Roger Pielke Sr. was quoted in David Appell’s recent article Whither global warming? Has global warming slowed down? over at the Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media. That portion of the article reads:
About 90 percent of this extra energy goes into the oceans. But meteorologist Roger Pielke Sr. of the University of Colorado in Boulder says he would like to understand why more heat is going into the deep ocean. “Until we understand how this fundamental shift in the climate system occurred,” says Pielke, “and if this change in vertical heat transfer really happened, and is not just due to the different areal coverage and data quality in the earlier years, we have a large gap in our understanding of the climate system.”
These large changes in ocean content reveal that the Earth’s surface is not a great place to look for a planetary energy imbalance. “This means this heat is not being sampled by the global average surface temperature trend,” he says. “Since that metric is being used as the icon to report to policymakers on climate change, it illustrates a defect in using the two-dimensional field of surface temperature to diagnose global warming.”
David Appell’s entire article about the recent pause in global warming is worth a read. It was also the topic of Judith Curry’s post more on the ‘pause’. There, in a comment yesterday, Roger Pielke Sr. provided his complete answer to David Appell’s interview question. Roger was also kind enough to email me his full reply with the italics, underlined and boldface text intact. It’s as follows:
#########
Hi David
Here is my reply to your question
What do you think of Trenberth’s recent paper on ocean warming (attached)?
Balmaseda et al, Distinctive climate signals in reanalysis of
global ocean heat content, GRL
They obtain an ocean warming, for 2000-2009, of 1.19 W/m2.
Does that change any of your concerns about models overestimating net
radiative forcing, such as you wrote in Physics Today in 2007 (also
attached)?
My Answer
1. The recognition that ocean heat content changes can be used to diagnose the global radiative imbalance in Watts per meter squared, that I discussed in my paper
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2003: Heat storage within the Earth system. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 331-335. http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/r-247.pdf
is applied in the Balmaseda et al 2013 paper. This, as I reported in my Physics Today article, is the much more robust approach to assess global warming and cooling, than using the global annual average surface temperature trend.
The Balmaseda et al paper is a step forward in understanding the changes of heat content.
2. However, there are substantive, unanswered questions that their paper introduces.
(i) First, they report that
“In the last decade, about 30% of the warming has occurred below 700 m.”
This change in heat content is a marked difference from what they report for the earlier years as illustrated in their Figure 1. They can only speculate on how this could have occurred; i.e. they write [boldfaced highlight added]
“….that changes in the atmospheric circulation are instrumental for the penetration of the warming into the ocean, although the mechanisms at work are still to be established. One possibility suggested by Lee and McPhaden [2008], is related to the modified subduction pathways in response to changes in the subtropical gyres resulting from changes of the trade winds in the tropics (Figure S04), but whether as low frequency variability or a longer term trend remains an open question. The 2000–2006 warming trend is likely associated with the weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) in both experiments (see BMW13).”
Until we understand how this fundamental shift in the climate system occurred (and if this change in vertical heat transfer really happened, and is not just due to the different areal coverage and data quality in the earlier years), however, we have a large gap in our understanding of the climate system.
(ii) Moreover, how could this heat be transferred to depths below 700m without being been seen in the upper 700m of the ocean? [and this is a question also on the transfer of heat to between 300m and 700m without being seen in the upper 300m].
This absence of observable heat transfer through the upper 300m of the ocean is an issue that must be resolved.
3. There are also major implications for their findings even if they are robust.
(i) First, they report on a rate of heating that reads
the latest decade being significantly higher (1.19 ± 0.11 W m-2).
While, this is larger than found in the past, it is still less than the best estimate of the global average radiative forcing reported in the IPCC 2007 report (1.6 ± 0.6 to 2.4 W m-2 total net anthropogenic plus 0.12 ± 0.06 to 0.30 W m-2 from solar irradiance changes).
Since their reported diagnosed radiative imbalance for the last decade is 1.19 ± 0.11 W m-2 – which includes both the radiative forcings and all of the feedbacks (including from water vapor), this indicates that either the IPCC best estimate of the total radiative forcings by the IPCC is in error, and/or the radiative feedbacks in the climate system are a net negative.
