Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I was out trolling for science the other day at the AGW Observer site. It’s a great place, they list lots and lots of science including the good, the bad, and the ugly, like for example all the references from the UN IPCC AR5. The beauty part is that the ones which are publicly available are marked “FULL TEXT”, so you can just search for that and step from study to study knowing that they’re not paywalled. So as I said, I was trolling through the full text links and I ran across an interesting study entitled Global Decadal Upper-Ocean Heat Content as Viewed in Nine Analyses by Carton and Santorelli, hereinafter C&S2008. Here’s their money graph, Figure 1:
Figure 1. Nine different estimates of the change on oceanic heat content, including one model and eight observational estimates. When comparing to other analyses, note that this analysis has oceanic heat content (OHC) expressed in units of 10^8 joules per square metre, and not the more usual global total OHC which typically is measured in units of 10^22 joules. The conversion is described in the last sentence of the caption. (Actually, I think that the caption to Figure 1 in their paper was from another context and wasn’t updated … but the meaning is clear).
I was hooked when I read the abstract, with its mention of the volcanic analysis, viz:
ABSTRACT
This paper examines nine analyses of global ocean 0-/700-m temperature and heat content during the 43-yr period of warming, 1960–2002. Among the analyses are two that are independent of any numerical model, six that rely on sequential data assimilation, including an ocean general circulation model, and one that uses four-dimensional variational data assimilation (4DVAR), including an ocean general circulation model and its adjoint. Most analyses show gradual warming of the global ocean with an ensemble trend of 0.77 x 10^8 J m-2 (10 yr)-1 (=0.24 W m-2) as the result of rapid warming in the early 1970s and again beginning around 1990. One proposed explanation for these variations is the effect of volcanic eruptions in 1963 and 1982. Examination of this hypothesis suggests that while there is an oceanic signal, it is insufficient to explain the observed heat content variations.
So what did I learn from this paper? To start with, I was totally unaware that there were nine different estimates of the changes in ocean heat content, so I learned that. And quite a bit more … including being reminded that this kind of “spaghetti graph” without error estimates is useless.
So the first thing that I did was to go get the error estimates on the Levitus data shown in Figure 1 (dashed purple line) and add it to the graph so I could see what was going on:
Figure 2. Same as Figure 1, but I have highlighted the Levitus data and added the vertical red lines showing the error of the Levitus data.
Now, I have long held that the error estimates in Levitus were underestimated … I would say that this graph agrees.
I also have to note in passing that I was unable to replicate their Figure 1 regarding the Levitus results. Using the data downloaded from the above link, here is what the Levitus analysis currently shows:
Figure 3. Figure 1 from C&S2008, overlaid with current Levitus results shown in red.
As you can see, there is good overall agreement with their data with the exception of the period from 1969 to 1984 … I have no explanation for this.
However, that’s not what I was interested in. I wanted to know about the volcanoes. For some time, I have argued in a variety of posts that the effects of volcanoes on the planet’s temperature were overestimated, and sometimes greatly so. So I was surprised to see their results for the eruption of El Chichón in Mexico. They took an interesting tack in their analysis. For each area of the ocean, they compared the average ocean heat content during the four years before the eruption, with the average heat content in the four years following the eruption. That seemed like a reasonable metric to me, and a good way to go about it. Figure 4 shows their results of the 9 analyses regarding the eruption of the El Chichón volcano in 1982:
Figure 4. Ocean heat content (OHC) net change from the four years before the eruption of El Chichón, Mexico, to the four years after the eruption. Upper 8 panels show the 8 observational datasets, and bottom panel shows the model. Note the different scales … presumably used because the changes in the model results are only about 2/3 the size of the observations. ORIGINAL CAPTION: FIG. 3. Change in 4-yr average heat content spanning the eruption of Mount Agung (1963). Prior to computing the heat content change a regression analysis is used to remove the effects of ENSO and a linear warming trend (see Fig. 2). … Changes exceeding ± 5 x 10^8 J m-2 are shaded. Lowest panels show the change in heat content from a five-member ensemble of the GFDL coupled simulation CM2.1 with complete aerosol forcing. Changes exceeding ± 3 x 10^8 J m-32 are shaded.
