A new paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters describes how the oceans have warmed only 0.09°C over the last 55 years, from 1955-2010. Don’t let the red line fool you, read on.
Key Points
- A strong positive linear trend in exists in world ocean heat content since 1955
- One third of the observed warming occurs in the 700-2000 m layer of the ocean
- The warming can only be explained by the increase in atmospheric GHGs
That last bullet point makes me cringe a bit, because I seriously doubt the resolution of this study down to hundredths of degrees seeing the sort of measurements mess we’ve seen in the surface network. Nonetheless, even if the resolution is low, there’s little trend.
At the Hockey Schtick they write about Trenberth’s missing heat:
According to the authors, this resulted in a sea level rise of 0.54 mm per year [only 2.12 inches per century] and corresponds to 0.39 Watts per square meter of the ocean surface. However, the IPCC claims the increase in CO2 from 1955-2010 ‘should’ have warmed the oceans by 1.12 Watts per square meter [5.35*ln(389.78/312) = 1.12 W/m2].
Thus, even if one assumes all ocean warming is due to increased greenhouse gases, the IPCC has exaggerated climate sensitivity to CO2 by a factor of almost 3 times [1.12/0.39]. [This is why Trenberth can’t find his “missing heat“-it never existed in the first place]. In reality, greenhouse gases cannot warm the oceans at all because they radiate infrared which only penetrates the surface of water a few microns to cause evaporative cooling.
Here’s the paper:
World ocean heat content and thermosteric sea level change (0–2000 m), 1955–2010
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 39, L10603, 5 PP., 2012
doi:10.1029/2012GL051106
S. Levitus – National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
J. I. Antonov -UCAR Project Scientist, National Oceanographic Data Center, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
T. P. Boyer -National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
O. K. Baranova – National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
H. E. Garcia -National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
R. A. Locarnini – National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
A. V. Mishonov -National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
J. R. Reagan – National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
D. Seidov – National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
E. S. Yarosh – National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
M. M. Zweng -National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
Abstract:
We provide updated estimates of the change of ocean heat content and the thermosteric component of sea level change of the 0–700 and 0–2000 m layers of the World Ocean for 1955–2010. Our estimates are based on historical data not previously available, additional modern data, and bathythermograph data corrected for instrumental biases. We have also used Argo data corrected by the Argo DAC if available and used uncorrected Argo data if no corrections were available at the time we downloaded the Argo data. The heat content of the World Ocean for the 0–2000 m layer increased by 24.0 ± 1.9 × 1022 J (±2S.E.) corresponding to a rate of 0.39 W m−2 (per unit area of the World Ocean) and a volume mean warming of 0.09°C.
This warming corresponds to a rate of 0.27 W m−2 per unit area of earth’s surface. The heat content of the World Ocean for the 0–700 m layer increased by 16.7 ± 1.6 × 1022 J corresponding to a rate of 0.27 W m−2 (per unit area of the World Ocean) and a volume mean warming of 0.18°C. The World Ocean accounts for approximately 93% of the warming of the earth system that has occurred since 1955. The 700–2000 m ocean layer accounted for approximately one-third of the warming of the 0–2000 m layer of the World Ocean. The thermosteric component of sea level trend was 0.54 ± .05 mm yr−1 for the 0–2000 m layer and 0.41 ± .04 mm yr−1 for the 0–700 m layer of the World Ocean for 1955–2010.
Additional figures:
… and there I thought that solar radiation heated the oceans … didn’t know that an almost unnoticeable bit of CO2 in the air could heat the ocean that much and to that depth ! Clearly I’m not a ‘climate scientist’ … hard logic was my science.
Hmmm, let me see. The heat capacity of the oceans is some three orders of magnitude greater than that of the atmosphere. Yup. The tail wagging the dog.
Trenberth has not done anything to improve his self-damaged his credibility with this.
When do we reach a point that we ignore all these so called researchers or scientists? I am just about to that point. It’s always the case where they seem to have to say” man caused warming” or they won’t get their grants or “atta boys.” They must play along or they’re toast.
What a bunch of phoey!
Huh. Another one bites the dust. Seriously, isn’t it about time they just quit this nonsense?
The Schtick is wrong to assume all the CO2 forcing has to go into ocean heat content. The amount that ends up there is a by-product of the surface heating that balances the forcing change. A non-mixing ocean could achieve equilibrium with almost no heat content increase, just a shallow warming layer. Therefore it is expected that the heat content increase is less than the forcing increase.
So during a time when solar output was high, especially concentrated in the UV that penetrates a few hundred feet into the ocean, they found more heat in the first few hundred feet of the ocean? But not much…
I’d guess that now that the sun is taking a nap and UV has fallen off a cliff the upper layers of the ocean will be cooling.
So…. about 20 years someone will ‘discover’ this and write a paper?
The heat content of the World Ocean for the 0–2000 m layer increased by 24.0 ± 1.9 × 1022 J
For people not familiar with J, 24 x 10^22 J = 24 x 10^22 J/6.3 x 10^13 J/Hiroshima unit = 3.8 x 10^9 Hiroshima units.
But 400,000 x 365.24 x 55 = 8.0 x 10^9 Hiroshima units! Is there some missing heat after all?
Two thousand meters is the greatest depth of the mixed layer in the in the oceans. The mixed layer is the inverted oceanic equivalent of the troposphere. Like the troposphere its thickness varies considerably with latitude and it thins towards the poles. Like jet streams in the atmosphere, ocean currents create shear zones that amplify the mixing.
Since IR can only penetrate water a few angstroms and UV maybe 30m (again like the atmosphere depending on silt, phytoplankton, and chemistry), warming of the oceans below 30m must be by mixing.
The critical question becomes: what is causing that molecule thick cooling of the ocean surface? Is it evaporation or radiation? Latent heat of vaporization energy could theoretically come from either the air or the water. Radiative transfer would be from water to air. Likely both but in what proportion?
Kind of a weird venturi effect affecting 70% of the earth’s surface.
The heat’s still missing? Has he tried passing our “Have You Seen This Heat?” flyers at the mall?
Levitus’ claim that “The warming can only be explained by the increase in atmospheric GHGs” is based on the presumption that the only solar effect on climate is the tiny forcing from changes in TSI. Even though ocean warming is well below their hindcasts, this warming is still bigger than can be explained by the tiny TSI effect, ergo it HAS to be due to CO2. Just ignore that mountain of evidence that Levitus and his pals keep leaving out of the IPCC reports that shows solar variation to have a much bigger effect on climate than can be accounted for by TSI.
This is why I don’t trust his very thinly sourced deep ocean data, or much else with his name on it. If he’ll cover up the most important data in one area he’ll do it anywhere.
Many sceptics have argued that the place to look for global warming – ie the only place that counts – is the ocean. Now we have a figure for the warming – less than a tenth of a degree over 55 years. At that rate, it will take over 1,000 years for Earth’s temperatures to increase by the 2 degrees that we are supposed to restrict it to. We will run out of fossil fuels long before then, so now, at last, can we say with absolute certainty that there is nothing to worry about“?
“In reality, greenhouse gases cannot warm the oceans at all because they radiate infrared which only penetrates the surface of water a few microns to cause evaporative cooling.”
Ocean is not still and there is enough mixing in the upper layer to prevent all of this energy being lost to evaporation. GHGs probably aren’t the whole picture but by dismissing them like that means refusing part of the reality.
Attributing the climate change to GHGs is part of the common ritual necessary to get your paper published, however unrelated your paper to GHGs is. I wouldn’t give it any but religious purposes.
LOL. I wonder when snow fall and extended winters will be attributed to AGW. ……Oh wait.
So maybe sea temps are falling because the atmosphere is warming?
(Await the next brilliant paper)
E.M. Smith,
No. First they will discover that the ocean is cooling, and will issue “adjusted” figures to show continuing warming. That’s paper No.1 – it will conclude with “more research is needed”.
Paper No.2 will discover that the ocean is still cooling, and the “adjustment” can’t be stretched to obscure the drop in temperature. Instead they will blame Climate Change (or Disruption) and conclude “more research is needed”.
Paper No. 3 will agree that the oceans aren’t warming and that the exaggerated effects of carbon dioxide were plainly wrong and poor science. This will only happen after the present lot have retired (preferably from running out of money from gullible politicians) and a new lot will explain where they went wrong and conclude that “more research is needed”.
This is, of course, not a prediction, only a projection so I don’t have to sarc off.
I’d like to remind you of this year old article by Dr. Spencer:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/07/oh-the-insensitivity-more-on-ocean-warming-1955-2010/
Dr. Spencer’s result:
“Furthermore, 30% of the total heat pumped into the ocean by the model is below 700 meters deep.”
Paper:
“One third of the observed warming occurs in the 700-2000 m layer of the ocean”
I’d call it a perfect match.
The warming can only be explained by the increase in atmospheric GHGs
======
That statement assumes the author knows everything there is to know about warming. That there is nothing on earth or in the heavens that affects warming that the author is not aware of.
So, tell us about clouds. What makes water vapor clump up into clouds, leaving areas of low humidity between the clouds? Why is the water not well mixed in the atmosphere? Since water droplets in the air are all like charged, they should repel each other, causing the clouds to disperse. Water should be well mixed in the atmosphere, but it isn’t. Why?
This is a very fundamental question about the behavior of water in the atmosphere. The most significant greenhouse gas by far, and climate science is unable to explain or predict the most fundamental behavior of clouds.
Yet they claim they know what caused the warming. They know it cannot be the clouds, because they don’t understand clouds, so the clouds can’t be the cause. Only something they understand can be the explanation.
“….and a volume mean warming of 0.09°C.” This is already just insignificant, but 0.09°C +/- what? What’s the margin of error? Is this 0.09°C noise?
One climate scientist to another: What do we do nnow? Do we pack up, go home and go on the dole?
