Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I got to looking at the numbers for how much energy is exported from the tropics each month by this great heat engine we call the climate. As I discussed in The Magnificent Climate Heat Engine, at all times the tropics are receiving more energy than they are radiating to space. The excess is exported from the tropics to the poles, and radiated to space from there. Ruminating about the numbers, I realized that I could use the satellite data to check the oceanographers data regarding the flow of energy into and out of the ocean. Here’s how.
The actual situation we’re looking at is that what is exported from the tropics is equal to what is radiated back out to space from the poles, plus what goes into storage in the ocean. From the CERES data we know how much is exported from the tropics, and we also know what is radiated to space from the poles. So the difference between what is exported from the tropics and the amount received by the poles must be the change in the ocean heat storage. What was surprising to me, however, was the amount of energy that goes into and out of the ocean every year. Seeing the size of that swing in ocean heat content, I realized that we should be able to use the CERES data as an independent check on the Levitus upper ocean heat content data. Figure 1 shows the results of the analysis:
Figure 1. Sizes of the flows (in 1022 joules/month), and the ocean heat content (OHC) anomaly (in 1022 joules). The top panel shows the total amount of energy exported every month from the tropics, in units of 1022 joules per month . Panel 2 shows the imports of energy into the polar regions. Panel 3 shows the change in storage for that month (exports minus imports). Panel 4 shows the annual changes in ocean heat content (OHC) in units of 1022 joules (NOT joules/month). Panel 4 is calculated from the flows shown in Panel 3.
In the top two panels, we see the amount of heat being exported from the tropics, and the amount imported into the polar regions. The third panel shows the storage, calculated as the exports minus imports. And the bottom panel shows the cumulative sum of the monthly changes in OHC, which gives us the ocean heat content anomaly.
The beauty of climate science is that I’m continually being surprised. I certainly didn’t expect that there would be two cycles per year in the imports and the exports (top two panels), but only one cycle per year in the storage (bottom panel). Nothing more fun than discoveries. I also would never have guessed that the storage cycle would peak in January and bottom out in June … is this related to the earth being closer to the sun in January? Who knows. In any case, it’s the fourth panel that lets us compare satellites and oceanographers. Oh, yeah … as I’m writing this, I still don’t know what I’ll find out.
Now, there’s an oddity about this method for calculating the OHC anomaly. You can’t use it to establish the trend in the OHC data (Panel 4). This is because even a tiny systematic error in one of the three datasets (solar, upwelling longwave, and upwelling reflected solar) results in a very large trend in the ocean heat content. So while the annual changes will be valid in terms of swing and timing, and they can be compared to the adjacent years, the overall trend is meaningless. As a result, all we can see are the relative sizes of the annual swings in OHC data. Because we don’t know what the trend is, I’ve set the trend in the OHC (Fig. 1, bottom panel) to zero.
However, this calculation of OHC from the CERES data is very interesting despite its limitations. We can extract the “climatology” (the average seasonal changes) of the OHC from the data. The CERES data establishes that we should see an annual swing in OHC of about 4e+22 joules … and that is large enough that I figured it should be quite visible in the Levitus ocean heat content data. We can also see the month-by-month changes in the ocean heat content, and compare the various years.
So I went and got the Levitus OHC climatology (quarterly average actual temperature) data so I could compare the Levitus and CERES data (see note below for data sources). The Levitus data is quarterly, so I have averaged the CERES OHC anomaly data shown in Panel 4 above to convert it to quarterly data. Figure 2 shows the comparison of Levitus and CERES OHC climatologies, the average changes from quarter to quarter in the ocean heat content:
Figure 2. Climatology. A comparison of the average quarterly changes in ocean heat content (OHC) climatology as given by Levitus oceanographic data, and by the CERES satellite data.
Now, I have long been critical of the Levitus data for a couple of reasons. One is the steep rise from 2001 to 2004 (see Fig. 3 below), which coincides with the full introduction of the Argo floats for collecting ocean temperatures. Another reason is that I don’t think that they have the kind of accuracy that they claim, as described here. Next, the large rise that they show at the end of 2001 seems unphysical. Finally, my sense overall is that they are claiming greater changes than are actually occurring.
