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.
“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.