![Hand%2BWaving[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hand2bwaving1.jpg?quality=83)
Well not exactly #37, but it sure seems like it with all the handwaving we’ve seen lately.
So far, we’ve heard from Climate Science that ‘the pause’ was caused by:
Too much aerosols from volcanoes, ENSO patterns, missing heat that went to the deep ocean, ocean cooling, low solar activity, inappropriately dealt with weather stations in the Arctic, and stadium waves, to name a few. So much for consensus.
Now, it’s trade winds going too fast that are causing abnormal cooling in the Pacific. A new paper from the University of New South Wales says that once the winds return to normal speed, well, look out, the heat is on.
One thing for certain, even though the media is going predictably berserkers over this paper, the paper clearly illustrates that natural variation has been in control, not CO2. So much for control knobs.
Pacific trade winds stall global surface warming — for now
The strongest trade winds have driven more of the heat from global warming into the oceans; but when those winds slow, that heat will rapidly return to the atmosphere causing an abrupt rise in global average temperatures.
Heat stored in the western Pacific Ocean caused by an unprecedented strengthening of the equatorial trade winds appears to be largely responsible for the hiatus in surface warming observed over the past 13 years.
New research published today in the journal Nature Climate Change indicates that the dramatic acceleration in winds has invigorated the circulation of the Pacific Ocean, causing more heat to be taken out of the atmosphere and transferred into the subsurface ocean, while bringing cooler waters to the surface.
“Scientists have long suspected that extra ocean heat uptake has slowed the rise of global average temperatures, but the mechanism behind the hiatus remained unclear” said Professor Matthew England, lead author of the study and a Chief Investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.
“But the heat uptake is by no means permanent: when the trade wind strength returns to normal – as it inevitably will – our research suggests heat will quickly accumulate in the atmosphere. So global temperatures look set to rise rapidly out of the hiatus, returning to the levels projected within as little as a decade.”
The strengthening of the Pacific trade winds began during the 1990s and continues today. Previously, no climate models have incorporated a trade wind strengthening of the magnitude observed, and these models failed to capture the hiatus in warming. Once the trade winds were added by the researchers, the global average temperatures very closely resembled the observations during the hiatus.
“The winds lead to extra ocean heat uptake, which stalled warming of the atmosphere. Accounting for this wind intensification in model projections produces a hiatus in global warming that is in striking agreement with observations,” Prof England said.
Credit: For articles on this paper only. Credit: Nature Climate Change. Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus. Prof Matthew H England et al.
“Unfortunately, however, when the hiatus ends, global warming looks set to be rapid.”
The impact of the trade winds on global average temperatures is caused by the winds forcing heat to accumulate below surface of the Western Pacific Ocean.
“This pumping of heat into the ocean is not very deep, however, and once the winds abate, heat is returned rapidly to the atmosphere” England explains.
“Climate scientists have long understood that global average temperatures don’t rise in a continual upward trajectory, instead warming in a series of abrupt steps in between periods with more-or-less steady temperatures. Our work helps explain how this occurs,” said Prof England.
“We should be very clear: the current hiatus offers no comfort – we are just seeing another pause in warming before the next inevitable rise in global temperatures.”
###
The paper:
Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus
Matthew H. England, Shayne McGregor, Paul Spence, Gerald A. Meehl, Axel Timmermann, Wenju Cai, Alex Sen Gupta, Michael J. McPhaden, Ariaan Purich& Agus Santoso
Nature Climate Change (2014) doi:10.1038/nclimate2106
Abstract
Despite ongoing increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases, the Earth’s global average surface air temperature has remained more or less steady since 2001. A variety of mechanisms have been proposed to account for this slowdown in surface warming. A key component of the global hiatus that has been identified is cool eastern Pacific sea surface temperature, but it is unclear how the ocean has remained relatively cool there in spite of ongoing increases in radiative forcing. Here we show that a pronounced strengthening in Pacific trade winds over the past two decades—unprecedented in observations/reanalysis data and not captured by climate models—is sufficient to account for the cooling of the tropical Pacific and a substantial slowdown in surface warming through increased subsurface ocean heat uptake. The extra uptake has come about through increased subduction in the Pacific shallow overturning cells, enhancing heat convergence in the equatorial thermocline. At the same time, the accelerated trade winds have increased equatorial upwelling in the central and eastern Pacific, lowering sea surface temperature there, which drives further cooling in other regions. The net effect of these anomalous winds is a cooling in the 2012 global average surface air temperature of 0.1–0.2 °C, which can account for much of the hiatus in surface warming observed since 2001. This hiatus could persist for much of the present decade if the trade wind trends continue, however rapid warming is expected to resume once the anomalous wind trends abate.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2106.html
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”
C L Dodgson was ahead of his time, and he did this all without government, intergovernmental or super governmental funding.
