Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I’ve been thinking about the Argo floats and the data they’ve collected. There are about 4,000 Argo floats in the ocean. Most of the time they are asleep, a thousand metres below the surface. Every 10 days they wake up and slowly rise to the surface, taking temperature measurements as they go. When they reach the surface, they radio their data back to headquarters, slip beneath the waves, sink down to a thousand metres and go back to sleep …
At this point, we have decent Argo data since about 2005. I’m using the Argo dataset 2005-2012, which has been gridded. Here, to open the bidding, are the ocean surface temperatures for the period.
Figure 1. Oceanic surface temperatures, 2005-2012. Argo data.
Dang, I like that … so what else can the Argo data show us?
Well, it can show us the changes in the average temperature down to 2000 metres. Figure 2 shows that result:
Figure 2. Average temperature, surface down to 2,000 metres depth. Temperatures are volume-weighted.
The average temperature of the top 2000 metres is six degrees C (43°F). Chilly.
We can also take a look at how much the ocean has warmed and cooled, and where. Here are the trends in the surface temperature:
Figure 3. Decadal change in ocean surface temperatures.
Once again we see the surprising stability of the system. Some areas of the ocean have warmed at 2° per decade, some have cooled at -1.5° per decade. But overall? The warming is trivially small, 0.03°C per decade.
Next, here is the corresponding map for the average temperatures down to 2,000 metres:
Figure 4. Decadal change in average temperatures 0—2000 metres. Temperatures are volume-averaged.
Note that although the amounts of the changes are smaller, the trends at the surface are geographically similar to the trends down to 2000 metres.
Figure 5 shows the global average trends in the top 2,000 metres of the ocean. I have expressed the changes in another unit, 10^22 joules, rather than in °C, to show it as variations in ocean heat content.
Figure 5. Global ocean heat content anomaly (10^22 joules). Same data as in Figure 4, expressed in different units.
The trend in this data (6.9 ± 0.6 e+22 joules per decade) agrees quite well with the trend in the Levitus OHC data, which is about 7.4 ± 0.8 e+22 joules per decade.
Anyhow, that’s the state of play so far. The top two kilometers of the ocean are warming at 0.02°C per decade … can’t say I’m worried by that. More to come, unless I get distracted by … oooh, shiny!
Regards,
w.
SAME OLD: If you disagree with something I or anyone said, please quote it exactly, so we can all be clear on exactly what you object to.
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ferdberple says: @ur momisugly March 2, 2014 at 12:40 pm
Willis Eschenbach says: @ur momisugly March 2, 2014 at 11:48 am
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Bob Tisdale Note the significant drop in samples in 2010. I have not found an explanation for this.
From a different WUWT: Where in the World is Argo? February 6, 2012 by Willis Eschenbach
And in another one of your post Willis you say “The curiosity is that the Argo average ocean surface temperature data is significantly cooler than the other datasets, half to three-quarters of a degree …” (WUWT: Jason and the Argo Notes Posted on February 9, 2012 by Willis Eschenbach)
Finally a Tallbloke article on the matter: ARGO: The Mystery of Global Warming’s Missing Heat “This 2008 article holds an important historical truth about the adjustment of ARGO data. I suggest everyone copies and pastes the original article….”
So that is the data behind Ferd’s statement.
Any reason my short one liner @ur momisugly March 4, 2014 at 4:23 am has been MIA for two hours?
Village Idiot says: @March 2, 2014 at 5:11 am
Gail Combs and others
There is one piece of information that everyone misses. It is about the freezing of Ocean water and how the temperature of the Oceans depths are between freezing and 4C. Now after you read this, go look at the Chemistry books and the explanation on the heat of hydration of sodium chloride.