(ii) Another very significant conclusion of their study, if it is correct, is that when they report that
about 30% of the warming has occurred below 700 m.
[and from their Figure 1, the percentage below 300m since 2003 is clearly well above 50%!]
this means that this heat is not being sampled by the global average surface temperature trend.
Since that metric is being used as the icon to report to policymakers on climate change (i.e. paraphrasing from other sources “we need to remain below a +2C change”), it illustrates a defect in using the two dimensional field of surface temperature to diagnose global warming.
I discuss this in my post
Torpedoing Of The Use Of The Global Average Surface Temperature Trend As The Diagnostic For Global Warming. http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/torpedoing-of-the-use-of-the-global-average-surface-temperature-trend-as-the-diagnostic-for-global-warming/
(iii) Moreover, they write,
“La Niña events and negative PDO events could cause a hiatus in warming of the top 300 m while sequestering heat at deeper layers.”
If this is a real effect, than this is a muting of the radiative effect as this deep layer warming is unlikely to be reemitted back into the atmosphere in short time periods in large amounts (of Joules) as it would diffuse horizontally and vertically, at depth, in the ocean.
(iv) Also, the latest real world measurement of upper ocean heat content; [see the attachment in my e-mail from http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/] continues to show, little if any significant recent warming.
(v) Finally, with respect to the change in slope, this occurred when the ARGO network achieved world-wide coverage. This raises the suspicion that it is the date quality and coverage that remains more of an issue before 2003 than concluded in Balmaseda et al paper when they excluded the ARGO data.
Please let me know if you have any follow up questions. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Best Regards
Roger Sr.
#########
CLOSING
When Roger wrote [my boldface]…
Until we understand how this fundamental shift in the climate system occurred (and if this change in vertical heat transfer really happened, and is not just due to the different areal coverage and data quality in the earlier years), however, we have a large gap in our understanding of the climate system.
…the following graphs from the post NODC’s Pentadal Ocean Heat Content (0 to 2000m) Creates Warming That Doesn’t Exist in the Annual Data – A Lot of Warming came to mind.
Kind of odd that the NODC’s annual ocean heat content data for 0-2000 meters, Figure 1, should warm hand in hand with the data for 0-700 meters from 1970 to 2003.
Figure 1
But then as soon as the ARGO floats are deployed and have close to full coverage of the global oceans, the datasets diverge, Figure 2.
Figure 2
Does anyone want to speculate about why the NODC removed their long-term annual ocean heat content for the depths of 0-2000 meters from their website?
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“When I was a child I thought the world’s problems could be solved by killing a few dictators: Stalin, Mao, Franco … What a waste of ammunition that would have been. If you think the world would be improved by getting rid of all the ‘liberals’ you are … naive … . [Commie Bob, 5/9/13, 1849]
Just as climate is local, not global, so, too, tyranny acts locally, not globally.
If Stalin or H–l–r or Mow or Idi A–m–n or you-name-it had been assassinated a year or five or ten years before they died, MILLIONS of lives almost certainly would have been saved. Certainly, millions of people would have lived free, home with their families, instead of in state orphanages, peacefully earning a living as a physicist (Sakharov?) or teacher or pastor, instead of suffering in prison for the remaining years of their lives.
A human life is priceless. Even one life saved from unjust suffering or death improves the world. For, unlike the global climate, morally, “no man is an island.”
If it took 100,000 bullets to assassinate each of the dictators you listed before they murdered others, that ammunition would not have been “a waste.”
To ensure that a powerful ON TOPIC comment ends this thread (should my post at 2212 be a thread-killer):
“What they’re doing is claiming that the ocean is warming up and they’re claiming that without a shred of proof.” [Stacase, 5/9/13 at 9:04 PM]
Precisely.
And accurate.
fefdberple said: “There is a fairly reliable statistical rule of thumb that your sample size should equal the square root of the population.”