Now at first sight, all of that looks like confirmation that the volcano caused actual cooling and that my hypothesis of minimal volcanic cooling was wrong.
However, if the cooling is from the eruption, then why are there areas of warming? Why is the cooling localized in the region just below the equator in the Pacific, when the volcanic aerosols are initially from above the equator and then spread widely around the planet? And why is there not increased cooling in the region around the eruption site in Mexico?
The answer, as usual, lies in more observations. Figure 5 shows the corresponding 4-year averages for Pinatubo …
Figure 5. As in Figure 4, but for the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines.
As the paper itself says …
For Mount Pinatubo most analyses show general warming except in the western equatorial [South] Pacific.
General warming of the ocean after the largest volcanic eruption in modern times? Sure seems like that supports my claims … to me, the only conclusion that we can draw from these observations of the two volcanic eruptions is that we’re looking at normal variations in OHC, and that whatever the effects are, they are pretty dang small.
Close inspection reveals a final and very strong indication that the changes shown in Figures 4 and 5 are NOT from the two eruptions, but are natural variations of unknown origin.
The indication is that the shape of the cooling does not have the form that the modelers predicted. As the models show, if forcing ruled temperature the largest effect would be expected to be immediately downwind of the eruption site. Note in Figure 5 that of all of the nine results (8 from observations, 1 from the model), the only one showing North Pacific cooling downwind from Pinatubo was the model. You can see it in the model results, the blue area like an arrow pointing at the northern Philippines, with the tail streaming straight downwind in the north Pacific … but none of the observational datasets show that pattern of cooling downwind from Pinatubo.
Not only that, but look back at Figure 4. Care to guess which of the nine analyses claimed that there would be cooling downwind from the eruption in Mexico, in the area of the Caribbean and across the top of South America? Yeah … the model was the only one … and it didn’t happen. So even in the areas right downwind from the eruptions, we don’t find the expected heat content changes from the change in solar forcing.
The volcanoes pose a huge problem for the commonly held view that the changes in global average temperature are a linear function of the changes in forcing. The climate models are nothing but a mechanistic implementation of that circumscribed and simplistic hypothesis.
Now, we know for a fact that the solar forcing after Pinatubo underwent a large and fairly lengthy drop … but we don’t find either the amount or the pattern of cooling predicted by the models. Heck, not only that, but the predominate pattern after Pinatubo was warming, not cooling … once again, the only tenable conclusions are:
1) Whatever the volcanoes might be doing, they’re not doing what the model says or what conventional climate theory predicts, and
2) Whatever the volcanoes might be doing, they are not doing enough of it to even rise above the noise.
To me, this is simply more evidence that the underlying climate paradigm, the idea that changes in temperatures are a linear function of changes in forcing, is simply not correct. If it were correct, the eruptions would show it … but they simply don’t.
That’s why I describe myself as a climate heretic rather than a skeptic—I think that the most fundamental paradigm of how the climate works is wrong. The temperature changes are NOT a linear function of forcing changes as conventional climate theory holds.
As usual, my best wishes to you all,
w.
PS—Also as usual, please quote whatever you disagree with when you comment on it. That way we can all be clear just what you are referring to.
First sentence of the article should be “trawling for science”, not “trolling for science”. The difference is huge. Do you really want to be seen to be “trolling”, by your own account?
Here fig2 excerpt from Dessler 2011 ( reproducing Spencer and Boswell 2011 ).
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=915
now here he is regressing dRad vs dTemp , two variables stuffed with error, random noise and non -linear climat reactions that leaves the whole thing likely to present fairly massive regression dilution.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/2014/03/08/on-inappropriate-use-of-ols/
Here we see the models under-estimating the ration of rad to temp, compared to observations, in flawed data processing that is itself under-estimating the slope by probably 50%-100%.
