Guest post by Bob Tisdale
For years, Tamino (aka Grant Foster) has complained about the placement of the GISS model projection at the start of the ARGO-era OHC data. Well, Gavin just discovered an error in his presentation of the GISS model simulations. And he’s corrected them. Funny how, if we only looked at the ARGO era, the new GISS model-data comparisons would now resemble mine. So I acknowledged, and thanked Gavin–and then showed his graphs.
NOW Will Tamino Correct his Posts?
Tamino has complained about my model-data presentation of ARGO-era Global Ocean Heat Content in numerous posts. See here and here, and my replies here and here. My replies were also cross posted at WattsUpWithThat here and here. Tamino didn’t like the point where I showed the model projections intersecting with the Ocean Heat Content data. Refer to Figure 1.
Figure 1
A few months ago, Gavin Schmidt of GISS also suggested that my presentations were wrong in his 2011 Updates to model-data comparisons. There he wrote [my boldface]:
As an aside, there are a number of comparisons floating around using only the post 2003 data to compare to the models. These are often baselined in such a way as to exaggerate the model data discrepancy (basically by picking a near-maximum and then drawing the linear trend in the models from that peak). This falls into the common trap of assuming that short term trends are predictive of long-term trends – they just aren’t (There is a nice explanation of the error here).
(That language, by the way, still exists in his updated post even though he has corrected his data.)
Gavin missed the point that I wasn’t interested in presenting long-term trends in that graph. That aside, today, Gavin Schmidt issued a correction to his presentations of Ocean Heat Content in his model-data comparisons. Gavin writes:
This is just a brief note to point out that a few graphs that I have put together showing Ocean Heat Content changes in recent decades had an incorrect scaling for the GISS model data. My error was in assuming that the model output (which were in units W yr/m2) were scaled for the ocean area only, when in fact they were scaled for the entire global surface area (see fig. 2 in Hansen et al, 2005). Therefore, in converting to units of 1022 Joules for the absolute ocean heat content change, I had used a factor of 1.1 (0.7 x 5.1 x 365 x 3600 x 24 x 10-8), instead of the correct value of 1.61 (5.1 x 365 x 3600 x 24 x 10-8). This problem came to light while we were redoing this analysis for the CMIP5 models and from conversations with dana1981 at skepticalscience.com.
That error was similar one Roger Pielke Sr. had made in one of his Ocean Heat Content posts, an error that Roger corrected almost a year ago.
Gavin went back and corrected the graphs in his earlier model-data comparisons at RealClimate. Thanks for the corrections, Gavin. I’ve been suggesting that your presentations were wrongfor a while now.
So what do the new RealClimate model-data comparison graphs look like for Ocean Heat Content?
From today’s post:
From the update for 2011:
From the update for 2010:
And from the 2009 update:
If we were to look at only the data since 2004, the RealClimate graphs would look very similar to mine shown in Figure 1. In fact, I may have to shift the model projection a little to the left in my graphs.
I wonder if Tamino will continue his nonsensical claims about my ARGO-era presentations and whether he will correct the posts at his blog. If history repeats itself, Tamino won’t.
Thanks to Bill Illis for notifying me of the RealClimate corrections.
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Yay Bob!
Trust an engineer for attention to detail.
I notice that the massive spike in NODC OHC just at the onset of the Argo era (2003) is not matched by any similar spike in sea level (http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/ocean/) which we know is very heavily influenced by thermosteric contribution. To me that clearly shows that the splice to Argo era data has been manipulated in a hockeystickesque manner to enhance the OHC trend.
Given the remarkably linear seal level rise of the last hundred years I have very little faith in assertions that rate of warming of the ocean has changed significantly – except for perhaps a drop in last 5 years.
Excellent article! Now, between this goof by Gavin, and Hansen’s goof of assuming a flat earth in his models, we should be able to put some significant nails in the coffin of CAGW hysteria.
And what was val_ajd[ ] set to?
I guess NOW the science is “settled.” 🙂
Whos tamino anyway and why would anybody care about his opinion (compared, say, to Gav’s)?
They expect us to be impressed by the way the graphs for model and measurement agree before 2000. Somehow I’m less than impressed when I see models agreeing with the data they were fitted to. It is what happens after that which is the acid test of a model.
Tamino (aka Grant Foster) has been around awhile. I was late to the broadband internet (Sept. 08) and so have spent some time looking back. Here is a link to CA (Mar 19, 2008) where Steve McIntyre’s first word in the post is – wait for it – – – ‘Tamino’.
http://climateaudit.org/2008/03/19/tamino-and-the-adjusted-gaspe-data/
Steve’s last sentence is: “Again, Tamino has inaccurately represented the research record.”
Now, with this post on OHC, Bob T. (again) highlights Tamino’s struggles with climate science. “How many years are required until” his relevance has sunk beneath those warm waves?
