I received a number of emails about the newly published Guemas et al (2013) paper titled “Retrospective prediction of the global warming slowdown in the past decade”. It’s paywalled. The abstract is here. It reads:
Despite a sustained production of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, the Earth’s mean near-surface temperature paused its rise during the 2000–2010 period1. To explain such a pause, an increase in ocean heat uptake below the superficial ocean layer2, 3 has been proposed to overcompensate for the Earth’s heat storage. Contributions have also been suggested from the deep prolonged solar minimum4, the stratospheric water vapour5, the stratospheric6 and tropospheric aerosols7. However, a robust attribution of this warming slowdown has not been achievable up to now. Here we show successful retrospective predictions of this warming slowdown up to 5 years ahead, the analysis of which allows us to attribute the onset of this slowdown to an increase in ocean heat uptake. Sensitivity experiments accounting only for the external radiative forcings do not reproduce the slowdown. The top-of-atmosphere net energy input remained in the [0.5–1] W m−2 interval during the past decade, which is successfully captured by our predictions. Most of this excess energy was absorbed in the top 700 m of the ocean at the onset of the warming pause, 65% of it in the tropical Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Our results hence point at the key role of the ocean heat uptake in the recent warming slowdown. The ability to predict retrospectively this slowdown not only strengthens our confidence in the robustness of our climate models, but also enhances the socio-economic relevance of operational decadal climate predictions.
Not too surprisingly ClimateProgress has a post New Study: When You Account For The Oceans, Global Warming Continues Apace about the paper.
The abstract suggests that the tropical Pacific and Atlantic Oceans are responsible for 65% of warming of global ocean heat content for the depths of 0-700 meters since 2000. However, the much-adjusted NODC ocean heat content data for the tropical Pacific (Figure 1) shows a decline in ocean heat content since 2000, and the ocean heat content for the Atlantic (Figure 2) has been flat since 2005.
Figure 1
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Figure 2
The abstract also mentions a new-found ability to predict slowdowns in warming. But the warming of tropical Pacific ocean heat content is dependent on the 3-year La Niña events of 1954-57, 1973-76 and 1998-01 and on the freakish 1995/96 La Niña, Figure 3. And the warming of sea surface temperatures for the Atlantic, Indian and West Pacific oceans, Figure 4, depends on strong El Niño events.
Figure 3
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Figure 4
CLOSING
Can Guemas et al (2013) can predict 3-year La Niñas and freakish La Niñas like the one in 1995/96? Can they predict strong El Niño events, like those in 1986/87/88, 1997/97 1997/98 and 2009/10? Both are unlikely—the specialized ENSO forecast models have difficulty projecting beyond the springtime predictability barrier every year.
FURTHER READING
For further information about the problems with ocean heat content data, refer to the post Is Ocean Heat Content Data All It’s Stacked Up to Be?
And for further information about the natural warming of the global oceans, see “The Manmade Global Warming Challenge.”
@- Bob Tisdale
“Are you forgetting that the downwelling shortwave radiation penetrates the oceans to depth but can only release that heat at the surface? In other words, are you forgetting that the oceans have their own “greenhouse effect”?
No.
It is the change in energy balance at the oceanic equivalent of the tropopause that Is the point.
Are you forgetting that without DWLR we would have a snowball Earth?
izen says: “I would suggest that they warmed ‘naturally’ because increasing CO2 and thereby increasing DWLR slows the net rate at which the ocean surface layer can shed energy. It gains more during the energy absorbing La Niña part of the ENSO fluctuations.”
Grand assumption, izen. But downward longwave radiation anomalies over the western equatorial Pacific decrease during La Nina events–the 1995/96 La Nina for example, which is the La Niña that created the warm water for the 1997/98 El Nino–while downward shortwave radiation increases:
http://i45.tinypic.com/2r5chi1.jpg
In other words, downward longwave radiation varies in the wrong direction for it to be the cause of the warming. Or aren’t you aware of that simple fact?
Also, please provide links to the multitude of climate model-based studies that confirm your ENSO-related assumptions. What’s that? There aren’t any?
@-“But if it is a legitimate threat that “missing heat” will come back in the future, then it is a legitimate supposition that it has done so in the past. Like 1980-2000, for example …”
Yes, the obvious example is the way in which the ENSO cycle which historically has been a climate neutral fluctuation over twenty year timescales has recently become a rachet, step-change process. El Nino periods when the ocean is absorbing less net energy warm the surface faster, but in the following La Nina period (greater ocean net energy absorbtion) things do not cool down to the previous temperature range. Although the warming may ‘pause’.