Since climate sensitivity is dT/dRad, under-estimating the slope means over-estimating climate sensitivity.
We also see that the models seriously under-estimate the lag of the reaction in the negative quadrant ( this is the rad forcing temp section ). The only two models that even come close to producing a peak in the negative quadrant get the peak response at around 6mo whereas the data is 12-13mo.
Now maybe that is what Mosh’ is referring to by ‘over-estimating the rebound’. It would be good to have some clarification of precisely what he meant and where it is ‘recognised’.
Dessler claims this is evidence of the models getting things right.
Looks to me like all but two get things hopelessly wrong. The remaining two are about the right shape (which is not bad) but seriously off in timing, which implies a lot about the feedbacks and forcings being wrong.
Here’s the Spencer & Braswell 2011 graph Dessler reckoned to be “reproducing”.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=916
Again models way too late in the +ve quadrant ( temp drives rad ) and far too short in the -ve quadrant ( rad drives temp ).
Not sure how Dessler thought he reproduced this work by S&B. Looks like he tried to do the same thing and got nowhere near reproducing it.
Either way it looks like the models have serious problems with both magnitude and phase of the most basic climate response : the ones that are relevant to the key question of sensitivity.
Greg Goodman says:”http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/tropical-pacific-ssta-mata-tlta.png
What long/lat box was that from Bob?”
If memory serves, 24S-24N, 120E-80W.
When you cross the equator, the input in the right-hand longitude field has to be a greater number than the one input on the left, so 80W is input as 280, not -80.
Good Post. Also good responses to Steven Mosher. Thanks again.
Both the global warmists and ‘earth is cooler’ people make the same mistake: anything that doesn’t drive forwards their storyline is eliminated.
This discussion about volcanoes is a fine example. Volcanic eruptions during the first year create weather havoc. It has various elements. A sure sign things are changing is the ‘blood red’ sunsets.
One then gets early frosts in Fall and late winter storms in Spring.
The volcanic dust causes various climatic effects while the gases do other things. Farmers know that life is hellishly harder after major eruptions. Generally, it is wetter.
The Northern latitudes are particularly prone to being affected by volcanic activity because of this simple fact: the sun, for half a year, has to shine through a lot of dust and chemicals which cuts down on solar intensity due to the angle of the sun relative to the hemisphere.
That is, the solar energy has to pass through a lot more atmosphere to reach the planetary surface.
This is why there is ‘no summer’ in northern regions but not say, on the equator which sees very little effect.
El Nino is basically equatorial in nature therefore, only a very severe volcanic event would create enough density of debris and chemicals to alter the climate. See?
Elaine Meinel Supkis, whose father, Dr. Aden Meinel, wrote a book about all this half a century ago.
Mosher writes “its long been known that models over estimate the cooling and overestimate the rebound.”
Willis misquotes “Now … if, as you fatuously claim without a citation or a single scap of evidence, it has “long known that models over estimate the cooling and underestimate the rebound”
Complete with quotation marks, even.
[Fixed, thanks. -w.]
Just from being a regular reader of this blog and others, I suspected that the difference with the levitus data was that noaa had added their typical alarmist-aiding adjustments, and bob tisdale has kindly confirmed that above. What is even more hilarious is that the adjustments exceed the error bars. For people to even use the adjusted (false) data is playing into the hands of the hockey team, although I wish to be clear that I don’t fault Willis Eschenbach for producing these illuminating posts. I just wish that the respectable scientists restricted themselves to the real data somehow and not the falsified data.
(QUOTE)
Joel O’Bryan says:
April 7, 2014 at 1:10 am
volcanic gases when released into the atmosphere are just one more pertrubation into a robustly compensated (I.e. neg feedback) system. That system has a tremendous amount of thermal inertia stored in the oceans. No one minor event, like 92 Pinatubo, is going to cause a long term new equlibrium set point once the transient signal decays.
