Stephan Rahmstorf hatches an egg at RealClimate: What ocean heating reveals about global warming
The heat content of the oceans is growing and growing. That means that the greenhouse effect has not taken a pause and the cold sun is not noticeably slowing global warming.
…
If the oceans are warming up, this implies that the Earth must absorb more solar energy than it emits longwave radiation into space. This is the only possible heat source.
The only heat source? There’s also undersea volcanic activity, which we can barely track, and we are just now discovering the largest undersea volcano on Earth. Has there been an increase in global undersea volcanic activity? We simply don’t know. However, thanks to satellites, we are just beginning to see:
Now some may ask why didn’t Argos detect the upwelling deeper (1000m)? The answer is in fluid dynamics. The hot spot is very narrow above whatever thermal vents are the source of this warming. The Argo floats are not very dense in this region. So the warm column of water upwelling has to spread out as it rises, making it more likely to be detected by the Argos floats. By the time it hits the surface the warm water really spreads out over top of the cooler layers below.
As this March 2009 surface image shows there are two upwellings in the area, but the one off Costa Rica is missed at the lower depths (again likely due to the density of sensors being so low in this area). And there appears to be a 3rd upwelling off the coast of Peru.
The activity of Nicaragua and Costa Rica is right along the Cocos Plate.
Read more about this observation here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/15/do-underwater-volcanoes-have-an-effect-on-enso/
But there are other issues. Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. suggests that:
- The analysis of ocean heating should also be presented in terms of the ocean and global averaged Watts per meter squared, as this provides a measure of the climate system global average radiative imbalance. e.g. seePielke 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 Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55. http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/r-334.pdf See also Ellis et al. 1978: The annual variation in the global heat balance of the Earth. J. Geophys. Res., 83, 1958-1962.http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/ellis-et-al-jgr-1978.pdf
- Their claim of transport of heat into deeper layers needs to
i) discuss how this heat transfer can occur without being sampled in the upper ocean andii) the significance of this sequestered heat (if it is real) in terms of muting global warming within the atmosphere, since this heat (as I have come to realize) cannot coherently and quickly come back upwards as it would be smeared horizontally and vertically at depth. This means there is a negative feedback to surface and tropospheric global warming (i.e. which would necessarily reduce the so-called (and mislabeled) “climate sensitivity” based on the global average surface temperature trend.I discuss this issue in terms of how it affects the use of the global average surface temperature trend in my posthttp://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/torpedoing-of-the-use-of-the-global-average-surface-temperature-trend-as-the-diagnostic-for-global-warming/
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From “stopthefrackattack.org” comes this emailed press release. I have to wonder, if they are harmed by fracking, how can they muster the strength to go protest?
Today: People Harmed by Fracking Protest Outside White House, Demand Obama’s EPA Reopen Investigations into Fracking-Related Pollution
Washington, DC – On Wednesday, September 25th, people harmed by fracking will gather in front of the White House, march to the EPA headquarters and deliver 250,000 signatures from concerned citizens across the United States. The signatures demand that the EPA reopen investigations into fracking-related pollution in Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming.
When: 2pm, Wednesday, September 25th
Where: Lafayette Park, Washington, D.C., EPA headquarters/Ariel Rios Building, Washington D.C.
Livestreaming of the event at: http://new.livestream.com/earthworks/investigations
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Meanwhile the Union of Concerned Scientists decides to fight the EPA with a membership drive. Kenji was not impressed.
Dear UCS supporter,
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) exists to protect our environment and keep our land, water, air, and health safe.
But when the EPA’s own scientists found evidence that fracking was contaminating water, the EPA stopped or slowed down its scientists’ work in three states.1
Why would the EPA back away from its own science?
Simple. Fierce pressure from industry and politicians interfering at every step—from a former Democratic governor reportedly hired by drilling industries to pressure the agency, to a U.S. Senator delaying scientists by demanding constant financial reports, even asking how many dollars were spent on individual lab tests.2
As the fracking boom continues, the EPA can expect even more interference. We can’t sit by and watch. We’re looking for 750 new UCS members to stand up this month to help counter misinformation, demand accountability, protect whistleblowers, and defend our health.
