Over at The Conversation Andrew Glikson asks Fact check: has global warming paused? citing an old Skeptical Science favorite graph, and that’s the problem; it’s old data. He writes:
As some 90% of the global heat rise is trapped in the oceans (since 1950, more than 20×1022 joules), the ocean heat level reflects global warming more accurately than land and atmosphere warming. The heat content of the ocean has risen since about 2000 by about 4×1022 joules.
…
To summarise, claims that warming has paused over the last 16 years (1997-2012) take no account of ocean heating.
Hmmm, if “…ocean heat level reflects global warming more accurately than land and atmosphere warming…” I wonder what he and the SkS team will have to say about this graph from NOAA Pacific Marine Environment Laboratory (PMEL) using more up to date data from the ARGO buoy system?
Sure looks like a pause to me, especially after steep rises in OHC from 1997-2003. Note the highlighted period in yellow:
From PMEL at http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/
The plot shows the 18-year trend in 0-700 m Ocean Heat Content Anomaly (OHCA) estimated from in situ data according to Lyman et al. 2010. The error bars include uncertainties from baseline climatology, mapping method, sampling, and XBT bias correction.
Historical data are from XBTs, CTDs, moorings, and other sources. Additional displays of the upper OHCA are available in the Plots section.
As Dr. Sheldon Cooper would say: “Bazinga!“
h/t to Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. for the PMEL graph.
UPDATE: See the above graph converted to temperature anomaly in this post.
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Phobos,
You are a real site pest, with your constant inane comments — like a kid always asking, “But why?” after every explanation. If you can’t figure out the Wood For Trees data base, I’m not surprised. You are just not that sharp — a hallmark of the climate alarmist cult.
WFT has an explanation of its methodology, if you would only take the time to learn.
@Mark Bofill: OK, good, so we agree on a lot, as your first paragraph states.
But: So in what way can you honestly state that Atmospheric CO2 causes warming, and that climate sensitivity has been found to be 1.5-4.5C with a probable value of 3.0C? We agree that climate sensitivity depends on models that are inadequate, so what is your basis for stating this?
I don’t agree that models are “inadequate,” only that they have uncertainties larger than are desired. Models have a lot of successes — even Manabe’s back in the 1960s reproduced global water vapor flow. Models predict Arctic amplification, they predict stratosphere cooling, they predict higher warming over land than the ocean, rise in the height of the tropospause, the magnitude of the warming to date, and much more, all detailed in the IPCC 4AR WG1 link I gave you earlier. See the figure on this page:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-8-1.html
They predict S is about 3 K, which is also what paleoclimate studies show.
Given how much more fossil fuel we seem ready to burn, does it make much difference if S = 2C or S=4C? Either one is a big problem, and models are plenty “adequate” to show this.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 12:19 pm
…
Given how much more fossil fuel we seem ready to burn, does it make much difference if S = 2C or S=4C? Either one is a big problem, and models are plenty “adequate” to show this.
————-
Naaoo. I don’t care if ’30 Helen’s agree’ that sensitivity is 2 to 4C. I don’t care that Phobos tells me the models are plenty adequate to show this. I’d never take this to my boss. The models show no skill in most areas. I’m running right now, but Pielke Sr. posted good and plenty on this subject while he was still posting, we can pick up with his objections if you’d like and go from there.
MiCro says:
“I got to pg 2 before I found the estimate for CS to be centered on ~3C, recent research has shown it’s likely under 2C.”
Come on — this is just one model, and the work hasn’t even been peer reviewed or published yet. It’s science by press release. It’s within the uncertainty bounds of many other calculations of S, but by no means definitive.
In any case, Roe and Baker’s finding does not depend on the value of S — their work is about the uncertainty in S. They explain why more computing power will not bring a lower uncertainty: incorporating more and more physics, chemistry and biology to make improve realism introduces new uncertainties, and they all add up to produce the final uncertainty.
That’s why Myles Allen and David Frame wrote:
“An upper bound on the climate sensitivity has become the holy grail of climate research. As Roe and Baker point out, it is inherently hard to find. It promises lasting fame and happiness to the finder, but it may not exist and turns out not to be very useful if you do find it. Time to call off the quest.”
Mark Bofill wrote: “I’d never take this to my boss.”
You’re doing engineering, which is far, far easier than doing climate science. Calculating climate is the most difficult calculation science has ever undertaken. You expect it to be perfect when there are good reasons that that is impossible.
