From the National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research an explanation for Global Ocean Heat Content Is Still Flat.
Key point from the press release:
Observations from a global network of buoys showed some warming in the upper ocean, but not enough to account for the global build-up of heat. Although scientists suspected the deep oceans were playing a role, few measurements were available to confirm that hypothesis.To track where the heat was going, Meehl and colleagues used a powerful software tool known as the Community Climate System Model
This new paper (which hasn’t been put online yet at NCC as of this writing, I’ll post a link as soon as I have one) from Trenberth is simply modeling, and modeling so far hasn’t done a very good job of accounting for the oceans:
I’d like to see some supporting observations, otherwise this is just speculation for something that Trenberth is doggedly trying to explain away. My question is; show me why some years the deep ocean doesn’t mask global warming. It’s not like that big heat sink was suddenly removed.
Deep oceans can mask global warming for decade-long periods
BOULDER — The planet’s deep oceans at times may absorb enough heat to flatten the rate of global warming for periods of as long as a decade even in the midst of longer-term warming, according to a new analysis led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
The study, based on computer simulations of global climate, points to ocean layers deeper than 1,000 feet (300 meters) as the main location of the “missing heat” during periods such as the past decade when global air temperatures showed little trend. The findings also suggest that several more intervals like this can be expected over the next century, even as the trend toward overall warming continues.
“We will see global warming go through hiatus periods in the future,” says NCAR’s Gerald Meehl, lead author of the study. “However, these periods would likely last only about a decade or so, and warming would then resume. This study illustrates one reason why global temperatures do not simply rise in a straight line.”
The research, by scientists at NCAR and the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia, will be published online on September 18 in Nature Climate Change. Funding for the study came from the National Science Foundation, NCAR’s sponsor, and the Department of Energy.
Where the missing heat goes
The 2000s were Earth’s warmest decade in more than a century of weather records. However, the single-year mark for warmest global temperature, which had been set in 1998, remained unmatched until 2010.
Yet emissions of greenhouse gases continued to climb during the 2000s, and satellite measurements showed that the discrepancy between incoming sunshine and outgoing radiation from Earth actually increased. This implied that heat was building up somewhere on Earth, according to a 2010 study published in Science by NCAR researchers Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo.
The two scientists, who are coauthors on the new study, suggested that the oceans might be storing some of the heat that would otherwise go toward other processes, such as warming the atmosphere or land, or melting more ice and snow. Observations from a global network of buoys showed some warming in the upper ocean, but not enough to account for the global build-up of heat. Although scientists suspected the deep oceans were playing a role, few measurements were available to confirm that hypothesis.
To track where the heat was going, Meehl and colleagues used a powerful software tool known as the Community Climate System Model, which was developed by scientists at NCAR and the Department of Energy with colleagues at other organizations. Using the model’s ability to portray complex interactions between the atmosphere, land, oceans, and sea ice, they performed five simulations of global temperatures.
The simulations, which were based on projections of future greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, indicated that temperatures would rise by several degrees during this century. But each simulation also showed periods in which temperatures would stabilize for about a decade before climbing again. For example, one simulation showed the global average rising by about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 degrees Celsius) between 2000 and 2100, but with two decade-long hiatus periods during the century.
During these hiatus periods, simulations showed that extra energy entered the oceans, with deeper layers absorbing a disproportionate amount of heat due to changes in oceanic circulation. The vast area of ocean below about 1,000 feet (300 meters) warmed by 18% to 19% more during hiatus periods than at other times. In contrast, the shallower global ocean above 1,000 feet warmed by 60% less than during non-hiatus periods in the simulation.
“This study suggests the missing energy has indeed been buried in the ocean,” Trenberth says. “The heat has not disappeared, and so it cannot be ignored. It must have consequences.”
A pattern like La Niña
The simulations also indicated that the oceanic warming during hiatus periods has a regional signature. During a hiatus, average sea-surface temperatures decrease across the tropical Pacific, while they tend to increase at higher latitudes, especially around 30°S and 30°N in the Pacific and between 35°N and 40°N in the Atlantic, where surface waters converge to push heat into deeper oceanic layers.