This “missing heat” question has been raised a number of times before – 0.7 x 10^22 Joules per year. What does it represent? In terms of energy of carbon combustion or the reverse, i.e. conversion of CO2 to carbon by photosynthesis (in sunlight), this represents the combustion of 210 Gt of carbon per year, being the same figure as on page 81 of Bob Carter’s book, “Climate: the Counter Consensus,” for the annual natural carbon flux (or turnover). Apart from the much smaller fossil fuel generated CO2, the annual flux is the total CO2 produced from exhalation by animals breathing, biomass decomposition, ocean warming and other processes, and then converted back to carbon compounds in plants, etc. by photosynthesis (i.e. using sunlight), which includes phytoplankton, etc., in the oceans. .
Is this significant? Or a coincidence? It may be that the ocean biota consume much more CO2 and energy than estimated and with it the ‘missing heat’ ?
Alex the skeptic;
One climate scientist to another: What do we do nnow? Do we pack up, go home and go on the dole?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Of course not. We just build a model showing that the heat is a sinister, brooding, monster, collecting itz strength while hiding away somewhere secret, awaiting itz time to leap out, unannounced, to lay havoc about the entire planet. Where is this secret lair where the super villain CAGW is hiding, plotting itz attack?
We need to pick someplace where there is no way to make any measurements, no way to verify that we’re just making it up…. hey! How about in the depths of the ocean below the depth we can measure with the Argo buoys….
Oh wait, Trenberth already tried that one and looked like a fool when he couldn’t explain how it got there without going past the Argo buoys on the way. We shouldn’t make that mistake. How about itz gone into melting of ice? No, wait, the ice is recovering, that won’t work. I know! Increased storm energy. Well, no, the cyclone index is way down, not up. Like I said, we need something that can’t be verified so we can string out the gravy train another decade.
I know! We’ll claim is is in Swiss bank accounts held by Gaia. They’ll NEVER figure out how to verify that. The Swiss won’t confirm one way or the other, they are NEUTRAL! That’ll leave everyone guessing!
“The heat content of the World Ocean for the 0–700 m layer increased by 16.7 ± 1.6 × 1022 J corresponding to a rate of 0.27 W m−2 (per unit area of the World Ocean) and a volume mean warming of 0.18°C. ”
My estimate made three years ago was 0.15°C. Not bad considering the vagueness of the XBT/ARGO splice.
This study confirms that the ocean retains heat on long timescales. That confirms that the long period in the C20th when the solar activity level was higher than the long term average over the period of record from 1749 has a lot more to do with global warming than minor changes in minor atmospheric constituents.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/nailing-the-solar-activity-global-temperature-divergence-lie/
The principle issue to be addressed is the linkage between solar activity and cloud amount in the areas that matter in terms of insolation. The reduction in low level tropical cloud measured by ISCCP from ~1980-1998 confirms that sunshine hours over the oceans are the important metric. Sunshine hours correlate with temperature far more closely than co2.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/doug-proctor-climate-change-is-caused-by-clouds-and-sunshine/
The other issue is TOA energy balance. We need to know about energy levels leaving the planet as well as arriving at its surface.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/working-out-where-the-energy-goes-part-2-peter-berenyi/
Conclusions.
The ‘missing heat’ is somewhere past Alpha Centauri by now.
The ARGO data is being fudged to show continued increase in ocean heat content. The Satellite altimetry is calibrated to the co2 driven theory instead of actual measurements made by tide gauges.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/sea-level-scare-stories-simply-scandalous/
Wake me up when the headline reads “Earth Warms Sun”.
The search for the missing heat is an epic quest. It could be hiding just about anywhere, under some rock, in the oceans, or even being misplaced by some evil industrialist inside of an ivory keyboard. Whatever the cause, never doubt for a second that it exists! Just like other famous quests, you must believe!
The quest must go on and on and on…and yes….
just like that corny song, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfUYuIVbFg0 (Journey) You must never stop believing. So yes, Trenberth, keep on searching for your missing heat on that epic quest. Just like other fools who searched for something that did not exist and people told them that it did not exist, you will go down in history as a fool, but like I said and like that song shows you, never stop believing, because who really wants to stop their epic quest to find the holy grail or to find the fountain of youth?
Fame and glory will be yours if you find it. But if you do not, the quest will probably kill you. And in the meantime, the same old nonsense is repeated on and on over and over again.
Will the epic quest of the missing heat ever be finished? Well, one possibility I think is more likely then “deep down in the oceans” is Aerosmith. (If no one has looked at their summer tour poster, it fits with this nicely which I wrote up on my blog….) – Global warming indeed huh?
There is your missing heat, the “evil band” Aerosmith sucked it all up and is going to deliver it all this Summer on their tour. Never stop believing…..because your epic quests are always worth the time, toil and tears and heartache.
– Do I really need to add a sarc tag to this? but shrug, there it is. /Sarc
Bill Tuttle says:
May 16, 2012 at 10:10 pm
“The heat’s still missing? Has he tried passing our “Have You Seen This Heat?” flyers at the mall?”
that would make a good billboard for HI.
davidmhoffer
You read it here first, but I suspect that in AR5 Trenberths missing heat in the abyssal depths will be taken as established fact. Why do I think that?
I was an ‘expert reviewer’ on the Ar5 draft.
In the chapter on sea levels and temperatures was a piece saying that research showed this abyssal warming was well established.
When I asked for this piece of research the IPCC told me I needed a citation from the draft and they would supply it. After a lot of toing and froing over what was only an assertion but not a citation (with a reference number) they said that without a citation they couldn’t supply the established research. But as it was merely an assertion without a citation I couldnt of course give the citation and correponding reference number….This went on for a month. So expect to see this abyssal warming as an established fact.
tonyb
The preprint version of the paper is available through the NODC website here:
http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat12.pdf
The heat capacity of the oceans [defined as the [heat] energy J needed to raise temperature by 1 K] is ~1100 times that of the atmosphere.
I have never owned a Ferrari and i want to know where my missing Ferrari is.
When i was a little boy growing up on a farm i was well aware that the weather had a lot to do with sunshine and clouds. By the time i was about 12yrs old i understood that climate was all about the consistent presence and ratio (over time) of these two elements of nature. After hundreds of hours of reading, here and elsewhere i think i had it about right at 12 years of age.
@davidmhoffer
“…We need to pick someplace where there is no way to make any measurements, no way to verify that we’re just making it up…. hey! How about in the depths of the ocean below the depth we can measure with the Argo buoys….”
In my time I have worked extensively for governments. These sophisticated bureaucracies know a lot about how to hide information. All sorts of excuses can be raised – technical, political, legal, and finally, when your back is to the wall, security.
I suggest that we go straight to ‘security’. Now that the Eastern Bloc threat is dead, and the Mid-Eastern terrorist threat is waning, I see that the military are starting to incorporate Global Warming in their justifications for new spend. Great! What we do is incorporate the climate change workers into NSA and all their research immediately becomes ‘intelligence’ – which, of course, is heavily classified.
Problem solved…
If a specified fraction of rising sea levels is attributable to thermal expansion of the oceans, then the heat entering the oceans must be already known and quantified. By definition.
How then, could somebody [who took such a view] be also of the opinion that there must be some extra heat in the oceans? It seems like a logical self-contradiction to me. Is there something I am missing? Or does Trenberth not himself make any claims about sea-level changes?
TonyB’s comment is of note.
If the missing heat is to be found in the deep oceans then perhaps that’s where the missing sea level rise is as well. Someone’s been pumping all the excess sea water down to the bottom, sorted.
Alec Rawls says:
May 16, 2012 at 10:39 pm
///////////////////////////////////////////
Yes, but also clouds.
To claim that the extra heat can ONLY be due to GHGs one would have to know the precise extent of cloud cover over the oceans. A slight change in the extent of cloud cover (including a slight change in the time of formation) could theoretically explain the observed warming.
We do not have data with sufficient resolution to rule out changes in cloud cover as an explanation for the observed warming.
In this uncertain world, how I hate seeing that this or that can ONLY be explained by X. Heck anyone would think that we know and understand everything when quite clearly we do not.
tallbloke says:
May 17, 2012 at 12:32 am
That confirms that the long period in the C20th when the solar activity level was higher than the long term average over the period of record from 1749 has a lot more to do with global warming
And especially this must hold also for the long periods of higher than average activity in the 1740s, 1780s, 1830s, 1870s, 1950s, and 1990s [ http://www.leif.org/research/Sunspots-1700-present.png ], that then would be responsible for the global warming at those times…
gymnosperm says:
May 16, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Two thousand meters is the greatest depth of the mixed layer in the in the oceans. The mixed layer is the inverted oceanic equivalent of the troposphere. Like the troposphere its thickness varies considerably with latitude and it thins towards the poles. Like jet streams in the atmosphere, ocean currents create shear zones that amplify the mixing.
Since IR can only penetrate water a few angstroms and UV maybe 30m (again like the atmosphere depending on silt, phytoplankton, and chemistry), warming of the oceans below 30m must be by mixing.
The critical question becomes: what is causing that molecule thick cooling of the ocean surface? Is it evaporation or radiation? Latent heat of vaporization energy could theoretically come from either the air or the water. Radiative transfer would be from water to air. Likely both but in what proportion?
Kind of a weird venturi effect affecting 70% of the earth’s surface.
