Torpedoing Of The Use Of The Global Average Surface Temperature Trend As The Diagnostic For Global Warming
By Dr. Roger Pielke Senior
There is a new paper by Gerald Meehl of NCAR and other collaborators that has been announced in the media; i.e. see in the International Business Tribune [h/t to Watts Up With That]
Global Warming on Temporary Hold Thanks to Deep Oceans
First, I am glad the authors implicitly acknowledge the importance of the ocean heat changes as the primary diagnostic of climate system heat changes, as I have urged in my papers
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2003: Heat storage within the Earth system. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 331-335.
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55.
There are two major issues, however, with the new study that the authors [that the news article reports on] did not seem to recognize:
1. If heat is being sequested in the deeper ocean, it must transfer through the upper ocean. In the real world, this has not been seen that I am aware of. In the models, this heat clearly must be transferred (upwards and downwards) through this layer. The Argo network is spatially dense enough that this should have been seen.
2. Even more important is the failure of the authors to recognize that they have devalued the use of the global average surface temperature as the icon to use to communicate the magnitude of global warming. If this deeper ocean heating actually exists in the real world, it is not observable in the ocean and land surface temperatures. To monitor global warming, we need to keep track of the changes in Joules in the climate system, which, as clearly indicated in the new study by Meehl and colleagues, is not adequately diagnosed by the global, annual-averaged surface temperature trends.
The news article has the text [highlight added]
Global warming is temporarily on hold as the deep ocean currents and circulations absorb the sun’s heat before releasing it finally, scientists said on Sunday.
The study conducted by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia was published in the Sept. 18 issue of the journal Nature Climate Change.The last decade saw an incessant growth in greenhouse gas emissions which ideally should have increased Earth’s temperature. However, Earth’s temperature didn’t increase vastly. Where was the “missing heat” going?To find out the mystery, Gerald Meehl, lead author of the study that revealed the connection between global warming and temperature hiatus caused by ocean’s heat absorption, and scientists at the NCAR in Colorado ran five simulations on a computer model that studied the complex interactions between the atmosphere, land, oceans and sea ice.The study revealed that temperature has already increased by several degrees in this century and will increase more in the coming days but the hiatus period will interrupt the increase. During this period, the missing temperature will lurk inside the deep ocean.“We will see global warming go through hiatus periods in the future, 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,” said Meehl.
Kevin Trenberth, a study author and NCAR scientist, said: “… this study suggests the missing energy has indeed been buried in the ocean, the heat has not disappeared and so it cannot be ignored. It must have consequences.”
They found the vast area deeper than 1,000 feet (305 meters) warmed by about 18 to 19 percent more during the hiatus periods than at other times. Meanwhile, shallower global oceans above 1,000 feet warmed by 60 percent less than during non-hiatus periods in the simulation.
The study also revealed the regional signature of oceanic warming during hiatus periods. During a hiatus, average sea-surface temperatures decrease across the tropical Pacific, while they tend to increase at higher latitudes.
Meehl says these patterns are similar to those observed during a La Niña event.
“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,” he added.
A final comment on this paper, if heat really is deposited deep into the ocean (i.e. Joules of heat) it will dispersed through the ocean at these depths and unlikely to be transferred back to the surface on short time periods, but only leak back upwards if at all. The deep ocean would be a long-term damper of global warming, that has not been adequately discussed in the climate science community.
If the deep ocean is a damper, then how do those tipping points work?
This study involved a climate model and can therefore not be trusted.
So let me get this straight: The computer model showed the heat was in the deep ocean? The COMPUTER MODEL?!?!?
So they measured the deep oceans over the past decade?
Trenberth found his missing heat with actual thermometers?
Wait, did they just assume the heat isn’t missing and plugged it into a model that estimates what the deep oceans must be doing to allow for the storage of this “misplaced heat”?
Could we have some observational data that backs this claim?
If the deep ocean were warming, I would suspect that it would also be expanding and the ocean level to be rising. Yet it is not.
Great job! This contortionism to save a hypothesis from the trash can will wear thin eventually, thanks to brave souls like yourself. Thank you.
One possible edit in bullet #1:
“that this should have been see.” seen?
[Fixed, thanks. ~dbs, mod.]
If the deep ocean is absorbing the heat instead of the surface then sea level must continue to rise. Where is the sea level rise to confirm their model? I don’t see it in the CU Sea Level Research Group plots or data.
Let’s hope they are right, we might well need that heat later!
The dog ate my homework.
People, you are missing the point. We all know we are killing the planet with excess heat trapped by our evil ways. This is settled science. Since we cannot find the heat anywhere we have looked it must be hiding. The best place (for our purposes) for it to hide is in the deep ocean where no one can prove that it is not there. Therefore our models looked, and there it was. Our findings are robust, and anyone who says otherwise is a shill for big oil and is committing crimes against humanity. We are watching and taking names. Climate Justice will find you. /sarc
Garry says: September 20, 2011 at 12:58 pm
I might agree with the sentiment, but how does this advance the discussion?
Just wondering do any scientists actually do experiments anymore? A computer model based on the predictions of another model is proving black is black. If heat is being sequestered deep it would have to be below a thermocline in order to stay deep and even so it would transfer heat from the hot areas to the cold areas or has thermodynamics changed recently.
Would it be possible for one of these “sceintists ” to actually do an experiment and measure the heat transfer from Argo Data . If this transfer and sequestering is really happening it has to have a footprint somewhere, Scotty has not been beaming the heat down there for G*** sake.
“The study revealed that temperature has already increased by several degrees in this century…’
Oh, really!? Even if you take “this century” to mean “this past century” (i.e. the last 100 years) instead of “the 21st century”, I don’t know of any source that reports over a degree of warming of any component of the climate system, especially the oceans.
“Global warming is temporarily on hold as the deep ocean currents and circulations absorb the sun’s heat before releasing it finally, scientists said on Sunday.”
Whew, for a second there I thought that: Global Warming was temporarily on hold as the deep ocean currents and circulations absorb the sun’s heat before releasing it finally, scientists said, on Sunday.
Come to think of it, it was a little warm on Sunday.
MattN
I watched ‘The Day After Tomorrow” over the weekend and the hero of that film is a paleoclimate climate modeller. Their work is very important.
“They found the vast area deeper than 1,000 feet (305 meters) warmed by about 18 to 19 percent more during the hiatus periods than at other times.”
They found this IN THEIR COMPUTER MODEL, not in the world. It is a rank perversion of the language of science, which is premised on the priority of observation over theory and modeling. They have booted observation out of town and are pretending that models ARE observation.
I’m mystified by this. What is the source of this increased heat content of the ocean? If the atmosphere does not have a higher energy content, where did the heat energy in the ocean come from? Is Trenberth suggesting that CO2 stops the ocean from radiating energy in the first place? If the atmosphere does have a higher energy content, why hasn’t the temperature of the atmosphere increased?
So……..all of a sudden the deep ocean decided to act as a heat sink
Out of the blue,and for no known reason….just all of a sudden it started doing it
when it never has before
What a bunch of crock…..
The deep ocean would have been retaining more heat all along….since the beginning
….it wouldn’t just start doing it when it’s convenient for climate scientists to hide the heat
The other possibility is that the rapid warming in the 1990s was due to the opposite, and now we have the normal warming
I thought science examined observable data and tried to develop a theory for it not the other way around. Has this deep ocean heat been observed?
Wouldn’t the extra heat also show up in sea level rise due to thermal expansion?
Can we henceforth refer to this as “Trenberth’s Nature Trick”?
I’m just a layman, but can someone tell me HOW the heat remains “sequestered” in the deep oceans? IIRC from high school physics, a warm body, even with insulation, will radiate its heat to cooler surroundings. Since the supposedly warmer water is surrounded by cooler water, why would that not happen in this case — or is the warmer water trapped in some sort of huge Thermos bottle?
Wouldn’t the heat in deep waters be more likely caused by thermal vents and underwater volcanos?