“The models show no skill in most areas.”
You are ignoring the evidence. I listed above the areas where they show skill, and gave a link to their evaluation showing skill:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-8-1.html
You haven’t answered the question of how much “skill” you expect, and why.
@DB Stealey:
By now it’s abundantly clear that, as before, you don’t even understand what data you are presenting. You don’t even know what the variables are.
Throwing up graphs simply because you think they look good, without understanding them, makes it impossible to take you seriously.
Phobos says:
“By now it’s abundantly clear that, as before, you don’t even understand what data you are presenting.” &etc.
Coming from a doofus who couldn’t even figure out the provenance of a chart when the name was right in the chart, I’m not too worried about your amateur opinion.
And anyone who writes, “You’re doing engineering, which is far, far easier than doing climate science” is displaying profound ignorance of the real world. There is a big difference between climatologists and engineers models: engineers models work, while climatologists models fail.
OK, D.B. Stealey, I figured out what this graph is.
Basically it tortures the data mercilessly to where it looks like something you want it to say. Surely someone else made this link and you just saved it, right?
For the monthly CO2 data from Mauna Loa, it replaces each month’s point with the average of the 12 points nearest it — an annual smoothing.
It then takes that data and finds the noise from *another* smoothing, this one 5 years long.
It does the same thing with just one of the temperature datasets, and shrinks the CO2 data so it looks to be on the same scale.
So basically what is found is that over 5-year chunks of time, a little more CO2 is present when the temperature is warm, and a little less when it is cold.
No one at all would find this surprising: it’s the warm Coke can effect. When the oceans warm up they give off a little more CO2. When they cool down they give off less CO2. Completely expected, and seen with El Ninos and La Ninas every time they happen.
But the shrinking of the CO2 data after its extreme smoothing tears out the unceasing increase in CO2 levels year after year. *That* is what needs to be explained, and ocean surface warming and cooling doesn’t do it at all. You just have to run the numbers, converting CO2 ppmv into gigatons of CO2.
What you’ll find is that the ocean is transferring small extra amounts of CO2 depending on SSTs, but there is a huge amount being added from some other source. That source is, of course, man. Do you really think burning 11 billion tons of carbon a year isn’t going to show up somewhere? Do you think it just disappears into (literally) thin air?
So, even if you don’t understand your graph, now I do. And, as I was sure about, it doesn’t show anything like what you claim. As, I’ve learned, is typical with your graphs.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 2:45 pm
“Time to call off the quest.”
Perhaps there is a reason they’d rather keep it hazy.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 2:50 pm
“You’re doing engineering, which is far, far easier than doing climate science.”
Oh, ya. Making something which actually works in the real world is far easier than imagining how you want things to be, and writing a computer code which reinforces your bias. Sure thing.
“Calculating climate is the most difficult calculation science has ever undertaken.”
You hear that, you big phony numerical relativity wonks? Phobos has spoken.
“You expect it to be perfect when there are good reasons that that is impossible.”
Just as it is impossible to find your keys under the lamppost when you dropped them in the alley.
“I listed above the areas where they show skill, and gave a link to their evaluation showing skill.”
FTA: “Despite such uncertainties, however, models are unanimous in their prediction of substantial climate warming under greenhouse gas increases…”
Hmmm…
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 2:53 pm
“Throwing up graphs simply because you think they look good, without understanding them, makes it impossible to take you seriously.”
Ditto. But, not to DB.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 3:24 pm
Shorter version: “I can’t heear you! Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!”
Phobos says:
“…I figured out what this graph is.”
Just so I have this straight, when you attacked me for the graph before, you had not figured it out yet. But now you think you have. Is that about it? In other words, upthread you were winging it, not really understanding the chart. Your criticism was based on not understanding.
