Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Today I ran across an interesting presentation from 2013 regarding the Argo floats. These are a large number of independent floats spread all across the world oceans. They spend most of their time sleeping at a depth of 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) below the surface of the ocean. Then they drop down to 2,000 metres, which is followed by a slow ascent to the surface taking measurements of temperature and salinity. Once on the surface they call home like ET, and then drop down to the deeps and go to sleep again.
Figure 1. Argo float operation. There are about 3,500 floats in the ocean, and a total of ~10,000 floats have been used over the period of operation.
Now, there were several interesting things in the presentation. The first was a total surprise to me. We hear a lot about how the heat is “hiding” in the ocean. But what I didn’t know was that according to the Argo floats, every bit of the warming is happening in the southern extratropical ocean, while the oceans of both the tropics and the northern hemisphere are actually cooling … color me puzzled.
Figure 2. Change in ocean heat content by zone. Units are 10^22 joules. Graph from the presentation linked to above.
What does that indicate? I’m sure I don’t know … but I doubt very greatly if any of the climate models reproduce that curious combination of warming and cooling.
What I found most interesting, however, was a graph of the global change in ocean heat content over the period. Here is that graph:
Figure 3. Global change in ocean heat content (OHC) since the time of the full deployment of the Argo floats. Data from the surface down to 2000 decibars (dbar), which is approximately 2000 metres.
I was sad to see a couple of things. First, this is the data with the monthly averages (the “climatology”) removed. I prefer to see the raw data so I can look at seasonal patterns. Second, the presentation lacks error bars … but needs must when the devil drives, so I use the data I have. I digitized the data so I could analyze it myself.
The first thing that I wanted to do was to look at the data using more familiar units. I mean, nobody knows what 10^22 joules means in the top two kilometres of the ocean. So I converted the data from joules to degrees C. The conversion is that it takes 4 joules to heat a gram of seawater by 1°C (or 4 megajoules per tonne per degree). The other information needed is that there are 0.65 billion cubic kilometres of ocean above 2,000 metres of depth, and that seawater weighs about 1.033 tonnes per cubic metre.
Figure 4. Ocean volume by depth. Little of the ocean is deeper than about 5 km.
Using that information, I calculated what the change in heat content means in terms of temperature change. Here is that graph:
Figure 5. Change in ocean temperature from the surface down to 2,000 dbar (~ 2,000 metres).
A change of two hundredths of a degree per decade … be still, my beating heart. Unfortunately, I can’t give you any error estimate on the trend because there are no error bars on the data in the presentation.
Let me take a detour here whose purpose will be clear in a moment. I want to look at the CERES data, which is satellite based data on the radiation budget of the earth. Here is the month-by-month change in the “Net TOA Radiation”. The net TOA radiation is the incoming radiation at the Top Of the Atmosphere (TOA) that hits the earth (sunlight) minus the outgoing radiation at the TOA leaving the earth (reflected sunlight plus thermal infrared [longwave] radiation). Figure 6 shows those changes:
Figure 6. Decomposition of the CERES net TOA radiation into a seasonal and a residual component. Units are watts per square metre (W/m2). The residual component (bottom panel) is the raw data (top panel), with the monthly averages (seasonal component or “climatology”, middle panel) removed.
Now, this is an interesting graph in its own right. In the net radiation you can see the ~ 20 watts per square metre (W/m2) effect of the annual swing of the earth towards and away from the sun. The earth is closest to the sun in January, so the earth gains energy around that time, and loses it in the other half of the year. In addition, you can see the amazing stability of the system. Once we remove the monthly averages (the “climatology’), the net TOA imbalance generally only varies by something on the order of ± half a watt per square metre over the thirteen years of the record, with no statistically significant trend at all … astounding.
But I digress. The reason I’m looking at this is that the excess energy that comes in to the Earth (positive values), peaking in January, is stored almost entirely in the ocean, and then it comes back out of the ocean with a peak in outgoing radiation (negative values) in July. We know this because the temperature doesn’t swing from the radiation imbalance, and there’s nowhere else large enough and responsive enough for that amount of energy to be stored and released.