This seems to reflect a misunderstanding of the Square Root Law. What this law states is that the precision of the sample average increases as the square root of the sample size N. The population size is irrelevant (so long as it’s much larger than the sample size). The population average is usually (95% of the time) within the sample average plus or minus 2*sigma / sqrt(N); where sigma is the standard deviation of the population. Hence, if a sample size is good enough for its average to represent some population average (i.e. good enough for it to be statistically significant), then a larger population (with the same standard deviation) wouldn’t require a larger sample.
Of course, a sample of 7 volcanoes isn’t very good for establishing a population means, whatever the population size, especially when the standard deviation isn’t independently known.
stacase says:
May 9, 2013 at 9:04 pm
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Too damn right.
The amount of claimed warming lies within the margins of error of the measurement itself, such that no one knows whether the deep ocean is, or is not, warming. Period.
Even if it were to be warming, we do not know the reason why, and there appears to be a lack of evidence that it is anything to do with man.
Bingo. No Science or Science Fiction involved.
@CEH
OK I prefer OLD science because it makes sense and complies with basic laws. Seems neat and tidy with no complicated explanations and contradictions.
Good wishes to you, stacase.
You mean “evidence”, rather than proof, don’t you?
If you read beyond the executive summary, they cite the research and studies from which they derive the estimates.
“….that changes in the atmospheric circulation are instrumental for the penetration of the warming into the ocean, although the mechanisms at work are still to be established.”
Hmmm, having followed this for several years, I recall the argument being put forth that while CO2 forcing only directly accounted for about 1/3rd the observed warming rate the lack of an alternative mechanism statistically fingerprinted CO2 primary forcing as being responsible for all the observed warming. . . .resulting in projections of 3.0degC warming for a doubling of CO2.
So does that mean that now that the CO2 inbalance rests on an unidentified mechanism? One has to wonder how the IPCC snake will digest that.
“Does anyone want to speculate about why the NODC removed their long-term annual ocean heat content for the depths of 0-2000 meters from their website?”
That one is probably easy. It was removed because the results are more in the nature of a speculative mixed proxy estimate of ocean heat as opposed to the actual measurements they obtained and they don’t want it served to them later as a meal.
Its probably the right thing to do as the personnel crossover between our public reporting agencies and the businesses selling yellow journalism packaged in artfully-done photoshopped glossies for the coffee table market has grown a lot faster than ocean heat and there is a need to establish some internal controls over one hand feeding the other hand.
“We study the signal. If others want to study the noise, let them.”
I don’t see where Pamela Gray was advocating the violent change of the political leanings of the political class around the world. I think her position was more about how we change the political equations that drive politicians to take redistributionist policies as the easy way out. This will actually require advocacy and education of the scientific method to the population. It seems that that re-education needs to start in our academic institutions where the scientific method has been replaced by “post-normal science” and other political constructs masquerading as science. There also needs to be an extreme effort to educate people on the common logical fallacies passed off by politicians to scam the voters. Listen to any political speech by just about any politician of whatever stripe, and you will hear appeal to authority, false equivalence, and conclusions loaded up with emotionally charged language which have no logical bearing on the facts in evidence. If the people were to catch on to these techniques and punish at the poles the politicians who practice them, this would end. Politicians only do it because it works!
apparently one needs to beware what one blockquotes, apparently certain former world villains’ names in a post will get you sent to the “Awaiting Moderation” queue. Interesting.
CC says:
May 9, 2013 at 1:16 pm
“The closer one gets to the core of the earth the hotter it gets…”
==========================================================
Two big fallacies:
1) It’s not so much “the closer to the core” as “the further from the surface,” that matters. That is, the T gradient is steepest near the surface since it’s cooled by the atmosphere. And ocean bottom T is lower than average dry surface, hence, colder than most caves.
2) Hot water rises (unless it’s extra salty).