These patterns are similar to those observed during a La Niña event, according to Meehl. He adds that El Niño and La Niña events can be overlaid on top of a hiatus-related pattern. Global temperatures tend to drop slightly during La Niña, as cooler waters reach the surface of the tropical Pacific, and they rise slightly during El Niño, when those waters are warmer.
“The main hiatus in observed warming has corresponded with La Niña conditions, which is consistent with the simulations,” Trenberth says.
The simulations were part of NCAR’s contribution to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). They were run on supercomputers at NCAR’s National Science Foundation-supported Climate Simulation Laboratory, and on supercomputers at Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, both supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy.
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research under sponsorship by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
=======================
h/t to WUWT reader Bradley Fikes
Theo Goodwin says:
September 18, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Brilliant post! This slippery slope is greased with Owl excrement.
======================
“Owl feces looks like a hair ball from a cat. When the owl eats its prey, all the waste items like bones, beaks, feathers, etc. are released in an owl pellet or feces ball.”
I’ve got photo’s, of same.
Kind of proud of them, willing to share 🙂
rbateman says:
September 18, 2011 at 6:57 pm
No, the oceans wouldn’t be frozen simply because Trenberth can’t find a few good degrees.
I was responding to what looked like the assertion that oceans couldn’t absorb any energy.
Trenberth talks like it’s a fact. How can a guy be so certain about something yet have no evidence to back it up? No shortage of confidence, that’s a fact anyway.
Okay, I’m just a little confused by all this THC transport stuff. What isn’t making sense to me is AGW promoting scientists say that AGW is slowing down the conveyors of the THC and expressing great alarm that some tipping point may be reached where the THC might shut down.
Trenberth’s model says the deep is storing more heat energy without changing upper layer temperatures. Now, the last I studied energy balance in systems, when a system takes on more energy and there exists greater potential between the constituients of the system, the system becomes more conductive (or active or whatever you want to call it). So how is it that the deep ocean is warming up and taking on more energy, the surface is not, and the THC conveyors are supposed to be slowing down?
Theo Goodwin said:
“Yep, that is good old Trenberth. Never met a physical phenomenon of warming or cooling that he could not interpret as statistical noise in his radiation-only model of Earth’s climate.”
…ha ha! and yet he also grubs thru residuals to find the signals of great meaning.
So… now we see why Spencer and Braswell 2011 caused so much fuss…. from Trenberth. SB11 so discomfited Trenberth that he sought to use his influence to have the paper blocked or recalled. When he failed, he pressured Wolfgang Wagner, the figure head Editor-In-Chief of the publication Remote Sensing to resign in “protest” over the paper being published. Oddly, Wagner’s own letter of resignation stipulated that the paper had been properly peer reviewed, by qualified reviewers, from prestigous American universities…and had no apparent scientific flaws. He cited that the only failing of the paper was that “modelers” (programmers of artificial computer simulations) had not been “consulted”. Astoundingly, this sequence of events was followed by Trenberth BRAGGING that he had received an apology from Wagner personaly for allowing SB11 to be published. We know that in his role at the Vienna University of Technology in building a global soil moisture database, that Wagner had much to lose by offending Trenberth whose position as the Science Committee Chair of WEDEX provided Trenberth with more than just a little ability to make Wagner’s life miserable and his joib impossible. But what was it about SB11 that got so much attention from Trenberth? Now we know.
SB11 is based on observed data that shows the “missing heat” has escaped to space.
Trenberth’s artificial computer simulation says it has been sequestered in the ocean.
SB11 points to a physical explanation in that clouds are not the positive feedback modelers supposed, and hence accounts for how the LW gets to space. The physical explanation posited is supported by the observed data.
Trenberth’s artificial computer simulation has no physical explanation for how the LW gets into the ocean (LW being absorbed in a few microns of water which near instantly evaporates into the atmosphere), and is not supported by the observed data.