In other words, the net TOA radiation is another way that we can measure the monthly change in the ocean heat content, and thus we can perform a cross-check on the OHC figures. It won’t be exact, because some of the energy is stored and released in both ice and land … but the main storage is in the ocean. So the CERES net TOA data will give us a maximum value for the changes in ocean storage, the value we get if we assume it’s all stored stored in the ocean.
So all we need to do is to compare the monthly change in the OHC content minus the climatology, as shown in Figure 1, with the monthly change in downwelling radiation minus the climatology as shown in the bottom panel of Figure 6 … except that they are in different units.
However, that just means that we have to convert the net TOA radiation data in watts per square metre into joules per month. The conversion is
1 watt-month/m2 (which is one watt per square metre applied for one month) =
1 joule-month/sec-m2 * 5.11e+14 m2 (area of surface) * 365.2425/12 * 24 * 3600 seconds / month =
1.35e+21 joules
So I converted the net TOA radiation into joules per month, and I compared that to the Argo data for the same thing, the change in ocean heat content in joules/month. Figure 7 shows that comparison:
Figure 7. A comparison of the monthly changes in ocean heat content (OHC) as measured by the CERES data and by the Argo floats.
Now, this is a most strange outcome. The Argo data says that there is a huge, stupendous amount of energy going into and out of the ocean … but on the other hand the CERES data says that there’s only a comparatively very small amount of energy going into and out of the ocean. Oh, even per CERES it’s still a whole lot of energy, but nothing like what the Argo data claims.
How are we to understand this perplexitude? The true answer to that question is … I don’t know. It’s possible I’ve got an arithmetical error, although I’ve been over and over the calculations listed above. I know that the CERES data is of the right size, because it shows the ~20 watt swing from the ellipticity of the earth’s orbit. And I know my Argo data is correct by comparing Figure 7 to Figure 2.
My best guess is that the error bars on the Argo data are much larger than is generally believed. I say this because the CERES data are not all that accurate … but they are very precise. I also say it because of my previous analysis of the claimed errors given by Levitus et al in my post “Decimals of Precision”.
In any case, it’s a most curious result. At a minimum, it raises serious questions about our ability to measure the heat content of the ocean to the precision claimed by the Argo folks. Remember they claim they can measure the monthly average temperature of 0.65 BILLION cubic kilometres of ocean water to a precision of one hundredth of a degree Celsius … which seems very doubtful to me. I suspect that the true error bars on their data would go from floor to ceiling.
But that’s just my thoughts. All suggestions gladly accepted.
Best of everything to all,
w.
My Standard Request: If you disagree with someone, please QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU DISAGREE WITH. That way everyone can understand the exact nature of your objections.
Data and Code: The Argo data (as a .csv file) and R code is online in a small folder called Argo and CERES Folder. The CERES TOA data is here in R format, and the CERES surface data in R format is here. WARNING: The CERES data is 220 Mb, and the CERES surface data is 110 Mb.
Further Data:
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Willis: In any one month, essentially all of the heat that escapes from the ocean comes from the mixed layer of the ocean. It would be interesting to see if monthly changes in the 0-100 m OHC agree with CERES better than the 0-2000 m OHC. In the top 100 m, a 10^22 Joules change represents a 20-fold bigger temperature change and can be measure more accurately
Total energy produced/consumed in 2008 was 143851 terawatt-hour (TWh) as per wiki.
Convert to joules 143851*3600000*10^9= 5.18*10^20 joules.
If the total energy produced in 2008 was used to heat the 0-2000 meters depth of the ocean, it would add only 5.18*10^20 joules to OHC per year or we can say 5.18*10^21 joules/decade.
The current OHC rate of 6.3*10^22/decade is more than 10 times of the total energy produced/consumed in 2008.
The last line should read as:
The current OHC rate of 6.3*10^22/decade is more than 10 times of the total energy produced/consumed in a decade at 2008 production/consumption rate.
Which only confirms that Man is fairly insignificant (including CO2) in his environment. Each day, the earth receives about 25 times more energy than Man produces/consumes in a year. And yet they want to curtail it. For man, energy is like oxygen.
