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 says:
March 6, 2013 at 1:19 pm
Explain how Co2 is warming the planet, if it’s not reducing how much it cools at night.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 1:19 pm
Great. At the same time temperatures are declining, their studies say they should be increasing even more.
At some point, you are going to have to realize that their “studies” are merely vehicles to promote their point of view, which is increasingly diverging from reality.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 1:19 pm
@Mark Bofill: I prefer to look at actual science, not just a Web page, especially ones that aren’t up on the latest research.
Trenberth and Fasullo (Science, Nov 2012) presented an observational test of the cloud feedback based on satellite measurements of relative humidity in cloud-free subtropical regions. This relativity humidity is strongly correlated with global cloud cover. They found that only models with relatively high climate sensitivities (~4°C for a doubling of CO2) replicate the observed seasonal changes in relative humidity, suggesting the overall cloud feedback is positive.
And as Jeff Tollefson wrote in Nature last year:
“Early results from the new models suggest that the addition of the more complex clouds and aerosols to simulations could help to provide an explanation. NCAR’s new atmospheric model produced more warming and sea-ice loss than the previous iteration, and the culprit seems to be clouds — a result that caught researchers by surprise.“ (Nature,News, May 2012)
It would be grossly irresponsible, in the face of expected greenhouse warming and recent work on clouds, to hope that maybe, just maybe, clouds will somehow reverse global warming. Uncertainty is not a reason for inaction.
———————
‘You are indeed brave sir knight but the fight is mine.’
1) For every source you site that says we understand the system, I can site a source that says otherwise:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/06/nasa-satellite-data-shows-a-decline-in-water-vapor/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/another-ipcc-ar5-reviewer-speaks-out-no-trend-in-global-water-vapor/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/new-paper-on-global-water-vapor-puts-climate-modelers-in-a-bind/
This does not mean I’m right and you’re wrong. This does indeed mean that we can’t assume confidence in the models results for climate sensitivity; lack of confidence in this 3.0 + / – 50% means we are speculating, speculation != science, Q.E.D.
2) I’ve worked on systems where the consequences of an error are severe for most of my career. I assure you, uncertainty is absolutely a reason for inaction. Responsible human beings do NOT put lives and fortunes at risk because someone decided to speculate. I hope you never fly in an aircraft where the fire detection & suppression system was designed by somebody who looks at life the way you do.
I am not hoping that clouds will reverse global warming. AGW has not been demonstrated in the first place because models don’t handle clouds properly, among other reasons. You have failed to make your case.
Now, go away or I shall taunt you a second time.
You’re missing some data. Argo includes data from 700m to 2,000m. I understand it might be inconvenient for you to include that.
“But, “warm” and “cold” are relative terms. “Alkaline” and “acid” are not.”
What the…? The pH of a solution is the concentration of protons; you take the base-10 log and multiply by some constants to make water be pH 7. This is high school physics! OK, when you get to college they teach you actually it’s a tiny bit more complicated and actually it’s the hydrogen ion activation. Alkaline and acid are, very precisely, relative terms.
numerobis says:
March 6, 2013 at 2:01 pm
“Alkaline and acid are, very precisely, relative terms.”
No. Acids in general are H+ donors and Bases are H+ acceptors.
James says:
March 6, 2013 at 1:41 pm
We’ve been through this up-thread. It does not matter if the lower layers are heating up. For it to be due to CO2 forcing at the surface, the upper layers would have to show heating, too.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 12:55 pm
Joe says; “Ignoring for a minute that a flat trend CAN be fitted within the error bars from 2003 to present (note that the yellow line is NOT an attempt to do this),”
Wrong — Tamino showed this very clearly: the best linear fit is not flat.
Maybe nonbest fits are, but why would anyone use a nonbest fit?
———————————————————————————————-
What exactly was the point in countering the bit that I SPECIFICALLY said I was “ignoring” in the point of my post?
Even then, you didn’t do it effectvely – where did i say anything about “best fit”? I was simply stating that “a” linear trend can be fitted, but that was irrelevant to my point so I was ignoring it.
Incidentally, Numerosis, if you require a trend to remain inside the error bars of every single data point then I’m afraid you’ve just completely screwed the AGW meme because the supposed warming trend doesn’t even come close to managing that!
