While there’s news of ocean heat content in the Atlantic being pumped up by “leakage” from the Indian Ocean, and NOAA proclaims that La Niña is back, Bob Tisdale finds that the global ocean heat content trend since the turn of the 21st century is flat. Worse than that, it widely diverges from climate models predicting a continued rise in OHC.
2nd Quarter 2011 NODC Global OHC Anomalies
by Bob Tisdale
The NODC updated its Ocean Heat Content Anomaly data to include the 2nd quarter 2011 data. (And they also updated their Thermosteric Sea Level Anomaly data, which is not discussed in this post) I will provide a more detailed discussion as soon as the KNMI Climate Explorer is updated with the 2ndquarter 2011 Ocean Heat Content data, which should be later this month.
THE GRAPHS
Figure 1 is a time-series graph of the NODC Global Ocean Heat Content Anomalies from the start of the dataset (1st Quarter of 1955) to present (2nd Quarter of 2011). The quarterly data for the world oceans is available through the NODC in spreadsheet (.csv ) form (Right Click and Save As: Global OHC Data). While there was a significant increase in Global Ocean Heat Content over the term of the data, Global Ocean Heat Content has flattened in recent years.
Figure 1
And as many are aware, Climate Model Projections of Ocean Heat Content anomalies did not anticipate this flattening. Figure 2 compares the ARGO-era (2003 to present) NODC Global Ocean Heat Content anomalies to the GISS Model-E Projection of 0.7*10^22 Joules per year. The linear trend of the observations is approximately 7% of the trend projected by the model mean of the GISS Model-E.
Figure 2
The source of the 0.7*10^22 Joules per year GISS Model-E ensemble-mean trend was illustrated, clarified, and questioned in the post GISS OHC Model Trends: One Question Answered, Another Uncovered.
HOW MANY MORE YEARS UNTIL GISS MODEL-E CAN BE FOUND TO HAVE FAILED AS A PREDICTOR OF THE IMPACTS OF ANTHROPOGENIC GREENHOUSE GASES ON OCEAN HEAT CONTENT?
I asked the above question in Figure 2. It’s a rewording of the question asked by Roger Pielke Sr., in his post 2011 Update Of The Comparison Of Upper Ocean Heat Content Changes With The GISS Model Predictions. There he notes:
Joules resulting from a positive radiative imbalance must continue to be accumulated in order for global warming to occur. In the last 7 1/2 years there has been an absence of this heating. An important research question is how many more years of this lack of agreement with the GISS model (and other model) predictions must occur before there is wide recognition that the IPCC models have failed as skillful predictions of the effect of the radiative forcing of anthropogenic inputs of greenhouse gases and aerosols.
As far as I’m concerned, they have already failed for numerous reasons. I have illustrated and discussed in past posts how:
1. ENSO is responsible for much of the rise in Ocean Heat Content for many of the ocean basins,
And as far as I know, these are natural contributors to the rise that are overlooked by the GISS Model-E. This was further illustrated and discussed in Why Are OHC Observations (0-700m) Diverging From GISS Projections?
NOTES ABOUT THE ARGO-ERA GRAPH
There will be those who will attempt to dismiss the divergence between model projection and observations shown in Figure 2. Tamino tried to downplay the divergence in his post Favorite Denier Tricks, or How to Hide the Incline. I responded to Tamino with my post On Tamino’s Post “Favorite Denier Tricks Or How To Hide The Incline”. And there may be those who believe 2004 is a more appropriate year to use as the start of the ARGO-era OHC data, so for them, I illustrated how little difference it makes whether the ARGO-era starts in 2003 or 2004 in the post ARGO-Era Start Year: 2003 vs 2004. Note that there are two GISS Model-E projections illustrated in the sole graph in the post ARGO-Era Start Year: 2003 vs 2004. The one at 0.98*10^22 Joules per year, identified as Hansen/Pielke Sr., was found to be in error. This was discussed in the post GISS OHC Model Trends: One Question Answered, Another Uncovered.And of course, there is the fact that natural variables, which are not accounted for by the GISS Model-E, are major contributors to rise in Ocean Heat Content, as discussed in the four posts linked in the previous section.
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.
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@max whilst they might not have powerful computers in 1955 the had something called paper which can store 500 bytes per page and they can retain the data for hundreds of years
Philip Bradley says: “If OHC isn’t increasing, why are sea levels still rising? The 2 should move in tandem to the extent sea level rises are caused by thermal expansion.”