There is a particularly valuable aphorism these guys apparently were not taught in their youth: Oh, what a tangled web we weave…
@Robert E. Phelan at 1:04 pm
“how does this advance the discussion?”
How on earth can one advance a discussion of virtual reality which proposes hidden and unmeasurable outcomes?
If the trapped heat is not found under water then I have another culprit to blame: the stone. I bet there’s a lot of heat trapped underground!
“Could we have some observational data that backs this claim?”
Data we don’t need no stickin data!!!!!!!!!!!
“
“scientists at the NCAR in Colorado ran five simulations on a computer model that studied the complex interactions between the atmosphere, land, oceans and sea ice.
The study revealed that temperature has already increased by several degrees in this century”
Such as study cannot “reveal” anything. It can and does help define a hypothesis. “the deep ocean has warmed several degress over the last century.” Assuming arguendo that “several degrees” is in fact quantified, this is now testable and falisifiable. This is the first step in the scientific process. No on to step two: gather data which supports or disproves the hypothesis. Step three: other scientists (with no vested interest in the proof or disproof of the hypothesis) replicate the result (or fail to) using independent means.
Then and only then can we say that we have *shown* anything.
So, they ran a model they created, with data they inputted, which gave them results they wanted to see?
And straight from the ARGO web page – Floats will cycle to 2000m depth devery 10 days, with 4-5 year lifetimes for individual instruments.
I’m with Pielke Sr here, the buoys go down far enough to have found if not the missing heat as a whole but an upward temperature change over time.
I can ask my three year old a question and have better luck of not hearing the answer I’m looking for!
Aside from the model miasma, this better not be a case of percentages based on different numbers so that the increases and decreases seem more meaningful. ( I wouldn`t put it past them.)
He seeks it here, he seeks it there.
That Trenberth seeks it everywhere.
Be it in oceans or be it in peat.
That damned, elusive, missing heat!
I have a new theory.
I think the extra heat is hiding deep under the LAND.
It sneaked down there when no one was looking – probably going down a volcano. In amongst that magma, a few degrees more or less would not be noticed. But it will come out again, unless we keep paying our CARBON TAXES!!!
BP Found Trenberth’s Sunken Heat At The Bottom Of The Gulf Of Mexico
lol, yes, BP ran into all that heat when they tried to plug that leak………
Cheif scammer Trenberth could have claimed the heat is buried at the centre of the earth. Now we know that’s hot. It makes just as much sense.
This calls to mind a recent comment published in a journal……
“Numerous attempts have been made to constrain climate sensitivity with observations”
Don’t try to put chains on our data with observations!!!
Anna Lemma says:
September 20, 2011 at 1:22 pm
I’m just a layman, but can someone tell me HOW the heat remains “sequestered” in the deep oceans? IIRC from high school physics, a warm body, even with insulation, will radiate its heat to cooler surroundings
================================
yes………
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Gary Swift says:
September 20, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Wouldn’t the extra heat also show up in sea level rise due to thermal expansion?
=======================================================
yes….and the latest state of the art Envisat says sea levels have been falling for the past two years at the rate of 5mm/yr = 10 mm
Julienne says Greenland melt is contributing 1/10th of an inch, and CU is adding .3mm/yr to try and hide it…..
So from that we can say sea levels are actually falling faster than Envisat says it is……………
Curt…that struck me too…”The study revealed that temperature has already increased by several degrees in this century”
That looks like complete nonsense to me, but then it followed with this hoot =:-D
” and will increase more in the coming days”
It really is worse than we thought!
May I suggest two possible, and simple explanations for the “missing” heat.
1. The heat calculated by the models was exactly that, a calculation. It was an incorrect calculation and the heat is simply not there. It wasn’t detected by the surface, satellite, or ARGO thermometers because it never passed by them. (denier science)
2. Invisible aliens converted the heat into matter, transported the matter into the deep oceans, and reconverted it back into heat. (the obvious reason)
The heat is not mysteriously locked in deep ocean layers, but that’s a convenient, if clever, way to throw a red herring into the debate, and justify an entire new flood of needed funding. Ultra-deep submersibles and temperature recording studies…. But just watch..the first deep temperature measurements will be taken just downstream from some sub-sea vents.
Robert E. Phelan says:
September 20, 2011 at 1:04 pm
The dog ate my homework.
Garry says: September 20, 2011 at 12:58 pm
I might agree with the sentiment, but how does this advance the discussion?
==================================================================
It sets the bar to the level of seriousness necessary for discussing such matters. It is nothing but a work of fiction wrote in a series of code.
So, just *the last ten years* the heat suddenly decided that the neighborhood in the upper ocean was getting crowded with undesirables and decided it was time to load up the kids and head for the suburbs in the deep ocean?
That’s the theory?
They do seem to understand their models quite well, afterall, they are able to “tweak” the code to say whatever they want the result to be.
Unfortunately for them, the correlation between their models and any REAL measurable factors is becoming vanishingly small.
Can someone answer the question of CO2 absorption saturation?
I thought that increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere reached a saturation point, at which time it becomes less and less effective as a re-radiator of longwave energy. At what concentration would that occur?
.
STOP THE PRESSES – Scientific computer simulation shows the “missing heat” is hiding in Al Gore’s generous posterior. Keep feeding the boy or we’re all goners.
Jean Parisot says:
September 20, 2011 at 12:36 pm
“If the deep ocean is a damper, then how do those tipping points work?”
There’s a switch in the broom closet at NCAR.
So, from the ARGO Global Change Analysis page they show a graph of ocean heat content from
1950 – 2010 http://www-argo.ucsd.edu/levitus_2009_figure.jpg
However, even the solid temperature numbers they reference show 0.06C change. That doesn’t seem like much to me.
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/global_change_analysis.html
Rapture of the Deep! They are suffering from Rapture of the Deep. They went too deep and came up too fast. Get them into a decompression chamber.
No…wait…they are suffering from Rapture of the Supercomputer! They modeled too high and cannot come down at all. Send them to a residential treatment center for six weeks.
This is almost as nutty as the aliens will kill us crap.
This is the desperation of men who are beginning to be seen for what they are – frauds. Pielke seems to be maintaining a polite tone. Which is to his credit.
Michael Penny says:
September 20, 2011 at 12:57 pm
If the deep ocean is absorbing the heat instead of the surface then sea level must continue to rise. Where is the sea level rise to confirm their model? I don’t see it in the CU Sea Level Research Group plots or data.
What a good point. I know we’re not talking in terms of feet here – or even inches . But I understand satellites can measure changes in sea level on quite minute levels, so we should expect to observe – in the real world – sea level rises in accordance with this supposed “stored heat.” Do we?
Trenberth may be missing a bit of heat, but physicists seem to have mislaid 90% of the universe. You need a pretty big carpet to hide that sized problem under and physicists have come up with a really good one, namely Dark Matter. Since hiding the missing heat in the oceans is getting harder all the time maybe Trenberth could take a leaf from the physicist’s playbook and invoke Dark Matter as an explanation for the missing heat.
“IIRC from high school physics, a warm body, even with insulation, will radiate its heat to cooler surroundings. Since the supposedly warmer water is surrounded by cooler water, why would that not happen in this case”
Well the heat got down there without passing through the intermediate layer of ocean, so some major violation of thermodynamics is already in the offing. We kept looking for Maxwell’s Demon in strange boxes in physics labs when in fact it resides a thousand meters deep in the Pacific. Someone measure for seismic activity above Eddington’s grave, we may be about to witness what happens when global warming theory collides with the 2nd law:
“If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations—then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation—well these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”
Of course Sir Arthur wasn’t around to hear about AGW.
Seriously – I am not a climate scientist but I can read – no model forecast has been close to true. They are creating models which in reality forecast nothing.