So there we have the whole gory story. Trenberth and an artifical computer simulation based on pure theory with no physical explanation and with no confirming data, or a physical explanation confirmed by actual data.
Now we know what Trenberth so feared about SB11 that he attempted to have it blocked or recalled from publication, and then went to absurd lengths to discredit byt the use of…absurd criticism.
u.k.(us) says:
September 18, 2011 at 7:59 pm
Thanks for the offer, but no thanks. “Slicker than owl’s *hit” is a country boy idiom meaning the very slickest.
R. Gates says:
I am not defending any model, as they all are wrong…but some can be useful.
===============
Oh my f-ing god. You sound like Ellsworth Toohey (the arch villain) in The Fountainhead.
You sure you want to align yourself with Ellsworth Toohey?
Oh yeah right, I forgot….you are a glutton for getting a wedgy.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Actually, the book is “Cat’s Cradle”. The real value in that book is Bokononism, full of important concepts and adages.
Wiki:
R. Gates says:
I am not defending any model, as they all are wrong…but some can be useful.>>>
How is a model known to be wrong of any use? Is there value in wrong answers?
Philip Mulholland says:
September 18, 2011 at 3:56 pm
How to get surface heat to go down into the ocean?
Well there is always The Meddy (etc.)
——-
Thanks for the links. I knew there was some mechanism but had never heard these terms before. The question I have is how stable such an inversion would be (cold water overlying warm water)? Presumably one would not find situations in which masses of warm water sink below cold water in fresh-water bodies; it is the salinity that throws an extra wrench in the system.
Highly saline warm water will be denser than less saline cold water and hence will sink, and if I recall correctly from past marine science courses these different masses of water can persist for quite a long time. However, while one can see this happening with warm and highly saline Mediterranean water entering the Atlantic, it’s hard to imagine this is a widespread phenomenon in the world’s oceans. There’s no analogous system in the Pacific, and even if there were, to what extent would this contribute to Trenberth’s ‘missing’ heat? However, I suppose the Mediterranean warm water might be contributing to the large warming anomaly shown in one of the graphs in Bob Tisdale’s post that comes after this one (Tisdale on Ocean Heat Content Anomalies http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/18/tisdale-on-ocean-heat-content-anomalies/)?
“This I had also forseen”
The soothsayer, Asterix and the Soothsayer
u.k.(us) says:
September 18, 2011 at 7:59 pm
““Owl feces looks like a hair ball from a cat. When the owl eats its prey, all the waste items like bones, beaks, feathers, etc. are released in an owl pellet or feces ball.”
I’ve got photo’s, of same. Kind of proud of them, willing to share :)”
You willingness to share is appreciated U.K. (ahem..) but hold that thought for a bit…..
Like the ‘vet’ said about the cat’s hairballs, “This too shall pass!”
Grant says:
September 18, 2011 at 8:22 pm
“Trenberth talks like it’s a fact. How can a guy be so certain about something yet have no evidence to back it up? No shortage of confidence, that’s a fact anyway.”
Grant,
He learned the technique from R. Gates!
Theo Goodwin says:
September 18, 2011 at 8:43 pm
==========
I was just trying to throw some interesting owl facts out there, cause i’ve been there and seen it.
David Falkner says:
September 18, 2011 at 8:02 pm
Your response was fine.
GCM based arguments are sitting ducks.
son of mulder says:
September 18, 2011 at 11:46 am
It is interesting that around the year 2000, many more people started to look at what these “climate science” guys were doing, and the temperature flat-lined. Hmmmm, ……
Mac the Knife says:
September 18, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Be clear this time, what was your question ?
People! You can do this!
So far commenters have found three ways for warm water to go below cold water. You can find more.