They are buying more time to continue their snouts in the funding trough. I wonder whether the heat from the Roman Warm Period and Medieval Warm Period are still lurking in the deep?
Well that’s just fine and dandy. So during the ‘hottest decade on the records’ the Pacific trade winds strengthened.
There is a difference between an explanation and an excuse. This seems less the former, more the latter.
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/quick-comments-on-england-et-al-2014/
Informative as always Bob. Thanks. Since I’ve been reading your eBooks it didn’t take me long to reach the same conclusion about this ‘paper’, albeit not as eloquently expressed as in your post. It was a wonder to me that they never acknowledged the existence of the ENSO nor did they really offer an explanation for what caused the ‘unprecedented’ (my BS alarm starts sounding whenever I see the term ‘unprecedented’ in a purportedly ‘scientific’ paper. Such terms have no business in a scientific paper) strength of the Trade Winds. If you don’t know why they increased (if, in fact, they did) then how could you just blithely assume that they will, at some point in the future, decrease back to ‘normal’ levels (not that there is any evidence presented to establish that Trade Wind strength prior to the satellite era was ‘normal’. What if Trade Wind strength prior to the satellite era was unprecedentedly weak (by historical standards) and the current ‘strength’ is ‘normal’?
I should add that one of possible causes of the PDO cycle is changes to the speed of the Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC). When it speeds up it brings more cold upwelling water to the surface along the coast of South America. The cold water cools the air above it creating a strong pressure gradient with the warm water over the Pacific Warm Pool (PWP). This sets up the structure of the -PDO. With these stronger trade winds it is more difficult for El Niño events to be initiated. This leads to fewer of them which leads to less warm air released into the atmopshere. The planet cools.
I suspect the reason for the increased sea ice around Antarctica is also related to this increase in upwelling cold water. This may be a leading indicator for the PDO phases.
I suspect what we saw in 2012 is related. It looked like an El Niño was starting to form in the summer but it fizzled out. This was likely due to the enhanced strength of the trade winds. If these winds really are stronger than earlier -PDO winds, then we may go a long, long time before we see another El Niño.
Another factor may be due to the long term warming we have seen. If this warms the PWP to a higher value that would also factor into increasing the pressure gradient and thus the trade winds. This would be a natural enhancement of the -PDO, or a negative feedback.
I wonder if this also ties into increasing the probability of Polar outbreaks?
Brrrrrrrrrr.
Which way it is? Trade wins are weakening or strengthening?
Nature 2006: Global warming weakens Pacific winds
Nature 2014: Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060501/full/news060501-5.html
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2106.html
Thanks, A. Good article.
England et al. (2014) looks like an attempt to make ENSO disappear, to replace a fundamental cause of the Earth’s climate with some its effects. Not surprisingly, it is some some sort of hockey stick for the oceans.
So now we have two disasters awaiting us in the future. Dr Trenberth’s “heat hiding in the deep oceans which will come back to the atmosphere due to some unknown process at some unknown time in the future” and this gentleman’s “heat pushed into the near ocean that will come back to the atmosphere due to some unknown process at some unknown time in the future”.