When fresh water freezes, it starts expanding at 4C, and continues to expand until it freezes. When Ocean water reaches 4C, the sodium and chloride ions prevent it from freezing and it does not expand. It has to lose the heat of hydration for sodium chloride before it will freeze. This is the reason that the freezing temperature of salt water, Ocean water, is lower than fresh water. The sodium and chlorine ions play a game of musical chairs with the H2O molecules and they will not start freezing until all the heat of hydration has been removed. At 4C the heat of hydration, 4 kjoules of energy per mole of sodium chloride, starts to be removed. This exothermic reaction helps to stabilize the temperature at 4C since this is the point where additional energy must be supplied to continue cooling the Ocean water to freezing. When you look at the Ocean temperature profile and apply this factor, the possibility of hidden heat in the Ocean seems remote.
I should have said, This is the point where additional energy must be “removed” to continue cooling the Ocean water to freezing.
I really liked this post. You can clearly see that the upwelling waters along the West coast of Central and South America follow the Sun. The real unexpected thing was in the 0-2000 meter water temperature. The global change was .02, Northern Hemisphere was 0, the tropics were .01, and the Southern Hemisphere was .04. The .04 for the Southern Hemisphere a location far removed from the real activity, the burning of carbon based fuels and the Earth’s population, shows that the increase was due to natural cycles.
@RACookPE1978 says:
March 2, 2014 at 10:45 pm
Resent studies have shown that 97% of anthropogenic global warming is going into the ocean with a large portion of recent heat been found between the depths of 700-1800m. “In recent years, from 2004 to 2011, while the upper ocean is not warming, the ocean continues to absorb heat at depth (e.g., Levitus et al. 2012; von Schuckman and Le Traon 2011), here estimated at a rate of 0.56 W m-2 when integrating over 0–1800 m.” This graph explains it (http://skepticalscience.com//pics/LymanJohnson13Table1.png)
Michael Whittemore says: March 4, 2014 at 5:40 pm” Resent studies have shown that 97% of anthropogenic global warming is going into the ocean with a large portion of recent heat been found between the depths of 700-1800m.”
Evidentally, you didn’t read Willis’s post. Based on actual Argo float data down to 2000 meters, during the time the Argo floats have been active, there has been only .02C increase in OCEAN temperature. You need to find some actual data to back your claims,
Was there a post like this “@RACookPE1978 says:March 2, 2014 at 10:45 pm” made on WUWT? My computer shows no such post.
Now, I find the post. I looked closely for it the first time. I don’t understand how I missed it.
Mike Alexander says:
March 3, 2014 at 5:22 pm
Ferd….
Your conspiracy doesn’t make sense.
===========
I said nothing about conspiracy. Please pay attention to Willis’s own rules:
SAME OLD: If you disagree with something I or anyone said, please quote it exactly, so we can all be clear on exactly what you object to.
jeffguenther8 says:
March 2, 2014 at 2:12 pm
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page1.php
“Basically, I used the sea level data as a bridge to the in situ [ocean-based] data,” explains Willis, comparing them to one another figuring out where they didn’t agree. “First, I identified some new Argo floats that were giving bad data; they were too cool compared to other sources of data during the time period. It wasn’t a large number of floats, but the data were bad enough, so that when I tossed them, most of the cooling went away. But there was still a little bit, so I kept digging and digging.”
=============
So, the floats are supposed to be highly accurate, but because they were cooler than the less accurate surface data, Willis decides they are “too cool”.
Question, did Willis also look for floats that were warmer than the less accurate surface data? Because if he did not, that would be evidence of experimenter expectation effect adding bias.
How can the Argo floats be so accurate, and yet the less accurate surface data is used to determine which Argo floats are accurate and which floats are not? And then only to determine which floats are too cool, not which floats are also too warm?
The smoking gun. How can less accurate surface data be used to determine which of the highly accurate Argo floats are too cool? Was the same test applied to determine which of the Argo floats were also too warm?
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page3.php
“Basically, I used the sea level data as a bridge to the in situ [ocean-based] data,” explains Willis, comparing them to one another figuring out where they didn’t agree. “First, I identified some new Argo floats that were giving bad data; they were too cool compared to other sources of data during the time period. It wasn’t a large number of floats, but the data were bad enough, so that when I tossed them, most of the cooling went away. But there was still a little bit, so I kept digging and digging.”