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Britain’s Energy Chaos
Shares Plunge Amid Warning Of 1970s-Style Blackouts
A promise by Britain’s opposition leader Ed Miliband to freeze gas and electricity bills provoked warnings last night of blackouts, job losses and a threat by one leading energy company to leave Britain. –Francis Elliott, The Times, 25 September 2013
Shares in leading energy firms dropped by up to five per cent today as the markets reacted to Labour’s 1970s-style plan to freeze power bills. Energy firms said capping prices would halt the investment needed to avoid blackouts and lead to gas and electricity shortages. –James Chapman and Matt Chorley, Daily Mail, 25 September 2013
In our April 2013 report ‘A Crisis in UK Energy Policy Looks Inevitable’ we argued that the inherent contradictions and implausibility of UK energy policy would eventually trigger a crisis. We pointed out that the political risk faced by the sector would undoubtedly rise as these forces played out. Yesterday those concerns crystallised with the announcement by the leader of the Labour party of a 20 month price freeze for power and gas bills across both the domestic and business sectors should Labour win the May 2015 General Election. –Peter Atherton & Mulu Sun, Liberum Capital, 25 September 2013
Centrica’s largest shareholder has accused Ed Miliband of “economic vandalism” and said that energy companies should pull investment out of the UK, putting the country at risk of the “lights going out”. Neil Woodford, the head of equities at Invesco Perpetual and one of the UK’s most influential fund managers, said that Labour plans for a price cap on energy bills would damage the investment case for the UK and block the billions of pounds of new money the Government admits it needs. “If Centrica and SSE cannot make any money supplying electricity to the retail market then they won’t supply it. The lights will go off, the economy will shut down. –Kamal Ahmed, The Daily Telegraph, 25 September 2013
Ed Miliband wants to cap gas and electricity prices for 20 months. Yet price controls have been tried thousands of times throughout history in hundreds of different markets and always fail. And what would happen were wholesale prices to shoot up, bankrupting firms? What would happen to competition? Wouldn’t companies all hike their prices on the last day before the new rules came into place? And why should firms assume that the cap wouldn’t be permanently extended? Why would anybody want to bother investing in Britain? –Allister Heath, City A.M. 25 September 2013
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Germany is rethinking “green”:
Germany’s top economic adviser has called for a radical rethink of the country’s energy policies, warning that the green dream is going badly wrong as costs spiral out of control. The concerns were echoed by Germany’s powerful industry federation, the BDI, which said it can longer remain silent as green romanticism plays havoc with German power supply. The group said in a new report that the costs of the so-called “Energiewende” have already gone beyond tolerable limits. “The international competitiveness of German industry is in danger,” it said. –Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Daily Telegraph, 22 September 2013
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Mind-blowing tweet from the Stockholm IPCC negotiations:
A contact group was formed to consider drivers of climate change #IPCCAR5 http://t.co/IzkBRetS56
— IISDRS (@IISDRS) September 25, 2013
This seems a little late, don’t you think?
IISDRSA contact group was formed to consider drivers of climate change #IPCCAR5 http://bit.ly/1bAKK4a
h/t to Tom Nelson and Marc Morano
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Govt enacts programs that drive up the price of electricity, and their reaction when citizens complain is to institute a freeze on electricity prices.
Politicians not only never learn, I don’t believe they actually want to learn.
And now even uber alarmist Reuters is reporting that IPCC climate scientists are lamenting a yet to be published but already out of date report…
http://news.yahoo.com/reforms-urged-un-climate-reports-shorter-more-focused-110346497.html
Funny how they are even ashamed of their misinformation piece…
The stopthefrackattack dot org is very representative of the disease – affluenza. Cheap energy has given them the leisure time to protest against what gave them the leisure time.
Very self defeating and suicidal when you think about it.
good news: my comment at Realclimate passed moderation:
As we have typically expressed energy in the atmosphere on a degrees C scale, I thought this might be useful from the UK Met Office, for context.
Met Office: What do observations of the climate system tell us? – July 13
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/e/f/Paper1_Observing_changes_in_the_climate_system.PDF
“…Careful processing of the available deep ocean records shows that the heat content:of the upper 2,000m increased by 24 x 1022J over the 1955–2010 period (Levitus, 2012),equivalent to 0.09°C warming of this layer. To put this into context, if the same energy had warmed the lower 10km of the atmosphere, it would have warmed by 36°C! While this will not happen, it does illustrate the importance of the ocean as a heat store. ”
finding a rate <2oooths of a degree C per decade.