Compare the temperature trends in ENSO cycles for a few decades before 1920 and after 1980.
@- Bob Tisdale
“In other words, downward longwave radiation varies in the wrong direction for it to be the cause of the warming. Or aren’t you aware of that simple fact?”
I am aware that a lower sea surface temperature results in a lower air temperature above so DWLR is reduced. BY around 1.5% from your graph? I agree the dominant source of the warming is solar shortwave, I am speculating on the influence of the reduced net cooling rate being a continuous, shifted threshold and cumulative effect.
@-“Also, please provide links to the multitude of climate model-based studies that confirm your ENSO-related assumptions. What’s that? There aren’t any?”
None at all!
It was just a ‘Grand assumption’ I though you might appreciate.
{or is it Easterbrook who thinks its all ENSO?}
The 0-700M and the 700M to 2000M ocean heat uptake was already FULLY accounted for despite this new study trying to pretend that the math works somehow.
GHG Forcing 2012 +2.86 W/m2
Aerosols Negative estimated -1.1 W/m2
(Increased OLR from surface) ~ -0.3 W/m2
Net Forcing Which Should be Apparent = +1.46 W/m2
Ocean Heat Content Uptake (0-700 metres) 0.129 W/m2
Ocean Heat Conent Uptake (700-2000 metres) 0.331 W/m2
Ocean Heat Content Uptake (below 2000 metres) ~Zero
Land Atmosphere Ice Melt 0.03 W/m2
Missing = 0.97 W/m2
The above are per year (and can be quoted in 10^22 joules/year if one wants – it can be done either way).
http://s15.postimg.org/dyz8hdx0r/OHC_700_2000_M_Dec2012.png
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~mmalte/rcps/index.htm#Download
I was trying to resist the temptation, but I have to join the chorus of negative reaction to their “retrospective prediction”.
They are not calibrating or validating their model. Calibration would be reducing the error in their model so that they could match reality. Validation would be using data from the past and accurately, or at least reasonably accurately, recreating the results from that date up to the present.
What they are doing is changing the model by adding a new mechanism so that their model matches the present data and then using that as validation of their model – the obvious problem is that they can’t validate their model until their predictions are reasonably accurate, so they won’t know if the mechanism that they added is valid or not until they achieve accurate predictions. The mechanism, and the idea behind it, are pure speculation.
@richardscourtney To illustrate how your reasoning suffers from some failures in logic, I will respond to your comment of April 9, 2013 at 3:28 pm.
You said.
1. You made a post.
I agree, this is indeed true.
2. I explained why and how your post was pseudoscientific nonsense.
I disagree. You have no evidence for this. What I read where a bunch of statements made by someone who appeared uninterested in actually engaging in a meaningful discussion.
3. You cannot refute or even dispute my explanation.
This is even easier to refute as you clearly have no evidence for this. You cannot possible know whether I can or cannot refute or dispute your explanation. You believe this to be true, but that doesn’t make it so. Ever heard of confirmation bias. I choose not to for the reasons I’ve already given.
Now I should probably retract one of my earlier comments. I implied that I would learn nothing from you. This is clearly not true as I have learned something, or at least I believe I’ve learned something. It’s not about science though.
I’ve probably said all I wanted to say. I commented on this post with the genuine intent to engage with others who might have interesting things to say or who may be interested in what I had to say. It’s unfortunate that there are some – or at least one – who think that the appropriate manner in which to engage is to use language and terminology that certainly makes it seem that the intent is not to learn but to simply attack anyone whose views they disagree with.
izen says:
April 9, 2013 at 2:26 pm
“There is nothing unnatural about DWLR. The oceans would quickly freeze over without it.”
—————————————————————————————————————
The false claim that incident LWIR can heat or slow the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool is easily refuted by the simplest of empirical experiments.
Experiment 1. Effect of incident LWIR on liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool.
Incident LWIR can slow the cooling rate of materials. Climate scientists claim that DWLWIR has the same effect over oceans as it does over land, and this is shown in many Trenberthian energy budget cartoons. Does the ocean respond to DWLWIR the same way as land?
– Build two water proof EPS foam cubes 150mm on a side and open at the top.
– Position a 100mm square aluminium water block as LWIR source 25mm above each cube.
– Position two small computer fans to blow a very light breeze between the foam cube and the water blocks.
– Insert a probe thermometer with 0.1C resolution through the side of each cube 25mm below the top.
– Continuously run 80C water through one water block and 1C water through the other.
– Fill both EPS foam cubes to the top with 40C water an allow to cool for 30 min while recording temperatures.