–AGF
“Total heat loss from the Earth is estimated at 44.2 TW (4.42 × 1013 watts)”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradient
(Pollack, Henry N., et.al.,Heat flow from the Earth’s interior: Analysis of the global data set, Reviews of Geophysics, 31, 3 / August 1993, p. 273)
70% of this is transmitted to ocean bottom: 31 TW = 7.4 x 10^12 cal/sec = 2.3 x 10^22 cal/century. Ocean volume is 1.3 x 10^9 km^3 = 1.3 x 10^24 cc. So the ocean bottom can heat the whole ocean by .018 degrees C per century. That’s 10 times as high as the heat of tidal dissipation, but still negligible. –AGF
Owen in GA says:
May 10, 2013 at 5:48 am
commieBob says:
May 9, 2013 at 6:49 pm
“If you think the world would be improved by getting rid of all the ‘liberals’ you are a very naive young whippersnapper.”
I just want to speak to that specific point, not necessarily in reference to the ongoing discussion of the principals. In Nature, it is inherent that equilibrium cannot be established without at least two equally powerful opposing forces. If you eliminate one of those forces, the setpoint drifts until it encounters an equally matched resistance.
That is why the eliminationist fantasies of people on either side of the political spectrum are so misguided. No matter if your intentions are pure, there are always extremists even on your side who, given tepid resistance, will pull the setpoint beyond where even you want it to go. By maintaining robust opposition, we maintain our equilibrium. I am very alarmed by people who virulently oppose my philosophy of life. But, the fact is, there are people of that sort on either side of me, and the best I can hope for is that they cancel each other out.
This is a fundamental principle, which has broad application even to the scientific climate debate. Proponents of AGW believe in the “fragile Earth” hypothesis. They actually believe that the planet’s ecosystem is balanced on the edge of a knife, and can easily be pushed off its setpoint by the actions of humans. But, that hypothesis ignores the fact that, were the Earth’s climate system actually that fragile, we never would have made it even this far. Random drift would have pushed the climate up against the walls eons ago. By the very fact that it has not done so, we can infer that it takes powerful forces indeed to wrench the climate out of its preferred state. Our input is simply not that powerful.
Life can never be made perfect, only optimal. It is the pursuit of perfection without a sense of balance, of the practical and achievable, which is responsible for most of our ills.
Can we use just the earlier partial coverage floats to examine if the rise is an artifact finally having the more extensive coverage ?
barry says:
May 10, 2013 at 3:30 am
Good wishes to you…
What they’re doing is claiming that the ocean is warming up and they’re claiming that without a shred of proof.
You mean “evidence”, rather than proof, don’t you?
If you read beyond the executive summary, they cite the research and studies from which they derive the estimates.
Of course they have citations. They even cite Dr. Josh Willis. They want me to believe that the the ocean is warming below the thermocline. They want me to believe that the ocean is responding to events that take place in the stratosphere. They might as well ask me to believe in the Easter Bunny.
“A reasonable answer to rise in temperature below 700m is volcanic activity” – Myrrh (May 9, 1:21 am)
An intriguing possibility.
The recent NOAA report on global sea level rise reported global sea levels rising at only 1.2 mm/year from 2005 to 2012- less than half of the 3.1mm/year rate claimed by the IPCC- which lends support to Nils Axel Morner’s claims about the unreliability of TOPEX satellite data and suggests a re-examination of tide gauge historical records.
Global tide gauge data indicate that the rate of sea level rise has long-period variations with maximum rates about 1840 and 1980. If global sea levels were for long periods rising more rapidly than the present almost 2 centuries ago, how can periods of higher SLR rate only be attributable to increased radiative forcing effected by anthropogenic carbon dioxide?
The implication is that a significant component of SLR has a cause other than radiative forcing.
Hervey Bay is a great destination in its own right.
Basketball, soccer and rugby are favourite sports among
the locals in the city. Some communities, such as Bohol, have adopted eco-tourism,
giving them an economic reason to protect their local environment.
Yes, he totally misconstrued her point. In fact he pretty much butchered it like modern liberals ( USA term ) do to us here. But not only that, the Stalin example is not a good one. He was one picture-perfect example of the heaviest of top-heavy dictators around, with no like-minded successor in sight ( he killed them all ). Had Roosevelt given him the Yamamoto treatment after any of their conferences ( when you knew exactly where he was ) or preferably long beforehand, Russia and the world would have been far better off.