I called Trenbeth a fraud, and it seems rather gruff. But if I am to assume he is an educated man, and capable of rationale thought, how else can I judge him but as a fraud. Do we know that there is AGW – no. Do we know that there isn’t AGW – not really. For him to be a part of the science is settled crowd and making such wild claims as this paper does without any evidence whatsoever, what is he expecting me to think of him? When it is shown that we cannot do anything to stop the warming if AGW is true – because we would have to destroy the GDP of every country on the earth to attain almost no mitigation of the warming, what do his type say? DO it anyway – kill millions of people. When Lomberg talks about adaptation he is excommunicated from the church of AGW.
I am thinking fraud is gentle.
The theory of AGW now has to be rescued with so many contradictory and incredible explanations, that it makes conspiracy theories sound rational by comparison. Some of the problems:
1) In order for the heat to have reached the deep ocean basins, it must have transited through the upper layers. But as Argo has not detected this, the explanation given is that it must have passed exactly through those spaces that aren’t covered by the buoys. It is a bit like the argument that ghosts exist, but the reason you can’t see them is that they don’t appear when anybody is watching.
2) If the heat did in fact manage to achieve the feat of passing exactly where there are no monitors, the volume of the oceans would have expanded and this would be revealed by increasing rates of sea level rises. In fact, we are observing the opposite. This too is explained away as some errors with the process that measures sea level rise. Or if that fails, it is argued that melting ice is changing the shape of the basins which masks the expanding volume.
3) No explanation is given as to how the heat could disappear into the oceans without it also warming the atmosphere. It is one of those ‘just so’ stories.
4) If the ocean is indeed acting as this huge heat sink, the problem with C-AGW is that there is no problem. Heat sequestered in deep oceans could remain there for millenia. And it would take a lot of global warming for that heat sink to warm appreciably.
And they wonder why there are sceptics out there?
If deep turbulent mixing of oceans is so effective that heat is distributed evenly in its entire volume and Trenberth is right in saying “The TOA energy imbalance can probably be most accurately determined from climate models and is estimated to be 0.85 ± 0.15 W/m²”, then the warming rate is 0.25°C/century. In this case it is absolutely inconceivable that the atmosphere (having very low heat capacity) could warm at a rate which is more than an order of magnitude higher than that.
With a given energy imbalance, rate of warming (cooling) is inversely proportional to the effective heat capacity of the climate system.
Therefore easy deep mixing (i.e. high effective heat capacity) and a catastrophic warming rate are inconsistent with each other, even with the assumed (and exaggerated) flux imbalance figure of Trenberth. On the other hand, if during the last decade heat has not gone into the abyss, there is only one alternative. It went to space.
This is what’s called check-mate I guess.
The heat capacity of the deep ocean is something like 4000 times that of the atmosphere…the entire atmosphere could freeze or boil and the deep ocean would still be 3C.
Ian H says:
September 20, 2011 at 1:58 pm
“Trenberth may be missing a bit of heat, but physicists seem to have mislaid 90% of the universe.”
Well, yeah, but physicists aren’t asking us to pay taxes on dark matter.
Climate science is a branch of natural history and not rocket science by any means. Someday, people are going to realize that and the supercomputers can be mined for spare parts.
I’m not some smart ar** member of the Fiddlestick team. The earth is 33% land and I assume that the Sun still shines on the land? So, ok there is more energy in the system deep in the oceans then presumably the land temperature record would, well record this.
Trend Berks Law of Climate states:
What is is not.
What is not is.
This can be derived into:
What the model shows is real what is observed is not real.
David, UK says:
September 20, 2011 at 1:57 pm
Michael Penny says:
September 20, 2011 at 12:57 pm
If the deep ocean is absorbing the heat instead of the surface then sea level must continue to rise. Where is the sea level rise to confirm their model? I don’t see it in the CU Sea Level Research Group plots or data.
What a good point. I know we’re not talking in terms of feet here – or even inches . But I understand satellites can measure changes in sea level on quite minute levels, so we should expect to observe – in the real world – sea level rises in accordance with this supposed “stored heat.” Do we?
************
In a word NO !
The last few years the sea level has actually gone down by 1/4 inch.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
This embarrasses the alarmists a lot.
The sea level rise a few years ago was only 3 MM per year or 1 cigarette length in 30 years.
The sea level rise is the big gorilla when it comes to global warming.
Now it seems to be a harmless chimp.
Surely, I mean surely, highly intelligent people wouldn’t even dream of pulling the wool over the eyes of other highly intelligent people with utter tosh like this?
The fact that they actually release papers like this piece of $h!t, (and expecting people to believe it), I find is the biggest insult of all.
Hmmm …Heatsinks don’t store heat…they constantly disperse heat through radiation…
I agree with Ian H, but think that Dark Energy better fills the bill, as in:
In the last 10 years, as our model now predicts, the energy of CO2 radiative forcing has been converted to Dark Energy, and our model says it is somewhere in the ocean’s depths. In coming days, however, ideally the energy will convert back to heat and Earth’s temperature will rise vastly, revealing the evil consequences of man’s pollution of the Earth and its atmosphere. Of course as scientists we only seek to understand and reveal the truth (and maybe apply for a few grants).
Dr. Pielke, you mention two issues you have with the study. The first one is ” If heat is being sequested in the deeper ocean, it must transfer through the upper ocean.”
Is it necessarily true that there cannot be heat transfer from the surface to the deep ocean without being observed by the Argo system? I can see that most patterns of heat transfer to the deep ocean would leave an signature in the 0-700m layer that would be detectable by the Argo network, but I also can envision patterns of heat transfer that don’t leave an obvious signature.
If possible, please explain in more detail the foundation of this issue you have with the study.
The problem is that here in the UK we have an Energy and Climate Change Minister who hangs on every word uttered by shysters such as these.His belief in their pitiful science is so complete that he surreptitiously taxes our fuel bills to pay for inefficient energy machines so as to mitigate their prophecies of impending doom.
At the same time he berates the recipients of his largess, the Energy Companies, for making it difficult to change from one to another as the bills inexorably rise.
So economically illiterate is he, that he stated today if all consumers were to regularly change suppliers that increase energy prices, we would soon have lower energy bills!
Perhaps he is vying for the job of Employment Minister; churn on such a scale would surely soak up a lot of unemployed to be paid for from the lower profits that each company would make, eventually leading to their bankruptcy, closure of generating plant and a perfect excuse for the resultant rolling blackouts that I fear are now inevitable.
Its as if the burden of proof is turned on its head. Instead of proving that factor X affects the planet, it is accepted science that factor X affects the planet unless proven otherwise.
So there is no comprehensive monitoring of the deep ocean temperatures. Therefore it becomes
accepted science that the deep ocean is warming, and will blow us all away at some unspecified future time.
Prove the heat didn’t sink down through the sea bed, through the earth’s crust, through the mantle and into the core.
Go ahead, prove it. I’m waiting.
Charlie A says:
September 20, 2011 at 2:26 pm
“I can see that most patterns of heat transfer to the deep ocean would leave an signature in the 0-700m layer that would be detectable by the Argo network, but I also can envision patterns of heat transfer that don’t leave an obvious signature.
“If possible, please explain in more detail the foundation of this issue you have with the study.”
It may help Dr. Pielke to answer you if you were to to describe the heat-transfer patterns you envision.
THe importance of the oceans rather than greenhouse gases in setting the Earth’s equilibrium temperature has been negligently ignored:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=1487&linkbox=true&position=4
“The Hot Water Bottle Effect”.
MattN: “So let me get this straight: The computer model showed the heat was in the deep ocean? The COMPUTER MODEL?!?!?”
ROFL. That sums up my reaction as well. It seems to be the new way of doing climate science. If you can’t get your information with direct measurements, just make up a model and “tune” it till you get the right answer. And if there is a contest between the models and reality – always go with the models.
I loved this part:
“The study revealed that temperature has already increased by several degrees in this century and will increase more in the coming days but the hiatus period will interrupt the increase.”
I guess all those thermometers missed those “several degrees” – even after all of the upwards “adjustments” that they have had.
