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
“stopthefrackattack” is going to turn out to be an astro turf organization. They will have to lie to find people ‘harmed by fracking’, unless they are goin gto include workman’s comp claims and people in auto accidents related to trucking fracking equipment and supplies to welll sites.
Fracking consists of water, sand, guar (a natural edible product in gum), and things like that.
This protest will be as phony as that movie with the burning water in it.
jorgekafkazar says:
September 25, 2013 at 10:17 am
It’s hard to prevent myself from thinking that you added some of your own potential climate drivers there:
“…De debbil angry
Gaia angry…”
I suspect that you are secretly working on a grand unified theory of climate.
I pointed out in the earlier article that the warming off Central America is probably due to mountain jets. To confirm that, check whether it is seasonal or year-round. Volcanic heat should not be seasonal.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/15/do-underwater-volcanoes-have-an-effect-on-enso/#comment-893378
Google “correcting ocean cooling willis” from 2008 and you will see, what NASA JPL had done to Argo data. They shown Atlantic cooling, so that.. man deleted all buoys which seemed to him “too cold”. Despite that, Atlantic OHC peaked around 2005 and goes down since. I have no faith in massaged Argo data.
Anthony,
Probably should remove the reference to the ” we are just now discovering the largest undersea volcano on Earth” in any explanation to current explanation of sea ocean heat content as that volcanic complex is Cretaceous-aged and 135-145 million years old.
Regarding millivolt and his electoral nonsense. Truth to be told, despite the horrendous increase in hidden taxes, nothing much has changed CO2 wise. In reality our energy bills have increased because every politician understands that they would never be elected if those taxes were made obvious to the public.
Take the UK ‘floor price’ for Carbon at £16 (around $26) per ton. This simply works its way through the system and becomes an increased sales tax (VAT in the UK). When one adds up all the ‘green taxes’ it would become obvious that a politician, were it ever honest, should have just stood for election on a platform of more tax. The reason there is so much support for ‘green taxes’ is that they are hidden taxes. No Politician ever has to use the phrase ‘tax increases for everyone’ at election time. Prices just rise and, like Millivolt, everyone blames ‘evil big business’.
Here is the UK ‘democratic’ process in action (with another Millivolt). (0:5:45 for the meat).
Truth is that HMG has interfered, over decades, at every level with UK power provision and now that it is all going horribly wrong they want to blame the companies involved. There was an old lady (politician who interfered with the energy market) who swallowed a fly … I don’t know why, perhaps she’ll die …
Here is the most relevant Ocean Heat Content graph.
http://s17.postimg.org/4ts1blb4v/2013_Missing_Energy.png
Or one can take Trenberth’s “missing energy” chart and extend its numbers to 2013.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Topics/MissingEnergySci.png
The “net radiation” line has moved up to 2.3 W/m2 (according to the numbers which will be used in the upcoming IPCC AR5 report next week – the net negative aerosols impact has been reduced from what was assumed before and GHGs continue to increase)
Furthermore, Trenberth’s chart did not include the feedbacks that are supposed to be showing up of water vapour and cloud albedo reduction (add another 1.7 W/m2 for a total of 4.0 W/m2).
But Trenberth did show it in this chart. [Note the bar called “radiative feedback” is really the missing energy and the increased OLR].
http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/8098/trenberthnetradiation.jpg
The newest Ocean Heat Content trends are a little higher than Trenberth had and are now at 0.53 W/m2 in the 0-2000 metre ocean. Land and ice-melt are 0.03 W/m2 for a total of 0.56 W/m2.
So the “missing section” should really be twice as big now as it is shown here.
The warmers take solace in a rising OHC number but it is far lower than predicted and at a far lower rate than would provide for dangerous global warming.
———-
Let’s convert the 10^22 joules and W/m2 numbers/heat going into the oceans numbers into TempC.
The 0-2000 metre ocean has warmed by 0.05C so far and is warming currently at 0.002C per year. In 87 years (the year 2100), it will have increased to 0.22C.
+0.22C is far from the 3.25C predicted for the year 2100 in the theory.
The surface has warmed by 0.75C and is roughly increasing at 0.0045C per year (in the long-term and accounting for the ENSO, volcanoes etc and ignoring the recent temperature standstill). In 87 years, (the year 2100), it will have increased to 1.14C
Land, Atmosphere year 2100 –> 1.14C
Oceans, year 2100 –> 0.22C
The 3.25C appears to be missing.