Philip Mulholland Meddy from the Mediterranean
http://stommel.tamu.edu/~baum/paleo/ocean/node24.html#meddy
” The central core region of a meddy rotates with nearly solid body rotation at each depth between about 500 and 1500 m. Maximum rotation rate and swirl velocity 30 cm/s are found near the central depth of the core, i.e. 1000 m, although the central depth varies from 700 to 1200 m depending on density structure. The diameter of maximum swirl velocity ranges from 20 to 50 km, and beyond the region of solid body rotation swirl velocities appear to decay exponentially with radius. Some axes have been observed to tilt due to the background geostrophic shear.
The mean lifetime of a newly formed meddy has been estimated to be about 1.7 years, although some have been observed to last over 5 years. An estimated 17 meddies form each year, which when combined with the typical lifetime suggests that about 29 meddies coexists in the North Atlantic at any one time. Some meddies have been observed to coalesce and others to split, although there are no percentage estimates for these phenomena.”
R. Gates “Gulf Stream plunges downward in the N. Atlantic”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream
“The Gulf Stream is typically 100 kilometres (62 mi) wide and 800 metres (2,600 ft) to 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) deep”
Then when the water gets way north. “The cooling is wind-driven: Wind moving over the water cools it and also causes evaporation, leaving a saltier brine. In this process, the water increases in salinity and density, and decreases in temperature. Once sea ice forms, salts are left out of the ice, a process known as brine exclusion.[21] These two processes produce water that is denser and colder (or, more precisely, water that is still liquid at a lower temperature). In the North Atlantic Ocean, the water becomes so dense that it begins to sink down through less salty and less dense water.”
R. Gates again Internal waves near some coasts.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/329/5989/319.short
R. Gates says:
September 18, 2011 at 7:09 pm
1) I am not defending any model, as they all are wrong…
Without correct models, no CAGW theory. I think you’ll end up as a lukewarmer, Gates!
Wanted – Dead or Alive
Miss Heat.
Presumed to be wandering around the ocean floor.
Do not approach. She is dangerous and could destroy the planet!
“So far commenters have found three ways for warm water to go below cold water.”
And, other commenters have put forward reasons that these explanations are grasping at straws.
But, suppose it did? The question then becomes, how does it stay there?
Anyway, thanks all for one of the most hilarious threads ever. Which one of these guys is Trenberth?
“How did the heat enter the deep ocean without transiting through upper ocean layers?”
Easy! It got past the Argo bouys by moving through a
wormsea-slug hole.———
ferd berple says:
September 18, 2011 at 6:06 pm
Anyone that travels to Mexico will have come across an interesting word. Mañana. It means “tomorrow”, but really it means “never”. Because tomorrow, when you go to see when something will happen, you will get the same answer. Mañana. And the day after? Mañana. The day that never arrives.
I heard a tale about a sociologist who went to the Outer Hebrides to study their way of life. After several weeks of nothing much happening, and not much data, he decided to consult one of the locals.
He asked: “Is there a word in the Gaelic language that corresponds to the Spanish ‘mañana?'” The man thought for a few minutes, and then replied: “Aye, there is. But I dinna think it conveys quite such a sense of urgency.”
Marlow Metcalf:
At September 19, 2011 at 12:07 am yoiu say;
“People! You can do this!
So far commenters have found three ways for warm water to go below cold water. You can find more.”
Well, yes and no.
There are many possible ways warm water may have been transported down to deep ocean; e.g. some child may have been lowering it down in a bucket on a rope. So, yes, many ways can be suggested.
The problems are
1. Trenberth’s missing heat is so much that it is hard to imagine any combination of ways that could have together transported more than a small fraction of it to deep ocean
2. The ability to suggest a possibility does NOT mean the possibility exists: e.g. some evidence is needed for the child, his rope, his bucket and his activity.
Of course, these problems will not bother warmers: they see data and empirical evidence as information to be cited when convenient and ignorede when inconvenient.
Richard
CO2-AGW has been overestimated by at least a factor of 9.
[a statement like this could be mistaken for trolling if it isn’t backed up with some justification . . you may wish to provide justification . . kb.mod]