To answer your question, let’s look at the global thermosteric sea level data (0-700 meters) from the NODC for the period of 1993 to 2010 (the sibling dataset to the NODC OHC data) versus the satellite-based total global sea level data from the University of Colorado. The Thermosteric Sea Level trend (0-700 meters) is only about 27% of the rise in total Sea Level anomalies from the University of Colorado, so if the Total Sea Level anomalies were flattening at a rate that’s similar to the thermosteric data, it would be difficult to notice.
http://i53.tinypic.com/2eggzyd.jpg
Let’s detrend both datasets and smooth the detrended data with 5-year running-average filters to minimize the impacts of the opposing ENSO variations:
http://i51.tinypic.com/284l80.jpg
It appears the rise in Total Sea Level anomalies have slowed similarly to the Thermosteric data and the two datasets are “moving in tandem”. So it’s not as complicated as Jan Galkowski would like you to believe, with his “gravitational attraction of oceanic waters, Corriolis [sic] effects, glacial rebound, and so on…”, but I’m sure he will find my reply to you is crap like he found my post to be.
Thanks, Phillip, for the idea for a new post. I never would have looked without your question.
Friend
You hit on an interesting matter there regarding paper. It has been my experience that if material doesnt exist digitally then it doesn’t exist at all as far as many researchers go. Of course there are still people that like to go through paper records (the reading/digitising of old ships records is a good example-but our widespread ability to utilise all the data out threre which is stored in many different formats including paper- is diminishing I suspect.
tonyb
Thank you kindly, Bob.
It would appear that the calculations of OHC prior to 2004 would be subject to a larger error band than those from 2004 onwards. Would you agree? If so, how much larger is it? (ROM only).
Given the lack of agreement on how to calculate a “Global Mean Atmospheric Surface Temperature”, let alone the uncertainty whether the annual, decadal, or multi-decadal trend in the same is indicative of “warming” of the earth (irreversible or otherwise), wouldn’t it be better (from a scientific viewpoint) to use a running average of the OHC as a standard for gauging warming (or cooling) of the planet?
—
Larger question, for everyone:
There appears to be a problem in climate science today with researchers overstating their confidence in models’ ability to “predict” future temperatures as well as an eerie silence about uncertainties in their understanding of the forces governing climate on earth. The lack of public criticism from scientists of sweeping statements by the IPCC in its 4th Assessment Report (which appear to be based more on conjecture than on anything resembling the scientific method) is particularly telling.
Could it be that climate scientists report what the parties funding the research grants want to hear? Could it be that the adage “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you” is the driving force in climate research today?
Perhaps “climate science” needs to be taken to task on key questions by skeptical (and thick-skinned) scientists from the field and from related fields. Perhaps it would be a worthwhile use of time and energy to formulate these key questions, then ask them loudly and repeatedly.
Kurt in Switzerland
Bob has pointed out that the OHC flatness is lower than the 0.7 W/m2/yr rise projected by GISS ModelE since 2003.
But we can actually go back to 1955 and assess whether the rise in OHC is comparable to the theory.
The total increase is something like +12*10^22 joules which is less than 0.25 W/m2/yr in OHC accumulation.
The theory over the period would be more like 0.4 W/m2/yr.
———-
One could also describe it as a cycle, rising from 1955 to 1963 (then Agung volcano goes off). There is a decline until 1974 as aerosols also kick in). Starting in 1974, it rises again until El Chichon and Pinatubo slow it down again). It starts increasing in the mid-1990s as the volcanoes wear off and then it flatlines in 2003 (when the Argo floats kick in).
That also matches some of the ocean cycles but overall, it is still much less than the theory would have predicted and now that we have accurate Argo floats, it is less than 10% of the theory’s predictions (at a time when there is no volcanoes).
Bob,
Did the sea-level pressure over the tropics trend downward over the period 2005-2010? The reason I ask is because of an analysis I have done using the ARGO data. I calculated the temperature trends at all grid points from 60N-60S and 0M-2000M. I then averaged the longitudinal dimension and plotted a scaled image of trends by latitude and longitude.
The resulting image looks like, to my untrained eye, a heat pump between 20-50 degrees. The poleward half of this range shows pronounced heating, while the equator-ward half shows significant cooling. The southern “heat pump” extends all the way down to 2000M while the northern pump extends down to about 1400M where it merges with a poleward pooling of heat.