The only point of the chart is to show the cause and effect between CO2 and temperature. The graph clearly shows that changes in temperature cause changes in CO2. However, there are no comparable graphs that show temperature caused by changes in CO2. That means one of two things:
1. CO2 has no effect on temperature, or
2. Any effect from CO2 is so small that it is not even measurable
Either of these conclusions destroys your AGW argument. But I am sure you will continue your incessant thread-bombing, because you are mentally fixated on your unalterable belief that AGW — if it even exists — is a big problem. Your True Belief must be defended, even though the ultimate Authority — Planet Earth — is falsifying it. This describes you:
By confusing cause and effect, your basic premise is wrong. Therefore, your conclusion is necessarily wrong. But of course, you will never admit it.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 2:50 pm
…
—-
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 8:14 am
You may know about measure theory and fibre bundles, but you are clearly lacking an intuitive feel for the physical sciences
—————————————————————————————————
Says the guy who believes (by his own outright admission) that “the past decade was warmer on average than the one before” must mean that it’s STILL warming. A belief which shows absolutely NO feel, intuitive or otherwise, for science of any sort.
Sorry if I seem to be harping on about this, Phobos, but it’s stuch an incredibly childish error in thinking that you really do need to address it before any credence can be given to anything else you say.
Of course, you’ll keep ignoring me but by raising it again when appropriate, it at least means that any casual on-looker popping into this thread will be able to see just how flawed your understanding of physical reality is. If that means they take the rest of your cut & pastes with a big pinch of salt, then it’s worth doing.
You COULD always prove me wrong by demonstrating that you actually understand what you’re posting rather than just copying it from the crib sheet?
I’m beginning to wonder if Phobos is just another robot programmed by John Cook of Skeptical Science…or maybe a liberal arts major.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 3:24 pm
“But the shrinking of the CO2 data after its extreme smoothing tears out the unceasing increase in CO2 levels year after year. *That* is what needs to be explained, and ocean surface warming and cooling doesn’t do it at all.”
You don’t really understand DB’s plot. It is simply a high pass filtered version of CO2 and temperature.It shows that CO2 generally lags temperature by 1/4 wavelength in a given cycle, which is consistent with the equation, confirmed by this plot, which I have attempted to get your fuzzy little brain to comprehend:
dCO2/dt = k*(T – To)
The plot, and the resulting equation, do explain the increase in CO2. It is modulation of the rate of change of CO2 by temperature anomaly with respect to a particular baseline. The “k” factor is the differential flow rate in ppmv per unit of time per degC temperature anomaly.
“When the oceans warm up they give off a little more CO2. When they cool down they give off less CO2.”
And, when they are continuously being warmed, they give off a continuous stream of CO2, which accumulates in the atmosphere. Under your supposition, if this created a signficant temperature change, it would comprise a positive feedback loop, which at the very least would make the dynamics highly erratic, if not outright unstable.
“Do you really think burning 11 billion tons of carbon a year isn’t going to show up somewhere?”
It is only 11 nano-exa-tons. Anything with nano in front of it is tiny, QED. Of course that is specious, but it is about the level of your hang-up over the relative size of this quantity. It’s not really large at all.
“So, even if you don’t understand your graph, now I do.”
You really, really, really do not.
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 2:50 pm
…
————-
Yeah. I guess you’re right. It’s a good thing we’ve got scientific prodigies like Phil Jones involved in the work:
I tell you truly Phobos, this left me speechless with awe the first time I read it. Utterly and absolutely speechless.
For starters, we can break out some broad categories:
1 – verification against observations:
You act as if there’s something mysterious in what I’m asking. I expect models that accurately model what they’re supposed to be modeling, what else? They don’t appear to be accurately modeling temperature trends, for instance, see Lucia’s recent treatment:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2013/individual-model-tests-since-2001/
Or the discussion here on WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/the-real-ipcc-ar5-draft-bombshell-plus-a-poll/
Model results do not appear to be matching the reality of temperature trends. If they fail to model observed temperature trends I see no reason to accept estimates of climate sensitivity based on said models.
2 – DEFICIENCIES WITH RESPECT TO MODEL TREATMENT OF CLOUDS:
First, on the significance of clouds, from http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/role.html :
Bart says:
“FTA: “Despite such uncertainties, however, models are unanimous in their prediction of substantial climate warming under greenhouse gas increases…”
Hmmm…”
Some people still don’t understand that concept of a function of more than one variable:
“Global temperature evolution 1979–2010”
Grant Foster and Stefan Rahmstorf
Environmental Research Letters Volume 6 Number 4 (2011)
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022
Abstract:
We analyze five prominent time series of global temperature (over land and ocean) for their common time interval since 1979: three surface temperature records (from NASA/GISS, NOAA/NCDC and HadCRU) and two lower-troposphere (LT) temperature records based on satellite microwave sensors (from RSS and UAH). All five series show consistent global warming trends ranging from 0.014 to 0.018 K yr−1. When the data are adjusted to remove the estimated impact of known factors on short-term temperature variations (El Niño/southern oscillation, volcanic aerosols and solar variability), the global warming signal becomes even more evident as noise is reduced. Lower-troposphere temperature responds more strongly to El Niño/southern oscillation and to volcanic forcing than surface temperature data. The adjusted data show warming at very similar rates to the unadjusted data, with smaller probable errors, and the warming rate is steady over the whole time interval. In all adjusted series, the two hottest years are 2009 and 2010.