Bob says on September 20, 2011 at 12:49 pm :
“This study involved a climate model and can therefore not be trusted.”
Yes Bob, once climate scientists/modelers get to understand that in the “Real World” temperature is A PRODUCT of “work done” courtesy of energy input they will also realize that heat is not energy and does not radiate.
They may even come to realize that steam does not “drive” steam engines – it is the “release (or distribution) of compression” that powers those kind of engines; Compressed air would do the same job equally well, but then you would have to invent a much better air compressor than the ones we have today.
Finally Bob, (and anybody else); If there is no data to support the theory that says CO2 warms the atmosphere then why do “skeptics” poo, poo people like me who say that Co2 does NOT increase temperatures – on a global scale-?
In the upper part of the ocean, warm water usually remains above cooler water and so it normally does not sink unless it has a higher salt content than the water around it. As far as I know, the red sea is the only place where brine content affects the circulation. But with data available, it should be possible to make a map of surface water density to see if there are any regions of the world, especially in the tropics that have surface water so saline such that surface water might sink to great depths. The centers of the oceanic warm pools or water in the wake of strong tropical super-storms might be the best places to look for such evidence. If no such waters of critical salinity can be shown to exist then there does not appear to be any tropical mechanism for the proposed deep-water heating.
There might be polar regions where surface water in the critical range below four degrees C might also sink with heating, but I would imagine this to be quite a minimal effect.
I am temporarily suspending my disbelief unless someone with authority can definitively say that there are no such critical saline regions in the open ocean that could gobble up heat as proposed. Of course the NCAR proposal seems all too convenient.
Well, if we can’t find it in the deep oceans, the computer models probably will show that the missing heat has been transferred into the inner core of the earth. I definitely agree, because Al Gore told us that the earth is now millions of degrees below the crust, and I know that when I was younger it was thousands of degrees. If we don’t stop pumping out CO2, then it will probably soar to billions of degrees and vaporize us all.
The hockey team are in full realisation of our cooling world, this is a ploy to gain them another decade or two before defeat or a change in fortune for them.
Anthony:
Following the above link I found this.
“These simulations based on projections of future greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, showed that temperatures would rise by several degrees during this century. Each simulation also showed periods in which temperatures would stabilize for about a decade before rising again.”
“Would rise”, instead of “has already increased”. Don’t know if it was changed after you got it or what, but let’s get it fixed please.
Well, at least they are coming out in public and stating their case.
It’s a good thing… that they are proving themselves fools.
It’s the Sea Monsters.
They’ve been known for years – Wikipedia has all the details:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_monster
Quote:- ” They can be slimy or scaly and are often pictured threatening ships or spouting jets of water.”
That’s the clue. After they’ve spouted their jets, they swallow a few million gallons each of warm water (sea monsters are known to be inconceivably huge) and carry it down to the ocean deeps – cunningly avoiding Argo buoys on the way. The they spout their jets again and – there you are Kevin’s heat.
Sadly, people haven’t taken sea monsters seriously enough over the years – bloody sceptics as usual.
If anyone’s got a couple of million quid spare I could write a peer reviewed paper.
From the linked article: “”The main hiatus in observed warming has corresponded with La Niña conditions, which is consistent with the simulations,” Trenberth says.”
But Kevin, we haven’t had “La Nina conditions”. Since the begining of the 13+ year flat trend we have had 5 El Ninos and 4 La Ninas. Things have been fairly balanced.
I think we need a cartoon of Kevin Trenberth smiling and pointing at his computer saying, “We found it. It was in there all the time”.
Foxgoose says:
September 20, 2011 at 3:12 pm
It’s the Sea Monsters.
They’ve been known for years – Wikipedia has all the details:-
Sadly, people haven’t taken sea monsters seriously enough over the years – bloody sceptics as usual.
If anyone’s got a couple of million quid spare I could write a peer reviewed paper.
——————————————————————————————————————————-
Don’t you mean “squids”?
Spector reckons only the Red Sea has salinity causing sinking. I think that’s an error. Where sea ice freezes, the surrounding water becomes very salty (as well as cold) and sinks to the sea bed.
However, I see two other issues.
A) If heat reaches the deep ocean, that implies a lot of mixing; but the IPCC CO2 residence time depends on very restricted mixing (of shallow and deep water)
B) Anyway, why not (as an engineering solution) set up pumps to accelerate mixing? That would bring CO2 into equilibrium sooner, bury unwanted heat, and store that heat to overt the inevitable next glacial epoch.
This is climate science … on crack!
>Ralph says:
>
>September 20, 2011 at 1:53 pm
>
>
>Can someone answer the question of CO2 absorption saturation?
Ralph:
A bit off topic on this thread. I’ve a little thing on my blog that I would be happy to discuss there with you. I can explain the criticisms of it and whether I believe them to be apropos or not.
I found it in my finance management computer model that the federal government owes me 200 billion dollars. A check will do, thank you.
Foxgoose says onSeptember 20, 2011 at 3:12 pm :
“———— If anyone’s got a couple of million quid spare I could write a peer reviewed paper.”
Foxgoose, I ain’t got no money, but I am your “peer” – or friend – and I say your story is o.k. by me. — So, that’s peer review as we know it. — OK?
A bit O/T but in looking for a copy of the paper “Model-based evidence of deep-ocean heat uptake during surface-temperature hiatus periods” Meehl et al (2011) Nature Climate Change Letter, I noted that it had been cited by the subject of another recent thread “Issues in Establishing Climate Sensitivity in Recent Studies” Trenberth et al (2011) Remote Sensing.
The reference was in respect of the following statement in Trenberth et al:
“Further complicating the diagnosis of the climate system’s feedbacks is natural variability, which is considerable on decadal timescales, both in the atmosphere and ocean. It can easily lead to a hiatus in the rise of global mean surface temperature. This has been demonstrated in a number of recent studies involving both observations [18-20] and models [21-24].” Trenberth et al (2011) Remote Sensing
The paper is reference [24]. I think what a reasonable person would conclude from the above statement is that these studies show that if you separate out external forcings the remaining system can produce flat global mean surface temperatures on a decadel scale. Reference 24 is reasonable in this regard – but it was the references to being able to do this with observations that really caught my eye. References [18-20] with my comments in italics are:
18. Trenberth, K. An imperative for climate change planning: Tracking earth’s global energy. Current Opinion Environ. Sustain. 2009, 1, 19-27.
The theme of this Opinion piece is precisely the opposite; we lack the information system to say what is happening in the energy budget, as a quick read of the Introduction would establish.
19. Trenberth, K.E.; Fasullo, J.T. Tracking earth’s energy. Science 2010, 328, 316-317.
This Perspective piece says the same as ref. [19]: “Closure of the energy budget over the past 5 years is thus elusive. State-of-the-art observations are unable to fully account for recent energy variability”.
20. Santer, B.D.; Mears, C.A.; Doutriaux, C.; Caldwell, P.M.; Gleckler, P.J.; Wigley, T.M.L.; Solomon, S.; Gillett, N.; Ivanova, D.P.; Karl, T.R.; et al. Separating signal and noise in atmospheric temperature changes: The importance of timescale. J. Geophys. Res. 2011, doi:10.1029/2011JD016263.
Estimates of the climate change signals in this paper were derived from models, not quite what one would take from the reference.
Spector says:
September 20, 2011 at 2:47 pm
There might be polar regions where surface water in the critical range below four degrees C might also sink with heating, but I would imagine this to be quite a minimal effect.
No, that’s not the case. It’s only fresh water which is the most dense around 4°C. Seawater’s density increases with decreasing temperature until it gets frozen.
While I do agree that ocean heat content is the way to measure changes in climate, they need to stop taking super computers on simulated voyages to do so. Personally, I think they need to take their super computers loaded up with their models on real voyages and toss them overboard to test their robustness. Ocean heat content needs to be measured with real instruments dangling in the water communicating to real recording instruments. Say, isn’t that what ARGO does?