Phobos –
I cite NASA’s climate page to demonstrate that there is good reason to doubt our understanding of climate sensitivity, and you dismiss it as ‘a Website’ and site a research paper instead which in no way addresses the issue of uncertainty that I’ve raised. I site credible sources that show models handle clouds poorly, and that clouds are important feedbacks, and that it’s possible that the magnitude of cloud feedback could swamp all other feedbacks, and you ignore it, offering no refutation. You assert that the models are ‘good enough’ but provide no methodical analysis to support your assertion. I can’t force you to acknowledge the reality that you haven’t made your case, and if you want to bleed all over me like the Black Knight from Monty Python, there isn’t much I can do except ride on, but it doesn’t change the facts.
But I could talk a bit more about uncertainty and action. For example, are you certain that there is no undetected asteroid on a collision course with Earth right now? Are you certain that a new epidemic that might be 100 times worse than Spanish flu isn’t about to break out tomorrow? Are you sure that if you walk across the parking lot to your car you aren’t going to be mugged, or run over, or struck by lightning? Are you certain that your house isn’t going to catch on fire an hour from now? OF COURSE NOT. Any and all of these things could happen. An arbitrarily large number of possibilities could happen. We do not assume that catastrophe is imminent without good cause even though we can speculate that it may be and we are unable to conclusively disprove it. Why? Because we aren’t gods. We have finite resources which are not to be squandered frivolously, lest we render ourselves unprepared to deal with anything else. Where no reason exists to justify action, action isn’t justified.
But even if this were incorrect, dismantling our fossil fuel infrastructure would STILL be completely futile. How do you propose to stop China, or India, or anybody else in the world from proceeding full smokestack ahead? How effective was Kyoto, how many nations were interested in another go? All that this would accomplish is needless death and suffering. And don’t kid yourself, people would die due to higher energy and gas prices. When poor people can’t afford heating in winter, people die. when the cost of everything goes up because everything requires electricity and transportation, and electricity and transportation suddenly costs more, necessary goods and services become more expensive and proportionally harder for people to obtain, and people die.
To summarize: AGW has not been demonstrated. We are unjustified in taking drastic action in curbing fossil fuel use since AGW has not been demonstrated. Even if demonstrated, reducing fossil fuel use can’t be implemented, since there is neither worldwide mechanism nor will to enforce compliance. Taking action on AGW by curbing fossil fuel use when it has not been demonstrated means needless death and suffering for absolutely no benefit, including no benefit for avoiding AGW, since we have no mechanism to accomplish curbing fossil fuel use worldwide.
numerobis says:
March 6, 2013 at 2:01 pm
“But, “warm” and “cold” are relative terms. “Alkaline” and “acid” are not.”
What the…? The pH of a solution is the concentration of protons; you take the base-10 log and multiply by some constants to make water be pH 7. This is high school physics! OK, when you get to college they teach you actually it’s a tiny bit more complicated and actually it’s the hydrogen ion activation. Alkaline and acid are, very precisely, relative terms.
—————————————————————————————————
Big fail.
The fact they are on the same scale does NOT mean they’re “relative” in effect any more than, as I suggested above, ice is “relatively less liquid” than water.
Water and ice are the same thing, with temperatures at different points on the same scale, but with entirely different properties. Acids and alkalis are at different points on the same scale but have radically different properties as a result.
In very simple terms (accurate enough between about pH1 and pH7 – way outside the range we’re interested in) acids have a surplus of H+ ions, whereas aqueous bases have a surplus of OH- ions. That means that they have completely different reactive properties.
NEXT, you don’t do anything and “multiply by some constants to make water pH7”
Pure water will self-ionise into H3O+ and OH- ions. H3O+ ions are entirely analogous to H+ because they are simply a water molecule (H2O) associated with an additional H+ ion. At a standard 25 deg C both ions (H+ and OH-) will have a molarity of 1 x 10-7 M. The logarithm of their molarity is therefore -7.
The p in pH means, by definition, the negative of the logarithm of molarity and the H means H+ ions. pH is therefore the negative of the logarithm of the molarity of H+ ions in the substance concerned. Since the H+ ions in pure water have a molarity of -7, the pH of pure water is -(-7), or just plain old 7. Didn’t have to do anything and didn’t have to multiply by anything – it just works out that way.