Willis,
You wrote: “At a minimum, it raises serious questions about our ability to measure the heat content of the ocean to the precision claimed by the Argo folks. Remember they claim they can measure the monthly average temperature of 0.65 BILLION cubic kilometres of ocean water to a precision of one hundredth of a degree Celsius”
But you also say they provide no error bars, so how do you know this? Is this a statement about the precision of individual measurements? As others have pointed out here, there may be significant errors in the assumption that the samples are representative of the ocean as a whole.
The heat content papers I have read do not seem to take seriously the wiggles in the data; instead they seem to only think the data are good enough for decade-scale trends. Data with noise of 1e22 J would be fine for that purpose, since many points go into computing the slopes.
The full range of the noise in your plots of monthly flux looks to be about 3e22 J. Taking that to be 2 standard deviations and remembering that the error in a difference is root(2) times the error in the points gives a standard deviation of about 1e22 J for the data. That is compatible with using the data for calculating trends over 5 to 10 years, or longer.
Mike M.
Willis,
Working backward from your results, an error of 1e22 J is an error of about 0.004 K. That is for the average of some 10^5 to 10^6 samples (3500 floats sampling 3 times a month at, I’m guessing, 10 to 100 different depths). So assuming a random sample, that is an error of 1 to 4 K per measurement. The error here is not the precision of the instrument, but the variation between the measurements and the actual average temperature. That seems quite reasonable, given the crudeness of this calculation; i.e., it is the right order of magnitude.
Mike M.
VikingExplorer December 5, 2014 at 1:43 pm
Since the difference in incoming energy from solar min to solar max is on the order of 0.2 W/m2, and the effect of a change in tropical cloud onset time of 15 minutes is on the order of 6 W/m2, I’m sorry, but there’s no reason to expect a change at all. You assume a perfect system where the climate doesn’t respond to changing conditions. In fact, that tiny of a change in a dynamic, chaotic system is unmeasurable, and likely makes no difference at all.
For example, I’ve looked at SST data and found no such an effect. If you want to claim it exists … how about some data to back it up?
The fact that you are offended doesn’t make the statement offensive. And given a known quantity of water, the two systems of units are interchangeable … so why is one “meaningless”.
Are you always this unpleasant, or is this special for me? I didn’t say joules were unfamiliar to me. I said that the effect of adding 10^22 joules to the top 2 km. of the ocean is not intuitively apparent to people.
Look, Viking, if I say that 476 cubic km of water received 7e+16 joules of energy … is that a lot of energy or a little? Can you answer that without converting to temperature? As I said, it’s an unfamiliar measuring system to most people. Obviously (to everyone but you) I’m well aware of what a joule, because I’m able to work in either system of units. But neither of us could say whether that amount of energy would affect that amount of ocean a little or a lot.
On the other hand, if I say 476 cubic miles of water warmed by 0.001°C, is that a big effect? Everyone is familiar with temperature, so everyone can say that it’s a very small change.
Since you haven’t given us any source for your fabulous claim that the crust is absorbing seven times the energy of the ocean … I’m sorry, but I don’t believe your calculations. See below.
You seem to forget that we’re talking about gaining and losing a large amount of energy annually. So we need to look for a reservoir that is not only large, but can gain and lose lots of energy on an annual timescale.
The ocean under 2000 meters is not doing much on an annual scale, it is well isolated from the surface where the exchange happens.
The ocean further north and south than 60° is a small amount of the total ocean volume, only about 7%.
The crust under the oceans is far too thermally isolated to participate in annual swings.
The land and the atmosphere both participate in the swings of heat. However, despite your claim above that the land has “7xEnergy(ocean)”, researchers say different, e.g.
Next, note that the figures in the head post have the annual swings removed … which means that they do NOT contain such things as the annual freezing/thawing of sea ice.
Finally, and most importantly, note that everything you say just makes matters worse, not better. As I pointed out in the head post, there are other things added to the swings. However, they would show up in the CERES data but NOT in the Argo data, making the Argo data even more out of whack … so you have your argument totally backwards. Recall what I said in the head post:
Yeah, you provided “relative energy levels” … but they’re wrong.