(END QUOTE)
My sentiments exactly Joel and here is why,note the correlation to CO2 graph
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=166024
@timthetoolman: your comment has no bearing at all on what Willis Eschenbach said. His typo did not change the meaning of what he said at all, since he was pointing out that for a long time many climate scientists claimed that the models were in agreement with volcanic activity while Mosher was claiming that the models have never been in agreement with volcanic activity and that this has been widely known and accepted.
emsnews says:
April 7, 2014 at 3:11 pm
Thanks, Elaine … but I fear that without a single citation or reference, all of it is simply an anecdote.
The problem with an anecdote like “Farmers know that life is hellishly harder after major eruptions. Generally, it is wetter” is that there is absolutely nothing for anyone to grab on to. We can’t check, verify, or otherwise investigate your claims.
SO … if you have actual evidence to back up your anecdotes, this is the time to bring them forwards.
Please do not perceive this as any kind of slight on the work of your father. It’s just that this is a scientific site, and if you want to get traction here, you need to bring your A game along with your citations, sources, math, logic, computer code, or other support for your claims.
Best regards,
w.
NZ Willy says:
April 7, 2014 at 12:12 pm
First sentence of the article should be “trawling for science”, not “trolling for science”. The difference is huge. Do you really want to be seen to be “trolling”, by your own account?
___________________
Hey. You want to make lutefisk? You go trawling. Swordfish steaks? You’re trolling. How you gonna be?
emsnews says:
April 7, 2014 at 3:11 pm
I don’t know about rain, but farmers have fingered Pinatubo as cooling northern North America:
“June 21st Summer Solstice Frost of 1992
“This date is a memorable one in Minnesota history as the only summer solstice that brought damage frost to the state’s corn and soybean crops. The Mt Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines during 1991 was later attributed to be one of the causes of this event which turned out to a singularity in Minnesota’s climate history. Temperatures as cold as 25 degrees F (Brimson) were reported in the north, but even as far south as Preston, Theilman and Zumbrota reported 33 degrees F with frost in low spots. Some corn fields were severely damaged and later only harvested for silage. Soybeans leaves mostly burned by the frost recovered and produced even pods and beans for harvest, but the yields were not very good.”
The climatic effects of volcanoes depend heavily on where they are. The impact of tropical eruptions is greater than at higher latitudes.
Alan Robertson says:
April 7, 2014 at 5:11 pm
My dad owned a couple of trawlers, but with them we could troll for salmon.
I spent my entire life watching volcanic eruptions and their effects due to my father’s work in this field.
I still remember when Mt. Agung erupted in 1963. We were driving back from Mc Donald Observatory in Texas heading west and it was late afternoon. Suddenly, a series of white waves moved across the high stratosphere and these went from horizon to horizon and there was no real wind.
My father yelled and stopped the car and jumped out and took out his spectrometer equipment and cameras and said, ‘A major volcanic eruption! Just what I wanted! Finally.’ And we spent some hours sitting right next to the highway working on the eruption.
Arizona was very hot and dry back then. Immediately after the eruption the climate changed to much, much wetter and so cool it even snowed. My father was delighted with this proof of volcanic interaction.
Most volcanoes don’t eject enough stuff to have a long or major effect. Mt. St. Helen’s for example, (my father flew into the crater just days before it erupted via helicopter) shot out sideways and lasted only a short time and had near zero effect on the climate.
But when Pinatubo erupted, he was overjoyed. It was big and sustained and definitely interfered with solar penetration of the northern hemisphere. I remember that year quite vividly because I foolishly was building my house on a mountain in NY and was living in a tent!
For 10 years! That year, 1991, was hot and fairly dry in summer and I thought I would have an easy winter.
Then the eruption happened. I have a video I made of the aftermath. In it, and it was the solar solstice, my son and I were wearing winter coats and talking about the frost and how chill the sun was even when it was shining.
That winter was pure hell. I remember it greatly since I was in a tent and when it went to -40F in late March, 1992, I thought we were all going to die. The snow was so deep, it insulated the tent and my son sledded off the tent roof for fun.