– Repeat the experiment with a thin LDPE film on the surface of the water in each cube to prevent evaporative cooling.
You will find that water that is free to evaporatively cool does not have its cooling rate significantly changed by incident LWIR. LWIR radiation from CO2 does not trap heat in the oceans.
And no, a hotter atmosphere will not hide AWG in the oceans so the hoax can survive.
Experiment 2. Effect of heated air on liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool.
Some claim that a hotter atmosphere can heat the oceans or slow their cooling rate. CO2 acts to cool the atmosphere at all concentrations above 0.0ppm, but you can check the effect on the oceans of heated air for amusement purposes.
– Fill a small plastic bucket with cold water.
– stir the water and measure the temperature.
– Direct the hot air from a hair drier at the surface of the water from distance that prevents splashing for about 5 minutes.
– Stir the water again and measure the temperature.
– Repeat the experiment but this time direct the hair drier at the side of the bucket.
You will find that trying to heat liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool with hot air in contact with the skin evaporation layer is ineffective.
If you like I can also give you some easy empirical experiments to build so you can understand the critical role that radiative gases play in convective circulation in the troposphere. The “basic physics” of the “settled science” also got that wrong. They never correctly modelled a moving atmosphere. The atmosphere is provably not 33C warmer than it would otherwise be without “greenhouse” gases. Radiative gases cool our atmosphere at all concentrations above 0.0ppm. AGW is not hiding in the oceans. AGW due to emissions of CO2 is a physical impossibility.
Friends:
I strongly assert that science is important and I oppose attempts to return society to pre-Enlightenment thought. I encourage all others to join in that defence of science.
The AGW-scare is part of the attempts to destroy science which I oppose. Indeed, the practice of “retrospective prediction” reported in the Guemas et al. paper is an example of pseudoscience displacing the scientific method.
In that context, I now write to draw attention to the post in this thread at April 9, 2013 at 10:58 pm from the troll who has posted in this thread under the alias of ‘To the left of centre’. The post consists of nothing except falsehoods and innuendo. But, it is an important example of the behaviour of those attempting to destroy science and all the benefits society has gained from application of the scientific method.
It concludes with this paragraph.
Every statement in that paragraph is a demonstrable falsehood. Every statement without exception.
WUWT is a science blog. Indeed, it has won the award for being ‘Best Science Blog’ outright by being voted the best for three successive years.
Science consists of seeking the closest approximation to truth, and pseudoscientists – especially those who promote AGW – deliberately attempt to distort science.
That deliberate distortion is what ‘To the left of centre’ did with his post at April 9, 2013 at 3:43 am. I replied with my post at April 9, 2013 at 4:31 am which explained why his post is ridiculous, pseudoscientific nonsense. The troll attempted to demean my promotion of science at April 9, 2013 at 6:34 am without referencing my post and by saying in total
And I then started to demand a proper answer to my post and/or an apology for the troll’s attack on science.
In common with all trolls, ‘To the left of centre’ came here to mislead, to misinform and to disrupt. When shown to be wrong he pretended to be above rational discussion, and he complains that people who reveal his errors do not “engage” with him as he wants (clearly, he claims he did not get enough hugs as an infant).
I will and do promote science. I will and do expose pseudoscientific nonsense whenever it is used as a method to attack science. And the feigned pretence of hurt feelings from anonymous trolls will not inhibit me from doing that.
Richard
I have copied the above coment to ThinkProgress, with the additional paragraph –
“I understand many posting at this site are convinced that AGW hypothesis is correct, but I would suggest it is high time you considered the consequences of years of promoting an environmental scare based on a physics hypothesis that can only be wrong or right. Global warming has become synonymous with “environment”. The environmental movement is now permanently linked to AGW advocacy and vilification of sceptics. Right now the developing world is facing real environmental issues on a scale the developed world has never seen. I wonder if those posting here have any idea of the full extent of the damage the inevitable implosion of the AGW hoax is about to result in.”
– We will see just how open Joe is to alternate view points. Not holding my CO2 though.
@-Konrad
“The atmosphere is provably not 33C warmer than it would otherwise be without “greenhouse” gases. Radiative gases cool our atmosphere at all concentrations above 0.0ppm. AGW is not hiding in the oceans. AGW due to emissions of CO2 is a physical impossibility.”
Skydragon !!
In Creationist circles they advise against using some arguments because they make you look so stupid to the scientifically well informed. I know Roy Spencer, Judith Curry, Richard Lindzen and even Anthony Watts here have run posts explaining the basics of radiative transfer and why it is right in an attempt to dissuade people from making the farcical claim that AGW is impossible.