An instant clue to what??
There is nothing unbelievable about an instrument accuracy of .005, which is what the manufacturers claim for the temperature measurement of the sensor in the lab.
However, there is something unbelievable in the idea that 3,500 floats can measure the average temperature of .65 billion cubic kilometres of ocean to that kind of monthly accuracy. That’s one float per 186,000 cubic km of water, taking three measurements per month … and it’s not even the same 186,000 cubic km of water.
Viking, have you ever seen Lake Superior? It’s huge, like an inland ocean. It has a volume of 12,100 cubic km … but each Argo float is measuring 15 times that volume.
If we take fifteen Lake Superiors, and we measure the temperature three times a month, but we replace say a quarter of the water in between temperature measurements … how accurate do you think our results will be even if our thermometer measures to .005°C?
Let me close by saying that your arrogant attitude, acting like you know everything about this subject and we’re all idiots, doesn’t serve you well … particularly when you make foolish claims that the land energy is “7x(ocean)” and the like. Give the ‘tude a rest, my friend, we’re all bozos on this bus … and your “explanation”, as I point out above, only makes the discrepancy worse.
w.
You’re confusing power with energy. The increase in SH Ocean (60 S – 20 S) energy is up about 2.6 solar-days worth of energy. Let’s integrate the solar max extra power over time:
Extra received/day (Solar Max) = 1.366 W/m^2 = 1.366 Joule/sec /m^2 * Area * duration = 1.366 Joules * 1.275 * 10^14 * 86400 = 1.5 x10^19 J
Extra received (solar cycle) = Extra received/day * 5 years = 1.5 x10^22 * 365 * 5 = 2.746 x10^22.
This is 1.84 solar-days worth of energy. It’s pretty close to the 2.6 days worth of energy in the SH ocean.
It’s offensive to say “nobody knows what 10^22 joules means”.
Yes, because you specified the energy. 7e+16 Joules is 7e+16 Joules. It’s not a lot compared to the energy coming from the sun every day. It’s about 15 million times the energy my house uses. When adding energy to a something, we would have to know how much energy is already there.
Actually, people’s familiarity is with temperature of AIR. So, it’s quite misleading. If we raised the temperature of earth’s core by .001 C, it would be a huge amount of energy, that if applied to the atmosphere, would fry us all alive.
I never said “absorbing”. That’s an approximation of the energy it has. Absorbing depends solely on delta T. The ocean is in near thermal equilibrium with the crust its in direct contact with. When the water temperature goes up (even if it’s .01 degrees), a delta T exists, and energy will transfer.
It’s not a large amount of energy compared to the heat capacity of the components you ignored. It’s only 1/40,000 of the total energy of the ocean.
You don’t know that. The energy in question is NOT on the surface, it’s in the volume of water 2000 m deep. This water is in direct contact with the water below 2000 m. Heat transfer is happening whenever there is the slightest delta T.
The change in energy we’re talking about is 0.0025 %. 7% is much greater than .00025%.
Bald face assertion in contradiction of 2nd law. Whenever a delta T exists (and it must if the energy level is up), then heat is being transferred.
I calculated it as 221,777 cubic km, so I think it’s 18.3 Lake Superiors (which I once lived near), but you could be right about the exact volume. But as I said, more floats would be better, but it’s literally a thousand times better than talking about air temperatures and extrapolating that to earth.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings by pointing out that your whole article was based on a false premise. Earth has lots of internal energy transfers, but less going in and out of the total system. You conflated one component with the whole system. I’m sorry if I pointed out that calling 1/40,000 of the energy in the ocean a “stupendous amount of energy” is a bit of an exageration.
Viking, I give up. You have managed to misinterpret not only the head post, but every one of my comments to you, and have done so in an unpleasant fashion. I’ll leave you to try to convince the others that you know what you are talking about … me, I know you’re far beyond my poor powers to affect your beliefs. For example, you say:
Two things about that. First, I’m talking about what will make an actual, practical, measurable difference to the graphs shown in Figure 1. The sea floor doesn’t qualify.