My amatuerish interpretation of this is that there was a decrease in tropical sea-level pressure, which increased the tropical upwelling, which lowered the water pressure under the pump, causing the surface heat to be sucked from the surface into the deep. In other words, the overturning rate had increased.
This view was reinforced by a similar plot I had done of salinity trends. The sub-surface tropics shows increasing salinity, which I interpreted to be coming from the briney deep due to increased upwelling. Also the sub-surface tropics showed a slightly increasing temperature trend, which indicated to me that there is heating going on below 2000M.
Mind you, it’s hard to draw firm conclusions about trends from 6 years of data. The picture could easily change.
I haven’t posted this to a webpage yet (busy summer), but the plots would have a similar type look to an earlier analysis I did of seasonal variances:
http://sites.google.com/site/climateadj/ocean_variance
SteveSadlov says:
September 8, 2011 at 7:58 pm
Meanwhile, in the main stream land of insanity … SECONNNNNND HOTTESSSSST SUMMMMMERRRRR EVERRRRRRR!!!
It wasn’t in the Pacific Northwest. We didn’t get a sniff of summer until August. Snow came late last year and stayed well past normal. Skiing was open for 1-2 months longer than normal on local mountains. All summer there have been abnormal numbers of bears at lower elevations due to lack of food in the mountains. Continuing the pattern of a late winter, September is now setting high temp records, suggesting summer will be later than normal as well. A return to la nina suggest another great ski season out west.
In any other branch of science, if observed heat was accumulating at a slower rate than predicted by the models, one would conclude that either the observations were wrong or the theory was wrong. So you would install a second measuring device (read ARGO) and if the observations continued to show a problem, you would conclude the theory was likely wrong.
Nowhere along the line would you conclude that it was a “travesty” that observations did not match theory, unless of course your objective was not to discover the truth, but rather to advance an agenda that required the models to be right. In that case you would continue to argue that the observations were wrong, that somewhere there must be an error in the measurements and until this was found, the models continued to be correct.
Since the error could never be found as it would not exists if the models are wrong, this argument prevents the models from ever being falsified by observation. This leaves you free to use the models to continue to advance your agenda. The reason the heat is missing has nothing to do with model error.
It is ALWAYS going to be a result of us not looking in the right place to find the missing heat if your science is agenda driven by anything other than truth. Environmentalism is just such an agenda, as it places the environment ahead of science in your list of priorities. Science is then simply a tool, to be used when it serves, and ignored otherwise.
Thus, the models cannot be wrong, because climate scientists have way too much riding on them to ever admit the models are wrong. To do so would end many climate science careers and the perks and prestige that goes with them. It ain’t going to happen. No way, no how. The missing heat will always be due to observational error – we simply haven’t looked in the right place – it can never be due to model error. Otherwise, how long would top climate scientists remain in positions of authority, having promoted a theory of industrial economic suicide based on faulty science?
Jan Galkowsit says:
September 8, 2011 at 9:03 pm
My specific point is, that whenever two estimates of measure location are to be compared to one another, even in the absence of a physical model for their underlying meaning, it is critical to have available the variance for these estimates. I see a lot of discussion here of same or excessive or less or more, but no identification of variance. Can’t tell if two things are different unless and until variance is assessed. Where is it? Moreover, these models are HIGHLY non-linear, as is to be expected from physical phenomena which are essentially fluids.
Variance, as dutifully presented in all the calculations in the IPCC AR4? NOT
Hyprocrits
AGW data analysis summary:
A warming globe requires the oceans to heat up.
They didn’t, so it isn’t.
Philip Bradley says: “If OHC isn’t increasing, why are sea levels still rising? The 2 should move in tandem to the extent sea level rises are caused by thermal expansion.”
Interesting argumentation. Heat content cannot be flat as sea level is rising.
But sea level is not rising according to the measurements – see envisat or gauge measurements:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/hiding-the-decline-in-sea-level/
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/07/22/3276012.htm
So it does not matter what we measure, we need to do as Jan Galkowski says:
September 8, 2011 at 9:28 pm :”It is implausible, if not impossible, with this degree of hetereogeneity in physical causes, to discern effects using information available in measurements alone. Those measurements — and especially their variability — needs to be grounded in physical models.”
So Philip and Jan, you believe what we measure or you believe what the model tells you?
Bob,
Your periodic updates on OHC, AKA Ocean Heat Content, are amongst the most important posts here at WUWT, so please keep them coming.