And this is all ‘stories’ but I will, on my blog, explain the dynamics of volcanic eruptions and why this has a much, much greater effect on the upper northern hemisphere and even Arizona if the eruption is big enough.
Depends on the type of volcanic eruption. A lava flow, is slightly better as far as the impact on the atmosphere is concerned and cooling climate. One Chinese old writings, suggest that in around 1300 BC at around the same time as Thera erupted (Santorino) their crops failed, sun was obliterated and frost in summer, etc., for 7 years. That volcanic eruption was four times bigger than Krackatoa in the 19th Century. Also under sea volcanoes, can cause havoc too. But the dust etc., emitted circles the earth for a long time sometimes. However, the Chinese are almost within the ring of fire, and eruptions are going on all the time there, including the Antarctic.
It has been mentioned above but to visually clear up fishing methods,
do image searches with:
fish trolling
fish trawling
fish noodling —(this comes closest to what W. was doing)
Well it does not look like Mosh’ is going pop in to explain what he meant of give any citations to back it up so we’ll have to guess about this “acknowledged’ effect.
He says models are acknowledged to rebound too strongly. What I’m guessing this refers to is the fact that the effect does not just subside with the measurements optical thickness but actually goes positive and compensates. This is what I found in my volcano stack analysis that I linked above. It is also what I’m finding looking at ERBE data after Mt Pinatubo.
This may be unexpected to certain climatologists who expect immediate linear response to every “forcing” and do not understand even the basics of systems analysis. In fact an overshoot should be expect simply because of the thermal inertia of ocean mixed layer. It takes a while for it to cool and provoke a feedback reaction, it also takes some time _after_ the volcanic forcing has subsided to return to the undisturbed state, So the climate reaction will still be there and compensating well after AOD has fallen almost to zero.
To a naive interpretation this may appear to be a rebound that is too strong, or may spuriously be attributed the CO2 forcing compensating for the effect of the volcano. Both would be wrong.
From the lag regression plots done by both Spencer and Dessler, that I linked above, it is clear that the “rebound” is not strong enough even in the good models and has about half the duration that it should.
This is still work in progress and there may be a reason (accounting for prior trends just before the eruption) that will shorted that estimation to about 14mo lag. That would be close to S&B11 and D11.
http://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/tropical-feedback_resp.png?w=814
There is considerable ‘rebound’ due to the relaxation to equilibrium and it is driven by a volcanic forcing at least 50% stronger than currently used as model inputs. That means current estimations of climate sensitivity produced by studying model output will be 33%-50% under the correct value.
They’re matching an artificially subdues volcanic forcing to the record and thus concluding an increased sensitivity. When the rebound is “too strong” it gets diagnosed as the longer term effect of CO2 forcing. Of course the form of that interpretation does not match properly, the bumps are not really in the right place or the right shape. But model output is so far from reality that all they are happy if the can get three dips somewhere near the major events and a long term rise.
“Now if volcanoes end up producing a durable warming effect, that’s really going to throw a amongst the pidgeons.”
Why? they will just claim it is the CO2 when really it is the water vapor.
John F. Hultquist says:
April 7, 2014 at 7:26 pm
I’ve spent many a happy hour trolling for salmon in the ocean off the coast of California, and in the rivers of Alaska. From memory “noodling” means catching fish barehanded, hang on … yeah, Google agrees. That looks dangerous, though. Maybe what I’m doing is more like jigging …
Trawling is a different story. Midwater trawling is generally a good fishing method. Bottom trawling, on the other hand, is like if you were to drag a giant net through a forest, uprooting all the trees, in order to catch the deer … not the most sustainable of plans.
w.
Willis, in UK and Australia, we call catching trout by hand (we have no salmon only in tins) is tickling. Mind you our trout mainly rainbow are far too smart, and it is by fly or natural bait, like earthworms. Enjoy your fishing. Don’t bears catch fish too, when they are migrating over rapids? We get a program in Oz called River Monsters, and the expert fisherman was in America trying to catch salmon, and he had competition from a young bear, who came and pinched his catch. They didn’t argue either.
emsnews says:
April 7, 2014 at 5:35 pm
Thanks for that, Elaine. I had said before that anecdotes were not all that valuable. Let me use this as an example of why that is true.