Willis Eschenbach says:
March 2, 2014 at 10:19 pm
In any case, you have provided zero evidence that he was “making adjustments based on the observed trend cooling”
================
Prima facie evidence
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page3.php
“so that when I tossed them, most of the cooling went away. But there was still a little bit, so I kept digging and digging.”
The word “cooling” denotes a trend over time. The phrase “still a little bit, so I kept digging and digging” make it clear the author was trying to eliminate the “cooling”.
Willis,
there is some discussion on the metric out there. Joules vs Degrees Celsius. One might say, Joules don’t tell us anything about the quality of the change, while Degrees Celsius obscure the magnitude.
You have the data on your table: is it possible to calculate a time series of global OHC (in J) in percentage changes … that could combine the merits of Joules and Degrees and might be an effective way to communicate these measurements.
Just asking …
Retired Engineer John says:
March 4, 2014 at 8:08 pm
Willis states that 6.9 ± 0.6 e+22 joules per decade are going into the ocean. This is the 90% of anthropogenic global warming. The information and graph I linked comes from this paper http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/OHCA_1950_2011_final.pdf. This next graph and paper shows why focusing on warming in the atmosphere is not a good indicator of the true affects of anthropogenic warming, https://www.skepticalscience.com/warming-oceans-rising-sea-level-energy-imbalance-consistent.html
I just did the percentage calculation myself, taking some key figures from Lubos Motl’s blog:
Heat capacity of the ocean 0-2000m in J/K (Lubos)
4.0E+24
Average temperature ocean 0-2000m in Degrees C (Willis)
6
Total heat content 0-2000m in J
4.0E+24 x 6 = 2.4E+25
(this may be nonsense, as it assumes that the heat content at 0 Deg.C is zero, right?)
Change in heat content since 1960
2.6E+23
Heat content change since 1960 in %
2.6E+23 / 2.4E+25 * 100 = 1.08
% increase in heat content if ocean were to warm 1 K
4.0E+24 / 2.4E+25 = 16.67
So to arrive at this 1 Degree C (K) warming would take roughly …
16.67% / 1.08% x 50years = 769 years
at current ocean warming speed.
But as I am not a physicist, I guess there is a rotten rat somewhere in my calculations …?
Michael Whittemore says: March 5, 2014 at 4:43 am
Michael, I am glad that you read Willis’ post and find that you agree with it. You should look at the details of where the Ocean is heating- It is in the Southern Hemisphere. See my post above. The heating appears, based on it’s location, to be natural cycles.
Also, read my post on the heat of hydration for sodium chloride and see why the distribution of Ocean temperature is very controlled at greater depths.
IIRC, the Argo project was somewhat in jeopardy. The Climate Cartel actually threatened to not use any of the Argo data in research papers because it simply couldn’t be right. Logically, that would eventually mean the funding for the Argo project would disappear. A reasonable conclusion … the only way to keep active funding would be to bring the data inline with expectations. One can see why J. Willis would be motivated to get rid of that nasty cooling.
Look, no one knows for sure what is correct, however, when one looks at adjustments to Argo, XBT, sea level, land ice, GHCN, etc. they all go in only one direction … to support AGW. The odds of this happening by chance is starting to approach zero.
Retired Engineer John says:
March 5, 2014 at 8:57 am
Willis states that his 6.9 ± 0.6 is close to 7.4 ± 0.8 provided by Levitus, I have not passed an opinion about Willis blog post as being right or wrong, he can have it peer reviewed to determine that. Regarding your claims about ocean warming being natural, you are welcome to link me to a peer reviewed paper regarding your claims?
Michael Whittemore says: March 5, 2014 at 11:25 pm
” I have not passed an opinion about Willis blog post as being right or wrong, he can have it peer reviewed to determine that.”