Figures 2 and 3 show some of those difficulties. One of the problems with the Levitus climatological data (Fig. 2 above) is the very large change in OHC from the first quarter (Q1) to the second quarter (Q2) of the year. In Fig. 2, the Levitus climatology data claims that the OHC changes by 6.9 e+22 joules/quarter. This is a change in storage of 2.3 e+22 joules per month.
But as you can see in Figure 1 (third panel), the CERES data don’t show any monthly change in ten years that is much greater than 1 e+22 J/mo. This casts doubt on the accuracy of the Levitus data.
And things only get worse when we look, not at the climatologies, but at the actual quarter by quarter measured changes in OHC reported by both Levitus and CERES. Figure 3 shows those results
Figure 3. Measured quarterly OHC anomalies, Levitus (oceanographic) and CERES (satellite) data. I have adjusted the trend of the CERES OHC results to match the trend of the Levitus OHC data so that they can be compared. Levitus data is the sum of their anomaly data and the climatology.
Now, here’s the thing … as I mentioned above, we cannot trust the trend of the CERES OHC data. Even a tiny error in the underlying data, while not affecting the year-to-year changes, makes a huge difference in the trend of the results. However, there’s still a lot revealed by the CERES OHC data. Solely in order to be able to compare the CERES and Levitus data, I’ve adjusted the trend in the CERES actual OHC results so that the slope matches that of the Levitus data. Several issues are apparent.
The first issue is that the cycle of the CERES ocean heat content data doesn’t vary much from year to year. There are indeed variations year to year, but the CERES OHC data swings about the same amount from year to year. The Levitus data, on the other hand, shows huge variations from one year to the next.
Here’s the problem. The largest swing per quarter in the Levitus actual data is 7.3 e+22 J/quarter at the end of 2001, or about 2.5 e+22 joules per month max over the time. But where is that energy coming from? The annual average export of energy from the tropics is only about 5 e+22 joules per month … so the Levitus data is saying that somehow, half the average export from the tropics, which is a huge number, has been sequestered in the ocean.
Now while the CERES data is admittedly only accurate to a few W/m2, which is why the CERES calculated OHC trend can’t be trusted, a 50% error in the CERES measurements seems highly unlikely. And that is what the Levitus data is claiming, that somehow half the average tropical energy export was diverted into the ocean at the end of 2001.
My conclusion? Well, my main conclusion is that the satellite data are likely better than the ocean measurements.
My second conclusion is that the jump in the last quarter of 2001 in the Levitus data is not correct.
My final conclusion is that year over year, the variations in the energy flows into and out of the ocean are nowhere near as large as the Levitus data suggests. Where would the energy be coming from?
[UPDATE] There is another graph of interest. This is the graph showing the OHC data in the normal way. This is after removal of the average seasonal swings, leaving only the anomalies.
Figure 4. OHC data from the CERES (gold) and Levitus (blue) datasets. Both datasets have had the seasonal averages subtracted from the data. The trend of the CERES data is nominal, and has been adjusted to the trend of the Levitus data.
Figure 4 is one of the clearest examples of the problem with the Levitus data. The deviations in OHC in the Levitus data represent huge swings in energy … but these claimed swings simply are not visible in the CERES data.
Onwards, the world is a magical place.
w.
METHODS: Unfortunately, the Levitus data doesn’t seem to contain an OHC climatology (averages for the value for each month or quarter of a year). Instead, what they provide is a temperature climatology, in 33 depth levels from 0 to 5,500 metres of depth. This means we have to take a roundabout route to get to the OHC climatology.
First we need the data about the size and thickness of each of the levels at which the variables are measured (see data list below). The Levitus climatology data measures the temperatures at depth levels of 0, 10, 20, 30, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, metres and so on, with thicker layers as they go deeper, down to 9,000 metres. To get the volume of each layer, you need to average the area of the top and bottom depth levels that define the thickness. Then you multiply that by the thickness of the layer to get the volume. To convert that to tonnes, multiply by 62/60. To get the energy needed to raise the temperature of the layer by 1°C, multiply the tonnage by 4 e+6 joules/tonne of seawater/°C.