But President Obama said “The debate is settled” in the SOTU, I’m so confused…
I thought all the excess heat was being stored in the oceans deep, deep abyss. This story tells us that it’s just below the surface. Menacing. Like a blood thirsty shark. (sarc)
I think climate scientists have now been defined as the 21st century “welfare queens”. The term certainly fits the crime.
The idea that the missing heat is going into the oceans is ridiculous!
Quite obviously it is the land that is absorbing the missing heat — and this is causing faster continental drift. The continents have become highly energized and, like a group of five year olds at play, they can’t sit still. The continents will eventually wear themselves out and nap time will come and the missing heat will be returned to the atmosphere with a vengeance.
Is that clear to everyone?
Eugene WR Gallun
I do not believe this proposition may hold water. According to NOAA NODC OCL OHC — Basin time series heat content of the upper 700 m layer in the Pacific ocean is decreasing at an average rate of 8.7×10^20 J/year since the beginning of 2003. That date is about the introduction of ARGO floats, all data before are unreliable.
How can heat be pumped to a shallow depth and not show up in measurements is anyone’s guess.
“I want to know how warm water sinks. Someone please explain this to me.”
It is easy, it is the same mechanism whereby the cool oceans are going to give up their heat to the warm atmosphere making it even warmer.
Please realise, that with AGW only the laws of physics apply that support it, it is completely acceptable to turn the ones that don’t support it on their head!
Berényi Péter says:
February 10, 2014 at 5:43 am How can heat be pumped to a shallow depth and not show up in measurements is anyone’s guess.
===================================
Well obviously it’s ‘hiding’, just like Dr Trenberth’s ‘missing heat’ is ‘hiding’ itself in the deep oceans. My question is, when exactly did heat become sentient?
How long before it’s claimed that recent reductions in GHG are the cause of the hiatus? Our policies are working!
University of New South Wales? Isn’t that the Chris (Tmas) Turkey’s University?
AMAZING we get not one but THREE alarmist papers within a couple of months of the
publicity tripscientific expedition by Green Party Elect, Janet Rice, The BBC and the Groniad?Climate Craziness of the Week: only the ‘cooler’ models are wrong – the rest say 4ºC of warming by 2100 – From the University of New South Wales and Dr. Steven Sherwood…
Counting Your Penguin Chicks Before They Hatch The BBC, which as I understand it is an acronym for ”Blindly Broadcasting Cra- ziness”, gives us its now-standard tabloid style headline, that Climate change is ‘killing penguin chicks’ say researchers
Any bets she and a couple of reporters were on the ill-fated trip getting those all important publicity shots when the Turkey disobeyed the ship’s Captain and disappeared for 2 1/2 hours?
Let us not forget this little gem:
“I’m told the Captain was becoming rather definite late in the afternoon” seems to indicate Janet Rice was not there on ship “late in the afternoon” to observe the Captain’s irritation first hand.
It would also explain why Turkey disappeared, not for 45 mins (the length of a round trip) but for 2 1/2 hours.
Seriously, why the F* is this article being taken seriously by anyone?
Look at their first graph again, then look at this
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/arx/ENSO/LaNina.png
(which can be compared to http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/arx/ENSO/ElNino.png )
They are apparently just now on the cusp of figuring out what a La Nina / Negative phase PDO is.
This is the problem when you base absolutely all of your assumptions off a very short, specific amount of time, and never even ponder natural cycles. In their case, they have a start date of 1979, the very beginning of a Positive/ElNino phase (a strong one at that, with two “Super El Ninos”). And when all your inputted data is from the beginning of a certain cycle, what eventually happens? The cycle switches and everything you think you knew is turned completely on its head…
The Phases themselves are apparently very consistently 31 years long, and the new Negative one began in 2008 according to NASA (which perfectly lines up with the 1977 change to Positive, the last Negative which began in 1946, and I suspect a 1915 cycle period as the claimed 1925 switch doesn’t seem to line up well with trends before or after it) Since the 2008 flip, La Ninas have been seen in 5 of the 6 years (following a pounding of El Ninos in the preceding decade). With La Nina, of course, being… the conditions they are describing as being “unprecedented”
End results:
http://oi59.tinypic.com/9tiw4w.jpg
Now the problem for them is, it is going to last until 2039
And then the next, even bigger problem for them becomes the fact <b<this Negative Phase is coinciding with a possible new Dalton or worse, Maunder Minimum instead of the PDO Cycle+Modern Maximum we saw from 1915-1996.