In answer to your critical question:
What is causing that molecular thick cooling of the ocean surface? Evaporation. While the vapor pressure of the air is low enough water molecules will evaporate into the air without any need for external application of heat. Indeed this will even happen when it is cold – as in ‘lake effect snow’. The evaporation raises the water content of the air immediately above the water surface and, as moist air is lighter than dry air (the molecular weight of H2O is significantly less than either N2 or O2), the humid surface air will rise to be replaced by drier air). As the water molecules leave they take their energy – the latent heat of vaporization- with them. So the latent heat of vaporization comes from the water without radiative transfer. All externally applied IR will do is excite the molecules on the water surface that are close to escape energy and allow them to escape (i.e. become water vapor) earlier. Thus application of a low amount of IR at the right frequency can cool the surface layer of molecules as the surface molecules with the most energy /motion receive just enough extra energy to leave the surface and become vapor molecules, leaving behind those without sufficient energy to escape – the cooler molecules.
For people like Kashua – Importantly, this means that any IR energy will have an unmeasurable effect on the temperature of the water (energy of the molecules below the surface) as the excited molecules leave taking more energy with them than has been applied.
It would be a simple enough experiment to do expose water to very low power IR of ~3 watts/ square meter in the appropriate wavelengths and measure changes in humidity above the water and the water temperature. But climate ‘science’ prefers statistics and modeled assumptions to real world experiments
The warming can only be explained by the increase in atmospheric GHGs
It makes me cringe as well.
There are 2 primary mechanisms by which the oceans can warm.
Increased solar insolation
Decreased oceanic heat loss from the surface (this is the only way GHGs and CO2 can warm the oceans)
BobTisdale’s many post show the latter isn’t happening.
Ergo, the primary cause of ocean warming is increased solar insolation.
The heat is still missing because Kevin’s theories are wrong.
Estimate the number of piano tuners in New York.
GEE, and here I thought that any CO2 molecule that made the mistake of wandering to close too the ocean got gobbled up either by the plant life or the water itself.
More seriously:
The graph of ocean depth vs wavelength: http://www.klimaatfraude.info/images/sverdrup.gif
Variability of the sun:
This is in contrast to what was happening in the solar cycles before cycle 24.
Paper: http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/Sola2-PRL_published.pdf
Another article with several references.
References for above article: http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2008-3/refs.html
In 2010 Bob Tisdale found more recent ocean heat content is flat or dropping http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/06/january-to-march-2010-nodc-ocean-heat.html
When you ignore all the information that does not fit the “Political Correct” conclusion it isn’t science it is Lysenkoism.
Isn’t there an old story about knights in shining armor looking for the holy heat?
Jimmy Haigh says:
May 17, 2012 at 12:49 am
Bill Tuttle says:
May 16, 2012 at 10:10 pm
“The heat’s still missing? Has he tried passing our “Have You Seen This Heat?” flyers at the mall?”
that would make a good billboard for HI.
—————————————————————–
Gents, these are good ideas, yes. But I think “Have you seen this heat” with a graph of reality overlaid on modelled predictions from the alarmists.
On the side of a milk carton.
The quest for the missing heat is a religious endeavour much like the quest for the holy grail.
I see some thing more akin to a Monty Python quest in all this and satire ,sarcasm, ridicule and innuendo is a better approach than trying to disprove their belief in fairies and unicorns.
It will hurt them more than trying to use science to disprove a theory that is based on belief and not facts.
SL rise, since well before this study is pretty much linear, and likely declining since 2005. SL rise is caused by thermal expansion due to warming, and melting ice. If the rate of SL rise is not increasing, but more recent SL rise is due to thermal expansion, then the rate of SL rise from melting ice must be slowing. If less ice is melting, then how is more heat getting into the oceans?
The missing heat must have not only bypassed the first 700 m of oceans, but must of bypassed all the ice above the surface, or else SL rise would be accerating, not declining.
Did climate scientist, yet again, produce a graph with no error bars? If they did produce a graph with error bars, how would they change over the couse of the study as methods of measuring changed?
If the rate of rise from 1955 to 1963 was, (as the graph shows) steeper then the rise from 1968 on, then why (among many other reasons) are they so certain CO2 was the only cause? When did the rise in OHC already occuring prior in 1955 begin?
@ Bill Tuttle
Bill Tuttle says:
May 16, 2012 at 10:10 pm
The heat’s still missing? Has he tried passing our “Have You Seen This Heat?” flyers at the mall?
—————
Good idea! Perhaps Josh could come up with a milk carton asking the same…
Wait, is the heat actually missing
if it didn’t exist in the first place?
Just askin’.
This is all very amusing – however, this should be taken very seriously. This paper and Trenberth’s ‘heat in the abyssal depths’ assumption (excuse) will (as TonyB says above) end up in AR5 which will then be used as the delivered wisdom of “thousands of the worlds top scientists and Nobel laureates”, by the politicians. This is an end-run around science and the scientific method.
“We hope to acquire additional deep ocean data from research cruises so we have opted to present results for the 0-2000 m layer.”
Perhaps this explains why there are 11 (eleven!) authors on this paper. Wonder if they’ll get to take spouses on the cruise?
I stand by my suspicion that the Koch brothers are secretly hoarding the heat, the missing sea level rise and are sneaking about widening tree rings behind the Ural mountains.
If all the heat ends up in the deep ocean, wtf is all the fuss about? How is that going to make the climate worse?
TonyB’s comment is definitely of note, Harold, and deserves a thread of its own with more info from TB.
Between cold and warm water, the ocean contains waaaayyyy more cold water. Trust me, we WANT the Sun to keep that top most layer warm (though we NEED the surface to go about its normal cooling-warming noisy cycles). Nontheless, when all that cold water gets trade-wind-whipped into the warm skin, we should get waaaayyyy more worried about the treacherous cold water that brings pain and suffering around the globe.
A long slow warming period with neutral ENSO conditions is beneficial. If those trades decide to switch to a prolonged agitated state of mind, our current bunch of climate scientists will be eating their papers for dinner. They’ll have to because food production will drop like a stone.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. The trick is to be wise enough to discern the rhetoric of these “greeners” and go with the advice of my grandme. Enjoy the sunny worry-free days but be wisely prepared for colder weather.
can’t have it both ways…..
The ocean heats up fast…..but retains that heat for a long time….and the heat is deeper
…..not
Maybe he could have it printed on to milk cartons with a time adjusted caption so that people could help him look for it?
This what the heat looked like when it went missing : HEAT
This is what the heat would look like today : heat
tonyb says:
May 17, 2012 at 12:53 am
In the chapter on sea levels and temperatures was a piece saying that research showed this abyssal warming was well established.
Not sure exactly the text you’re looking at but the most common citation concerning Abyssal warming and sea level change is Purkey & Johnson 2010a.
I assume they’d supply you with a copy with this citation, but it’s also available here: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/gcj_3w.pdf
Alex Heyworth says:
May 17, 2012 at 12:37 am
Don’t you mean when CO2 on Triton warms sun? LOL!
Santer 08 had a long impressive list of authors too. 🙂
Eleven authors. Don’t we have a rule of thumb about that?
I am wondering if a concerted exposure by WUWT and demands by readership for this research, might head it off at the pass. Whom in particular should be regaled with inquirery prior to it being written in stone (AR5). Some nudging now may be worth a whole lot of pushing later. GK
Hey, I know where the missing heat is coming from. It’s the 3,477,403 submarine volcanoes of which at least 4% being active:
http://carbon-budget.geologist-1011.net/
“Hillier & Watts (2007) surveyed 201,055 submarine volcanoes estimating that a total of 3,477,403 submarine volcanoes exist worldwide. According to the observations of Batiza (1982), we may infer that at least 4% of seamounts are active volcanoes. We can expect a higher percentage in the case of the count taken by Hillier & Watts (2007) because it includes smaller, younger seamounts; a higher proportion of which will be active.”
(well, whatever the number, maybe the active undersea volcanoes do contribute some heat)
You can see how small this is compared to what is supposed to be the accumulating forcing (and the missing energy) in this graphic from Church 2011.
Light blue is the lack of accumulation caused by volcanoes (higher than I would have thought).
Dark Blue and Red is energy accumulation in the Oceans to 2000 metres.
Light green is the tiny sliver going into ice sheets and solid land warming.
Brown is increased OLR, or increased energy escaping from the Earth.
Grey is missing / can’t be accounted for. OLR and missing is the majority.
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl1118/2011GL048794/2011gl048794-op03.jpg
A version of this which throws out the Volcanic, OLR, and missing parts is being spread across the Internet which is, of course, very misleading.
As Bob Tisdale noted above, the full text is available in preprint form from The NOAA ocean heat and salt content page, http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/ at URL http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat12.pdf .
Pielke Sr’s April 22 comments on the paper can be found at http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/comment-on-ocean-heat-content-world-ocean-heat-content-and-thermosteric-sea-level-change-0-2000-1955-2010-by-levitus-et-al-2012/
Leif said
‘And especially this must hold also for the long periods of higher than average activity in the 1740s, 1780s, 1830s, 1870s, 1950s, and 1990s
[ http://www.leif.org/research/Sunspots-1700-present.png ], that then would be responsible for the global warming at those times…’
—— ——
I have just seen your comment upon my return from searching the archves of Exeter Cathedral looking for material primarily from the 1340’s’ and 1350’s for an article I am writing..
Amonst the stuff i came across that I noted were these records;
‘ january 1740 £23 to be given to poor in consideration of the severity of the winter season
1783. Extra poor relief due to extreme cold.
Tonyb
“The warming can only be explained by the increase in atmospheric GHGs”
Ahh, the Gaian genuflect. Authors should put the crap they need to add to their papers to get thru the publishing filters and to keep their spot in good standing in inclusive academia in a different font.
Sorry, should have read:
-Light green is the tiny sliver going into ice sheets, “atmosphere” and solid land warming
“It would be a simple enough experiment to do expose water to very low power IR of ~3 watts/ square meter in the appropriate wavelengths and measure changes in humidity above the water and the water temperature. But climate ‘science’ prefers statistics and modeled assumptions to real world experiments”
Thanks, Ian W needed a science project for the kid.
