Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Following on my previous post, “Jason and the Argo Notes”, just a couple of graphs in passing:
Figure 1. Argo surface temperatures, northern hemisphere. Colors show the latitude of the floats, from red at the Equator to blue in the north. Click on image for full size version. UPDATE: several readers pointed out that the x-axis is years, not “Latitude” as it is incorrectly labeled.
Figure 2. Argo surface temperatures, southern hemisphere. Colors show the latitude of the floats, from red at the Equator to blue in the south. Click on image for full size version.
Lots of interesting stuff there. I note that in the northern hemisphere, you can see how the limit on the ocean temperature affects the areas a bit further away from the equator (yellow and green). Those it only clips in the summer, while at the equator it affects temperatures for much of the year.
Also, the shape of the annual swings is interesting. The high temperature in the summer comes to a sharp peak and drops quickly, while the winters drop and change slowly, leading to a rounded shape.
Always more to learn,
w.
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AJ:
“I’d also expect to see an increase in the salinity in the deep tropics and a decrease in the mid-latitudes”
I hate it when I have to call myself out. I’d expect to see an increase in salinity in the tropics, but with a long term persistent upward trend in convection, shouldn’t I also see an increase in salinity in the mid-latitudes as well?
Surely under cloudless skies the trade winds will evaporate strongly, increasing salinity. However under the ITCZ Cu-nim belt, Willis’s thermal governor, the evaporated water returns in a narrowish band, so rainfall reduces salinity.
A salinity index between the cu-nim band and the higher salinities either side would indicate how strongly the cu-nim thermal governor had been working.
Willis if those graphs you show are a true representation of the argo data in easy to see form they show a decline in the oceans temperature over the entire planet. Your graphs have a slope down in all latitudes, so much for the hidden heat it must be hiding on the dark side of the moon.
Willis; I think this may be of interest for You:
Look at http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/ofs/viewer.shtml?-natl-temp-0-small-rundate=latest
See temperature and depth down to >1000 m box by box.
West of north Africa are the ocean well mixed down to 1000 meter. Nearly same temperature as the surface. Not as cold as if cold water is upwelling as west of south Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upwelling
It looks to me as the water is mixed by high salinity surface water sinking.
Why could otherwise the temperature be so high 1000 meter down in a otherwise cold ocean?
To me is this a salinity driven deepwater formation which is not mentioned at all in classic Thermohaline circulation theory. As if dry Sahara air increase ocean salinity and make the surface water to sink.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation
And by the way, is this the missing heat? http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Mixing_Sea_and_River_Water
😉
If this is a dumb question I apologize. But would it not relate better to the world we are used to by turning it upside down so north (blue) is up and the equator (red) is down?
Why has Arctic been behaving badly?
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/EAA.htm
Likely cause may be volcanic ash deposits on the Arctic ice.
I reckon wayne Job is right. I’ll have to go read Part 1 to see if you already pulled out the trends in lat bands/bins.
>
Also, the shape of the annual swings is interesting. The high temperature in the summer comes to a sharp peak and drops quickly, while the winters drop and change slowly, leading to a rounded shape.
>
Notable feature (along with general trend of any isotherm to migrate towards the equator).
This could looked at in terms of feedback.
The primary driver (annual variation in insolation) is sinusoidal. 12m at high lat. 6m at equator. Two off-set, superimposed 12m cycles are visible in SH plot.
The asymmetry you note is more marked in NH where there is less thermal inertia (more land).
The narrowing of the warm side of the cycle could be the effect of a negative feedback to increased temperature. A feedback that is not symmetrical in lower than average temp.
Evaporation could be a part of this. The asymmetry is probably because warm water floats and cold water sinks.
This asymmetry provides a mechanism whereby El Nino/Nina cycles can capture solar energy into the climate system.
mid lat swings in NH seem c. 20K , twice that of SH.
Since everyone is offering suggestions: I would love to see the data presented by Ocean – eg, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, Indian, etc…
Eyeballing/rulering: NH getting slightly warmer, SH getting slightly cooler (max and mins).
Fuzz is is the +/-, visible, not 1000th of a degree. Can the fuzz be eliminated statistically, or just quantified, and if so, what is it?
Does not the inexactitude of originating data provide the top end error of subsequent manipulations and “corrections”? What sort of corrections or adjustments are appropriate or defensible?
Your split by hemisphere only needs proportionality of globe and comparison with GISTemp for same latitude band to determine required land-only portion for GISTemp to be consistent with ARGO data. Wish I could do this, but I can’t.
The cross-correlation of data-parts with GISTemp merged data strikes me as the easiest way to show that adjustments and “corrections” in the GISTemp computers are excessive and distorted. If you can’t take the pieces and combine them in a whole that is identical to the alleged whole, then you know you have a problem of generalization.
In Superfreakonomics, the authors demonstrate that statistical interpretation of the human species can be bizarre, by saying that the average human being has one breast and one testicle. The average Earth temperature, I suspect, is similarly non-real. There are places that are warming and those that are cooling, but it is neither global nor meaningful as a linear CO2 result.
Steve from Rockwood says:
February 10, 2012 at 4:43 pm
Yes, years.
w.
AFPhys says:
February 11, 2012 at 10:27 am (Edit)
Dang … so would I … but then there’s my day job, and my monkey mind is always going “Ooooh, shiny!” about something new and interesting …
Right now I’m looking at the ~ 30°C limit to the ocean temperatures, and how it plays out. I’ll post more as they come off of the presses …
w.
Willis, if I remember correctly, once you asked (Climate Etc) what causes annual atmospheric CO2 variation. I think it’s the annual SST variation. Maybe you find something in the ARGO data.
How many latitude bands, and what are they? Looks like 6: 0-10, 10-20, 50-60.
My compliments on the graphs. much information, informatively displayed.
Again I have to say: Absolutely brilliant illustrations. Willis I really understand how thrilling it must be to generate these graphic. Not without irony that the far best graphical illustrations of Argo data is shown on WUWT, and carried out by scientist not hired by the Argo project.
K.R.Frank
moderator, thanks.
Please disregard my earlier post.
Long-term, all the salts on the continents are headed for the oceans, so all ocean salinities are increasing. Every once in a while the Med gets cut off and dries out, and lays down a layer of salt which is subtracted from the total, tho’. 😉