Then from the quarterly temperature climatologies, calculate the average temperature of each of the layers as the average of the temperatures at the levels at the top and bottom of each layer. Then calculate the quarterly change in temperature for each of the layers. Multiply those layer-by-layer changes by the energy needed to change each layer by 1°, add up the energy needed for each the layers for their particular temperature change, and that’s the change in OHC over the quarter given the temperature climatology.
DATA: Levitus climatology
CERES data (I note that the CERES folks have added another three years to the dataset, 2010-2013. This is good news, more data is always a good thing … except for the part where I need to redo my various previous analyses … not enough time in the day.)
My first light on the 13-year CERES dataset shows that the net TOA average is +0.85 W m-2. In the 10-year average, it was +1.04 … but they claimed it was +0.58.
More to come. I’ve taken advantage of the opportunity to rewrite my code, so it is now trending towards legible, portable, and turnkey.
w.
Toto on January 2, 2014 at 11:43 am
I love this series and always look forward to the next episode.
If I may express the theme in warmist language, Gaia is warm-blooded, not cold-blooded.
Indeed, although the technical biological terms are euthermic and poikilothermic respectively. Euthermic implies that the climate is self-regulating. I agree that this is the most rational and parsimonious explanation of the dim sun conundrum and climate (Lyapunov) stability over deep time.
– jmorpuss says:
January 2, 2014 at 1:52 pm
Hi Willis Do you see the oceans as a thick dense atmosphere ? …-
There is not much difference between ocean of air and ocean of water- to a photon.
It’s good question.
How about your atmosphere as ocean of water, in form of water droplets- clouds and droplets not in clouds.
Also another aspect of oceans are they are reflection. Yes both atmosphere and ocean are reflective, but ocean has surface which reflects. It’s mirror like at a low angle. Atmosphere is sort of mirror like at low angle, but water has surface which is mirror like.
Now interesting aspect is that mirror or reflective material have very low emissivity. Reflective material has also low absorption- emissivity is inversely related to it’s absorption.
So in terms of radiating energy, a water surface due to it’s reflectivity at low angle, does not emit much at low angle.
So sunlight doesn’t warm water much at a low angle- for number of number of reasons: sunlight smeared over larger area [lower solar flux per square meter], the sunlight must go thru more atmosphere [so it’s more diffused], and finally because water reflects the sunlight.
But also water doesn’t radiate energy at such low angle and this not one direction [as sunlight reaching it] but is 360 and all the time.
-And do you see the energy you talk about stored in the ocean is electric potential stored and carried around by the conductivity of salt water. –
Have not heard about this aspect.
-The electric potential of the ocean is released by point charge seen as evaporation , Energy takes the path of least resistance so under a high pressure system (fair weather electric field low electric potential ) a pathway of low resistance opens up between ocean and atmosphere and the ocean releases electron energy to the atmosphere.-
It’s interesting point. I don’t know of any study of this possible effect..
Willis,
I have a question regarding the shape of the “wave forms” on your panel 2 graph. Why does one appear to be inverted compared to the other? is it actually ?… or is the timing of the quarter different? I understand possible differences in magnitude but not a difference in shape.
Thanks.
Gerald Kelleher says:
January 2, 2014 at 12:36 pm
“Remarkably,that graphic is fairly accurate as the ecliptic axis would be located in the region of Alaska/Canada on the Arctic circle insofar as the point on the surface of the Earth that is the North pole actually does turn in a circle to the central Sun hence 6 months of daylight followed by 6 months of darkness. I am forced to consider that surface point as traveling in a circle therefore I have to consider where the center of that circle is located geographically so if people have an alternative means to explain the polar day/night cycle then be my guest but they should arrive in the same conceptual place I am at.”
Surly you are kidding! That, or your a Troll. Perhaps, you just don’t understand the very basics of celestial mechanics? A travelling surface point of rotation???… where its located???
Try a line through the center of mass and rotation. The rest of humanity calls it the “north pole and south pole”
Pole … like a stick. Buy yourself a globe.
“forced to consider”? “Arrive at the same conceptual place”?
The seasons are perfectly understood and perfectly explained …your just making this stuff up.
Kirk c says:
January 3, 2014 at 7:45 am
Willis,
I have a question regarding the shape of the “wave forms” on your panel 2 graph. Why does one appear to be inverted compared to the other? is it actually ?… or is the timing of the quarter different? I understand possible differences in magnitude but not a difference in shape.
