hence not visible for the 2 hours.”
Thanks for the clarification, mj. That would mean my July 15, 2011 at 5:45 am reply to Geoff Sharp had an error in it. I also discovered a couple of typos in that comment so I’ll correct everything as follows:
***********
Geoff Sharp: Excuse me for assuming the error in attribution was your fault.
But it had been in place for 2 hours before I replied, and you apparently had seen no need to correct the error.Geoff Sharp says: “I can see that reasonable discourse with you will be impossible. As soon as I present any evidence or data disputing your views you will promptly go into hysterical school girl mode or some kind of melt down.”
As usual, when you, Geoff, are incapable of responding to the message, you attempt to attack the messenger. You have attempted to misrepresent data twice on this thread, but failed twice. You have attempted to illustrate your knowledge of ENSO but all you managed to do was cast a spotlight on your misunderstandings of it. I have been very patient with you, Geoff, but you apparently have no wish to push aside your misunderstandings. I can find no reason to continue to discuss ENSO with you since you make little effort to understand what is presented to you by me and others. Since you act as a troll and appear to argue for argument’s sake, I will treat you as a troll and ignore you.
Anthony, as always, thanks.
Bob Tisdale says:
July 15, 2011 at 1:06 am
What part of “the industrial revolution began in the 18th century” don’t you understand?
I’ve stated several times now that looking at ENSO beginning in the 19th century (1871 in this case) is not outside the bounds of anthropogenic influence. Before you can even begin to say what’s within natural bounds and what isn’t you’re going to need at least a comparably long period of time before the industrial revolution as after to compare.
For instance, if we mark the beginning of the industrial revolution as the year 1750, which is the commonly used date, then we would need ENSO data going back to the year 1500 so that we may compare 250 years of pre-anthropogenic ENSO (1500-1750) to 250 years of post-anthropogenic ENSO (1750-2000).
I don’t know how to state this in any clearer way.
Bob Tisdale says:
July 15, 2011 at 1:47 am
“GISS infills land surface data gaps by extrapolating the data with their 1200km radius smoothing, where HADISST and ERSST.v3b are infilled using EOF analysis (and EOT for ERSST.v3b). That is, they take known SST patterns (like the PDO pattern in the North Pacific) and infill data based on those patterns. ERSST.v3b also uses known teleconnections for infilling. And again, HADISST reinserts the observations back into the data, while ERSST.v3b does not. On the other hand, HADSST2 and HADSST3 data (and CRUTEMP for land) is not infilled, and in some respects that’s a very “realistic” way to approach the problem because you can see exactly where the data is missing. Unfortunately, the gaps in the data make it difficult to work with, which is why I prefer an infilled version when dealing with long-term data. But I always keep in mind where the infilling takes place.”
The very limited observed data used by HADSST for infill is reflected by the coastline of North and South America. For example the recent La Nina and El Nino have coastal waters with similar SST’s. Only once moved well into ocean water this changes significantly.
El Nino
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-100214.gif
La Nina
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-110220.gif
There are a couple or so exceptions with coastal waters around Mexico and especially around the tip of South America. Infilling from these limited locations into the NINO 3.4 area around 5k km2 from a much further distance doesn’t seem hardly better than 1200km smoothing of unknown data regions via GISS. Further detailed investigation using the unfilled data will be needed to deduce any further analysis. Still don’t know at this stage whether ERSST v HadSST represent the true NINO 3.4. Could be even somewhere inbetween these data sets, but don’t know at moment. The significant problem is that this automatically persumes that the difference in SST’s in two regions stays the same over hundreds of years from a recent ~50 year period.
“Does this mean you would expect the eastern equatorial PacificSST anomalies to rise faster than Global SST anomalies?”
Initially at first during a positive PDO phase then the rate difference between the two declining until they reach similar anomalies.
Dave Springer says:
July 17, 2011 at 4:54 am
None of the alarmist positions suggest humans influence on climate with CO2 has occurred before the 1970’s, so going back many decades longer than this short period should be ample. No need therefore to go back further than the 1850’s. Even the data we have before the 1950’s is far from ideal with the the issues between ERSST v HadSST for example. Wouldn’t hurt going back further, but the data available would be even more coarse and limited.
Dave Springer says: “What part of “the industrial revolution began in the 18th century” don’t you understand?”
I provided the Wolter & Timlin (2011) link to supplement the earlier discussion, nothing more. We had already established there is no reliable data based on observations during the 18th Century, so to overcome your concerns we would have to rely on proxies, and I provided you with a link to a post that illustrated some of those proxies.
Here’s a link to a more current ENSO reconstruction, Li et al (2011):
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/li2011/li2011.html
Li et al use the North American Drought Atlas for their reconstruction, which is along the lines of your early comments.
Since Li et al is part of the NOAA Paleoclimatological program they provide a spreadsheet:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/treering/reconstructions/enso-li2011.xls
You can filter it any way you like.
And here’s a copy of their paper:
http://hg.iap.ac.cn/work/mypaper/Li_2011NatureClimateChange.pdf
Curiously, their data, especially their Figure 2, appears to contradict their conclusion.
Regards
Matt G says: “The very limited observed data used by HADSST for infill is…”
HADSST2 and HADSST3 are not infilled. HADISST in infilled.
Matt G says: “Initially at first during a positive PDO phase then the rate difference between the two declining until they reach similar anomalies.”
The topic of that part of the discussion was temperature of the subsurface waters feeding the upwelling in the eastern equatorial Pacific. As the PDO is defined, it has nothing to do with them.
Bob Tisdale says:
July 17, 2011 at 9:34 am
Sorry, this was meant to be HADISST for infill.
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/2348/nino34had.png
The graph above previously shown compared with ERSSTv3b was also HADISST based.
“The topic of that part of the discussion was temperature of the subsurface waters feeding the upwelling in the eastern equatorial Pacific. As the PDO is defined, it has nothing to do with them.”
I meant by positive PDO as a phase during a period with more frequent El Ninos. So my responce was to a period of more frequents El Nino’s and how the subsurface temperatures feeding the upwelling in the eastern Pacific would behave. eg.
“Initially at first during a more frequent El Nino phase then the rate difference between the two declining until they reach similar anomalies.”
Therefore, Not initially (or very slightly) at first during a more frequent La Nina phase then the rate difference between the two increasing.
How these variablely behave between different phases of the same kind will depend on any difference in solar activity and global cloud albedo.