It’s an interesting shell game that is played where what is under the shells are empty computer models and solid observation. Except in Trenberth and Meehl’s version of the game, if you choose an empty shell you win.
“They found the vast area deeper than 1,000 feet (305 meters) warmed by about 18 to 19 percent more during the hiatus periods than at other times. Meanwhile, shallower global oceans above 1,000 feet warmed by 60 percent less than during non-hiatus periods in the simulation.”
Being a total non-scientist, and barely able to keep up with the second law, it just seems to me that if shallower global oceans above 1000 ft warmed at 60% less than non-hiates periods, does this mean that the area above the 1000 ft. mark are COOLER during non-hiates periods? Please explain how that would work. Or am I misreading here something?
We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?—Is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel.
They search and they search and they search but they never find, because if they found the missing heat they’d lose all their funding. Keep on teaching the horse to sing, guys.
“The study revealed that temperature has already increased by several degrees in this century and will increase more in the coming days but the hiatus period will interrupt the increase.”
It seems like a very good, accurate model. Could they ask it when the hiatus period will end and ‘the coming days’ will start? That would be useful to know. Something in the falsifiable line (bit of a novelty that would be.)
Actually, Rapture occurs when you’re still way under, due to nitrogen narcosis. What you get from rising too fast is the Bends. Awful agony from bubbles appearing in your muscles and throughout the circulatory system. Has also been known to cause severe brain damage.
Apologies to PJB, I should’ve read all the comments. We think alike. : )
Greg Cavanagh says:
September 20, 2011 at 3:11 pm
Well, at least they are coming out in public and stating their case.
It’s a good thing… that they are proving themselves fools.
======================================================
Greg, they’ve all been doing exactly that for years now….
…why any one pays attention at all is beyond me
If there was missing heat in the deep oceans, heat makes expansion.
Expansion of the water would cause sea levels to rise.
Sea levels are actually dropping,
Therefore this “missing heat”, seen only in computer models, and not detected directly, is shown to be false.
In addition, actual measurements of these deep ocean temperatures shows no such heat.
Conclusion, before this “study” was even published, it has been falsified.
The inputs to these “computer models” are thus shown to be totally imaginary, based entirely on the beliefs, that is to say, religious beliefs, of the modelers. Warming is thus shown to be not a scientific fact, but a religious belief. Now, there is nothing wrong with a religious belief, after all, just because someone, religiously or otherwise, believes something does not make it automatically false, simply because they believe it. Using the scientific method, however, we CAN show whether some belief, religious or otherwise, is or is not true. It is therefore show that this belief is, in fact, a false beleif. Therefore “warming” is show to be a false religion, not even close to science, or even religion.
RE: Berényi Péter: (September 20, 2011 at 4:09 pm)
There might be polar regions where surface water in the critical range below four degrees C might also sink with heating, but I would imagine this to be quite a minimal effect.
“No, that’s not the case. It’s only fresh water which is the most dense around 4°C. Seawater’s density increases with decreasing temperature until it gets frozen.
Thanks for the correction. I see this is a factor that retards the development of sea ice because it tends to sink before freezing.
Charlie A says:
September 20, 2011 at 2:26 pm
“Is it necessarily true that there cannot be heat transfer from the surface to the deep ocean without being observed by the Argo system?”
A good old Troll try, Charlie, but we all know the burden of proof is on you. Otherwise, we would find trolls asking people to prove that manmade CO2 isn’t just darn hot stuff that heats the atmosphere directly.
Ever notice the media only report on the lack of warming when they hear what they think is a plausible explanation eg. aerosols, heat hiding in ocean.
Such as study cannot “reveal” anything. It can and does help define a hypothesis. “the deep ocean has warmed several degress over the last century.” Assuming arguendo that “several degrees” is in fact quantified, this is now testable and falisifiable. This is the first step in the scientific process. No on to step two: gather data which supports or disproves the hypothesis. Step three: other scientists (with no vested interest in the proof or disproof of the hypothesis) replicate the result (or fail to) using independent means.
Well said.
A quantifiable radiative inbalance is the core prediction of the Forcings Model/Theory of the climate.
Until we have measurements that conclusively show the radiative inbalance and where the heat gain is going, the Forcing Theory can not be said to be established as a viable theory of the climate.
The claim the ‘science is settled’ is simply false.
The “Deep Ocean” seems to be the new Aether of XXI century.
“Surely, I mean surely, highly intelligent people wouldn’t even dream of pulling the wool over the eyes of other highly intelligent people with utter tosh like this?”
They say they have enough temperature history for the last 150 years to determine 0.x Cº degree precision and even people here believe them.
They say that “earth temperature” can be measured and people here believe them.
JaneHM says:
September 20, 2011 at 1:10 pm
“MattN
I watched ‘The Day After Tomorrow” over the weekend and the hero of that film is a paleoclimate climate modeller. Their work is very important.”
Is that the one where they are using Marijuana plants and Cocoa plants for paleo-reconstructions of temperature? You know, where they discover that no matter what year they pick it is warmer than the preceding year picked?
Maybe the Joules just wait until the Argo Buoys go to sleep and then sneak by ?
Ironic thing is that one of the early proponets of the Argo system was James Hansen. Seems we needed it to measure the heat that was accumulating in the oceans. Whoops…….
Maybe the heat gets converted to coolheat and then sinks to a lower level before converting back to warmheat ?
Cheers, Kevin.
Ok, so I must have missed “Ocean Heat Retention 101″ or Thermodynamics 101”, but I thought heat rises and cold falls. Please clue me in. Thanks.
“The deep ocean would be a long-term damper of global warming, that has not been adequately discussed in the climate science community.”
Of course it hasn’t. They’re making this up as they go along. Hadn’t you noticed?
When ‘Scientists’ tell you that you have to give up your freedom and prosperity because of their Sacred Computer Models, then you’d better comply or be called ‘Denier’.
As with all Lefties, the Warmistas rely on insults and epithets, being much like 5-yr olds in their touching belief in the power of labels to conquer all.
Don’t you know you’re supposed to cower and shut up when they unleash their mighty rhetorical thunderbolts?
How dare you hold a non-Team opinion! Surely there lurks in your wallet a check from the E-ville Oil Companies, for no rational person could ever be a Denier, therefore you’re a wicked wretch!
(sarc/off)
Well if the new thinking is temperature rise is “on hold” because of energy entering the deep ocean (even if that is not actually reflected in any data outside of Alice in Wonderland models) that opens up possibility that last century warming was due to the reverse effect.
They may not realise it yet but they are getting closer to understanding.
I’ll get Kevie a 16 ft skiff. Somebody get him about 4 miles of thermocouple wire.
The boy needs to get off of his hindquarters and go measure this stuff.
He needs to put up or shut up.
Hey at least there is some entertainment value here. Just think, we are living through a fascinating time much like the stonewalling and then contortions of the ether theory in physics–only it’s happening now with trillions of dollars of public and private economic waste being applied to the science/policy/cultural fiasco and with a great recesssion under way! Entertaining but sad to think of the waste of it all. It is the modern equivalent of global war with no real outcome except poverty and a lost generation of science and science reporting.
RE:Rolf Atkinson: (September 20, 2011 at 3:36 pm)
“Spector reckons only the Red Sea has salinity causing sinking. I think that’s an error. Where sea ice freezes, the surrounding water becomes very salty (as well as cold) and sinks to the sea bed.”
In the case above, you are talking about the impact of cooling, but in the case of this article the question is how can heated water descend through the normally more dense and heavier waters below the surface. Hot water, like hot air, usually rises.
As I recall it, there are rather hot brine pools at the bottom of the Red Sea, much warmer than the surface, (greater than 122 deg F) but this water does not rise because of the weight of the dissolved salt. So, if one could show that rapid evaporation was making the surface water so dense (from all the salt being left behind) that it could become heavier than the surrounding water, a case might be made that this super-salinity, warm surface water *might* be able to descend to the bottom. If no such super-salinity areas can be found, then this process cannot be used to explain how heat from the surface might be making it to the bottom.