Thanks.
Ok. so I think I answered my own question by further pondering… These are sine waves and have been reduced and sampled near the nyquist limit with only 4 points. With only a small change in starting point (phase delay) they will look opposite.
Next question. What is the amplitude of the Sine so that areas under the curve can be exactly calculated? Is the average of the average sufficient to calculate the OHC or is it overestimated by 2x as a result. More pondering to follow..
Kirk c
You probably notice that as the Earth travels around the Sun that the sea ice at the North pole grows and diminishes in response to the orbital motion and position of our planet so the cause of sea ice growth is certainly attributable to the polar latitudes turning away from the solar radiation and into the orbital shadow of the planet as its disappearance when those latitudes turn back into solar radiation 6 months later.
The Earth is 93 million miles from the Sun whereas Uranus is 1800 million miles so that when we look out at Uranus we may as well be looking at it from the central Sun so distant is that planet. What we see is a planet that appears to have the very motion described as axial precession as it completes its 8 decade orbit of the Sun –
http://londonastronomer.files.wordpr…_2001-2007.jpg
The Earth would be seen to have the exact same motion if it were seen from the Sun but unfortunately that turning of the polar coordinates to the central Sun is presently taken up by the notion axial precession –
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped…precession.svg
Unless researchers actually introduce the surface rotation arising from orbital motion where the North/South poles act as a beacon for that second rotation then cause and effect between sea ice growth and planetary dynamics is not going to happen along with all the other seasonal differences due to the specific characteristics of both daily and orbital motion as they exist separately or in combination.
It takes a higher intelligence a more precise interpretation and more sophisticated reasoning to look at the seasons and the dynamics behind it and would deserve a separate thread on its own in which I would Not participate in.
Gerald Kelleher says:
January 2, 2014 at 1:52 pm
SO WHAT!
Please, Gerald. I have asked you, over and over, to point out how your cockamamie claims would make even the slightest difference to my analysis above.
Instead of answering, you simply state (without sources or citations) that I don’t know what I’m talking about … which proves that your claims mean nothing to me. Oh, you also say, “we could talk as navigators” … really? Funny, you never mentioned you were a navigator … where have you navigated to or from, other than perhaps the liquor store before posting?
You, sir, are what I call a “SIF”, a “single issue fanatic”. You have some idee fixee, and you think that you, and very few others, are qualified to lecture the rest of us on astronomical reality.
And despite the fact (as you have demonstrated by refusing to answer my oft-repeated question) that your unpleasantly presented ideas HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ME OR MY WORK, here you still are, acting like a jerkwagon, and insisting that you have the inside track on the world of science … riiiight. Since your ideas have my anaylsis
The funny part is, despite claiming that you’re so knowledgeable, you write like a six year old. You put spaces in front of periods, and don’t put them after commas. And impenetrable statements like “The planetary dynamics behind the variations in the natural noon cycles is the same as the cause for temperature fluctuations between latitudes …” don’t help your cause in the slightest. Not one person in a hundred would even know what you mean by “natural noon cycles” …
So, I just wanted to tell you that people are starting to point and laugh. I showed some of your loonier claims to a friend, he cracked up, he thought your nonsense was hilarious. I don’t imagine that’s the kind of reception you are looking for … but I can assure you, as long as you are trying to peddle your nonsense here, that’s what you’ll get, people laughing at your posts. Your most recent one is funnier than Seinfeld.
So I’d recommend you move on, Gerald. You can’t impress us with your bluster. You can’t convince us by leaving out the spaces after the commas. You can’t wear us down by repeating the same BS over and over. We’re just going to continue to laugh at your asinine claims until you take them to someone who cares.
Don’t get me wrong, though. Likely, there is someone out there who does care about your bafflegab. Someone out there may actually be able to read one of your comment from end to end without being overcome by laughter … so I suggest you get right on finding that person, and you go comment on their blog, where they might actually be fooled by your claims of authority. Plus, people won’t be howling with laughter whenever you post more of your erudite nonsense … you’re so stuffed with newspeak that you can’t even say “where the sun is directly overhead”, instead you call it the intersection of the line of the ecliptic and the perpendicular to the circle of illumination.