Your sort of nonsense just makes all skeptics look bad.
Does this mean that the oceans could suddenly reverse this process and cause a signifiant increase in global temperatures?
I suggest an “Ocean Tax”.
@richardscourtney Wow, that is a remarkable comment. To be honest, I’m amazed. I might have expected some robust discussions if I posted on this blog, but nothing like what you are doing. Let’s go back a step. I wrote a comment. You responded in a manner that I felt suggested that you were unwilling to actually engage in a open and honest debate. I choose not to respond to your comment – as is my right. My original comment is available for others to read. Your response is available for others to read. They can make up their own minds about the validity of those comments. How you can suggest that my comment is a troll attacking science is a remarkable accusation. Let’s be clear, I’m not being trying to stop you from doing anything. I’m just choosing to not engage in a scientific discussion with someone who appears to have already made up their mind. I quite could easily throw similar accusations at you, but choose not to do so.
I’ve been asking myself why I’m even responding to your comments. I should probably just ignore them as that is what they – in my opinion – deserve. I think I retain a sense of optimism that maybe something positive could come of this. This sense is vanishing rapidly.
izen says:
April 10, 2013 at 3:16 am
“Skydragon !! [..] Your sort of nonsense just makes all skeptics look bad.”
———————————————————————————————
Izen,
nice try, but it won’t wash. I have nothing to do with “skydragons” or “slayers”. Your smear is without basis. My claims against the radiative atmospheric greenhouse hypothesis however do have a solid basis. A basis in repeatable empirical experiment.
I have given you a simple experiment to explain the effect of incident LWIR on liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool. I note you have not addressed this in your somewhat unscientific response. I gave you a clear description of a simple repeatable experiment, you responded with an ad hom argument, a call to authority and disparaged my understanding of radiative physics without evidence.
Anthony may trust Dr. Spencer, however “trust but verify” is always a good rule. Dr. Spencer has made the same mistake that most AGW believers made in their radiative transfer equations. There is no problem with radiative physics, just how they have been applied to atmospheric modelling. Just like the AGW believers, Dr. Spencer failed to correctly model an atmosphere in which the gases move. Running linear flux equations on a static model of the atmosphere gives the wrong result. To get the correct answer, the flux equations would need to be run for individual discrete moving air masses on an iterative basis.
When you correctly model an atmosphere with moving gases you find two very important things. Firstly, radiative gases provide energy loss to space at altitude, which is critical for continued convective circulation below the tropopause. Without this circulation rising gases cannot lose buoyancy and descend and the atmosphere heats dramatically. Hence radiative gases cool our atmosphere at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.
Secondly you find that moving gases in an atmosphere in a gravity field bias conductive flux from the surface to the atmosphere. The surface is better at conductively heating a moving atmosphere than it is a conductively cooling it. Land surface with a lower Tav under a non radiative atmosphere will not result in a cooler atmosphere.
The AGW hypothesis fails not because radiative physics is wrong, but because it has its basis in modelling the atmosphere as a static body. It is that simple.
Guemas made the elephant wiggle its trunk!
@-richardscourtney
“I strongly assert that science is important and I oppose attempts to return society to pre-Enlightenment thought. I encourage all others to join in that defence of science.”
I dont think you can oppose attempts to return society to pre-Enlightenment thought, AND support the fourth ‘Belief’ of the Cornwallis alliance.
The two are mutually incompatible.
What’s Science got to do with Green Gang prognoses, that is anything whatever propagated by Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth et al.?
As a high-performance Hedge Fund manager, basing short-term reversals on quant model algorithms, may I suggest that climate researchers’ “retroactive projections” are absolute, prima facie evidence of fraud.
Big Government/New Order/One World ideologues may genuflect before AGW Catastrophist apostles, but no-one with anything to lose would ever bet a penny on these fools.
@richardcourtney: Um, To the left of centre is not saying what you think he is saying.
He (?) says: “Consider only data up to some previous point in time, use that data in your model and compare what your model predicts with what actually happened.”
To which you reply: “And it is pure pseudoscience to imagine a not-measured effect and to feed that into the model to determine if it can be used to adjust the model prediction to agree with observed reality.”
Left is just saying that it’s common practice to use known data to test an algorithm by holding out some of the data to see how well it predicts the data that was held back. My field calls this training and testing data. Nothing wrong with that procedure.
I think you are thinking of how climate models fit via back-casting, which is something else entirely. There, they think they are holding out data but they are not and the “hold out” data’s information leaks into their model fooling them into thinking they’re doing a great job.