PaulS
Thanks very much for that particular reference on abyssal warming but I wanted the one the IPCC used in order to try to determine its likely accuracy.(which was probably PandJ)
In AR5 Chapter 13 it was phrased thus;
‘Recent analyses have demonstrated that it is likely the abyssal (3000m) ocean is warming.’
.In order to receive a copy of the material I had to fill in a form noting;
‘Author, Title, and Journal/Source of the cited non-published paper requested. Without this information we are unable to process a request. “
As there was no reference or citation but merely an assertion, the IPCC could not provide me with the information. Classic Catch 22.
There were a number of unsupported assertions and conjecture in the Chapters I looked at which may or may not find their way into the final AR5.
tonyb
TonyB says….
Tony, I suspect this paper by Purkey & Johnson will be used by the IPCC to claim Trenberth’s missing heat is in the abyssal depths:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/gcj_3w.pdf
The Introduction could have been written by Trenberth himself. Basically, the authors looked at temperature profile data (collected via soundings takne along ship track lines) between 1980 and 2010. Analysis of the data supposedly shows an increase in ocean heat content of 0.027 (+- 0.009) W m22 applied over the entire surface of the earth. I am not fully qualified to assess the methods used in this paper, but IMHO, it appears to be long on assumptions and interpolation and short on good empirical data.
From the paper:
“High-quality temperature observations of the global deep ocean originate mostly from ship-based conductivity–temperature–depth (CTD) instruments. The international World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) Hydrographic Programme accomplished a full-depth highresolution, high-accuracy, hydrographic survey of the global ocean in the 1990s, with coast-to-coast zonal and meridional sections crossing all major ocean basins. A
key subset of these sections is being reoccupied in support of the Climate Variability and Predictibility (CLIVAR) and Carbon Cycle Science Programs, now coordinated by the international Global Ocean ShipbasedHydrographic Investigations Program(GO-SHIP).
All occupations of the repeat sections that had publicly available CTD data posted online (at http://cchdo.ucsd.edu) as of July 2010 are considered here. Thus, the dataset used for this study is an aggregate of 28 fulldepth, high-quality hydrographic sections that have been occupied two or more times between 1981 and FIG. 1. (a) Tracklines of the 28 repeated sections studied (black lines) with WOCE designators noted adjacent. Basin boundaries are
outlined (gray lines) over the depth-averaged fraction of AABW below 4000 m (color bar) after Johnson (2008). The Subantarctic Front (SAF; Orsi et al. 1995) position (magenta line) and the 4000-m isobath (thin black lines) are also shown. (b) As in (a) but a polar projection with tracklines of the nine repeated sections that extend south of the SAF plotted over the depth averaged fraction ofAABWfrom 1000 to 4000 m with the 1000-m isobath and without basin boundaries. 6338 JOURNAL OF CLIMATE VOLUME 23 2010 (Figs. 1, 2). Throughout this study sections are referred to by their WOCE identification. The first occupation of most sections was in the 1990s during WOCE with subsequent occupations, mostly during the 2000s, in support of the CLIVAR and Carbon Cycle Science Programs (Fig. 2). The nine sections with occupations prior to 1990 were sampled during the rampup toWOCEwith the earliest occupation considered here being the 1981 occupation of A05. The most recent occupation included in this study is also of A05, completed in February 2010.”
The warming can only be explained by the increase in atmospheric GHGs
the oceans have warmed only 0.09°C over the last 55 years, from 1955-2010
=========================
……I give up
Could you add a line or two to explain why the temperature and energy increase of the oceans “has” to be caused by atmospheric GHGs in the authors’ opinions, and what you find incorrect with this conclusion?
The value of all studies come down to their conclusions, not their data.
Great blobs of relatively warm abyssal waters capped indefinitely below frigid oceanic upper layers, are physically impossible. This is kindergarten stuff.
Jimmy Haigh says:
Bill Tuttle says:
May 16, 2012 at 10:10 pm
“The heat’s still missing? Has he tried passing our “Have You Seen This Heat?” flyers at the mall?”
that would make a good billboard for HI.
For some reason, I just flashed back to the old Wendy’s commercials: “Where’s the heat?”
To all those who read Tonyb’s statement and lost heart, don’t. With the increased skepticism aimed at these ‘scientists’ at this point in time, if they DO issue a report with such a disception in it, you can bet your rear end there WILL be at least a small storm on the internet about it that may even leak into mainstream media outlets. Or, in short, they will have managed to kick themselves in their own asses again, and further damaged their ’cause’ and credibility. You need not worry about liars lying after they are known as liars, because from then on all they can do is reinforce their existing reputation as liars.
tonyb says:
May 17, 2012 at 7:27 am
january 1740 £23 to be given to poor in consideration of the severity of the winter season
1783. Extra poor relief due to extreme cold.
Yeah, global warming ain’t what it used to be…
@ Pamela Gray says:
May 17, 2012 at 6:15 am
I’ll second your comment Pamela.
Those trade winds not only mix cold water with warm, they also cool the surface rapidly (rather like blowing on the surface of a cup of coffee)
You’re hoping for neutral ENSO conditions. Most models are predicting a mild to moderate El Nino within the next few months. I’m afraid we’ll be seeing a return to a mild to moderate La Nina. We’ll know for sure by the middle of July.
ferd berple says:
May 16, 2012 at 11:11 pm
Since water droplets in the air are all like charged, they should repel each other, causing the clouds to disperse. Water should be well mixed in the atmosphere, but it isn’t. Why?
Water is actually neutral but highly polar. So the oxygen end is slightly negative and the hydrogen ends are slightly positive. As a result the hydrogen end of one water molecule is attracted to the oxygen end of the next water molecule in what is known as hydrogen bonding. That is why it takes so much energy to evaporate water molecules. And that is also why water molecules in the air attract each other and why water vapor is not well mixed. Unlike all other gases, water condenses at a certain point which depends on water vapor concentration and temperature.
For much more information on the properties of water, see
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/climate2.htm#Ice_ages
So where did all those nuclear bombs go to? I thought we had 10,000 Hiroshimas an hour adding to global temperatures.
Don’t tell me they were lying, please. Like my parents telling me about Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy, I believed every word….
/sarc
This is just rubbish as rubbish goes.
Earth is cooling
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
but earth also has a store
to keep energy
so it might take some time before we see the cooling
in fact I hope cooling will be over sooner rather than later….
“The warming can only be explained by the increase in atmospheric GHGs
the oceans have warmed only 0.09°C over the last 55 years, from 1955-2010.”
There only needs to be a one pecent change in solar levels over this period directly. Nevermind how global cloud levels changed from the early 1980’s until now.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 17, 2012 at 8:34 am
tonyb says:
May 17, 2012 at 7:27 am
january 1740 £23 to be given to poor in consideration of the severity of the winter season
1783. Extra poor relief due to extreme cold.
Yeah, global warming ain’t what it used to be…
======================================================
1783……That date rings a bell for some reason.
Ding! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki
Trenberth’s missing heat is in the KT97 comic cartoon energy budget produced to create the fiction of thermal infrared heat backradiation.
Wordpress screwups prevented me from posting this on Tallblokes –
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/doug-cotton-radiated-energy-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics/
Stephen Wilde says:
February 25, 2012 at 12:04 pm
Ray Tomes said:
“More molecules absorb more heat, but NOT more heat per molecule. Temperature is heat per molecule. The argument is unsound.”
Molecules absorb more photons from the sun either directly or via conduction from the surface. The additional energy in the molecules causes increased vibration of those molecules. That vibration is known as kinetic energy. That kinetic energy generates IR longwave which is recorded as heat in a sensor designed to display the level of heat as what we call temperature.
=======
You do us a great service in bringing in real physics re ‘backradiation’, but you let us down by continuing to promote the AGWScienceFiction fisics of ‘shortwave heating the Earth’ – these shortwaves in the comic cartoon energy budget work on electronic transition levels not molecule/atomic vibrational, they are incapable of moving atoms and molecules to vibration which, as you say, is what it takes to get kinetic energy.
Why, generally to all of you working to this cartoon energy budget, are you so oblivious to the fact that this junk science fiction has completely removed the actual direct heat from the Sun which is thermal infrared and which is capable of moving atoms/molecules into vibration, that is, of heating them up?
And which is what we feel direct from the Sun as heat, so the AGW comic cartoon claims that it doen’t reach the surface is gobbledegook nonsense.
This AGW “shortwave in longwave out” is so stupid it’s mindblowing that none of you object to it…
Shortwave, Light, from the Sun cannot and does not heat organic matter, thermal infrared heat from the Sun does.
The direct heat from the Sun to Earth, which is the Sun’s thermal energy on the move, which is longwave infrared, which is invisible thermal infrared, which is real heat – IS MISSING.
The HEAT you actually feel from the Sun, IS MISSING.
Are you all under some hypnotic spell or something? This is so obvious.
I looked at the cited document http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/gcj_3w.pdf
At a heat accumulation rate in the deep ocean (below 4000 m) of 0.027 w/m^2 (with the possiblity that the rate will fall below zero in the coming 20 years) this does not look like much of a looming catastrophe. Compared with the incoming TSI is it about .000001 of the Total Solar Irradiance and about 1/75 of the known variation in TSI which many claim has ‘no influence’ because it is too small. The TSI in the UV during the 30 year period covered by the data was relatively high compared with historical levels. Yes/no?
If this citation is the ‘proof of the heat accumulating in the deep oceans’ it is proof of almost nothing. Statistically there is no difference between zero and a heating rate of 0.027 W/m^2 if TSI varies by 75 times that. Further, 0.027 is 5% of the claimed forcing of 1.6 W from anthropogenic CO2 http://junkscience.com/climate-features/evidence-that-cosmic-rays-seed-clouds/ so the 1.6 W is not ‘hiding there’.