I’m quite convinced that the entire global energy balance situation relates to nothing more than how cloud coverage modulation regulates the direct storage of solar energy deep in the oceans; as is plainly obvious from spectral absoptance curves for sea water.
All of this atmospherics prestidigitation, may have consequences for local and short term weather, even for longer term weather, but it plays virtually no part in earth’s global energy balance. And more to the point, I believe the picture would be relatively unchanged, if there was no CO2 in the atmosphere. Well of course there wouldn’t be any of us either; but that’s a different story.
A good while back, Peter Humbug reported over there on “that other” purportedly climate web site, that he had done a teracomputer (Playstation) model run, in which he removed ALL of the water molecules from the atmosphere; every last one of them; and he said in three months he got it all back. My bet would be, that he would get precisely the same end result, maybe after a different time, if he had taken out all of the CO2 as well. Well he might not get the CO2 back that fast, but the H2O would be back pronto.
There is one mother of all forcings, if you start with zero cloud coverage, and no atmospheric H2O interception of incoming solar spectrum energy.
George E smith said;;
‘I’m quite convinced that the entire global energy balance situation relates to nothing more than how cloud coverage modulation regulates the direct storage of solar energy deep in the oceans; as is plainly obvious from spectral absoptance curves for sea water.’
I agree. I took numerous SSTs over a period of two weeks of very mixed weather as I am in conversation with the Met office regarding their Historic SST data and wanted observational material to back up some points.
I was astonished as to how temperatures fluctuated in the first foot of ocean (a significant matrix in SSTs) and how this sun/cloud relationship was still noticeable very quickly down to 6/10 feet.
The sun and clouds matter massively in building up ocean heat, then other factors come in to play that transport this water/heat around the globe.
tonyb
Kurt in Switzerland: Regarding your September 9, 2011 at 6:01 am comment, this is another repeat of the same questions you left for me at my blog. While I appreciate your commenting and asking questions, please ask your questions either at my website or at the cross post here at WattsUpWithThat. Please do not ask the same questions at both websites. My reply won’t change. If you’re looking for more readers for our questions and answers, there are many more readers here at WUWT.
Here’s a link to the answers I’ve already provided:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/2nd-quarter-2011-nodc-global-ohc-anomalies/#comment-2347
Regards
Stephen Wilde says:
September 8, 2011 at 11:54 am
Since the late 90s the following events have all occurred as the level of solar activity declined from the peak of cycle 23 into a very weak cycle 24:
You can add to those items that global sea level (and especially Pacific sea level) rise seems to have gone AWOL.
I hate it when the internet connection gets goofy when you post a long comment. Luckily, I wrote this in Word and had not deleted it. Let’s try again. If it shows up as a duplicate, that’s what happened.
AJ says: “Did the sea-level pressure over the tropics trend downward over the period 2005-2010?”
There is a significant negative trend in Tropical Sea Level Pressure from Jan 2005 to Dec 2010. Refer to the following graph of HADSLP2 Sea Level Pressure, 20S-20N, from Jan 1979 to Jul 2011, with the data also smoothed with a 13-month filter. In it I’ve also isolated the period of Jan 2005 to Dec 2010 and provided the linear trend for that period.
http://i52.tinypic.com/34qu5w7.jpg
Caution, though. The HADSLP2 data is a land plus ocean SLP dataset, and there’s no way for me to mask the land data for that dataset at the KNMI Climate Explorer. I would have preferred to use the COADS data, since it is Ocean only, but that dataset ends in 2007.
The following is the smoothed data only. Note the strong ENSO-related component in the data; that is, the big wiggles roughly coincide with ENSO events.
http://i54.tinypic.com/21ovtzc.jpg
Now a question for you: Are you using the software available through the ARGO website to investigate the ARGO data? If you answer yes to that, I’ve got a few more questions about its graphics/mapping capabilities, considering my interest in animating ENSO-related processes.
Bob: Thank you for your reply (and your diligence). I appreciate the links.
I’ll also avoid duplicate comments to your blog in the future.
Interesting that there are seven different sets of data from the NOAA site calculating Ocean Heat Content Anomaly, which don’t all agree. Incidentally, I found a chart in Chapter 3 of the BAMS
State of the Climate report (2010) released June 2011, which gives a good visual answer to my question on error band in OHC calculations pre-2003 vs post-2003.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/2010/bams-sotc-2010-chapter3-global-oceans-lo-rez.pdf
(see page S83, which is p. 7 from the chapter to the link).
