From the AGU highlights
Despite the fact that average temperatures on land have been increasing from year to year, globally averaged surface temperatures from 2000 to 2010 have shown only moderate warming. This is because sea surface temperatures over the past decade have been flat, if not slightly decreasing. In light of this, scientists are curious about whether this reduced rate of surface warming indicates a reduction of the accumulation of heat in the Earth system over the same period.
Palmer et al. use multicentury climate model simulations to study the relationships among decadal trends in top-of-atmosphere radiation balance (which controls the heat content of the Earth system), ocean heat content, and surface temperature. Consistent with previous studies, they find that all models show large variability in sea surface temperature (SST). This large internal variability in SST could easily “mask the anthropogenic warming signal for a decade or more,” the authors note. By contrast, ocean heat content more closely tracks the radiation budget at the top of the atmosphere, suggesting that measurements of ocean heat to deeper levels would help us monitor climate change more accurately.
Source: Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1029/2011GL047835, 2011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2011GL047835
Title: Importance of the deep ocean for estimating decadal changes in Earth’s radiation balance
Authors: Matthew D. Palmer, Douglas J. McNeall and Nick J. Dunstone: Met Office Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, United Kingdom.
=====================================================
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 38, L13707, 5 PP., 2011
doi:10.1029/2011GL047835
Importance of the deep ocean for estimating decadal changes in Earth’s radiation balance
- Decadal trends in SST place only weak constraint on TOA
- As we measure OHC deeper, we gain increasingly good predictions of TOA
- Trade-off between measuring longer or deeper for given uncertainty in TOA
Abstract:
We use control run data from three Met Office Hadley Centre climate models to investigate the relationship between: net top-of-atmosphere radiation balance (TOA), globally averaged sea surface temperature (SST); and globally averaged ocean heat content (OHC) on decadal timescales. All three models show substantial decadal variability in SST, which could easily mask the long-term warming associated with anthropogenic climate change over a decade. Regression analyses are used to estimate the uncertainty of TOA, given the trend in SST or OHC over the same period. We show that decadal trends in SST are only weakly indicative of changes in TOA. Trends in total OHC strongly constrain TOA, since the ocean is the primary heat store in the Earth System. Integrating OHC over increasing model levels, provides an increasingly good indication of TOA changes. To achieve a given accuracy in TOA estimated from OHC we find that there is a trade-off between measuring for longer or deeper. Our model results suggest that there is potential for substantial improvement in our ability to monitor Earth’s radiation balance by more comprehensive observation of the global ocean.
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Gates, most of your links are behind paywalls. The ones that are not have nothing to do with whether or not anthropogenic LW heating at the skin layer (actually a misnomer because LW radiation and evaporation from the ocean surface actually cools the skin), gets into and is measureably stored at deeper levels to be significantly discharged at a later time and place to warm the air by a measurable and catastrophic amount.
You have not stated your case well at all.
…and correct me if I am wrong, but your case is that increased anthropogenic LW radiation above the ocean somehow (in complicated ways) tranfers most of its heat into ocean layers beneath the skin and can lead to significant anthropogenic warming of the planet. Correct?
The End is FAR says:
July 31, 2011 at 12:08 pm
@Theo Goodwin,
“Sorry to the Warmistas, see my translation here. http://wp.me/pB8xR-fo”
You exceeded the Warmista attention span. Otherwise, your work is admirable.
Stephen Wilde says:
July 31, 2011 at 11:52 pm (Edit)
David Falkner said:
“During the Arctic winter, the variation in temperature is significantly more than during the Arcitc summer, implying that there is a greater sensitivity value during the winter time. This means an inverse relationship to forcing. Less forcing, more sensitive. Then look at the summers. (And look at all the years folks.) The summers are far less variable than the winters are, suggesting that a higher forcing leads to a lower sensitivity.”
That illustration relies on larger temperature differentials between Arctic and equator in winter than in summer so temperature variations are larger in winter than in summer. The larger temperature variations in winter show that more energy is flowing to and fro as part of the enhanced system response to larger differentials.
It doesn’t say anything about global climate sensitivity to external or internal system forcings but it is an example of how a stronger differential gives rise to a stronger negative system response as per my last post.
So likewise if an external or internal system forcing tries to disturb the equilibrium then the system will provide a commensurate level of negative response.
It is simply the phenomenon noted by David but ramped up to global scale.
I disagree, but not with the observation of either above, but with the CAGW “evidence” the supposedly warming Arctic provides the theist community.
If, in the high Arctic winter, there are great changes in daily temperature (+/- 8 degrees in temperature as one standard deviation at 80 north latitude!), and if it is such that only with the most extreme extrapolations of temperature from very remote location (over 1000 km from station to region) NASA-GISS can only find 3 or 4 degrees of temperature increase (not even one standard deviation), then the Arctic is NOT “proving” CAGW theory.