Exactly what are the claims made when this paper is cited in support? The claim that an anthropogenic warming signal from industrial CO2 can be detected in the deep oceans is obviously unsupportable. In fact it is pretty good proof there is no such signal at all down there.
In the top 700 m there is a larger temperature rise 1980-2010, but it is also common knowledge that 2003-2011 has seen no rise (see ARGO data) in that zone. As there is little direct solar heating of the Southern Ocean (where most of the heat was found) it “is likely to be at least partly caused by advection of warmer water directly from the sources [up-current].” p.6349 This speaks to the ‘melting of ice in the Antarctic’. It is not from higher air temperatures from GHG’s, it is from warm water moving in from the north. The air temps in the tropics where the warm water comes from are not higher so, where exactly is the anthropogenic signal to be detected?
Louis Hooffstetter says:
May 17, 2012 at 8:08 am
TonyB says….
Tony, I suspect this paper by Purkey & Johnson will be used by the IPCC to claim Trenberth’s missing heat is in the abyssal depths:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/gcj_3w.pdf
The Introduction could have been written by Trenberth himself. Basically, the authors looked at temperature profile data (collected via soundings takne along ship track lines) between 1980 and 2010. Analysis of the data supposedly shows an increase in ocean heat content of 0.027 (+- 0.009) W m22 applied over the entire surface of the earth. I am not fully qualified to assess the methods used in this paper, but IMHO, it appears to be long on assumptions and interpolation and short on good empirical data.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is at the end of that paper:
“Acknowledgments. Our heartfelt thanks go to all
those who helped to collect, calibrate, and process the
WOCE and GO-SHIP data analyzed here. Discussions
with John Lyman were useful. Comments from Susan
Hautala, Takeshi Kawano, Michael Meredith, LuAnne
Thompson, Joshua Willis, Carl Wunsch, and two anonymous
reviewers improved the manuscript.”
Is it normal to acknowledge “anonymous reviewers”? Maybe it is. I don’t know how to ask that without making implications, but is it normal?
Gunga Din says:
May 17, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Is it normal to acknowledge “anonymous reviewers”? Maybe it is. I don’t know how to ask that without making implications, but is it normal?
Yes that is very normal.
Radiated to space by CO2. Maybe.
Look closer at water since there are 2 variations of water hydrogen bonding possible. One is the straight across hydrogen H-O-H configuration and the other more of a triangulation of hydrogens to oxygen, like H H
\ /
O
Hydrogen bonds vary in strength. High density water has it’s hydrogen bonds to oxygen at “bent” (\ /) angles; thus 2 high density water molecules are closer to each other (denser). The bent bonding is a weaker linkage. Low density water’s hydrogen atoms link straight across between their respective oxygen atoms. The straight across bond is the stronger linkage.
High and low density types of water molecules involve energy (like heat) adjustments, which affects the mineral solution of the media. Minerals in the media solution interact a little differently due to particulars of basic hydrogen symmetry integral in high or low density water. Sea water is a medium with other minerals. Low density water influences positive ions K+ (potassium) to “move”; this creates a local osmotic pressure gradient & increased viscosity at the K+ charged surface. Low density water’s influence on positive ions like Na+ (sodium) seems to move them away less & limits viscosity at the Na+ charged surface.
Elevated surface pressure gradient on water induces high density water configuration conditions, whereas low density water configuration is more prevalent when there’s less pressure on a water molecules’ surface. So deeper in the ocean we expect more high density water & in shallower seas, due to less surface pressure gradient, get more low density water. The viscosity associated with low density water (described above) is in line with Gnosperm’s comment ocean surface “thicker.”
To take away viscosity requires the inter-conversion of low density water to high density water; or conversely stated, to reducing fluidy requires the inter-conversion of high density water to low density water. Conservation of energy is thus seen when there is less inter-conversion of high density water into low density water ; or conversely, more inter-conversion of low density water into high density water that stays then stays high density water. Of course the solute concentration of each water medium affects the ability to inter-convert those 2 water configurations & this may be a modifier tied to seasonal (or otherwise) upwellings. Different data on ocean temperatures at select depths may also be due (in part) to the relative influence of solutes & where that favors a gradient of less low density water molecules being converted from high density water molecules the compound energy conserved shows up as measurable “heat” in lower ocean strata.
Leif
More to the point is to work out who the two anonymous reviewers might be. There are a limited number of people in this field, most either wrote the paper or are referred to in the acknowledgements. I’m guessing Trenberth might be one of the two anonymous reviewers.Any other suggestions?
tonyb
trying again with high density water schematic:
H H
\ /
O
Crispin in Waterloo @5/17-1:21 p.m. :
Good post, but in para. 3 one thing confuses me. You note the deep ocean “heating rate” (from the Purkey & Johnson paper) is 0.027 W/m^2. You also note that the [I assume industrial era] “forcing” from CO2 is 1.6 W/m^2. But you also claim that the former is 5% of the latter. This is where I got lost. 5% of 1.6 W/m^2 is 0.08 W/m^2. Am I missing something, maybe a difference between heating rate and forcing?
>>
J. Philip Peterson says:
May 17, 2012 at 7:22 am
Hillier & Watts (2007) surveyed 201,055 submarine volcanoes estimating that a total of 3,477,403 submarine volcanoes exist worldwide.
<<
I always like estimates that are able to give us seven significant figures. Are the error bars really ±0? Those last 403 volcanoes seem a bit too precise for my taste.
Jim
‘I seriously doubt the resolution of this study down to hundredths of degrees ‘
especial was what it taken the measurements is no where good enough to give that level of accuracy. Ask any engineer and they will tale you the best accuracy you can get is never better than the instrument you use to get it no matter how much ‘modeling ‘ you use to come up with your numbers .
For clarity I would suggest that the title of this post be reformatted to something like:
“Trenberth’s missing heat still missing: new paper shows a near flat ocean temperature trend – up 0.09°C over the past 55 years”
I predict: it’s underneath all the pavement we’ve been laying down for the last 60 years, and that it’s the pavement that has been causing the majority of what anthropogenic atmospheric warming has actually occurred – not CO2.
I am going to ask what may be a stupid question. Do the climate models and the analysis include the effects of photosynthesis? I have been reading descriptions of the models and I can’t identify it. The reason that I ask is that the joules of energy taken of the climate by photosynthesis is large. The 50 gigatonnes, 10E15 grams, of carbon that is produced in the ocean each year, see http://www.science.oregonstate.edu/ocean.productivity/index.php. when multiplied by the Light Ulilization Efficiency Factor LUE equals 1.28E23 joules. The LUE is the The Carnegie Ames Standford Approach (CASA) found under the CASA description paragraph at http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/4/1/8 This LUE is for aquatic and green leaf plants and represents net production. I don’t understand how the number of joules could be an order of magnitude greater than the missing energy of 10E22 joules. Does anyone have an answer?
ABC’s cop-drama ‘Castle’ is about an author with that surname who writes best-selling novels about a female detective with the name ‘Nikki Heat’. Since she’s a fiction within a fiction, she must be the cousin of our ‘Missing Heat’, which is a fiction (ocean average temperature) within a fiction (computer models) within a fiction (manmade CO2-induced calamitous warming).
Ocean water has living organisms in it & inside their cell membranes they need both high and low density water to perform growth. Internally, their enzymes use both high and low density water conditions to drive + ion transport. The ion solutes and protein concentration being expressed make the internal cell environment that coordinated enzyme activity. So altering the water ionization influences the way proteins fold & protein configuration is a developmental factor.
At depth, under seas’ more external high density water configuration, multicellular life needs to have an internal pressure to avoid crushing collapse. Turgidity is achieved with increased water inside cells, which water Na (sodium) , H (hydrogen), & Ca (calcium) “hold” inside the cell. Na+ & H+ induce high density water configurations, whereas Ca++, Mg++ (magnesium) & K+ induce high density water configurations at charged sites of a cell. High density water, provoking fluidity and thus reactivity makes for a more active cell (ex: Na+ lowers viscosity). Deep sea fishing brings up really big fish & tropical coastal waters yield smaller fish.
Non-deep sea favors more low density water configuration & then marine organisms must inside their cells favor low density water configurations. Internal low density water configuration make K+ more likely to “move” & then the local osmotic pressure gradient activates cell enzymes. In the long run to conserve enzymes that cell locally needs to rebound into a high density water configuration. It is the extent to which loosened internal K+ gets pumped out of that cell that that can lead to breaks in the cell wall & limit the organism’s maximum upper size.
The low density water configuration inside a cell leads to a sort of resting cell; it’s more viscous (K+ raises viscosity at charged surface) & inert. The non- deep sea organism’s longevity potential (& thus chance of fish to bulk up) is impaired by entropy. In this scenario ion solutes affect it’s internal % of low/high density water configurations in play & make it so that cell can not radically just totally rewire to inter-converting from low density water to high density water inside as a way to eliminate the tendency toward consistent osmotic pressure created by that K+. (Changes of Ca translocating inside/outside living cells & K/Ca channels is well investigated,so minutiae of it’s Ca pH influences glossed over here.)
I wonder if there is more K+ being released from non-deep sea living micro-organisms’ membranes that actually augments the % non-deep low density water configuration. Likewise, is cold water upwelling bringing high density water configuration to dilute the upper low density water configuration and account for temperature trends scientists talk of.
I realize that I did not state two numbers in the previous post correctly. It should say “50x10E15 grams” and “equals 1.28x10E23 joules”. Thanks.
Re: Engineer John
My understanding is yes, they have modeled photosynthesis. I believe land use changes (conversion of forest/prairie to farmland, roads, housing, etc (i.e. the same stuff that makes UHI) is the only place that they don’t really understand… well, that and sub-Argo ocean depths (so the Trenberth thinking has been in the past).
Hopefully I didn’t just imply that clouds are well understood! That comment was just in the context of energy budget and missing heat.