@Mark Benson
” All five series show consistent global warming”
Of course they do, the late 70’s was the low point in temps since the 30’s. Just because the instrumentation record is poor, does not mean there isn’t a lot of historical records discussing record heat and drought in the 30’s and again in the 50’s . Talk about cherry picking.
D.B. Stealey says:
“The only point of the chart is to show the cause and effect between CO2 and temperature. The graph clearly shows that changes in temperature cause changes in CO2.”
You don’t even understand your own graph. It simply shows that the oceans absorb less CO2 when they’re warmer, and more when they’re colder, and that neither flux is enough to explain the large atmospheric increase.
You still haven’t told us where you think all the carbon we’re burning is going if not into the atmosphere and oceans. It is being carted away by spaceships?
That’s odd, my calendar says 6 March, not 1 April.
Mark Bofill says: “Therefore, climate science is stuck with a substantially more difficult burden of theoretical proof in my book.”
It’s the *world* that is stuck with this problem, including you and your children.
Model results of S = 3 C +/- 50% are already accurate enough to realize that the planet is going someplace we’ve never been before. Because we’ve only produced 1400 Gt CO2, and have 2800 Gt CO2 more available to us — in fact, a lot of companies are *counting* on us burning that fuel — their stock prices depend on it. The viability of their companies depend on it. And after that there is more than 30,000 Gt CO2 if we really want to.
We don’t have the luxury of waiting around 50 or 100 years to see if model projections (they don’t do predictions) come true. By then it will be another 1-3 C warmer, with many changes irreversible unless someone can figure out how to economically suck CO2 out of the air.
Decisions will have to be made with imperfect knowledge. Refusing to do so, as you’re doing, is simply irresponsible. Would you not stop smoking because your doctor couldn’t tell you exactly what year you’ll die or exactly what diseases you’ll get?
Mark Bofill writes:
“Certainly I think it’s necessary for a model used to derive estimates of CS to accurately model atmospheric temperatures over time.”
What do you mean by “accurately?”
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-8-1.html
Joe says:
“Says the guy who believes (by his own outright admission) that “the past decade was warmer on average than the one before” must mean that it’s STILL warming.”
Yes, it is still warming over climatologically relevant time frames.
You still think 10 years means something to climatology. It does not. Would you judge the climate of the Medieval Warm Period based solely on what was happened from 1002-1012 A.D.?
For the surface, the 10-year (120 month) moving average has been warmer than that of the previous 10 years for several decades now. (At the moment this gap is 0.14 C.) As long as that is true, suggestions that warming has stopped rely on an unscientific definition of “climate.”
Bart says: “And, when they are continuously being warmed, they give off a continuous stream of CO2, which accumulates in the atmosphere.”
Here again is your lack of physics intuition: the acidity of the ocean is INCREASING, not decreasing. It contains MORE CO2, not less. It’s not giving off CO2, it’s gaining CO2.
This idea is so silly it’s hard to imagine even a mathematician taking it seriously. Cartoon science for a cartoon planet.
Phobos,
I don’t expect you to understand, you’re not capable of it. But for the sake of other readers:
Of the [harmless, beneficial] CO2 being produced, around half is being added to the atmosphere, and the rest is growing the biosphere.
CO2 is not just airborne fertilizer, it is the essential building block of starches, sugars, chlorophyl and cellulose. When you grow a plant in a pot, the soil does not need to be replenished, because the plant is not using the soil to build plant matter. It is using the CO2 in the air. That’s all. That one molecule in 2,500 is what grows everything on the planet, either directly or indirectly. We are made of carbon. Plants return the favor by stripping the oxygen molecule from CO2 and adding it to the atmosphere.
The biosphere is currently starved of CO2. We are right at the bottom of the geological concentration. We need more CO2, not less.