Further, in the winter, when the only warming is claimed to occur by NASA-GISS adherents, the claimed temperature changes occur ONLY during a period when there is no sunlight. Hence, there can be NO re-radiated warmth present to heat the surfaces of the high Arctic as CAGW theory requires. Could the CAGW energy supplied at lower latitudes in winter be moved from lower those latitudes up north to where Hansen claims he is measuring it? Sure. It most definitely is moved north. Regularly and often. But then NASA-GISS must explain why the only Arctic shows temperature changes during winter from CAGW effects, but the area where the warming must be does not regular warming.
In the summer, the only period when sunlight does occur that high, there is no warming and a very, very small standard deviation. (Temp’s vary by less than 1/4 of one degree. Variation of even one degree are rare across all years and all days since 1958.) So it can be absolutely stated that CAGW is not measured where it is claimed to be worst case.
steven mosher says:
July 31, 2011 at 1:08 pm
“Now comes the question: is it better to measure DEEPER or for longer periods? How do you make that decision? Your only hope is to run models.”
Why don’t you do both? Climate science does not require Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. This is just another case of Warmista treating actual observations as not worthy of attention.
R. Gates says:
July 31, 2011 at 3:43 pm
“As downwellng LW radiation increases from increased greenhouse gases, the net LW from the ocean will decrease. Additionally, of course, the thermal profile of the ocean skin layer is altered by having LW warming the very top of the layer, warming this layer such that less heat passes from the deeper ocean to the atmosphere. These are just some of the very complicated processes that lead to global climate models showing a net continued gain in total ocean heat content (although we are currently able to only measure down to 700m on global scale).”
Naughty, naughty. One must not present an explanation about what happens at the surface of the ocean and then conclude that it supports the claim that GCMs show a net gain in total ocean heat content. Ya’ left out a few steps of inference and explanation.
If you are not a hardcore Phd Warmista, you could play one on TV.
Pamela Gray says
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sources (which AGW theory states is through increased LW re-radiation), the heating has to get past the skin in order for the current to carry this extra heat into depths that are then carried by the overturning current. I
———
Seems to me this is pure speculation. You should be able to perform an experiment at home to verify that a downward facing IR source is unable to heat a body of water.
In any case the argument maybe wrong since the heat carried by radiation near the surface of the water is small compared to that transferred by all the other processes. Big oversight is to assume the rate of heat transfer by IR is the same at all heights.
Water will eventually equilibrate with the air temperature above it. It is not going to take long regardless of any absorption or non-absorption of long-wave radiation.
Collisional energy exchange actually happens at a faster rate (8 billion collisions per second for an atmospheric molecule at the ocean surface). And energy will flow out of the water more slowly if the back-radiating air above it is warmer (first three laws of thermodynamics and the Stefan-Boltzmann equations).
Put a bowl, tub, swimming pool of cool water in a dark room where there is no short-wave visible light radiation. It will be at room temperature in a matter of hours. Put an ocean of cold water 700 metres deep in a dark room … well it will take several years.
R. Gates says:
July 31, 2011 at 11:23 pm
…however other factors are obviously at play to balance out any warming effects such that the net effect is no substantial net warming…but greenhouse gases did not stop their warming of the earth during this period…thankfully!
I agree. But, if the models are right, these “other factors” only started operating in the 21st century. Every twitch and wiggle of the 19th and 20th century temperature record is accounted for by the models, so whatever is happening now is brand new. Either the excess heat that CO2 traps in the atmosphere is transported to the deep ocean (apparently without warming the ocean surface on the way), or the models are wrong.
Let’s go look in the ocean.
Pamela;
Is “a Lockness monster” a cousin of a Loch Ness monster? Where do they live? How big are they?
😉
;pPpPp
Brian:
In climate science, you must always ask the right question:
Which came first?
Pamela’s Lock Nest monster or its egg? 8<)
Friends:
This talk about the Loch Ness Monster is too late because global warming has killed the beast: see
http://www.celsias.com/article/global-warming-killed-the-loch-ness-monster/
This disaster is one of the many species extinctions that some think global warming has caused, and the demise of Nessie has more supporting evidence than most of the other extinctions.
Richard
PS This post is sarcasm but the link is worth a look for amusement.
Thanks for the interesting comments Stephen Wilde and RACook. Stephen, just for clarity, is your hypothesis saying that the residence time of water vapor in the atmosphere will change in response to forcing changes?
Oh, and a moment of silence for poor Nessie. 😉
“Stephen, just for clarity, is your hypothesis saying that the residence time of water vapor in the atmosphere will change in response to forcing changes?”
Not necessarily. The required effect could be equally well achieved by more evaporation matched by more condensation with the residence time of each molecule of water vapour the same as before. Rather like a broad river flowing at the same speed as a narrow river where both are of the same depth. The individual water molecules reach the ocean in the same length of time in both rivers but more water is transported and in the case of the atmosphere it is more latent heat which is transported along with the extra vapour.
During a warming process one would expect to see evaporation run ahead of condensation a little because the carrying capacity of air increases with temperature. The opposite during a cooling spell.
An interesting feature of real world observations is that as far as we can tell global humidity doesn’t seem to change much and that fits in well with Miskolczi’s comments about optical depth of the atmosphere.