The graph shows that the warming clearly has not stopped in the last decade. I hope this data puts that nonsense to rest finally.
Jim D says:
The graph shows that the warming clearly has not stopped in the last decade. I hope this data puts that nonsense to rest finally.
Henry says
I note that the blue line data coverage at 2000 meter shows a drop from 1994.
My own analysis also shows a marked drop in maximum temperatures from 1994.
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
That cooling trend has not yet ended – earth is just a massive energy store and is able to hide energy, in the oceans, in the (increased) vegetations, in the hydrological cycles, in the weather etc..
However, eventually that store is not going to ” keepie” us warm anymore, and cooling will hit us, and I think we all could be in for a bit of a shock.
I predict before the year is over we will start hearing about “global cooling”.
Today the BBC reported the first Japanese commercial satellite launch:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18113000
One satellite launched was the Japanese Shinzuku satellite for monitoring ocean currents. So this might hopefully add to our future knowledge of ocean circulation and its role on climate.
If the rate of SL rise over the last century is not increasing, but more recent SL rise is due to thermal expansion, then the rate of SL rise from melting ice must be slowing.
If the oceans are heating, and the atmosphere is heating, how come the rate of sea level rise is not increasing?
Or is the missing heat skipping, not just the first 700 meters of ocean, but all the ice also?
Questions questions, any answers welcome.
@Leigh B. Kelley>>I looked at the cited document
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/gcj_3w.pdf
>You also note that the [I assume industrial era] “forcing” from CO2 is 1.6 W/m^2. But you also claim that the former is 5% of the latter. This is where I got lost. 5% of 1.6 W/m^2 is 0.08 W/m^2. Am I missing something, maybe a difference between heating rate and forcing?
Sorry for lack of clarity. There is a lot to consider in the paper. If you take the heating at 4000 and 3000 meters together, it is 0.08 w/m^2 total. Other numbers can be calculated to show the heat gain is small. No doubt someone can show it is related to cloud cover – the main temperature regulator.
The main thing to take home from this paper is that there is a slight warming in the deep oceans below 4000 metres. Therefore one can correctly say, ‘heat is accumulating in the oceans’. But it would be quite incorrect to say that this paper supports the notion that ‘Trenberth’s missing heat’ is to be found there. It is a tiny amount and keep in mind the caveat that there are 8 ocean basins not measured so the error bar may be larger than the measured effect. They could be important given that the heat content could easily be a little up or a little down giving a large % change in the final number. I thought the discussion of those basins was reasonable, however.
Further, the idea that there is anything even approaching an ‘anthropogenic signal’ is completely misplaced. Utter rubbish! That portion of the upper ocean that is able to warm from high UV and circulation has warmed slightly, but not in line with the effect claimed for the increase in CO2.
The CO2 argument might hold insofar as not being easily refuted, if the forcing was reduced by a factor of 4 or 5. There are so many cases of this being the most realistic value for the forcing, perhaps it is time for mainstream practitioners to make the assumption that while the forcing from CO2 is something like 0.8 degrees for a doubling from present levels, and also assume that there will be no water vapour feedbacks. This position should be maintained until someone can prove that the atmosphere does not vent additional heat, instead of the present assumption that the water vapour feedback is real and no “Bejan auto-stabilisation” is happening. I refer of course to Prof Bejan’s observation that the atmosphere is a self-regulating heat engine optimised at the edge of, but not crossing into chaotic turbulence (which would be less efficient at moving heat). All this is without getting to the obvious: clouds.
David A says
Or is the missing heat skipping, not just the first 700 meters of ocean, but all the ice also?
Questions questions, any answers welcome.
Henry says
My statistical analysis (44 weather stations) shows that maximum temperatures were increasing quite dramatically before 1994.
After 1994 it went down quite significantly.
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
I am thinking,yes, this is due to less UV (if it is suncyle related)
so eventually less energy goes directly into the oceans,
from 1994 progressively less, and I think it will continue to decline until past 2020
Yes Henry, but I m looking for a CAGW proponent (clearly not you) to explain my questions. The paper, (which I note has no error bars) shows an OHC graph from 1955 to 2010. The trend from 1955 to 1992 is (eyeballed) less then the trend from 1992 to 2010. been linear at best, with a marked slow down since The rate of SL rise has been linear, at best, and basically flar since 2005.
SL rise has two fundemntal and simple causes. An increase in atmospheric heat causing land ice melt, and an increase in ocean heat causing isothemic expansion. If the rate of SL rise has not changed in the past 100 plus years, then saying that theis is no anthropogenic C02 signal. BIg period, full stop, arm wave all they want in a study on OHC claiming a very minor increase in 65 years.
Jim D – when you say “The graph shows that the warming clearly has not stopped in the last decade. I hope this data puts that nonsense to rest finally.“, you seem to be taking an extraordinarily narrow and biased view. The graph shows warming of less than a tenth of a degree over 55 years. One can argue about whether it is a real warming, or whether it is ‘noise’ or whether zero increase is within the error bounds, etc, etc. But the real nonsense is that this is in any way a dangerous warming. Our various governments are spending (or are preparing to spend) vast amounts of money to try to restrict global warming to 2 deg C over the next century. This paper indicates that it will take about 1,000 years for the temperature to increase by 2 deg, even if our governments do nothing at all. In probably much less than half that time, we will have reached ‘peak fossil fuel’, so our fossil fuel CO2 can never ever in our wildest dreams increase Earth’s temperature by as much as 2 deg.
It’s time to stop panicking and get real.
Government work like this is sickening.
Mike Jonas, while I agree that they won’t succeed in keeping the warming below 3 degrees, your point of a tenth of a degree in 55 years is very selective because you are averaging over the deep ocean, when the surface warmed ten times as fast, and that is the part that affects the atmosphere.
Jim D says:
May 18, 2012 at 9:16 pm
Just so I have this straight, the ocean surface is warmed by the atmosphere, which in turn is warmed by the ocean surface ha? When does this to and fro stop?
Baa Humbug says:
When does this to and fro stop?
Henry says
Just about now, I am afraid.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/10/a-blast-from-the-past-james-hansen-on-the-global-warming-debate-from-13-years-ago/#comment-989111
To Baa Humbug, just so you understand, the CO2 increases the downward longwave flux at the surface which warms the surface, and that warms the atmosphere. It doesn’t warm the atmosphere first.
Henry@David A
Same answer as to Baa Humbug.
Are you beginning to get worried?
The Hockey Schtick wrote:
“In reality, greenhouse gases cannot warm the oceans at all because they radiate infrared which only penetrates the surface of water a few microns to cause evaporative cooling. ”
This statement is clearly false. What happens is that down-welling radiation heats the microns thick skin layer of the ocean, which is where the heat loss to the atmosphere above occurs through upward radiaiton, convection and evaporation from the ocean surface. A warming of the skin layer suppresses the transport of heat from the lower levels of the ocean, which have absorbed sunlight, and are warmer than the skin layer. This causes the ocean to retain more of the heat it gets from the sun.
It has been shown experimentally that warming of the skin layer layer by IR radiation changes the ocean’s temperature gradient as expected from the basic physics.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/why-greenhouse-gases-heat-the-ocean/
I don’t see how one can trust a source that makes such a blatantly erroneous statement about the basic physics of climate change mechanisms.
REPLY:… and I don’t see how one can trust a source that deletes any comment that challenges them while being paid by the public and financed by Fenton Communications to wage a disinformation war. If you can’t do ant better than RealClimate for your sources, then I’d say your argument isn’t very deep, much like the skin effect. Given hiow much time and effort you expend here I still think you are a paid shill, despite your protestations to the contrary. – Anthony
Baa Humbug
It never stops, it diverges. 1+0.5+0.25+0.125+…
Jim D says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/16/trenberths-missing-heat-still-missing-new-paper-shows-a-flat-ocean-temperature-trend-0-09c-over-the-past-55-years/#comment-989156
Henry says
I hope you get this…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/10/a-blast-from-the-past-james-hansen-on-the-global-warming-debate-from-13-years-ago/#comment-989099
after you read this
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
I mentioned above that The Schtick’s assertion that all the CO2 warming effect has to go into the deep ocean is wrong. In fact what goes into the deep ocean delays the warming that would have occurred if it stayed at the surface. I think there is some confusion here on the role of the deep ocean warming. Increasing ocean heat content is a delaying process (putting it in the pipeline, you could say).
“Thus, even if one assumes all ocean warming is due to increased greenhouse gases, the IPCC has exaggerated climate sensitivity to CO2 by a factor of almost 3 times [1.12/0.39]. ”
This is another inaccurate statement from the Hockey Schtick site.
The 1.42 W/M2 is the total radiative forcing, from all sources, estimated as of 2005. What you need to do, to calculate whether there is a discrepancy,is to integrate the rate of forcing by year, from 1955 to the present, and average it over the time period. The discrepancy will be a lot less.
Eric Adler,
That quote [“…even if one assumes that all ocean warming is due to greeenhouses gases…”] is taken from directly from Prof Richard Lindzen’s comment on the subject.
You know less than nothing: what you presume to ‘know’ is wrong. Who should we believe, an uneducated eco-lemming, or the head of MIT’s atmospheric sciences department?
Run along now to RealClimate for some new talking points. The ones you’re using are old and busted.
Baa Humbug says:
May 19, 2012 at 7:47 am
“Jim D says:
May 18, 2012 at 9:16 pm
” Mike Jonas, while I agree that they won’t succeed in keeping the warming below 3 degrees, your point of a tenth of a degree in 55 years is very selective because you are averaging over the deep ocean, when the surface warmed ten times as fast, and that is the part that affects the atmosphere.”
Just so I have this straight, the ocean surface is warmed by the atmosphere, which in turn is warmed by the ocean surface ha? When does this to and fro stop?”