Second, you are correct that wherever a delta T exists, there is a heat flow. But we’re talking about annual swings … and the annual swings at the bottom of the ocean are trivially small, meaning the delta T is trivially small.
So instead of noting any of that, you want to nit-pick about some minuscule heat flow? Fine.
You also say you are talking about the total energy in the earth’s crust, and the total energy in the ocean, and so on … but that has NOTHING to do with the subject under discussion, which is the monthly and annual fluctuations in ocean heat content. Fluctuations are not the same as total energy. So your claim may be true about the total energy in the crust (although you’ve given no cite to back it up). I doubt it greatly, however, because a) the crust on average is about 20 times as thick as the ocean, and b) the temperature in the crust goes up by about 2°C per 100 metres of depth, and it’s way hot down deep, and c) the temperature of the ocean goes down with depth.
Given all that, your figure is not believable … but SO WHAT? Again, you’re just nit-picking about things that have nothing to do with the subject under discussion. We’re talking about changes in energy, not total energy content.
So you’re free to try to fool the rest of the folks … me, I’m done with your aggressive unpleasant nonsense.
w.
PS–Again, the fact that you are offended doesn’t make something offensive. Yes, you are offended, I get that … but at least so far, you’re the only person out of the hundreds reading this to make that claim.
But it’s all part of your megalomania, you actually believe that you are qualified to judge for everyone what is offensive, based solely on the fact that you are offended … sorry, but the fact that you are offended don’t impress me much. You seem to be offended by a host of trivial things.
Kettle, meet pot. Just because you’re offended, doesn’t mean it is offensive. You are projecting how you feel onto me. It’s arrogant to discuss thermodynamics without ever having really studied it, worked with it, been paid to do it, and then tell people who have been trained that they don’t know what they are talking about.
Bald Assertion without support. You have a-priori decided that earth’s crust can be ignored, in contradiction to the laws of thermodynamics.
First of all, you’re confusing yourself by thinking about temperature with a subjective (air-based) feel for what is “small”. Second of all, the energy we’re talking about here is trivially small compared to energy reservoirs of the crust under ocean and the ocean under 2000 m. A difference of .01 C might seem “trivial” to you, because you’re thinking about air, but that could easily be enough to transfer this small amount of energy.
I have never said that fluctuations are the same as total energy. However, knowledge of the internal energy of components is key to understanding the thermodynamics. For example, in a large building with marble columns, all at 70 F. You place your hand on the column and there is a delta T. However, the very small thermal mass of your hand vs. the very large thermal mass of the column come into play. Your hand starts dropping rapidly from 98.6, and it feels cold. The marble right next to your hand is warmed up, but the very large thermal mass means that it might warm up to 70.00001 F.
A certain section of the ocean heats up by .01 C. The crust is like the marble with a much larger thermal mass, and heat transfer takes place. The energy responsible for that .01 is like nothing to the crust. The ocean temperature drops by .01, and the crust temperature increases by .001 C. (all example numbers) The reverse could happen just as easily as magma might heat up part of the crust.
Which is irrelevant, since thickness of a component doesn’t stop heat transfer.
Which only increases the chances that the ocean can be heated from below. As I predicted 7 years ago on CA, the heating of Iceland, Greenland and Antarctica have now all been confirmed to be volcanic in origin.
Irrelevant to thermodynamics, but no, it’s actually quite constant below 1000m. The graphs give that impression, but if you look at the scale, it’s a very small temperature range.
The bottom line is that you have conflated one component of the system with the WHOLE system. There are certainly heat transfers taking place between all the components of the system. For all we know, the solar max could account for that energy. It’s on the same order of magnitude. For all we know, magma could have heated the ocean from below. See http://www.utexas.edu/news/2014/06/10/antarctic-glacier-melting/
Wait, would you be offended if I reminded you that Antarctica is IN the southern ocean. Would that make you feel bad? Ahhhhh, poor W. 🙂
“It’s the most complex thermal environment you might imagine,” said co-author Don Blankenship, a senior research scientist at UTIG
You should email him and tell him he’s wrong because:
So, if the domestic trade accountants forgot the whole state of California, it will make the discrepancy (measurement error) even worse, because domestic trade should equal international trade, right?