This chart shows three data set curves (instead of seven from the NOAA direct link). It appears quite clear that the curves flatten significantly post-2003, particularly compared with the slopes pre-2003. Discrepancy between the data sets notwithstanding (of six curves covering post-2003*, two show a slight drop, two a slight rise and two a slight fall), even those rising slightly are much flatter than the pre-2003 data. This feature is quite salient, plus it appears to be both sustained and global, but it is NOT even addressed in the text of the report. I wonder when someone there will notice. Perhaps they should read your blog.
* http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/2009-time-series/ohc
Kurt in Switzerland
Its my view that sea level rises from thermal expansion is the smoking gun of global warming. It is conclusive proof heat is accumulating in the Earth’s climate system. No other measure is so unambiguous,
The Argo data persuades me that whatever warming occured last century, it had stopped (or substantially slowed) by 2003.
And I find the ‘data is noisy’ argument for the lack of warming wholly unconvincing.
Bob… I have been writing my own R code. The link I provided earlier has another link to the source code I wrote for my variance analysis. My trend analysis was a derivation of that code. I will try to do a write up on it in the next little while, but I am full up for the next couple of weeks at least. BTW… If you look at my variance analysis, you will see that GISS-ER is arguably the worst performing model in terms of generating of reasonable likeness of the ARGO data… although I would flunk all eleven models I sampled.
Kurt in Switzerland says: “Interesting that there are seven different sets of data from the NOAA site calculating Ocean Heat Content Anomaly, which don’t all agree…”
Please provide a link to these 7 different OHC sets from the NOAA site.
“There is a significant negative trend in Tropical Sea Level Pressure from Jan 2005 to Dec 2010”
I would expect just that from a cooling system in which the intensity of the tropical high pressure cells reduces allowing a more meridional/equatorward shift of the surface pressure distribution resulting in higher global cloudiness. A warming system would show more intense and widening tropical air masses with reducing global cloudiness.
Other comments here are coming close to supporting my contention that when the system is cooling the increase in cloudiness reduces energy input to the oceans especially in the tropics and skews the Pacific Multidecadal Oscillation (not PDO which is merely a derivative of ENSO) in favour of La Nina. The opposite when the system is warming.
The 60 year Pacific Multidecadal Oscillation is not sufficient on its own to provide a longer term slope such as that from LIA to date (and presumably also MWP to LIA) so we need to introduce solar variability to account for the longer term background trends.
Thus the key to the issue of ocean heat content is the net balance between solar variation and the Pacific Multidecadal Oscillation which together control the global energy budget by shifting the surface air pressure distribution latitudinally to change global cloudiness and albedo for either a warming system or a cooling system at any given time.
Bob Tisdale asked,
“Please provide a link to these 7 different OHC sets from the NOAA site.”
Sure – same link from my last post (repeated below). This is apparently data up through 2009. The datasets are labeled as follows:
1) Dominguez et al
2) Ishii & Kimoto
3) Willis et al
4) Lyman & Johnson
5) Palmer et al
6) Lenitus et al
7) Gouretski & Reseghetti
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/2009-time-series/ohc
Brgds,
Kurt in Switzerland
I’m not impressed by these blip at the end graph arguments. I have spent too much time staring at random noise looking for signals to be easily fooled by random variation. I set the bar for an actual signal identification to be a blip that is at least twice as much as any previous random variation visible in the time series.
In this case we have the temperature spike from the 98 el niño possibly exaggerating the appearance of flatness at the end of the graph.
In this case we also have the flat spot around 85 and after a while it started to trend up again. So flat spots may not be permanent.
In addition the measurement is only for the top 700 metres. I could speculate that some temporary variation in ocean circulation causes a swap of cold deep water with warm surface water leading to an total heat content drop that is illusory.
I am going to make a wild guess that the ocean circulation models would not take such hypothetical events properly into account.
So Bob I don’t think your science is settled.
LazyTeenager says: “In this case we have the temperature spike from the 98 el niño possibly exaggerating the appearance of flatness at the end of the graph…”
Ocean heat content dropped during the 1997/98 El Nino. Here’s a comparison of standardized Global OHC and SST:
http://i51.tinypic.com/64frf4.jpg
Try again.
Kurt in Switzerland: Thanks for the link.