Humbug,
The warming occurs because more heat from the sun is arriving at the surface of the earth than leaving. Since most of the earth’s surface is covered by ocean, the excess heat is building up in the ocean and warming the surface temperature. The top skin layer of the ocean is cooler than the bulk, so that the heat that is absorbed from the sun in the bulk of the ocean below the surface can escape into the atmosphere by convection upwards toward the skin layer and be emitted from the skin into the atmosphere. However the radiation from the GHG’s and clouds over the ocean, increase the skin temperature and block some of the upward flow of heat from below that is escaping from the surface.
The to and fro is continuous. The energy flow from the ocean surface is absorbed by the atmosphere, and much of it is radiated back down to the ocean by the GHG’s and clouds. The only way it will stop is if all of the GHG’s are removed from the atmosphere. John Tyndall discovered this process in 1859. You need to read up on this process and understand it better.
Fig suppl. 5 is interesting in showing relative heat content gain down to 2000 m compared to down to 700m. This suggests relative movement of ocean heat downwards.
Consider for a moment what this means. The ocean contains 2-3 orders of mag more heat than the atmosphere. It has circulation dynamics with a timescale of centuries and even millenia. So if some mechanism is causing downward heat transfer in the last decade, it cannot be a small atmospheric warming of a few decades, since the amount of heat involved is far too little to register at all in the ocean. So the downward heat movement is of heat that was already in the ocean. A few decades of slight warming do not give enough heat to be significant in global scale ocean heat budgets.
There is no reason to claim that this downward heat movement is in any way connected to CO2 in the atmosphere, even hypothetically in the case that this had caused the warming (not).
So this massive downward movement of heat is something else, something from the oceans century scale spatiotemporal oscillation in circulation pattern, a process involving so much heat that only atmospheric and solar variations over centuries could have an effect on them, such as entraining oscillations on a timescale of millenia. Neither CO2 nor anything else in the atmosphere over a mere half century can really influence this.
Downward movement of heat in the ocean can only mean cooling climate. This is the driver of climate, the atmosphere is not the tail on the dog, it is one of its hairs.
Jim D – let’s just go back to the start of all this for a moment, back to basic principles as it were:
Trenberth said “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.“. His problem was that none of his warming predictions were happening in practice.
Well, now there is a claim that his “missing heat” has been found in the deep ocean. This actually gives his hypotheses an even greater problem: The paper says that the ocean warming corresponded to 0.27W m-2, and that it “accounts for approximately 93% of the warming of the earth system that has occurred since 1955.“. Since the oceans are 71% of Earth’s surface area, the overall warming is therefore about 0.27*0.71/0.93 = 0.21W m-2 over the whole surface. The IPCC report AR4 (figure TS.5) puts “total net anthropogenic” warming at 1.6W m-2. It would of course have been a bit less than that in 1955, but however you cut the figures, the great majority of the predicted heat is still missing.
And now there is nowhere else to look for it.
BTW, you misquote me when you “agree that they won’t succeed in keeping the warming below 3 degrees“. I said “our fossil fuel CO2 can never ever in our wildest dreams increase Earth’s temperature by as much as 2 deg” which is, um, slightly different.
Eric Adler says:
“The warming occurs because more heat from the sun is arriving at the surface of the earth than leaving. Since most of the earth’s surface is covered by ocean, the excess heat is building up in the ocean and warming the surface temperature.”
Show us that ocean heat content. Trenberth couldn’t find it because it isn’t there. So your whole conjecture is nonsense.
Smokey – re your comment of May 19, 2012 at 10:42 am: argument from authority carries no weight on WUWT.
Mike Jonas, you are doing the same thing as the Schtick in assuming that all the forcing change of 1.6 W/m2 has to go into the warming. The balance is between the forcing change and the surface temperature change, and any heat that doesn’t go into the surface temperature change causes a delay in the response of the surface temperature to the increasing forcing. The deep-ocean heat content change is causing that delay, so it should be especially visible in years that the surface temperature doesn’t change so fast, as is the case recently.
Mike Jonas,
An argument from authority is legitimate, if it is from a reputable authority. Prof Richard Lindzen is a reputable, reliable authority. The IPCC is not. It is a purely political organization, with a veneer of science for the credulous.
Anthony pointed out to Eric Adler above: “I don’t see how one can trust a source that deletes any comment that challenges them while being paid by the public and financed… to wage a disinformation war.” The IPCC is no different. There are no scientific skeptics as lead authors on the IPCC. In fact, the WWF seems to be their primary author!
And we mustn’t forget the statement by the IPCC’s WG-3 Co-Chair, Ottmar Edenhofer:
“One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”
phlogiston – “a process involving so much heat that only atmospheric and solar variations over centuries could have an effect on [the oceans]“. You may well be right, but I’m not sure that we know enough to make that assertion. I’m also a little iffy about the warming oceans implying global cooling – yes probably over an ENSO timescale, but on longer timescales it seems improbable. I agree that CO2 is most unlikely to have caused the warming, because the CO2 mechanism is confined to IR, but maybe an active sun could warm the oceans in just decades if Henrik Svensmark’s theories are correct – active sun => less clouds over the ocean => more sunlight penetrating the ocean => warmer ocean. As I understand it, sunlight penetrates to around 100m, which tallies reasonably well with the above graph of “ocean heat content change”, and needs not a lot of heat transfer / mixing to greater depths.
There is a well-known mathematical mechanism for downward re-radiated LW infrared warming at the ocean skin layer (including the evaporation rate). The anthropogenic portion of that skin warming is infinitesimally small. There is also a range of deeper warming possible as this skin-layer extra warming that doesn’t get immediately evaporated away gets mixed into layers below the skin. That warming potential range is less than the error of the SST measurement. Mr. T knows this and Mr. T cannot turn straw into gold.
Bottom line, one that is well-known by climate scientists, though they are loath to admit it:
There is no mechanism for greenhouse gas warming of land surfaces that affects the true drivers of climate, the oceans, with enough calculated energy to anthropogenically drive climate variations outside of natural noise.
The idea that AGW CO2 drivers are the threat of the millennium is a dead dog that will not bark no more.
Jim D – you say “any heat that doesn’t go into the surface temperature change causes a delay in the response of the surface temperature to the increasing forcing. The deep-ocean heat content change is causing that delay“.
There are basically only two places that the heat can go – the atmosphere and the ocean. The total extra heat in these two places is now, apparently, known, and is way too small to supply Trenberth’s missing heat. The missing heat therefore does not exist. There are no mystical delays or hiding places from which the missing heat can emerge at some later date.
It is also preposterous to even think that an ocean warming at snail’s pace can somehow at some later date generate a warming of the atmosphere at anything above that overall snail’s pace.
This paper – assuming it is correct – eliminates all possibility that Trenberth’s missing heat actually exists, and eliminates all possibility that AGW can become CAGW at any future date.
Mike Jonas says:
May 19, 2012 at 4:46 pm
phlogiston – “a process involving so much heat that only atmospheric and solar variations over centuries could have an effect on [the oceans]“. You may well be right, but I’m not sure that we know enough to make that assertion. I’m also a little iffy about the warming oceans implying global cooling
I was focusing on the relative shift of heat from top to bottom, I was not really paying any attention to the trend of warming of otherwise.
@jim D says:
Mike Jonas, while I agree that they won’t succeed in keeping the warming below 3 degrees, your point of a tenth of a degree in 55 years is very selective because you are averaging over the deep ocean, when the surface warmed ten times as fast, and that is the part that affects the atmosphere.
++++++++++++++
Just as long as we are clear that the atmosphere is not affecting the temperature of the ocean! The core claim of CAGW is that back radiation from the atmosphere is heating the seas. As this in obviously not the case, the physics of the idea being wrong, we can give up on the hullabaloo. Yes the surface warmed much faster. So what? Is there something we can ‘do about it’? How about learning to cope – as if we forgot.
phlogiston says:
May 20, 2012 at 4:33 am
Mike Jonas says:
May 19, 2012 at 4:46 pm
phlogiston – “a process involving so much heat that only atmospheric and solar variations over centuries could have an effect on [the oceans]“. You may well be right, but I’m not sure that we know enough to make that assertion. I’m also a little iffy about the warming oceans implying global cooling
The relative trend with depth is the most reliable part of the Argos data since it is self normalised. The heating or cooling trends are less reliable due to coverage and statistical sampling issues – refer to Willis Eschenbachs recent articles on the Argo floats.
phlogiston says:
May 19, 2012 at 3:32 pm
“Fig suppl. 5 is interesting in showing relative heat content gain down to 2000 m compared to down to 700m. This suggests relative movement of ocean heat downwards.”
What is the meaning of “relative movement of ocean heat downwards”? From the graph it seems that the upper 700M is warming about twice as rapidly as the 700 – 2000M level below.
“Consider for a moment what this means. The ocean contains 2-3 orders of mag more heat than the atmosphere. It has circulation dynamics with a timescale of centuries and even millenia. So if some mechanism is causing downward heat transfer in the last decade, it cannot be a small atmospheric warming of a few decades, since the amount of heat involved is far too little to register at all in the ocean.
So the downward heat movement is of heat that was already in the ocean. A few decades of slight warming do not give enough heat to be significant in global scale ocean heat budgets.”
This is clearly not true. The total rate of warming is of the same order of magnitude as the estimated warming due to the atmosphere. The average warming rate is .39W/M^2 based on the measurements. This is less than the estimate rate of heat gain by the earth atmosphere system in recent years. Besides, a joule of heat energy doesn’t come with a birth certificate specifying its age.
“There is no reason to claim that this downward heat movement is in any way connected to CO2 in the atmosphere, even hypothetically in the case that this had caused the warming (not).”