If CO2 levels doubled from here, it would be entirely beneficial. My boy was stationed on the USS Helena, a nuclear attack sub. They were allowed up to 5,000 ppm continuous CO2 exposure — a concentration found in many high rise office buildings. The Navy considers 5,000 ppm harmless, and they know. Higher concentrations are permitted with time limits. Not because 10,000 or 15,000 ppm is harmful, but because of concerns over crew alertness.
The current tiny 395 ppmv in the atmosphere is completely harmless, and very beneficial; life could not exist without CO2. It amazes me that the bogus “carbon” scare frightens so many people.
Phobos seems to believe that the oceans explain all the absorption and emission of CO2. That is why he doesn’t really understand the graph. Here is another graph showing that on a time scale of hundreds of millennia, changes in global temperature cause changes in CO2.
Phobos is desperately looking for a way to falsify those cause-and-effect charts, but as usual he fails: it is a scientific fact that ∆temperature causes ∆CO2 — and there is no empirical evidence that shows otherwise. As stated above, AGW is a failed conjecture, because if it exists, it is too small to measure.
The entire AGW scam is built on something that Nobel prize winner [when that really meant something] Irving Langmuir called “Pathological Science”. If something is too small to measure, such as N-rays, the only sensible course of action is to assume that it doesn’t exist. If AGW exists, produce testable measurements. That is what it will take to convince most skeptics.
Finally, Phobos trots out the old canard of ocean “acidification”. That has been so thoroughly debunked here that I won’t bother with that nonsense. Phobos can enlighten himself by doing an archive search for “CO2”. There are several articles that show there has been no “acidification”, and they are based on real world, empirical measurements — not on grant-trolling models.
Bart says: “It is only 11 nano-exa-tons. Anything with nano in front of it is tiny, QED.”
Actually it’s 11 peta-microtons. Anything with a peta in front of it is huge, QED.
“The annual global ocean uptake [of anthropogenic CO2] is estimated at ∼1.4 to 2.5 Pg C/yr.”
— “Detecting anthropogenic carbon dioxide uptake and ocean acidification in the North Atlantic Ocean,” N. R. Bates et al, Biogeosciences, 9, 2509–2522, 2012
http://www.biogeosciences.net/9/2509/2012/bg-9-2509-2012.pdf
Phobos says:
March 5, 2013 at 6:59 pm
Mark Bofill says: “Therefore, climate science is stuck with a substantially more difficult burden of theoretical proof in my book.”
It’s the *world* that is stuck with this problem, including you and your children.
Model results of S = 3 C +/- 50% are already accurate enough to realize that the planet is going someplace we’ve never been before. Because we’ve only produced 1400 Gt CO2, and have 2800 Gt CO2 more available to us — in fact, a lot of companies are *counting* on us burning that fuel — their stock prices depend on it. The viability of their companies depend on it. And after that there is more than 30,000 Gt CO2 if we really want to.
We don’t have the luxury of waiting around 50 or 100 years to see if model projections (they don’t do predictions) come true. By then it will be another 1-3 C warmer, with many changes irreversible unless someone can figure out how to economically suck CO2 out of the air.
Decisions will have to be made with imperfect knowledge. Refusing to do so, as you’re doing, is simply irresponsible. Would you not stop smoking because your doctor couldn’t tell you exactly what year you’ll die or exactly what diseases you’ll get?
——————
Phobos my friend. You seem to forget – you don’t get to simply assume that you’re right and then explain away that we don’t have time to verify it. You haven’t shown that you’ve got a leg to stand on. So far, you’ve given us an argument that depends on models which do not handle important feedbacks such as clouds and ocean dynamics well. NASA confirms this for us here ( http://climate.nasa.gov/uncertainties ) . You can link all you want to that sad little section of AR4 WG1 ( http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-8-1.html ), it doesn’t excuse the fact that the models are way off in their temperature trend predictions.
So, for the second or third time now – you are speculating, not performing science. We can speculate on all sorts of things. We can speculate that a person might die of a heart attack, or might find a pot of gold if he walks due north, or might be eaten by a bear if he walks due south, or run over by a car if he crosses central, or meet the love of his life if he goes to Starbucks. We can speculate ad infinitum about anything we like. It is irresponsible to disrupt the proven benefits of fossil fuels to human life and human well being based on pure speculation. I don’t know why you can’t grasp this concept, but we can go over it as many more times as you need.