(ref increase in 0.09C in 55 years) is that really measurable?
ie one ARGO buoy per how many thousand cubic kilometres of ocean. (and we've only had ARGO, for a decade, or less at depth)
A contact group was formed to consider drivers of climate change…..
ROTFL….you mean they still don’t know
OHC has risen because asian aerosols decreased cloud albedo. This saturated in about 2000.
There has been no significant CO2-AGW because its climate sensitivity is <~0.1 K (from the atmospheric control system).
I wonder if the anti-frackers are going to demand proof that fracking is not harmful? It would be interesting, trying to prove a negative, which is why we have the “innocent until proven guilty” idea in law (a principle that is under ever-greater attack) – it is often not possible to prove you did not do it, i.e. to prove your innocence. Also, how will they react when asked to provide proof of harm?
“Scientists trying, for instance, to account for a “hiatus” in the pace of global warming this century are only allowed to consider peer-reviewed literature from before mid-March 2013.”
I love the famous Reuters scare quotes around the word “hiatus”. It’s all very Pythonesque. Anything to avoid admitting that the parrot is dead.
From the Reuters report mentioned by Tom Rude:
Many experts instead favor more frequent and targeted reports, for instance about droughts, floods and heatwaves in the preceding year, to see if climate change is influencing their frequency or severity.
For instance, a report on floods could be released just after a major flood, etc. How convenient. Got to keep the propaganda running.
In addition to all the excess heat, the bottom of the ocean is also accumulating an impressive pile of dead unicorns too. Just because nobody happened to notice them swimming from the beach out into ocean, drowning and sinking doesn’t prove that they are not down there piled up on the bottom. If you wondered why no one sees unicorns anymore well, duh, – that’s why!
It seems increasingly certain that IPCC and its apoligists will make the OHC graph into this years Hockey Stick with little more evidence than Michael Mann had
Ocean Heat Content trend studies don’t have an accurate leg to stand on. They have not been measured long enough, nor widely enough, nor with enough precision for the phenomena measured.
Here is a chart of Ocean Heat content from 1955 to 2012, with an overlay of measurement program history: http://i41.tinypic.com/2rrwj5u.jpg (Refs: Willis Eschenbach, May 10, 2012 and Ocean Heat Content and History of Measurement Systems (WUWT 7/24/13)
Only since 2007 have we 300 profiles a day for the entire ocean surface down to 2 km — which is barely 50% of the water column. We averaged 100 profiles per day from 2004-2007 while the ARGO fleet was growing. From 1988 to 2004 the ALACE program provided maybe 50 profiles per day down only to 1 km and its primary mission was ocean circulation, not temperature measurement. Prior to 1988, the measurement of ocean temperatures was experimental and very clustered. Honest error bars priors prior to 2004 are gigantic and swamp any measured signal. One tree at Yamal has as much significance to global temperatures as Ocean Temp measurements in 1960.
Even today, we ask each ARGO float to give us the average temperature of 240000 km^3 of ocean, reporting once every 10 days. On average they are 350 km apart, which means 1000 km apart between each day’s reports. Does that sound well sampled to you? George E Smith thinks ARGO doesn’t pass the Nyquist test. See this website from Univ. of Miami on the Gulf Stream Currents.
It is quite ironic that just now satelites seem to be pointing out heat plumes from undersea volcanos. Egg on the face of ARGO researchers if true. Nyquist strikes again.
Doesn’t it bother anyone else that RealClimate is using only 58 years of ocean data to draw conclusions regarding AGW?
Maybe they have some way to know what the historical variability is…. and that the 58 years of data shows us something unprecedented???
Real Climate still like to control the narrative.
They have no interest in actual science, just the PR and staying on message.
The ‘useful idiots’ that populate the site are not allowed to read anything that might cause an original thought in their head.
I posted this but of course it was not allowed through. The questions it raises are not going to be allowed to be aired on there as it shows what nonsense they and Rahmstorf are spouting.
“Well if the meme is now that mans contribution to the greenhouse effect is that we are now and will in the future, cause increased energy input into the oceans which is being distributed there rather than immediately coming out to heat the troposphere, why should we be concerned?
Given the total energy content of the oceans, the result could only ever be minimal overall warming of that part of the ocean that exchanges energy with the troposphere.