Willis, thanks for not replying again to this guy.
Thanks, Crispin. What I found was that I was unable to get through to him, he simply wasn’t listening, just reflexively opposing. At that point I cut my losses.
Best regards to all, including VikingExplorer,
w.
Actually W, I was unable to get through to you, and you were simply not listening, just reflexively opposing. You and others want to believe that you have discovered a measurement discrepancy.
Thank you, Willis, for a most fitting ending to a most interesting post and thread.
Too bad this turned into a pissing contest. It would have been interesting to see people scrutinizing the argo floats as much as the OP’s methods. There are 15 models, some of which are exclusively deployed in the southern hemisphere. Some of these floats pump the sea water they measure, some don’t. What is their calibration schedule? I don’t care how precise or accurate they are, they need to be checked. Oh well, maybe next time.
What if I were to say:
Domestic trade is just another measure for international trade.
One source says that international trade = 3.86.
Another source says that domestic trade = 12.69.
Color me puzzled. How are we to understand this perplexitude?
There must be something wrong with how these sources measure things. I bet the error bars on that domestic trade are from floor to ceiling. Let’s scrutinize the accounting practices!
Hey, I’m not done with the post, provoter and RH. I’m just done with VikingExplorer, he’s armored himself with his curious opinions to the point that he’s invulnerable.
As to the questions about Argo, RH, you could start here. There’s also this and here.
I note the following quote from one of those sources:
Then there’s this one …
w.
Willis,
Here is a paper by Hansen entitled:
Earth’s energy imbalance and implications
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/13421/2011/acp-11-13421-2011.pdf
Hansen discusses Argo data, OHC and energy imbalance. Maybe you might find something there.
Thanks, SGW. Been there … discussed that.
w.
Your “discussed” link is from 2006. Hansen’s paper is 2011. Is this just an updated paper with newer data?
Sorry, my bad. Please note, however, that my previous objections still apply. Hansen does not consider the data previous to his paper, and he uses his whiz-bang climate model which I’ve shown elsewhere outputs nothing but a simple lagged version of the inputs. Short-term data plus bad models = junk.
So in answer to your question as to whether I “might find something there”, there’s no “there” there …
With apologies to Gertrude Stein,
w.
The other thing I noticed in Hansen’s 2011 paper is that there an instrument calibration factor applied to CERES data:
The precision achieved by the most advanced generation of radiation budget satellites is indicated by the planetary energy imbalance measured by the ongoing CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) instrument (Loeb et al., 2009), which finds a measured 5-yr-mean imbalance of 6.5 W m −
2 (Loeb et al., 2009). Because this result is implausible, instrumentation calibration factors were introduced to reduce the imbalance to the imbalance suggested by climate models, 0.85 W m − 2 (Loeb et al., 2009).
This may be a dumb question, but Is it possible you are using CERES data values before they are calibrated?
This following is a side issue, but if satellites cannot even accurately measure the energy imbalance that is hypothesized as being caused by increasing CO2 concentrations, then maybe something is wrong with their hypothesis?? (the measurement error is over 600%!)
Nice quote SkepticgoneW
“The other thing I noticed in Hansen’s 2011 paper is that there an instrument calibration factor applied to CERES data:
The precision achieved by the most advanced generation of radiation budget satellites is indicated by the planetary energy imbalance measured by the ongoing CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) instrument (Loeb et al., 2009), which finds a measured 5-yr-mean imbalance of 6.5 W m −
2 (Loeb et al., 2009). Because this result is implausible, instrumentation calibration factors were introduced to reduce the imbalance to the imbalance suggested by climate models, 0.85 W m − 2 (Loeb et al., 2009).
I noticed how the Team relies on satellite data to support a claim for a radiation imbalance, but when the same technology (reading radiation) is employed to measure temperatures at 1000m (RSS) they prefer to avoid it, using instead land-based thermometers.
If they would be consistent, they would accept that the satellite temperature data as well as it has the best coverage and the least bias. As it shows no warming since 1979, they have chosen to use radiation detection technology for one part of the story and not the other. This is inconsistent.