Access Science
Encyclopedia Article
Red Sea
http://accessscience.com/content/Red-Sea/576200
I think we can all agree that the missing heat must be inside the lungs of all the drowned Polar Bears.
The missing heat is otherwise known as the Scarlet Pimpernel — Trenberth and the others, they seek him here and seek him there, but lo! it’s vanished again, except in his computer models. What a travesty!
I’ve been looking for missing heat, too, though not for the same reasons as Kevin T. I’ve suspected the El Niño might be powered by heat from below, and had some likely (kind of, anyway) suspects. They seem to be thinking the heat energy goes into the deep ocean and somehow comes back. Pielke Sr seems to think it bleeds back upward. Trenberth thinks it is overdue to come gushing back up. I propose that it spills out as El Niño due to some as yet undiscovered oscillatory mechanism. No, the El Niño itself – the effects we measure and experience – is not the oscillatory mechanism; it is just the effects, a transfer mechanism but not the root cause. Somehow, more heat presents during the El Niño phase, but no one has a clear idea yet where the heat comes from or what triggers it to appear near and on the surface. Why not this deep ocean heat?
Pielke Sr does have a point about us not seeing the transfer, but perhaps it is right in front of us. The excess heat during an El Niño comes from somewhere and appears to have been accumulating – just as this paper describes. Accumulating to the point of overflowing… Perhaps 2 + 2 = 4 in this case.
So, if I get the gist of what Trenberth and NCAR are saying here… They’ve built a model that shows heat being stored in a place that no other model considered. They say further, that they are right despite having no actual measurements to correlate to their model.
So that means, according to Tremberth and NCAR, that…ALL THE OTHER MODELS INCLUDING THE ONES THAT CORRELATE WITH ACTUAL MEASURED DATA….
…are wrong.
Do all the editors of all the journals that published all those papers have to resign en masse?
Why am I reminded of Iain M Banks’ Culture series of scifi novels? The sentient spaceship minds in one book amuse themselves conjuring alternative universes where they play with the laws of physics. This is called the Irreal.
I’m surprised nobody knows why the missing heat is in the depths of the ocean. It’s because the missing heat was captured and killed by Seal Team Six, and its body dumped at sea.
A quote by Stephen Hawking appears appropriate here:
“Not only does God play dice, but… he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.”
P. Solar says:
September 20, 2011 at 5:34 pm
“Well if the new thinking is temperature rise is “on hold” because of energy entering the deep ocean (even if that is not actually reflected in any data outside of Alice in Wonderland models) that opens up possibility that last century warming was due to the reverse effect.
They may not realise it yet but they are getting closer to understanding.”
Right on the money. They are beginning to understand that there are natural processes other than radiation that must be understood on their own terms and not as products of radiation. What must be understood is how the heat from radiation works its way through the natural processes. However, their first little excursion into nature is a bit of an embarrassment.
Brian H says:
September 20, 2011 at 4:46 pm
Thanks. If I had known, the metaphor would have been better.
i’m not a scientist, but i’ve observed what seems to be an increased rate of canine coitus, could the missing heat be involved ?
Say, I have misplaced my car keys. Would one of you ‘climate scientists’ be a dear and look in your computer model, and tell me where they are?
I’d look for them myself, but observing things is so much less efficient than your way.
I’m trying to get my son to take an interest in other things besides computer games.
“They’re not reality”, I tell him.
And now the BOM says they are.
We’re doomed.
At first…the physics of climate science could be understood by any second year physics student, engineering, chemistry…and G_d of course.
And then there came the computer models, and only highly trained climate scientists who could write computer simulations based on actual obervations…and G-d, could understand.
Then there came the super advanced no data required, just a super computer runnin secret code that only “The Team” and G_d could understand.
And now…we have ultra super advanced, no data required, no verification needed, no physical explanation needed… that only “The Team” can understand.
I know where that missing heat is: It’s right under their very noses.
It’s not in the land, it’s not in the atmosphere, and it’s not in the shallow or deep oceans.
Where then, could it be?
It’s in the models, or more precisely, the heat generated by thousands of processors in bank after bank of supercomputer nodes. After crunching great quantities of numbers, the cooling systems vent it to the rooms which vent it to the atmosphere which sends it into Outer Space.
I sincerely hope that, in the future, such expensive processing power will be put to use on more important issues, rather than playing perpetual grant $$ simulations.
Theo Goodwin wrote;
“What must be understood is how the heat from radiation works its way through the natural processes.”
Exactly, the “heat” becomes radiation and thereafter ceases to exist as heat. The radiation then travels at the speed of light (quite a bit speedier than the speed of heat) until it is absorbed again and becomes heat and thereafter ceases to exist as radiation.
A gas (or any material for that matter) cannot EMIT and also RETAIN a parcel/photon/bucket/quantum/package/bundle…of energy.
Hence, no warmer ocean/atmosphere/surface, only changes in the response time of the climate as “GHG’s” increase.
The gases heat up slower or faster depending on the appearance/disappearance of clouds and other weather effects. Since this change in the response/lag/delay time is MUCH less than the 24 hour period of the incoming energy no “higher equilibrium” temperature results.
Cheers, Kevin.
feet2thefire says:
September 20, 2011 at 6:49 pm
If, by comes from the Earth itself, you mean tidal energy or residual heat in the Mantle and Core of the Earth, then that is a finite source which has nothing at all to do with AGW.
RE: davidmhoffer: (September 20, 2011 at 8:51 pm)
“And now…we have ultra super advanced, no data required, no verification needed, no physical explanation needed… that only “The Team” can understand.”
Obviously a broken process. There is nothing wrong with saying you do not believe the data (to yourself) if it does not conform to your expectations. There is also nothing wrong with developing a hypothesis for the results obtained–that is part of the normal trouble shooting process. But you don’t announce that you have developed a computer program that fixes the radio before you hear it playing the NBC chimes once again. Maybe the real problem was that your one and only radio station had just gone off the air due to financial difficulties–your expectations were unrealistic.
RE: “The computer model showed the heat was in the deep ocean?”
and
RE: “If you can’t get your information with direct measurements, just make up a model and “tune” it till you get the right answer.”
Yup. Now you’ve got it. Program a computer to output results that support your theory and then use those results as proof of your theory. Simple.
I’m in the wrong business . . .
-barn
Spector;
There is nothing wrong with saying you do not believe the data (to yourself) if it does not conform to your expectations>>>
I haven’t a clue what your are saying!
They HAVE no data…so there’s no data to believe or not believe. There is only a computer program built on the assumptions of its programmers. No physical process to explain the results, no data measurements to corroborate the results…nothing.
From Dave’s rules of computers:
1. Computers do exactly what you tell them to.
Nuff said?
“There is a new paper by Gerald Meehl of NCAR…”
Now there’s a situation where using “there’s” would have been grammatically correct, and you passed it up!? Doh!
The dramatic hypotheses postulated in this new journal article are fascinating. It’s either the Fonz jumping the shark or one of those consequential discoveries that people will talk about for decades. Personally, I am betting on the shark.
“Global warming is temporarily on hold as the deep ocean currents and circulations absorb the sun’s heat before releasing it finally, scientists said on Sunday…..The last decade saw an incessant growth in greenhouse gas emissions which ideally should have increased Earth’s temperature. However, Earth’s temperature didn’t increase vastly.”
This is an amazing development. For years we heard again and again that solar influences and natural variability cannot explain post 1950’s warming. We have been told that the science unequivocally points to anthropogenic CO2 as the culprit and that CO2 correlates with recent warming better than other factors.. We have been subjected to authoritative claims that nearly all legitimate scientists agree on the facts of AGW. And, we have been required to except these facts, else we are vilified.