Energy enters the ocean in an highly organised form and becomes disorganised as it is distributed. The Laws of Thermodynamics mean that this energy cannot just reorganise itself and emerge in concentrated pulses. It seems to me, that once distributed, it is going to take centuries to re-emerge and that cannot be a problem for the troposphere and man.
Are we to expect that from now that this situation is to continue? What would cause this process to change in the future? Indeed what caused the energy to be absorbed in the first place, rather than exchanging quickly with the troposphere?
This fast exchange is what caused the prediction of rapid warming of the troposphere this century after all.”
Central to the whole ocean heat content (OHC) recent record is the Argo bouy dataset. When Josh Willis at NASA looked at the first 2-3 years of real data 2002-2005, he saw distinct and quite pronounced cooling. He reported this openly, and came under pressure as a result of it.
Later of course Willis recanted and claimed that his cooling result was wrong due to various issues. This article at the NASA website tells the story:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/
To sum up briefly, here are the arguments and data that formed the basis of the Willis recantation:
First: loss of coherence with the ERBE (earth radiation balance experiment) net flux. There was correlation between OHC (non Argo) since 1994, then separation in 2002-2003 of net flux from Argo OHC.
Second: There was a claimed lack of agreement of Argo OHC with GRACE gravitational data.
Third: Willis claimed that some cool-reporting bouys were faulty, and he removed / edits them out of the dataset. This removed much of the reported cooling. There were evidently no warm-reporting bouys.
Fourth: It was claimed that older “XBT” (expendable bathythermographs) – deviced towed from ships – had been reporting too warm and exaggerating ocean warmth prior to the Argo measurements. This difference between over-warm XBT and Argo gave a spurious cooling signature.
Fifth: disagreement with computer modeling results by the group of Sydney Levitus at the NOAA climate laboratory at Silver Spring, MD.
I am less than overwhelmed by the strength of the basis for the Willis recant. It is not on the basis of any convincing and experimentally demonstrated fault with the Argo bouys technically or the statistical sampling methods. Instead, it is based on comparison with other datasets that are, by themselves, MUCH LESS GOOD at providing OHC data. A bison dragged down by a pack of snapping wolves. In particular disagreement of sound experimental data with computer modelling calls into question the latter, not the former.
When different sources of data are combined, the errors and uncertainties of the combined result increase multiplicatively more than the errors of the individual methods. This is the fundamental weakness of the Willis recant. The combination of all the above listed sources of atmospheric and ocean data hugely increases, not decreases, the potential for error in a concluding story which grows monstrously in complexity, decreases reciprocally in trustworthiness.
The Willis recant is really not convincing and not good science.
The lurking suspicion is that the whole climate establishment converged on Argo to smother its testimony of cooling and replace it with a fictitious distortion, corrected to death.
So I dont see that there is real evidence to counter the initial direct reading by pre-recant Willis of Argo showing steep cooling.
Re: StopTheFrac
Dave Pursell wrote to the anti-frack crowd, by way of Col. Jessup, the whole thing printed in Forbes, Aug 8, 2010. Extracts:
“You can’t handle the truth! …..You have the luxury of not knowing what we know. That fossil energy fuels economic growth. And the existence of frac’ing, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, powers our economy… We have neither the time nor the inclination to explain ourselves to someone who takes a hot shower every morning using the natural gas that we provide, and then questions the manner in which we provide it. .. Otherwise, we suggest you pick up a pipe wrench, and meet us on location. We have wells to frac!”
It appears from this graph at Roy Spencer’s site that the Levitus et al observations from the pre-ARGO era only go down to 700 meters and the temps below 700m are simulated with models:
‘Missing’ phytoplankton found, but Trenberth’s imaginary heat remains ‘missing’
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/09/missing-phytoplankton-found-but.html
New paper finds world’s oceans have warmed only 0.09°C over past 55 years
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2012/05/new-paper-finds-worlds-oceans-have.html
However, ‘the ocean ate the global warming’ excuse claims the ‘missing’ heat went into deep oceans below 800m where there are no observations to speak of in the pre-ARGO era, only modelled temperatures. How convenient.