FINALLY, I think you’ll find that discussions of acidity and bacisity would have been high school Chemistry, not Physics.
Then again, seeing as climate science seems intent on re-writing the rule book on everything from the scientific method to statistical analysis, I don’t suppose the (traditionally rather important) distinction in that last point will matter to you.
It’s both sad and frustrating to see that people still do not understand what “acidification” actually means.
I’ve discussed this so many times that I’m simply going to link to the most recent attempt to educate someone. And if my words don’t sink in, Skeptical Science has a detailed explanation of the real, actual science of ocean acidification.
Phobos says:
“Of course CO2 is beneficial to life. No one is saying it isn’t, and this objection is a ridiculous canard.”
You obviously don’t know what ‘canard’ means. Look it up.
And:
“CO2 is also a strong greenhouse gas that warms the atmosphere and acidifies the ocean. Plants suffer heat stress when it gets too warm, and can suffer when precipitation patterns change. There is evidence that global crop yields have already reached the point where heat stress is undoing CO2′s fertilizer effect…”
1. CO2 is at best a very weak GHG at current concentrations. And oceans are not acidifying.
2. Plants are not suffering “heat stress” due to a 0.8ºC temperature fluctuation over 150 years. Get a grip.
3. Precipitation patterns constantly change, naturally. Nothing unusual or unprecedented is occurring.
4. Global crop yields continue to rise.
As usual, Phobos is wrong about everything.
MiCro says: “There are lots of historical records that that have much of the Arctic open in the 30′s due to melting.”
Really? Show some data.
Here is some data. It shows nothing like what you claim for the 1930s:
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/essay_untersteiner.html
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/images/ice_extent.gif
MiCro says:”Explain how Co2 is warming the planet, if it’s not reducing how much it cools at night.”
It is reducing how much it cools at night:
Global warming: Evidence for asymmetric diurnal temperature change
Thomas R. Karl et al, Geophysical Research Letters
Volume 18, Issue 12, pages 2253–2256, December1991
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/91GL02900/abstract
From the abstract: “…most of the warming which has occurred in these regions over the past four decades can be attributed to an increase of mean minimum (mostly nighttime) temperatures.”
Really, you people don’t know the literature at all. These are obvious questions that have occurred to many people before you, who have done real studies to answer them.
@Mark Benson,
” It is reducing how much it cools at night:
From the abstract: “…most of the warming which has occurred in these regions over the past four decades can be attributed to an increase of mean minimum (mostly nighttime) temperatures.””
Not when you compare cooling to how much the temp goes up the prior day.
What the paper behind the paywall is detecting is land use changes, ie UHIE.
Did you go look at my work yet?
Mark Bofill writes: “lack of confidence in this 3.0 + / – 50% means we are speculating, speculation != science.”
It’s not speculation, it’s science, and science includes uncertainties. Observations of paleoclimates too put climate sensitivity at this level.
Besides, climate sensitivity is a lousy indicator of future changes, not only because no one knows the future path of GHG emissions, but mostly because it doesn’t completely include carbon sensitivity — changes in natural carbon sinks, and the effects of feedbacks between climate change and carbon uptake. A much better measure is the carbon-climate feedback function (CCR), which finds 1.5 C of greenhouse gas induced warming for every trillion tons of carbon emitted. (Matthews et al, Nature 11 June 2009). The 5 and 95% percentile limits are 1.0 and 2.1 C/TtC.
This result is found from both models, and from observations (which do include changes in clouds) over the last century, as Matthews et al show.
Given that we’re now emitting over 11 GtC/yr, we can expect between 0.11-0.23 C/decade of GHG induced warming — more if emissions increase, as they almost certainly will.
Both data and theory show that CCR definitely isn’t zero. Hoping it is — i.e. that uncertainties will go for you and not break even (let along go against you) — is gambling with the future well-being of civilization.
Joe: I clearly need to retake high school chemistry; you’re right I have forgotten some details (the constants I remembered must have been to convert to molarity from some other measure of concentration).
Still, you and Anthony seem to be arguing there’s a phase change at 10^-7 mol. This I certainly don’t remember — quite the opposite. There’s still protons (or H3O+) floating around in lye, which is why we can measure its pH. Similarly, the syndrome when your blood pH gets low is known as “acidosis”, not “slightlylessbasicosis”.