This paper is an own-goal on so many levels. In one swipe, core climate scientists refute their own settled science. They now admit without saying explicitly, that natural variability is important. They unapologetically point to the breakdown in correlation between Co2 rise and temperature. And, we see that by publishing this, core climate scientists now dispute their own previous findings which we’ve been assured are indisputable. Like the China sulfur emissions excuse, it is a contortion, a rewriting of reality, in order to buttress a robust, undeniable, unquestionably correct theory. The irony is thick. It would be funny if it wasn’t such a travesty.
I know where all of Kevin Trenberth’s “missing heat” has gone – it migrated to Texas this summer. Like everyone else who has come here in the last 30 years. Lol!
Merely out of curiosity I didn’t read what the various ocean levels should read – nor has anyone even suggest what each ocean level was at any point in history. Moreover there are four major “oceans” – the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean. Some consider there to be five oceans – the fifth being an ocean surrounding Antarctica called the Antarctic Ocean or Southern Ocean. Without 100 years of deep ocean heat measurements in all oceans at every 50 or even every 100 square miles of each ocean how in God’s name can anyone on planet earth even guess at exactly what is the so called normal at each ocean layer all the way to the bottom. Nor did I see any reference to the thousands of undersea volcanoes many still not known at this time in history and to what extent volcanoes play in reference to ocean heat. Nor did I find any reference to heat transfers measurements between ocean layers stretching back at minimum 100 years. And even that number is too small for historical judging of ocean heat.
To me this study is pure junk without 250 years of data I need to make an accurate judgment on any ocean heat at anytime in earth’s history.
I’m going to say it one more time, the thing that is being studiously ignored in this whole argument is SURFACE TENSION. Trenberths heat is not missing, it didn’t go into the ocean in the first place. The ocean only accepts the sun’s radiation and fends off heat at normal temperatures because of surface tension. The climate models are all nonsense’ Have a nice day’
Hi Wil
I am writing a three part series on sea levels through the ages. This first part covers the period from the Holocene to the Romans.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/12/historic-variations-in-sea-levels-part-1-from-the-holocene-to-romans/
Our sea levels are still around 30cm lower than during Roman times
tonyb
The thing thats missing in this whole argument is SURFACE TENSION. At normal temperatures the atmosphere cannot pass heat into the ocean because there is not enough heat to break down the surface tension. Trenberth’s heat is not missing, it didn’t go in in the first place. Because of surface tension the ocean only accepts the sun’s radiation not physicsl heat. For this very simple reason human induced GW is a complete nonsense.
RE: davidmhoffer: (September 20, 2011 at 10:07 pm)
“They HAVE no data…so there’s no data to believe or not believe.”
Well actually they do – This is a continuation of another topic where the first figure shows the data they have a problem accepting as valid, a set of temperature readings that refuse to rise even though there has been no abatement in the increase of CO2. They have been asking, “where has all the that extra CO2 heat gone?” So now, they have developed a computer model that says the Earth might, somehow, be subducting that heat deep down below. As reported, it seems they may be trying to say the computer model is valid because it gives them the answer they were expecting to see, before they have made any measurements to confirm that the modeled process actually exists.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/18/trenberths-missing-heat-look-to-the-deep/#more-47647
I found some of the missing heat in the sea the other day. It was in a small confined area. Most of the sea was 60 degrees C but the warm patch was around body heat.
I found some of the missing heat in the sea the other day. It was in a small confined area. Most of the sea was 60 degrees F but the warm patch was around body heat.
Since the Thermohaline circulation works on heat then any heating of the deep ocean would disrupt this vital process. I do not think this has happened.
This is a beautiful illustration of the ideas of late Karl Popper. If you don’t accept the falsification of your theory, you will harvest something without empiral content. To use the over-worked example once more. Theory: all swans are white. Observation: a black swan. Response: the observed bird is not a real swan. New theory: all real ( = white) swans are white. Theory: the earth is warming by increasing CO2 levels. Observation: the atmosphere does not warm anymore. Response: the atmosphere is not the place where real warming occurs. New theory: the earth is warming in all kind of places except for the atmosphere. As some commenters remarked, the next observation may be that the oceans are not warming. We may predict the final stage that the earth is warming in computer models only.
The answer lies in reverse fusion where heat energy condenses into heavy water and raises sea level very minutely (;>)
Please, someone, tell the Bear, it’s not true that this whole shakedown about `global warming’ is based upon geeks running simulations on computers and announcing the outputs as physical fact?
So, we have actually been taken over by the writers of the `The Big Bang Theory’?
As the Bear has said before, what in hell is the rest of the planet’s scientific community doing? Why is this crap not being denounced by scientific luminaries and professional bodies, day in and day out?
Science, in its most public form perhaps in all history has been reduced to the mentality of a bad sit-com. And the scientific community at large just sits on its arse and says nothing?
WTF?
As, according to Al, the Earth’s interior is millions of degrees, this is where the extra heat is coming from.
They found the vast area deeper than 1,000 feet (305 meters) warmed by about 18 to 19 percent more during the hiatus periods than at other times. Meanwhile, shallower global oceans above 1,000 feet warmed by 60 percent less than during non-hiatus periods in the simulation.
————————————————————————————————————————
Their Computer model had fudge factors that “found” warming by about 18 to 19 percent more during the hiatus periods….. No observations. No empirical data….. Just make believe figures displayed as an animation that gets labeled as the evidence for warming by anthropogenic sources of CO2… These mob and their bluddy models!
Obviously, it’s the 2nd law of thermo that is at fault. All that heat is going into warming the core to 6000k. And here all these years, people have been assuming it’s radioactive decay that has kept the stuff from solidifying and quenching Earth’s magnetic field protection.
now that trenberth has discovered the deep ocean has heated several degrees during the last centurty one must wonder just how much of the deep ocean was frozen solid at the beginning of the last century.
on the more serious side, I wonder how many million years longer Earth’s core will stay molten if we have a few degrees of gw to reduce the heat transfer. After all, Earth becomes uninhabitable after we lose the magnetic field…
It is encouraging to see trained, reputable climate scientists who publish in reputable peer reviewed journals being featured here. I was under the impression that Dr. Pielke was widely admired on this site, and its encouraging to see scientists with a realistic and expert understanding of climate prominently featured here. I admit I was a bit surprised the Dr. Pielke on his own blog acknowledging that CO2 emissions are contributing to climate change, and that reductions in CO2 emissions are imperative. As with virtually all scientific inquiries, much more remains to be learned about climate, but Dr. Pielke is obviously a reasonable and competent scientist who is capable of evaluating the weight of evidence and reaching rational, scientifically-based conclusions…….
“The emission of CO2 into the atmosphere, and its continued accumulation in the atmosphere is changing the climate. We do not need to agree on the magnitude of its global average radiative forcing to see a need to limit this accumulation.” — Dr. Roger Pielke.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/skeptical-climate-responses-to-my-questions-and-my-reply/#more-11103
peter stone says:
September 21, 2011 at 5:47 am
Spot on. Now, go to some Warmista sites and you will find that Dr. Pielke is reviled. Makes you think, doesn’t it? When climate science becomes scientific, it will look very much like Dr. Pielke’s work.
Well, what the warmunists have figured out (& Pielke Sr obviously hasn’t) is that CO2 warms the land much more than the ocean. That heats the continental (hot) plates, which conduct the heat to the oceans-basin floors, heating the abysmal deep water from below & bypassing the mid-depths.
Yea, that’s it, that’s the ticket.
@rbateman September 20, 2011 at 9:21 pm:
No, in fact, that is not what I was proposing. And not having to do with “AGW,” certainly, since AGW is “anthropogenic global warming.”
I proposed that the heat energy is sequestered in the ocean depths (I am not the first to suggest this), and periodically “overloads” in some way and bursts to the surface as El Niño. Then, when that process is expended, the El Niño expires, and the cycle repeats itself, with the heat energy beginning to be accumulated in the deep ocean again. Since El Niño happens at the Equator, where the energy is most concentrated, I would suggest that this may be a clue as to where the heat energy may be looked for.