http://www.dw.de/climate-change-remains-a-threat-despite-slowdown-in-global-warming/a-17113546
see also:
Ocean heat content: relentless but negligible increase
http://motls.blogspot.com/2013/09/ocean-heat-content-relentless-but.html
It seems to me that volcanoes move heat from deep in the earth to the surface where it can radiate out into space. Absent volcanic activity, heat stored deep in the earth transfers to the surface though a slow process of conduction. But when a volcano erupts, heat transfers to the surface nearly instantly. During periods of high volcanic activity, more heat moves to the surface, and becomes immediately available to radiate out into space. (Another way to say this is that during period of high volcanic activity, the surface temperate of the earth increases). During periods of low volcanic activity less heat moves to the surface. So the *rate* of overall heat transfer into space is a function of volcanic activity. Under water volcanoes present a further modelling challenge because the heat transfers to the deep ocean, mixes through convection and then radiates. Since the heat capacity of the oceans is large relative to the atmosphere, I imagine the ultimate radiative transfer rate of the heat dumped into the ocean by a volcano is slower than the heat dumped from land into the atmosphere (meaning volcanic heat is stored longer in the oceans than in the atmosphere). Do we have a reliable record of how much heat is transferred to the surface of the earth over time by volcanoes? Are there models for this? Or do the climateers simple ignore this as well.
@Picker at 9:46 am
Doesn’t it bother anyone else that RealClimate is using only 58 years of ocean data to draw conclusions regarding AGW?
As I wrote at 9:37am, it bothers me greatly that RC represents that have 58 years of worthwhile data. They don’t even have 7. Any Ocean Heat Measurments or Temperatures prior to 1990 are no better grounded than Yamal justified the Mann Hockey Stick. Between 1990 and 2007 the error bars swamp the signal.
Pielke Sr. nailed the big problem with the Trenberth OHC excuse for the pause. ARGO didn’t find the heat in the upper layers ( mixed and thermocline) first. There is no transport mechanism to depth. And unlike volcanos that could be missed by the Nyquist under sampling problem, this heat is diffuse.
Trenberth’s papers on this are overwhelmed by the error bars he did not, but Levitus and others have published.
“A contact group was formed to consider drivers of climate change…..”
Latitude says: “ROTFL….you mean they still don’t know?”
Rest assured, all the major potential drivers will be considered by the committee:
Carbon dioxide
Oxidized carbon monoxide
Pyrocarbonic acid
Carbonite dioxide
Graphite dioxide
C¹⁴O2
C¹³O2
C¹²O2
Other carbon isotope dioxides
Rain god angry.
Sun god angry.
Sea god angry.
Baal angry
Marduk angry
De debbil angry
Gaia angry
Mumbo-Jumbo, god of the Congo, angry
Oogah-Doo angry.
Voldemort angry.
Sauron angry.
Great Spirit angry.
Rastifer angry.
Jupiter Pluvius angry.
Vulcan angry.
Great Community Organizer in Sky angry.
Carbon dioxide….
It seems to me that the larger percentage of the worlds population think of travelling over oceans quickly at 30,000 feet so they don’t seem very big. Those of us who were used to taking a week on a liner to get across the Atlantic and very much more across the Pacific over fifty years ago …. realise they are pretty big. As there are a lot of airports with jet airliners taxying about making the thermometers rise may well acount for the rise in temperatures during the same period; and why it has levelled off from 1990ish as the number of aircraft has steadied. See previous reports by Anthony Watts.
Rud Istvan says: “…Trenberth’s papers on this are overwhelmed by the error bars he did not…[publish].”
Now THAT is truly a travesty.
“A promise by Britain’s opposition leader Ed Miliband to freeze gas and electricity bills provoked warnings last night of blackouts, job losses and a threat by one leading energy company to leave Britain.”
Price fixing,how quaint; like in 1936’s Germany. Coming to an EU near you in 2013. Now what leftist thinker said that history repeats two times, first time as a tragedy, second time as a farce.
Next up; confiscation of toilet paper factories.
philjourdan says:
September 25, 2013 at 8:55 am
“The stopthefrackattack dot org is very representative of the disease – affluenza. Cheap energy has given them the leisure time to protest against what gave them the leisure time.
Very self defeating and suicidal when you think about it.”
Controlled opposition.
I wish someone at RealClimate would graph the ocean heat increase with a reasonable scale, like even zero to 10 deg C. The graphs of “heat” only made it onto RC because,,,,,hockeysticks!!
Lubos calculates .065deg C in the last 45 years, my my, that IS WORRISOME. /sarc
Gavin apparently thinks is still significant why again?