It’s occurred to me that in all the contrafibularity over how green energy would work so much better if only we could find a way of storing energy….why bother, when the sun/atmosphere/AGW is doing it for us by storing so much in the oceans! (/sarc)
3×2:
Concerning political disruption of UK energy supply, in your post at September 25, 2013 at 11:56 am you say
She has died. Her name was Margaret Thatcher.
Richard
If the sun never sets on the British Empire, why is there such a big concern about the lights going out?
Bill Illis and Hockey Schtick,
Thanks for those excellent charts and graphs. They show clearly that none of the IPCC’s predictions are anything but climate alarmism.
How Electricity Became a Luxury Good
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html
I will be using this image for a post on fuel poverty in the UK, but in light of the proposed “freeze” in energy prices, this seems the appropriate time for its unveiling. Here’s a nice link about the dramatic rise in hypothermia deaths (also note the hockey sticks below in the graph of rising energy price indices). They want to blame the energy companies, but as MarkW notes in the first comment, they need to point their fingers at the inept politicians who led the UK to this dire position. Another hockey stick I’ll be introducing in my post is the one depicting the unforgivable rise in fuel poverty, reportedly up to 6.3 million households, or almost a full quarter of all UK households. Inadvertent or not, is the UK culling its costly pensioners? I need to do more research and find more time, but hopefully will have more to share soon. Cheers!
Re: 3 x 2 (today, at 11:56am) — you are apparently also unaware that Margaret Thatcher discovered that she had made a mistake and ended up rejecting CAGW.
{emphasis mine}
{Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7823477/Was-Margaret-Thatcher-the-first-climate-sceptic.html }
I’ve just been watching a bit of Al Gore on with Bill Clinton on Charlie Rose on PBS. Gore is stark raving mad! He’s absolutely nuts! He is not in control of his cognitive processes. I haven’t watched him for awhile, but he’s now quite bizarre. He quite literally is a raving lunatic. Rose can’t figure what questions to feed him and Clinton is looking uncomfortable, and he doesn’t answer what Rose does ask. Wow!
I haven’t had time to read all the posts, but the seas are a lagging indicator and would continue to warm for years with the atmosphere absorbing no more heat than before (or even less).. Nothing unexpected here- and how many times need it be repeated- there is so little historical data that inferences about faster or slower ocean heating at any depth is mostly speculation. Oh, but the models show…….!
Of course, we wouldn’t be in this pickle if Miliband hadn’t screwed the pooch and forced the energy companies (and us consumers) down the path of renewables and the green ‘fear machine’ when he was Secretary for Energy and Climate Change. Of course, the whole energy ‘crisis’ could easily be flipped along with rising energy costs by cutting the 15% additional green taxes, subsidies, halting the closure of power stations leaving a shortfall etc. All that has to be done is reverse gear out of the mess. Too obvious and sensible an option? Yeah, probably. That would mean admitting they were wrong and green politicians won’t even admit that in court in front of a jury.
Mike MacCracken the Climate Institute director is finding excuses for the models failures to replicate reality:
“The models make projections (conditional if-then simulations), not predictions. So, the models were run assuming only anthropogenic GHG emissions (gases and some aerosols, etc.–but not solar or volcanic influences as these cannot be predicted) would be changing, whereas observed climate is affected by all factors.
Also the observed climate is one path out of a range of possible paths that are generated by internal variability (chaos). If models could actually predict year by year or month by month fluctuations several years to a decade in advance, that would mean one could predict despite the chaotic effect (and would win a big prize for that). So, your expectation that everything is so deterministic on a short-term basis is just not in accord with what we understand.
What the paper shows, even though a few years old, is that the past record shows pauses in the warming at certain points, yet over the last 50 years has moved up (if, for example, one did a linear regression to get a trend line).
Mike”
MacCracken, either your models were borne out of understanding climate or not. You guys claimed it all along, the science was settled and yet, you now look for excuses. Also funny that solar had no influence on warming and now it has influence on cooling… What’s the new process that was not at work then –skeptics were ridiculed daring to suggest the sun as an influence- that is now affecting global temperatures adversely?
Oh and now climate is chaos… Chaos is the lamest excuse for those who do not understand their subject. Climate is the sum of weathers over an arbitrary 30 y period supposed to be long enough to reflect a meaningful evolution. Invoking chaos when you’ve been plastering the Yahoo climateskeptic blog with your science is settled BS is simply showing bad faith.