That the La Niña seems to be a period when there is a lower than average total heat energy, it would follow that perhaps the energy is being “hidden” (mocking Trenberth’s term) for a while. El Niño = excess heat showing up on the surface, and La Niña = shortage of heat energy at the surface – this all sounds like a heat cycle to me, with the ocean sponging it all up and then releasing it when some trigger point is reached.
A scientist I used to work with would call this an “intuitive” speculation, one that seems logically correct, but one that would need testing. He would then suggest experiments with which to falsify it or not.
I would say it isn’t even that sound, but just a guess. But a reasonable guess, given what I have understood of what I’ve read.
So what part does carbon dioxide play in this deep ocean theory?
The same team that here demonstrate how atmospheric heat is spirited into the very deep ocean with no measured trace of its passing through the surface several hundred meter ocean layer, have also several other ground breaking papers in press finding mechanisms for processes which were previously poorly understood. Here are a couple of examples:
Trenberth et al 2012, A model simulation of nocturnal currency exchange for deciduous incisors in pre-pubertal juveniles.
[Modelling the removal of milk teeth from under pillows at night by the tooth fairy in exchange for a coin.]
Trenberth et al. 2012, A transport model of NH winter distribution of recreational artefacts from the Arctic region to urban residential environments and the forcing influence of juvenile moral conduct on this process.
[Modelling the delivery of Christmas presents by Father Christmas and the elves to good boys and girls.]
Wait, the model “finds” the heat at 1000 FEET? Doesn’t Argos measure down to 2000 meters (aka something over 6,000 FEET)? It is clear this has already been falsified by real world measurement. If the deep Argos dataset had shown an increase, the AGW publications would have trumpeted to the heavens the news. – Unless they really have stopped looking at empirical data and only gaze into their computer models, in which case it really is worse than we thought.
“They found the vast area deeper than 1,000 feet (305 meters) warmed by about 18 to 19 percent more during the hiatus periods than at other times. Meanwhile, shallower global oceans above 1,000 feet warmed by 60 percent less than during non-hiatus periods in the simulation.” We are supposed to believe that the oceans are like a ‘queen size’ electric blanket, with ‘his ‘n hers’ separate ocean temperature controls….. and someone named ‘Hiatus’ switches the deep heating on and off.
Piffle-rot… They didn’t ‘find’ anything physical and verify it by measurement. Their pet computer model simulated this ‘possibility’, after sufficient training. A trained computer model produces chimeric scenarios, global warming maps drawn from fanciful Yamal proxies blended with Meehl’s mystic deep heating rub and labeled with dire warnings from the settled liturgy “Here Be Dragons! Woe Unto All Who Travel Herein!”
If they didn’t physically measure it, it’s still missing… or doesn’t existent. Show us empirical temperature data from existing sensor buoy arrays, showing the ‘deep warming’ that supports your hypothesis. Then they can claim to have ‘found’ something relevant. Anything less is just baseless ‘guessing’.
The best face that could be put on this would be to say that they are not announcing a result, but establishing probable cause for a grant to fund on-site marine research to study deep-ocean thermal transfer processes.
Mac the Knife says: “They didn’t ‘find’ anything physical and verify it by measurement. Their pet computer model simulated this ‘possibility’, after sufficient training.”
Thanks, this summarise it, pretty nicely.
@Steve Garcia says:
September 20, 2011 at 6:49 pm
“…Somehow, more heat presents during the El Niño phase, but no one has a clear idea yet where the heat comes from or what triggers it to appear near and on the surface. Why not this deep ocean heat?…”
Are you kidding? We do see Trenberth’s deep ocean heat, when El Nino surface waters retreat back to the Indonesian warm pool. We call this manifestation of deep, submerged heat “La Nina.”
Seriously, some people sucking at the teat of Government need to be fired and banned from ever again receiving any government largesse. This article (and the press release they allowed to precede it) is an embarrassment. Someone above suggested fraud – yes I think so, but that would have to be proven in a court of law. Incompetence is written all over this work.
I don’t know if this was mentioned but if the heat was transferred to the deep ocean, wouldn’t the sea level stay the same instead of dropping? I’ve read that one of the results of a warming sea is that it expands a little causing a sea level rise.
Seems to me that the oceans are cooling because they not only can’t find the heat, the sea levels have dropped in the last few years.
If the oceans are storing heat, then the water expands. Sea levels must rise. If sea levels aren’t rising, oceans are not gaining heat. Unless Trenberth can show all of us that sea levels are rising, the oceans do not have “hidden” heat.
Logically, the 0-700 metre ocean has to continue warming even in the scenario they are talking about. Why is it flat in this scenario while it wasn’t before. It is not a physically-explainable scenario.
——-
But it is possible for deep ocean heat accumulation to escape the Argo floats measuring in the 0-2000 metre range. Effectively this is only under the sea ice where Argo is not operating (everywhere else is completely covered and the latest Argo maps even shows they are covering the Antarctic sea ice pretty well but I don’t think this was the case earlier – but they are not covering the Arctic sea ice area).
So the bottomwater formation temperature under and next to the sea ice could be occuring at 0.0C in the last few years while it was previously occuring at -0.5C. This water sinks straight down right to the bottom at 4500 metres (eventually, more than a decade).
Just looking at the numbers that are available, Ocean SSTs and ocean temperatures under the sea ice looks to be exactly the same level they were before. Tenths of degree makes a difference here because the (down to 200 metre) Arctic ocean (when it is liquid) seems to always be just above the freezing mark at -1.4C or -1.0C. The deep ocean next to Antarctica at 4500 metres deep is the same -0.4C it has always been.
Data and facts are obviously needed here. I can build you a model showing anything.
This seems to be like one of those locked room murder mysteries. Hypothetically, it seems to me like a better case may be made for saying this assumed extra heat, may have been radiated back into outer space from the Arctic Ocean as it freezes in the winter.
Perhaps arctic sea ice begins to melt from the bottom up, when average ocean surface temperatures reach a certain point, and from then on these temperatures can rise no higher until all this ice is melted. It appears that ‘peak melt’ happens just before the sun goes down in September. Of late, there seems to have been a general increase in the ice melted in the summer.
This melting leaves a large area of open water that can easily radiate heat directly out in to space, thus rapid freezing can occur in the clear arctic night. Maximum arctic ice extent is typically in March and this level has been relatively constant over the decade. Also, most of this ice remains in place while the sun is relatively high above the horizon to reflect incoming sunlight. So the arctic melt-freeze cycle *may* be a mechanism for keeping the Earth cool.
Of course, on closer examination we may find the room was empty in the first place.
feet2thefire says at 10:33 am:
“I would say it isn’t even that sound, but just a guess. But a reasonable guess, given what I have understood of what I’ve read.”
I’m sorry but you have not included demonic carbon dioxide in your theory hence it is immediately falsified and you are forevermore banned from the brotherhood of climate “science.” Begone, blasphemer.
/sarc
Imagine, if you will, a multitude of deep-frozen mammals with perfectly preserved viruses that humans have not been exposed to for quite some time. There are compounds, chemicals & microbes frozen deep under the permafrost. Some of these items, humans have never been exposed to, or such a great time has passed since our species had exposure to these items, that when the permafrost is gone; we may most likely perish, quite rapidly! You don’t have to be a college professor, post-graduate outre even a scientist to comprehend this concept. You merely require a beautiful mind with a complimentary imagination to go with it. Intellect, rational or a political agenda shall not stop the laws of the universe in motion. I only wish we had the spiritual maturity to have foreseen that, devoting all our fossil fuels years ago, to wit: Building 2-3,000 foot for solar collectors made from epoxy/nano-carbon reinforced concrete. Carma dictates we rent put the North side to bankers, investors, lawyers & insurance companies. For times when cloudy skies prevail; 35*70 foot ceramic storage discs, spinning at 5,000 R.P.M on nearly frictionless axis points -should do the trick, without those nasty lithium batteries! But, of course, we are a short-sighted species…so -w toil still yet, with our fossil fields & have little to show for all our vanity. But, I, digress.