That’s a 10^23 J discrepancy.
10^23/(365*24*3600*4*3.14*(6400000)^2) = 6 W/m² = 4 times the CO2 radiative forcing
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Radiative-forcings.svg
However grudging his correction, Gavin deserves credit for biting the bullet and correcting his mistake publicly.
“Who’s tamino anyway?”
I think he’s a beatnik poet of some sort.
Ocean heat, prior to the Argo bouys…biggest bunch of Bull excrement since Hansen, 1988 !!!
Is there anyone that SERIOUSLY believes there is reliable data on “Ocean heat” based on sporatic, ocean temperature measurements? Pure nonsense. The Emperor has NO new clothes.
Let’s let it die the inglamorous death it deserves. Upon the dungheap of history.
The Levitus paper claims “One third of the observed warming occurs in the 700-2000 m layer of the ocean” yet from the year 2000 it appears nearly 100% of the warming has switched to the deep ocean. Is that physically plausible or even possible? Surely this is a red flag that there is something wrong with the analysis?
I’ll be more impressed when Schmidt and Foster abandon the CAGW meme and admit that they just got it all wrong … and return the ill gotten gains.
Full credit to Gavin for publicly make the correction. As for Tamino….fail.
@Ben Klijn
That’s a 10^23 J discrepancy.
10^23/(365*24*3600*4*3.14*(6400000)^2) = 6 W/m² = 4 times the CO2 radiative forcing
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Radiative-forcings.svg
+++++++++++
Don’t you love it when a formula comes together?
Congrats to Gavin for correcting a mistake. We do it all the time, if we can find them or they are brought to our attention. I agree with the view that before ARGO there was nothing meaningful to go on – that is why ARGO was launched, literally and figuratively. Fiddling with the initial point only works in the short term. It is the real trend that is informative, not the modelled ones.
tamino… isn’t that an acid?
I’m a bit uncertain about the graphs. The graphs are for the total heat content increase of the segment of ocean describe, so how does it make sense to compare a model to 750m to measurements to 700m?
Otter says:
May 22, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Yes, but a very weak one.
Perhaps you can call it a twitterion. (Any chemists out there?)
I have asked why the bottom of the ocean is always at 4 degrees and the surface much, much warmer. I am universally told that the surface is heated by the sun and the bottom cooled by polar ice-melted water.
Now, we have been informed that melting polar ice is a consequence of atmospheric heating and that much of the ice in the North has melted, but the South less so.
We should therefore find oceanic cooling; especially in the North.
Moreover, the paelo-record of the ocean bottom should indicate that there oceans were iso-thermal when the Earth had ice-free polar caps in its past history.
An observation. Gavin Schmidt’s update has stopped the GISS-ER model simulations at about the same time that accurate data became available AND at the point where the models cease to fit the data.
Will Nitschke says: “The Levitus paper claims “One third of the observed warming occurs in the 700-2000 m layer of the ocean” yet from the year 2000 it appears nearly 100% of the warming has switched to the deep ocean. Is that physically plausible or even possible?”
Is it possible? Yup. The ocean heat content from the 0-700 meter depths has to be driven to depths greater than 700 meters at a rate that’s faster than it’s being replaced at the 0-700 meter depths.
Bob, you have a detailed knowledge of the climate models. In what heat flow is the joules of energy that is taken out the climate by photosynthesis accounted for in the models. I calculate that 1.3 X10E23 joules should be removed each year.
The issue is, where is the energy going?
Something like 0.4 W/m2/yr is going into the Ocean Heat Content; maybe 0.1 W/m2/yr is going into icemelt, ground and atmosphere warming.
The estimates are that net anthro-GHGs-aerosols forcing is over 2.0 W/m2/yr right now. So, 1.0 W/m2/yr to 1.5 W/m2/yr is missing; either literally missing or it is escaping from the Earth as increased outgoing radiation.
In fact, almost half is missing (Residual) and another up to one-quarter is escaping from the Earth (Outgoing radiation).
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl1118/2011GL048794/2011gl048794-op03.jpg
All of the recent Ocean Heat Content accumulation estimates (and there have been a large number of different approaches taken recently) have proven that there needs to be a re-write of the theory now. It is clearly evident in the data and it cannot be ignored any longer. Even Gavin has to recognize this now after discovering this miscalculation (he WILL know what it means).
Good work, Bob.
I made a quick look at the first graph (figure 1). Looks like the predictions of “Hansen et al (2005) Model Mean Trend’ were in error something on the order of 800% as compared to the observed measurements between Jan 2003 thru Dec 2011.
Seems to be a ‘little off’ you might say, and of course erred predicting greater warming.
One absolute certainty that can be observed from all graphical analysis put forth by the Believers in “the cause” is that all errors will show warming. Has there ever been an error showing cooling? Coincidence?