Michael, climate change or global warming is a highly political subject. The fact that blogs like WUWT exist is because technical people including scientists do not believe what they are being told by the professional researchers in the climate field. I am a retired electrical engineer who worked in the aerospace industry on space flight hardware. I was not involved in the science. I have been retired 15 years. I was not aware of the controversy over global warming until I started reading about the deep decline in Solar activity in 2007. I started reading about the Science out of curiosity. About 2 years ago, Willis posted an article on the 30C degree limit in Ocean water. All the discussion was on wind, ocean currents, etc. I did not believe the consensus, which was the same as the peer reviewed or the professional researchers. Since that time I have bought a number of used Physics, Chemistry, and Environmental textbooks. I find a lot of “loose ends” in the science. The post that I referred you to about the heat of hydration of sodium chloride is an example.
After all of this, my message to you is to go back and study the basic Physics, Chemistry, etc. of the climate if you want to know the truth. You cannot trust the peer reviewed literature. Check out
“Richard M says: March 5, 2014 at 11:09 am” about the politics surrounding the Argo floats. If you think that you are not smart enough to figure the science out for yourself, go back in the Physics books and look at how a lot of the details on the stability of atoms was discovered. There are very few geniuses and the rest of us can figure it out if we simply apply ourselves. It makes a great hobby and it is good to be able to recognize the truth.
I am currently completing a post grad in climate adaptation. I am not one to just believe that science is a lie. Good luck with that argument.
Michael Whittemore says: March 6, 2014 at 2:37 pm
“I am not one to just believe that science is a lie. Good luck with that argument.”
Science is not a lie. We all have ways of thinking; they are called ‘paradigms’. In most cases they represent the majority opinion. The real breakthroughs are made by people who can see the limitations and change the paradigms. I have a book “Sun, Weather, and Climate” first published in November 1977 which detailed the best knowledge on the climate as of that date. It has a lot of information that is contrary to current knowledge. A lot of paradigms have changed. Dr Lief Svalgaard, who is a respected scientist, contributed to the book. Since that time, he has changed his opinions on many of the subjects. Does that make the science a lie? No. It just means we got smarter. Climate science is a complex field and is not mature; irregardless of what some people think.
Good luck. Watch out for the politics, and learn to play the game.
Michael Whittemore at 11:25 pm
I have not passed an opinion about Willis blog post as being right or wrong, he can have it peer reviewed to determine that.
By publishing here at WUWT, it is have his work peer reviewed.
There are more statisticians, programmers, physicists, geologists, chemists, climate scientists that read and comment upon this work than will ever pay attention to it in one of the obscure “peer reviewed’ journals.
“Peer reviewed” journals suppress and delay science as often as advance it.
By the way, Anthony, when are the peers going to let your station siting paper see the light of day?
An area and distance weighted analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends
See:
Initial on-line peer review draft and 1000 comments:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/29/press-release-2/
Watts et al paper 2nd discussion thread with 378 comments
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/31/watts-et-al-paper-2nd-discussion-thread/
That’s a brilliant analysis and illuminating animation, Willis. I’m a latecomer to this discussion, but are you aware that Josh Willis’s Argo float data was shown in 2010 to indicate a DECREASE in OHC since 2003? You can find that in a paper by University of Rochester physicists Knox and Douglass – both well-known climate researchers – at http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperDownload.aspx?paperID=3446&returnUrl=http%3a%2f%.
Knox and Douglass summarize the results of several OHC analyses based on Argo data: by Craig Loehle, Roger A. Pielke Sr., a French group, and themselves. All the analyses except the French study find the rate of change of OHC to be negative, ranging between -0.15 and -0.24 W/m2. One of the results is based on data supplied by Josh Willis himself (by private communication) to the authors.
So in your ongoing discussion with Ferd, Jeff Guenther and others, it is not clear who is actually correct.
I noticed the higher trends in Figure 4 running eastward from the Cape of Good Hope. I wondering if this has anything to do with changes in the Agulhas current? To me, this would imply a slowdown in heat leakage into the Atlantic.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/27/climate-variability-leakage-around-the-cape-of-good-hope/