And you think we should take you seriously? Not gonna happen here, not in a thousand years.
So that’s my request. Don’t go away mad … just go away. You are neither wanted nor needed here.
w.
Gerald Kelleher says:
January 3, 2014 at 11:01 am
Gosh, you mean that the ice grows when the poles are in darkness, and melts when the the poles are in sunshine? Who knew?
Thanks for notifying us of that startling fact, Gerald, we’d be lost without your wise guidance on matters astronomical … keep up the good work, your ramblings on the celestial orbits are better than Comedy Central any day of the week.
w.
You claims my dear Willis extend to being an expert on the Earth’s motions so you should have no difficulty explaining the cause of the polar day/night cycle (6 months daylight/6 months darkness) and especially at the North polar latitude where sea ice forms in response to the Earth’s motion and position in space.
The maximum energy input into Earth is defined by the full face of the Earth exposed to solar radiation and that is defined along the ecliptic Equator and not the rotational Equator.The North/South rotational poles act like a beacon for the fact that aside from and in addition to daily rotation,all locations on the surface of the planet turn once to the central Sun as a component of the orbital behavior of the planet.
The numbskulls in the late 17th century decided to dump daily and orbital motions into a common axis that you would encounter as RA/Dec so they could model planetary motions using timekeeping averages. Without the two separate surface rotations to the central Sun you will never,ever be capable of explaining sea ice formation at the poles at a fundamental and dynamical level.
Don’t bother trying to compete – there is a common pool of visual information and graphics that clearly demonstrate that axial precession as presently understood is blocking appreciation of the orbital behavior of the planet and the second surface rotation to the central Sun implied by those set of images –
http://londonastronomer.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/uranus_2001-2007.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Earth_precession.svg
Willis,you wrote –
“And impenetrable statements like “The planetary dynamics behind the variations in the natural noon cycles is the same as the cause for temperature fluctuations between latitudes …” don’t help your cause in the slightest. Not one person in a hundred would even know what you mean by “natural noon cycles” …”
Variations in the natural noon cycles as opposed to the steady progression of 24 hour cycles which are also fixed by the position of the Sun at noon –
” Here take notice, that the Sun or the Earth passeth the 12. Signes, or makes an entire revolution in the Ecliptick in 365 days, 5 hours 49 min. or there about, and that those days, reckon’d from noon to noon,are of different lenghts; as is known to all that are vers’d in
Astronomy” Huygens
http://adcs.home.xs4all.nl/Huygens/06/kort-E.html
I suppose only one in a million would be able to work through the details as to what causes the noon cycles to vary on a global scale but you can be certain it is tied to the fact that every location turns once to the Sun each 24 hours and this surface rotation is constant while the surface rotation due to orbital motion varies hence both combine to cause the observe variation.
As there are 1461 noon cycles in the space of 4 orbital circuits of the Earth,it took John Harrison to take account of the noon cycle of Feb 29th so a modification of Huygen’s excellent work is necessary.
Look,no point being upset and I don’t have that vindictive streak common to academics when the stakes are so low although the wider world assumes there is a fierce debate going on instead of the assertion warfare that actually exists. So you get your wish.
As for latitudinal temperature fluctuations that is straightforward enough –
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/images/913×510/seasons-dec2010-slide-7.jpg
The reason those temperatures move (fluctuate) North and South in latitude requires two surface rotations to the central Sun to explain but as you see,through poor descriptions and proofreading on my part,the explanation hasn’t sunk in.
The Earth tilting towards and away from the Sun may be good enough for a different era but not this one where modelers are running amok. Grateful to the moderators here who could have easily suffocated discussion but didn’t and they deserve credit,otherwise carry on.
Mr. Eschenbach,
Please excuse this tangent from your good work here, and feel free to respond off line if you care to, but I’m curious to know if you or others have written recently on the topic of the sincerity of climate alarmists.
I find you at your most compelling on the topic of elitism, the yearning of mainstream climate scientists to see the rest of us give up our varied enjoyment of energy in our pursuit of survival and happiness, and so I am interested in your thoughts about a related issue.