You say above that as a result of the eruption of Pinatubo in 1991, the winter of 1991-92 was extremely harsh in New York State. Below, on the other hand, are what the actual measurements say:
SOURCE
I’ve highlighted the winter of 1991-1992 in red … I’m sure you see the problem. Please be clear that I’m NOT saying you were mistaken or exaggerating or deceptive, absolutely nothing of that sort at all.
I’m just saying that one individual’s experience may not be representative of a state, a region, or the planet …
Moving forwards, look what it is that I have done. I have put forward not my own experiences but observational data. I have graphed it and showed the historical trend and variations. I have highlighted the year we are interested in.
And most importantly, I have provided a link to the source of the data that I used. That allows you or anyone else to check my work.
I’m sorry to say that your personal experiences, while quite interesting to read about, don’t carry scientific weight regarding volcanoes and their effects.
w.
Willis
I quote below the measurements of the cooling effect of Pinatubo eruption.
“Temperatures have already started to drop, both at ground level and in the lower atmosphere, says James K. Angell of NOAA in Silver Spring, Md. Angell told Science News his analyses of weather balloon data show that the first half of 1992 was 0.4 [degrees] C cooler, overall, than the first half of 1991. He notes that the volcano’s effect may be greater than suggested by these observed temperature shifts, since this year’s El Nino warming would normally raise average temperatures by 0.2 [degrees] C (SN: 1/18/92, p.37).”
“Weather satellites confirm cooling in the lower atmosphere, recording a global drop of more than 0.5 [degrees[ C since last June, with this June being 0.2 [degrees] C cooler than average, according to John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville and Roy Spencer of NASA’s Earth Science Lab at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Hunstsville. Christy says their data indicate that the greatest cooling, 1.0 [degrees] C, occurred in the northern midlatitudes — an area that includes the continental United States — while temperatures in the southern hemisphere have dropped by only 0.3 [degrees] C.”
gymnosperm says:
Greg: “Now if volcanoes end up producing a durable warming effect, that’s really going to throw a [cat]amongst the pigeons.”
Why? they will just claim it is the CO2 when really it is the water vapor.
===
They are ready claim it’s CO2.
By ignoring the rebound effect (or concluding that the model is over-estimating the rebound recovery, which is what Mosh’ seems to have hinted at) they have a decade long warming that gets attributed to CO2 since they assume, incorrectly, that the volcanic effect must end when AOD disturbance ends.
This is also the problem with Forster and Ramsdorfs multivariate regression wiggle matching, they take no account of the dynamic nature of the system and expect a forcing’s effect on surface temperature to be a linear multiple of the forcing time series.
If the true system response is an exponentially lagged rebound simple linear regression or even a fixed lag regression is not going to get the right values (without even talking about regression dilution).
S&B2001 shows that some models may be getting about the right shape of response but the parameters are wrong.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=916
When Dessler does us the service of adding in the one’s S&B left out we can see why they did leave them out, they are no where near getting a credible response.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=915
Dr. Strangelove says:
April 8, 2014 at 1:38 am
Thanks, Doc. First, let me say that obviously volcanoes have some effect. This effect is most pronounced in the stratosphere, where the eruptions of El Chichon and Pinatubo are clearly visible.
There is much less of a signal in the lower troposphere, although as Christy points out it appears to be still visible.
However, the other big eruption of our times, El Chichon, which is quite visible in the stratosphere, appeared to make no visible difference in the lower troposphere … increasing the odds that what we see after Pinatubo may be from some other cause.
What there isn’t much of, for either of the volcanoes, is any consistent significant global signal at the surface. What is there is transient, localized, and not that large. I say that the reason that is true is because of the strength of the thermoregulatory mechanisms … and that is assuredly borne out by the analysis done by the scientists in the head post.
w.