Modelling the flow of water and heat in the ocean is complex. The gain of heat is localized and depends on horizontal currents which are generated by changes in temperature and salinity due to the addition of fresh water and the melting of ice and river flows. I am skeptical of snap judgements such as this one, from people who have their basic facts wrong.
Eric Adler says;
This is clearly not true. The total rate of warming is of the same order of magnitude as the estimated warming due to the atmosphere. The average warming rate is .39W/M^2 based on the measurements.
Henry says
Eric, before critizing others, why don’t you bring to us some actual results of measurements that you performed yourself proving to us (and yourself) that the CO2 is doing anything at all…
if you do not have any results that you performed yourself,
why should we actually believe anything at all that you say here?
\
(WUWT is a scientific blog where scientists share their results with others to see where we stand with global warming / which, for me, after investigating this matter, turned out to be global cooling, sadly)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/20/premonitions-of-the-fall-in-temperature/#comment-990499
Pamela Gray says:
May 19, 2012 at 5:07 pm
“There is a well-known mathematical mechanism for downward re-radiated LW infrared warming at the ocean skin layer (including the evaporation rate). The anthropogenic portion of that skin warming is infinitesimally small. There is also a range of deeper warming possible as this skin-layer extra warming that doesn’t get immediately evaporated away gets mixed into layers below the skin. That warming potential range is less than the error of the SST measurement. Mr. T knows this and Mr. T cannot turn straw into gold.
Bottom line, one that is well-known by climate scientists, though they are loath to admit it:”
Your statement has no foundation. The characterization “infinitesimally small” is meaningless rhetoric. This “mechanism” is what has keeps the earth 33C warmer than it would otherwise be without the presence of long lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and has caused the sea surface temperature to increase during the last 1/2 century.
“There is no mechanism for greenhouse gas warming of land surfaces that affects the true drivers of climate, the oceans, with enough calculated energy to anthropogenically drive climate variations outside of natural noise.
The idea that AGW CO2 drivers are the threat of the millennium is a dead dog that will not bark no more.”
If you plug up your ears you simply will not hear the dog bark until it bites.
I am not a professional scientist, do not take measurements myself to show what CO2 is doing in the atmosphere, and neither are you.
I do know enough physics, and have enough knowledge about climate, to point out where some the arguments posted on your blog are wrong, based on what I know. Some of the mistakes are so basic, it should undermine the credibility of your blog.
If you have any answers to my criticisms of your work , which are scientifically based, please post Them. I am willing to engage in a discussion.
The fact that you are changing the subject, to point out that I have not offered my own measurements is an attempt to avoid discussion of the mistakes I have pointed out.
Two of the points I have made are:
The fact that large amounts of water evaporate each day, and that CO2 is only 395ppM doesn’t prove that CO2 has no influence.
The climate data has so much noise that 44 stations are not a proper sample to prove anything, especially when the data from 39,000 stations says that the global land temperature has warmed beyond the uncertainty in the average.
Henry@Eric
That would be impolite to discuss this here as it is off topic, just about everywhere now on WUWT but
you are welcome to discuss this on my blog.
I close this blog now for me, but I am always here, somewhere…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/20/premonitions-of-the-fall-in-temperature/#comment-990673
NickB, May 17,2012 at 6:33 pm says “My understanding is yes, they have modeled photosynthesis.” I would have thought so also; however, I have spent the last 4 days trying to find it in climate models. I have looked at IPCC models, proposed IPCC models, and IPCC instructions to individuals preparing models for the next IPCC report and I cannot find anything that speaks to the energy transfers caused by photosynthesis. If it is present, it is hidden. I am still hunting since the improper handling of this much energy would cause noticeable errors in the climate model predictions.
Eric Adler says:
May 21, 2012 at 5:42 am
phlogiston says:
May 19, 2012 at 3:32 pm
You did not address my point that the relative depth data from the Argos array – showing relative trends in heat and temperature with depth and thus vertical heat shifts – is the most robust and reliable component of the Argos data, because it is self normalised. Combine this with the fact that the Argos, like all main climate datasets, is essentially in the hands of AGW activists, this leads many including myself to take with a pinch of salt supposed warming trends. The undulating floats measure at each point the whole depth profile, statistically locking the analysis of depth trends. By contrast, attempts to infer global warming or cooling trends are compromised by inadequate sampling coverage as demonstrated by several posts by Willis Esenbach. (The vertical sampling of the Argos floats is similar in principle to the ship-towed UOR or undulating oceanographic recorder which formed part of my MSc thesis on board research cruises from Plymouth; being the student on board I got the dead man´s shift of midnight-4AM operating the device which was deployed 24-7).
In short I believe the relative trend, I dont believe the absolute trend. Heat is moving downward in the ocean. But its not clear statistically from Argos if the ocean is warming or cooling.
Phlogiston says:
May 21, 2012 at 3:09 pm
“In short I believe the relative trend, I dont believe the absolute trend. Heat is moving downward in the ocean. But its not clear statistically from Argos if the ocean is warming or cooling.”
Apparently you believe that the scientists who keep the records are dishonest.
So you probably don’t believe that the sea surface temperature anomaly has had an increasing trend either, but here is the data:
http://processtrends.com/images/RClimate_SST_A_latest.png
This data says that the sea surface temperature has increased. And you accpet that the heat has been moving downward in the ocean. It is pretty clear from this that the global oceans have been warming.
HenryP says:
May 21, 2012 at 12:22 pm
“Henry@Eric
That would be impolite to discuss this here as it is off topic, just about everywhere now on WUWT but
you are welcome to discuss this on my blog.
I close this blog now for me, but I am always here, somewhere…”
Since you linked to your blogpost on this thread, I thought it was legitimate to comment on it.
If you don’t want to discuss it here, that is your choice.
Eric Adler…
…is wrong as usual.
The dog is not barking, but sleeping, the cat is purring, the crops are growing, along with the trees, better then ever. Mr Adler, where is the C, in CAGW?
Several new peer reviewed studies show no increase in hurricanes; http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2010/jun/25jun2010a3.html
http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2012/jan/10jan2012a2.html
And one recent study examining 22 peer reviewed studies on various weather-related natural hazards, such as storms, tropical cyclones, floods, and small-scale weather events such as wildfires and hailstorms, found that increases in exposure due to growth and wealth are by far the most important drivers for growing disaster losses” and that no trend could be attributed to anthropogenic climate change.
http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2011/may/31may2011a1.html
And even more good news;
The oceans are not warming in the last 6 to 7 years
http://www.real-science.com/goto/http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/global-warming-missing-energy-row-erupts-as-new-research-says-oceans-are-cooling.html
and Sea Levels have been almost flat as well. http://www.real-science.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/PaintImage1170.jpg
And the global average temp has been flat for over a decade… http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_February_2012.png
David says:
May 21, 2012 at 8:14 pm
“…”
David,
I am not impressed by studies pushed by Fred Singer and the Heartland Institute.
In fact, the paper featured on this web page shows a graph in which the ocean heat content has increased in the past 6 or 7 years.
There has been a pause in sea level rise in the past 2 years because of La Nina, causing more precipitation over land. However, satellite altimetry shows a steady trend in sea level rise.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-262
Trenberth’s missing heat still missing: new paper shows a near flat ocean temperature trend – 0… wp.me/p7y4l-gA4 via @Anthony Watts
Eric Adler says:
May 21, 2012 at 9:15 pm
David says:
May 21, 2012 at 8:14 pm
“…”
David,
I am not impressed by studies pushed by Fred Singer and the Heartland Institute.
————————————–
Eric, I am not concerned with your impression.
=====================================
In fact, the paper featured on this web page shows a graph in which the ocean heat content has increased in the past 6 or 7 years.
True that Eric, however, the rate of warming, highly questionable, and without error bars throughour the study, which should be increasing the further one goes back, is still considerably below any of the models, and the recent SLR indicates that the minor increase in OHC may is likely not happening.
———————————————————–
There has been a pause in sea level rise in the past 2 years because of La Nina, causing more precipitation over land. However, satellite altimetry shows a steady trend in sea level rise.
==================================
Eric, the pause in SL rise extends back to 2005. The data sets showed this large slow down, and then new fudge factors were introduced, but not evenly applied. Suppose I am making a set of measurements with a “consistent” flaw in my method. If so then a change in the trend, is still a change in the trend, even after correction it would show just the same. The new SL adjsutments, if evenly applied, should of still reflected this. Also, I do not think the new adjustments correct.
Eric Adler says:
May 19, 2012 at 10:30 am
“Thus, even if one assumes all ocean warming is due to increased greenhouse gases, the IPCC has exaggerated climate sensitivity to CO2 by a factor of almost 3 times [1.12/0.39]. ”
This is another inaccurate statement from the Hockey Schtick site.
The 1.42 W/M2 is the total radiative forcing, from all sources, estimated as of 2005. What you need to do, to calculate whether there is a discrepancy,is to integrate the rate of forcing by year, from 1955 to the present, and average it over the time period. The discrepancy will be a lot less.
Eric: I used the IPCC’s own formula to calculate the alleged change in radiative forcing from CO2+water vapor over the period 1955-2010. The formula only has two inputs: beginning and ending CO2 levels. The IPCC uses the 5.35 fudge factor to inflate the alleged radiative forcing by CO2 plus alleged positive feedback by water vapor.
Eric also says: It has been shown experimentally that warming of the skin layer layer by IR radiation changes the ocean’s temperature gradient as expected from the basic physics.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/why-greenhouse-gases-heat-the-ocean/
I don’t see how one can trust a source that makes such a blatantly erroneous statement about the basic physics of climate change mechanisms.
The graph from the dicey paper on the realclimate site shows an alleged 4 W/m2 change in radiative forcing from doubled CO2 only results in a 0.1C decrease in ocean skin temperature gradient. A 0.1C decreased gradient can only result at the very very most in a 0.1C increase in temperature of the bulk.