It occurs to me of late that over and above the entertainment value of the hypocrisy of men like Al Gore jetting off to save the world from jet fumes may lie a more serious question. We are all of us hypocrites, after all — it’s the human condition — but why is it, really, that if global warming is going to return with a vengeance, and soon, that nobody does anything about it? I don’t because I don’t trust the models-science even a little, but I recognize that’s the minority view. If I were part of the so-called 97%, though, or one of the hordes of right-thinking people who truly and sincerely want to rescue our grandchildren, I would feel compelled to stop wasting time convincing others to our point of view or installing symbolic wind turbines. I would recognize with frustration the intransigence of short-term thinkers, remind myself of the bigger picture and move off the grid as fast as I could along with the hundreds of millions of people who agree we are in the process of killing our future.
Surely, getting hundreds of millions of people out of the CO2-emission business right now, rather than wasting time nibbling at energy edges at ineffective conferences, would have a more immediate impact on the race to avoid reaching that all-important tipping point beyond which all that remains to do is watch the land sink into the ocean. To me, that there appears to be not one proposal for such an en masse energy freeze by people who profess with such vehemence to know it’s past time for action tells me all I need to know about what they actually believe, that they are not in the least bit sincere about the alarm they want us denialists to feel. What would be wrong, after all, with returning to the simple life in a minimalist society — I’m sure some right-thinking states and/or countries would volunteer their territories for the cause — if the stakes were indeed so very, very high.
What are the holes, do you believe, in this argument? Are we or are we not about to cause a climate catastrophe, and if I’m tempted to believe in the certainty that it’s the former, why should should I listen to anyone who has yet to move his or her laptop to the wind farm? I have great appreciation for the science being done in this realm — who doesn’t want to be able to predict the future more accurately? — but after reading about all this stuff for two decades now, I find Mencken’s warnings far more compelling than anything coming out of the CAGW camp.
Wilis – Re: why is there an annual OHC cycle..I think:
1. The ocean is weighted to the South. So there is more incident TSI in the southern summer.
2. Perihelion is in very early January, reinforcing this effect.
As we know, average insolation is 0.25 TSI by area, (pi*r^2)/(4*pi*r^2). Because of eccentricity, the annual range is 0.242 to 0.259 for the earth as a whole. For ocean weighted (ignoring sea ice), the numbers are 0.225 to 0.282. Sorry, no reference, these are my (earlier, lengthy) calculations based on orbital params and a download of ocean percent by latitude.
If I read your charts right, OHC is rising fastest in December, consistent with this hypothesis.
Cheers,
R.
Thank you Willis,
I have been following your take on our unplumbed heat activated air conditioning system called Earth. Your explanation of the self regulating heat input at the tropics and the self regulating heat output at the poles seems self evident.
My take on the fine adjustment of our planet occurs in the temperate zones where small percentage changes in cloud cover and wind either add or subtract to the heat heading poleward.
I would like very much for your take on our temperate zones. Regards.
Gerald Kelleher says:
January 3, 2014 at 12:26 pm
Gerald, you still haven’t found the blanquillos necessary to answer my question. Instead, you continue with your bafflegab, like “The North/South rotational poles act like a beacon for the fact that … blah, blah, blah …” and “the second surface rotation”.
The poles “act like a beacon” for a fact? They act like a fact beacon? And what is the “second surface” when it is at home, and how does it rotate differently than the “first surface”, whatever that might be?
And you think we have odd theories about the earth’s rotation?
When are you going to stop wanking and answer my question, Gerald? Here it is again, to save you the trouble of looking it up:
WHAT DIFFERENCE DO ANY OF YOUR CLAIMS MAKE TO MY ANALYSIS ABOVE?
Apparently, given that you are running away from the question faster than a cockroach running from the kitchen light at midnight, the answer is, your cockamamie theories make no difference at all to what I wrote. If they did, you’d have pointed it out long ago.
That being the case, how about you pick up your suitcase full of bafflegab and head for the door. Note that your suitcase has two poles, and the poles act like a beacon for the fact that from and in addition to daily rotation nonsense, all locations on the surface of your brain turn once to the line of the ecliptic and the center of the circle of illumination, not forgetting its effect on the RA/Dec …
So please, compress your rotational poles and insert them up your fundamental orifice, and take them far away. You have not established that they make even the slightest difference to the topic of this post.
w.