But you’re reading a lot more into Left’s statement than what he said. And I think you owe him an apology.
@To the left of center: While richardcourtney is wrong in what he says about your posting, you do have to understand that there are two things going on here: 1) text, and 2) context. Richardcourtney misunderstood your text because of the context of how climate models have been tuned by back-casting in ways that violate the whole principle of retrospective prediction. Perhaps that’s why the phrase “retrospective prediction” was used, to differentiate it from what has been done in this field.
izen says: “or is it Easterbrook who thinks its all ENSO?”
Nope, Easterbrook is the PDO, but there’s no mechanism for the PDO to vary global temperatures.
Regards
To the left of centre:
re your post at April 10, 2013 at 5:13 am
Your falsehoods and evasions are becoming tiresome.
Like all trolls your only purpose is to distort and/or deflect a thread.
You have made NO attempt at any discussion: “robust” or otherwise.
Your claim that you have is a falsehood.
You made a post which was pseudoscientific drivel and I explained what was wrong with it.
You have avoided ANY discussion of my rebuttal of your nonsense but, instead, have replied with a series of posts containing nothing except falsehoods and innuendos.
The fact that you adamantly refuse to discuss my rebuttal of your nonsense is tacit admission that you know you presented nonsense.
Provide ANYTHING substantive and I will address it, but your posts are wasting space on the thread.
If you send any further posts of the kind I am answering then my reply to each of them will consist solely of
“Noted, and laughed at.”
Richard
@Wayne2 Thanks, I appreciate your comment. Your interpretation of what I said is indeed what I was trying to suggest. I have no in-depth knowledge of climate modelling so cannot really comment on whether or not their “back-casting” is robust or not. I was simply commenting, as you say, that testing models by using data up to some point in the past and then comparing what your model predicts with what is actually observed is a fairly standard practice.
Wayne2:
Thankyou for your post at April 10, 2013 at 7:33 am.
If that were what the troll intended then his context does not agree with your interpretation. However, as you say, he may have meant that and – if so – all he had to do was say so.
Also, my rebuttal of his argument would still hold if that were what the troll intended. This is because the data on ocean thermal absorbtion is an assumption and not empirically derived information.
Anyway, your attempt to intercede is genuinely appreciated. Thankyou. But my experience with trolls id that their purpose is disruption and I suspect this one is pleased at his success.
Richard
izen says:
@-”But if it is a legitimate threat that “missing heat” will come back in the future, then it is a legitimate supposition that it has done so in the past. Like 1980-2000, for example …”
Yes, the obvious example is …”
… a refutation of the “global warming” narrative, whatever you hold that obvious example to be. “Gloabal warming” does not account for historic heat returning from the depths to have contributed to late 20th century warming, any more than it predicts that the currently modeled early 21st century warming would end up in the Deep now, hidden behind the third decimal place, causing a multi-decade hiatus in “global warming”. To the contrary, “global warming” explicitly denied those very things … until it became necessary to assert them in order to protect “global warming” from the relentless hammering of the facts.
Thus, contrary to your previous statement from yesterday… “That helps validate the physics used to analyse the climate.” … what this is actually doing is invalidating the physics used to “analyze”the climate. And that ought to be written “anal yze” so as to appropriately emphasize where “global warming physics” originate. “Global warming” is an elaborate pseudoscience, with no comprehensive and and testable (let alone comprehensively tested) theory of climate to back it up. Instead it is a religious/political expedience, propped up by a handful of “scientists” furiously pulling ad hoc arguments out of their collective anus.
izen says:
I dont think you can oppose attempts to return society to pre-Enlightenment thought, AND support the fourth ‘Belief’ of the Cornwallis alliance.
The two are mutually incompatible.
LOL. Do tell. How is it again that the Principles of the Enlightenment hold that the poor do not disproportionately suffer the negative effects of bad energy and environmental policies, that in fact the poor are immune to such effects? Please quote your sources – was it Voltaire that made such a statement, or perhaps Spinoza?
Or maybe you were just trying to perform a guilt by association thing against Richard, without really paying attention to what you were saying. Naw, that couldn’t be it.
@richardscourtney Not pleased in the slightest. It has been a most unpleasant series of exchanges. Quite what I managed to disrupt is slightly beyond me; unless you consider simply commenting on this post as being disruptive. If so, the moderators could have dealt with that easily. My suspicion (and of course I cannot know this for certain) is that your goal was to encourage me to consider not commenting here again. In that you may have been successful. We shall have to wait and see.