Finally, coming out of the LIA will show the same trend than your latest trendy excuse.
Time to retire Mikey!
Alan Millar says:
September 25, 2013 at 9:55 am
////////////////////
No surprise that your comment did not pass moderation on Realclimate.
I have made your point (but no so eloquently) many times before when articles appear on OHC and/or the claim that the deep ocean is somehow being heated due to AGW.
But there is a further point and that is that the deep ocean is very cold. For this purpose, it does not matter whether it is 2 or 3 or 4 degC. For the purpose of discussion lets say it is 3degC. Now if the deep ocean warms by 1/1000th of a degree pa to become 3.001degC, and then over time by a further 1/1000ths of a degree to become 3.002degCand so on. What stays in the deep ocean does not and cannot heat the atmosphere. The heat exchange is at the surface, so the only concern can be if circulating trends alter such that the deep ocean resurfaces quicker than the present millenia period that it currently takes.
But what happens when the deep ocean resurfaces? Well when it does, it means that cold water will be coming up from depth. This water may now be say 3.008degC, instead of 3degC, but the important point to note is that whatever be its temperature (even if it has been heated to say 3.7degC) it will still be significantly cooler than the surface water and will act to cool the surface water. It is important to bear in mind that the surface is going to get colder not warmer by the reemergence of the deep ocean, so far from eventually heating the atmosphere, it would cool the atmosphere. We see this on a different scale in La Nina events where there is an upwelling of cool water resulting in surface cooling which in turn leads to cooling of the atmosphere.
The upshot is that either the heat going into the ocean has been diluted by dissipation and rendered completely harmless, or if by some chance the system was to change so that the deep ocean could resurface quicker than it presently does, it will not lead to global warming, but to global cooling. Either way, AGW would be over if the effect of CO2 is now no longer to warm the ocean but instead it is to heat the deep ocean.
mpaul says:
September 25, 2013 at 10:03 am
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?
Here is a paper that tackles your question in a general way. According to the paper the heat flux into the oceans from the mantle beneath them is ~63mW/m² (30 – 32 TW total). I don’t think this figure includes point sources such as volcanos.
http://www.mantleplumes.org/WebDocuments/Hofmeister2005.pdf
I’ve been at a frac sand conference in Minneapolis over the last two days and of course protesters rented the room next door and we heard a lot of bongo drums and the like. They were otherwise polite and somewhat shy. I was born in Manitoba to the north and I recall that folks there were much the same all those years ago. I think the long winters and the type of people that voluntarily put up with them have that kind of personality. I came from homestead stock that built sod houses on the prairies in the 19th Century. I guess with daily lives that were fraught with real survival challenges, the fluffier concerns of folks in more temperate and affluent parts never sank in too deep with the northern Great Plains people.
Hey, Gary Pearse, glad you’re back. Just today, I was wondering where you’ve been and hoping all is well (no, no, nothing to worry about, I think about a LOT of WUWT people on a regular basis). LOL, I think I mis-read your post just above. Are you equating bongo-drum playing protesters with the reticent, hardworking, real data types that were the Manitoba pioneers?? I don’t think those bongo drummers’ ancestors were anywhere NEAR a long, cold, winter — or, well, there just wouldn’t be any protestors. “Goin’ where the weather suits my clothes” is what their ancestors essentially sang (with drums, of course).
Janice Moore says:
September 25, 2013 at 6:17 pm
“Hey, Gary Pearse, glad you’re back. Just today, I was wondering where you’ve been and hoping all is well (no, no, nothing to worry about, I think about a LOT of WUWT people on a regular basis). LOL, I think I mis-read your post just above. Are you equating bongo-drum playing protesters with the reticent, hardworking, real data types that were the Manitoba pioneers?? ”
Hello Janice. Yes you do show concern about others, but I’m going to be personally touched anyway! We geologist/engineers in the mining field take a lot of abuse from the planet-savior militia. No I was expecting hooded fang protesters for a diabolical practice like fracking – these Minnesotans at their angriest were a rather nice bunch.
Hi, Gary,
Well, you are sort of right, I only remember about .1 (if that many)% of the 1,000 or so (just a guess — at least I admit it!) regular posters. You’ve written some extra cool things. Re: phlegmatic Minnesotan protestors: Oh, NOW, I get it. Thank you for explaining.
Enjoy being home with your wife and all those great kids,
Janice
I’m still worried that the deep ocean heat will wake up Godzilla.