Remember what they all said during a slight return to normal Solar Activity when it was coupled with a Negative Cycle during the early 1970s? We were all going to die from Global Cooling because the Arctic Ice was increasing at an ‘unprecedented pace’ and the cold winters were destroying crops around much of the world. What if that had happened with a real, actual “sleeping Sun”, as we apparently are about to experience now?
All I can say is, good thing we accumulated a bit of heat during that Modern Maximum! I do hope it sticks around a little while longer though, as this Negative Cycle could end up being a real nasty one
A quite remarkable discovery considering we were told several years ago that the science was settled.
“Men say they know many things;
But lo! they have taken wings, —
The arts and sciences,
And a thousand appliances;
The wind that blows
Is all that any body knows”
– Henry David Thoreau
For this model to work the heat must be in the upper part of the ocean. If it goes into the deeper ocean, as some have suggested, then it ain’t comin’ back.
We can find data for ocean heat content by basin here:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/basin_data.html
Looking at the top layer of the Pacific Ocean (0-700m) we find no significant trend in OHC since the turn of the century, and the trend since 2002 has been (non-significant) negative.
2004-2013 10yr -0.064 Not significantly different from zero
2002-2013 12yr -0.023 Not
2000-2013 14yr 0.058 Not
So, where did the heat go?
Answer: the Indian Ocean, but that isn’t what the England et al. paper appears to be claiming.
DB2
Its really the temperature of the water in the eastern equatorial Pacific which drives the Pacific Trade Winds.
When the eastern equatorial Pacific is colder than average (still warmer than your backyard, but cooler than normal for the region), there is less convection, more wind blows to the west as a result instead of getting caught up in convection cells.
The stronger winds pull up more cooler water from below at the Galapagos Islands, and the surface gets even colder. In addition, when the east is cooler than average, the western side is usually warmer, so there is more convection on the western side and the winds blow even stronger to the west to replace the rising air. Nice self-amplifying oscillation.
Here is the upper ocean temperature anomaly in the eastern Pacific versus the Trade Wind Index. Not hard to see what is going on. It leads the Trade Winds and the ENSO itself.
http://s29.postimg.org/kjzx0fduf/EUOHA_Trade_Winds_Jan14.png
And then the upper ocean temperature anomaly versus the Nino 3.4 Index.
http://s2.postimg.org/hqug7xvkp/EUOHA_Nino_Jan14.png
Upper ocean Pacific temperature data.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/heat-last-year.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt
I don’t see no global warming.
Forgive me if I’m being stoopid here, but I didn’t think there was ANY notable reported increase in Pacific SST or deeper temperatures. Am I wrong? If I’m right how is this heat hiding in plain sight? Help, my brain hurts…
l think the cooling in the eastern Pacific is linked to the increase in the jet stream activity above that area. l have noticed this by watching the global jet stream maps and the full disk satilite images over recent years. What seems to be happening is that the pushes of cold air southwards over north America and in the Pacific are powering up the jet stream over the eastern Pacific. So what’s been happening is that quite often a powerful jet stream starts to form over the eastern Pacific and is taking warm moist air from the eastern Pacific over the Atlantic and into Europe. Which has been the reason for the UK mild and wet winter this year.
Also with the increase in the jet stream pushing south over the Pacific there has been increase in where the jet stream crosses over from the NH to the SH and the other way round over the eastern Pacific. Which in turn increases the weather activity, wind speeds, and flow of warm air from this area and so is helping to cool off the eastern Pacific.
Ad hoc explanations of failures of theory to pass tests…another of Irving Langmuir’s signs of pathological science.