Bernard J. says:
March 6, 2013 at 6:20 pm
I read your first link. Interesting. I do not traffic with the other site, just as I do not traffic with hookers, con men, and thugs, or other persons with stunted intellects and morals. Could you, perhaps, give us a condensed version?
Bart says: “No. Acids in general are H+ donors and Bases are H+ acceptors.”
When CO2 dissolves in ocean water, the hydrogen ion (proton) concentration of the water increases. It’s pH decreases.
The higher concentration of hydrogen ions have effects on the chemical reactions and rates of biological processes.
The biology and chemistry don’t care whether you label the ocean an base or an acid; they only know about the chemicals in their environment, and react accordingly. The higher concentration of H+ ions changes the chemistry.
There isn’t some magic threshold at pH=7 where things happen that didn’t happen before. They are already happening; the changes are in the rates, due to changes in concentrations.
Yet again, this is all very standard, very well known stuff; the basics aren’t disputed in the least in the scientific world.
DB Stealey writes: “4. Global crop yields continue to rise.”
No one disputes that, least of all the paper I cited. At least read the abstract…. The finding was, “For wheat, maize and barley, there is a clearly negative response of global yields to increased temperatures. Based on these sensitivities and observed climate trends, we estimate that warming since 1981 has resulted in annual combined losses of these three crops representing roughly 40 Mt or $5 billion per year,as of 2002.”
Yet again, realize that the world does not consist of a single variable. Many factors influence global crop yield, not least of which is how many acres are planted or what agricultural technologies are used.
The Lobell and FIeld finding is that, due to warming, the yield for these three major crops is lower than what it would be without the warming.
Is that really so hard for you to understand? .
Phobos says:
“The Lobell and FIeld finding…”
What they ‘found’ was another way to angle for some of that globaloney grant money.
I am astonished that anyone would be so credulous as to believe that a tiny 0.8º change in temperature, over a century and a half, has any measurable effect on plant life. Global temperatures are always naturally changing. The plants cope.
In addition, GHG global warming primarily takes place in winter, and at the higher latitudes, and at night. It does not raise high temps higher.
That self-serving paper is totally bogus, using weasel words like “we estimate”. Well, I estimate increased grant income for those pseudo-scientists. Whatever Phobos has been smoking, he should share it. It must be really strong stuff.
Bart says: March 6, 2013 at 2:35 pm
“We’ve been through this up-thread. It does not matter if the lower layers are heating up. For it to be due to CO2 forcing at the surface, the upper layers would have to show heating, too.”
Spontaneous heating of the middle ocean layers. How interesting. Please share your insight into this magical new science you’ve discovered.
btw: the upper layers have warmed (not that they needed to, ever crack a whip?); the yellow line is cowardly deceptive.
Phobos says:
March 6, 2013 at 8:22 pm
“Given that we’re now emitting over 11 GtC/yr, we can expect between 0.11-0.23 C/decade of GHG induced warming — more if emissions increase, as they almost certainly will.”
How much longer does this have to not occur before you admit you are wrong?
James says:
March 6, 2013 at 9:14 pm
“Please share your insight into this magical new science you’ve discovered.”
Oh, do please share yours into how the heat was teleported to the depths without leaving a trace along the path from the source. Was it a Star Trek transporter beam operated by EBO (Evil Big Oil)?
It turns out that there have been a couple of studies of deep ocean heat content changes. They, too, find warming:
Warming of Global Abyssal and Deep Southern Ocean Waters between the 1990s and 2000s: Contributions to Global Heat and Sea Level Rise Budgets, S Purkey and G Johnson, J Climate v23 (Dec 2010)
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010JCLI3682.1
discussed in:
Deep ocean heat
Ari Jokimäki, September 20, 2010
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/deep-ocean-heat/
Deep ocean heat content changes estimated from observation and reanalysis product and their influence on sea level change, S Kouketsu et al, Journal of Geophysical Research, 116, C03012 (2011)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010JC006464/abstract
Bart says: “How much longer does this have to not occur before you admit you are wrong?”
How much longer until you realize warming depends on more than one variable?
You did study functions of more than one variable, right?
GISS 15-yr trends:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/giss_15.jpg
Note: 1993-1995