PS—I see no evidence in what you wrote that the results of your calculations are any different than the results of those of us using the old out-moded ideas that you so disparage. My understanding of celestial motions was good enough to let me celestially navigate across the Pacific without getting lost … so where is the advantage in your method? What does it improve? What does it help us understand?
By that I mean, what can you explain that nobody else can explain, and what does that have to to do with my analysis above?
Because as we used to say back on the ranch where I grew up, so far as a cowboy you’re all hat and no cattle …
Willis
Whatever the fuss over climate,it is a basic human right to teach children that the Earth turns every 24 hours and keeps in step with those 1461 days it takes to complete 4 orbital circuits of the Earth. The definitive astronomical event which defines the Earth’s orbital position in space was and remains the appearance of the great star Sirius just far enough to one side of the Sun to be identified one morning due to the fact that the apparent motion of Sirius is due to the orbital motion of the Earth and minus stellar circumpolar motion –
http://danmary.org/tiki/show_image.php?id=30
The fools in the late 17th century did something drastic by putting Sirius in stellar circumpolar motion and destroyed the ancient reference which fixes the Earth’s orbital position in space,the number of rotations to complete an orbital circuit and the averaging process which converts the average 24 hour AM/PM cycle into constant rotation via the ‘Lat/Long’ system.
Here is how it effects everyone here – when a time comes when a society cannot accept that all the effects within a 24 hour cycle,including the massive temperature fluctuations within that period is due to the rotation of the planet then we do not like in a dysfunctional society but a dystopian one.
You want to consider yourself an expert on the Earth’s motions indeed ! but I assure you there isn’t a single rational person around when the mainstream policy is the following one –
” It is a fact not generally known that,owing to the difference between solar and sidereal time,the Earth rotates upon its axis once more often than there are days in the year” NASA /Harvard
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1904PA…..12..649B
That mainstream statement is an obvious breach of human rights and none of you can see it. I would not give this website credibility as the reception for non aggressive facts demonstrated visually is no better or worse than those unfortunate people who propose human control over planetary temperatures.
Willis
” It is a fact not generally known that,owing to the difference between solar and sidereal time,the Earth rotates upon its axis once more often than there are days in the year” NASA /Harvard
What do you think of these unfortunate people who believe the Earth doesn’t turn once in 24 hours thereby losing cause and effect between daily rotation and why the temperatures goes up and down daily ?.
That’s right you are an expert on planetary motions and its effects on surface temperatures so you should have no problem explaining how the purported 1465 rotations in 1461 twenty four hour days meshes with experience of daily temperature fluctuations.
If our era could look any more stupid,ridiculous and vacuous I wouldn’t know how but I assure you,if any of you had followed the proper principles which connects dynamics to terrestrial effects this world and its inhabitants would not be mired in overheated, mindnumbing garbage of modelers on both sides of this assertional warfare.
A few key physical considerations should clarify the significant differences in OHC estimates that Willis highlights here as “satellites vs oceanographers.”
CERES data, which is truly global, but has large uncertainty bands, cannot be relied upon for fully trustworthy estimation of OHC variations. Aside from what LWIR radiation passes through the atmosphere in certain well-known spectral windows, it shows largely ATMOSPHERIC emissions. The Levitus data, on the other hand, constitutes “ground truth”–but only where such data coverage is adequate. Assuming that the manifest import-export difference of CERES data constitutes oceanic heat storage is risky, at best.
The physical mechanism for poleward heat transport is provided by the geostrophic winds and wind-driven currents. The resulting hemispheric anti-cyclonic gyres are scarcely a “heat-engine” in the ordinary sense of the phrase or even a thermohaline circulation. And at any depth the oceans are heated by almost exclusively by insolation, which invariably reaches well above 1000W/m^2 at the tropics in daytime. Night-and-day backradiation, on the other hand, is absorbed entirely by the surface skin of the oceans and figures strongly only in the enthalpy of evaporation
Very interesting post and good to see the comparison.
I understand the objections that CERES data has large uncertainty bands (and I still consider it is a pity it is adjusted to fit the Levitus data) – however I think the 2001 swing is a good catch. If I correctly remember I also saw Bob Tisdale questioning the veracity of that swing.