UPDATE: I forgot to note that the data in Figure 1 have been zeroed at the year 2003. That was done to simplify the illustration.
# # #
The National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) recently updated their ocean heat content and vertically averaged temperature data for the oceans to depths of 2000 meters. See the NODC data webpage here. Alarmists are having a grand time trying to scare their readers with their chicken-little end-is-near proclamations. Example: see the post titled “The oceans are warming so fast, they keep breaking scientists’ charts” at SkepticalScience here and The Guardian here. Also see Joe Romm’s post ‘Hottest Year’ Story Obscures Bigger News: Ocean Warming Now Off The Charts at ClimateProgress.
Of course, the alarmists present the ocean heat content data, not the vertically averaged temperature data. Why? The oceans have an extremely large heat capacity, so a very slight increase in the temperature of the oceans to depths of 2000 meters represents a very large uptake of heat when placed in terms of 10^22 Joules…the units used by the NODC. So to counter the alarmists, we present the NODC data in terms of deg C (data here), because people are more familiar with temperature. We also break the data down into basins and subsets to show that the warming rates are not uniform, which is tough to explain with greenhouse gas-driven human-induced global warming. So here’s a general introductory discussion of that NODC temperature data to depths of 2000 meters.
Reasonably complete temperature samples of all the ice-free oceans to the depths of 2000 meters (about 6600 feet or about 1.25 miles) have only been available for the past decade or so. Those new sensors were deployed as part of the ARGO program in the early 2000s and did not have complete coverage of the oceans until about 2003. The U.S. National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) uses those temperature samples for a number of datasets, including their vertically averaged temperature data for the depths of 0 to 2000 meters.
Before the early 2000s, even the IPCC calls into question the usefulness of the sparse temperature measurements of the deep ocean. They note that before ARGO the data cannot be used for attribution studies. In other words, because the data are so sparse, they cannot be used to determine the cause of the warming. Also see the post here. It shows how sparse the pre-ARGO data are.
As shown in Figure 1, the ARGO-era temperature data for those depths show the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans have warmed, while the North Atlantic and the largest ocean on our planet, the Pacific, show very little warming over the past 12 years.
Figure 1
The pie chart in Figure 2 helps to put that in perspective. It illustrates the surface areas of the Indian, South Atlantic, North Atlantic and Pacific as percentages of their total surface area. (Source of the surface areas is here.) The North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans cover almost two-thirds of those oceans and they have warmed very little in 12 years to depths of about 2 kilometers (1.25 miles). Now look again at the graph in Figure 1, this time concentrating on the scale of the vertical axis (y-axis) and on the listed warming rates. For the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the warming rates measured in one-hundredths of a deg C/decade, while for the North Atlantic and Pacific, the trends are in one-thousandths of a deg C/decade.
Figure 2
Something else to consider: the raw ARGO-based temperature data don’t show that much warming. The data have to be adjusted to show those warming rates.
UPDATE:
The other problem: manmade greenhouse gases are said to be well-mixed, meaning they’re spread pretty evenly above the Earth’s surface. It’s difficult at best, therefore, to imagine how manmade greenhouse gases could be warming one-third of the oceans to depths of more than a mile but not the other two-thirds.
The other problem: I had explained the difference in the warming rates between the Indian and Pacific Oceans a number of years ago. See the discussion of Figures 19 and 20 and Animations 1 and 2 in the post Is Ocean Heat Content Data All It’s Stacked Up To Be? But because manmade greenhouse gases are said to be evenly mixed, the multi-model mean of the climate models used by the IPCC (for attribution studies and projections of future climate) show a relatively uniform warming of the oceans. Yet in the real world that is not the case. See the illustration here from Durach et al. (2014) Quantifying underestimates of long-term upper-ocean warming. The multi-model mean basically represent how the oceans should have warmed if they were warmed by manmade greenhouse gases. It’s difficult at best, therefore, to imagine how climate modelers will attempt to explain how manmade greenhouse gases could be warming one-third of the oceans to depths of more than a mile but not the other two-thirds when their models show a more uniform warming.
FURTHER READING
For more info on the problems with ocean heat content data see the post Is Ocean Heat Content Data All It’s Stacked Up to Be?
Bob thanks for another “just the facts” post.
Has anyone else noticed that it is the peak of summer in Australia, and last year, or was it the year before, we were inundated with stories about the hot hot Australian summer, in January . Well apparently they are not having a hot summer down under as I have not read one story about it in the MSM in January 2015. Average and cool summers are apparently not noteworthy.
The same strange definition of global from Tisdale. If it is not the same amount of warming everywhere then ti is not global.
A mean value for the globe is not global according to Tisdale.
rooter, to root something in OZ means to eff it up, your brain does seem to be rooted.
Thanks for misrepresenting what was presented and discussed in the post, rooter.
rooter does that a lot.
A mean value for the globe is meaningless, no pun intended.
As Bob Tisdale notes at the end:
“Something else to consider: the raw ARGO-based temperature data don’t show that much warming. The data have to be adjusted to show those warming rates.”
Is there any temperature series anywhere that after ‘adjustment’ to the data by climate ‘scientists’ does not show a ‘warming’ or enhanced ‘warming’ trend?
Have Tisdale ever presented global temperature series? Were those series mean values of the global values? Did Tisdale use those series to proclaim that it was Ninjos that was the cause of warming?
Answer: He did.
Whatever changed along the way?
‘rooter’
You are confusing apples with pears.
Plotting El Nino(s) against global temperature series allows for relationships between them and any temperature changes to be seen. Whether or not the temperature series has been adjusted to increase recent or to lower historic temperatures is irrelevant to the existence of any such relationship.
Adjustments would only impact on calculations of the effect of such a relationship – not its existence – that is unless they have been made with the intent of disguising any el nino or nina effect.
Has that happened ? I have no idea, but one thing for sure is that all the ‘adjustments’ to recorded temperatures made by climate scientists have resulted in recent temperaures artificially appearing elevated compared to historic ones – something noted by Tisdale about the difference between the raw argo data and the adjusted and then published data.
So there is something called global warming then. Even though not all areas do warm at the same rate.
That is. Sometime. It does not apply when the heat accumulation is so obvious that it cannot be denied. And does not have the same ups and downs as enso.
What adjustments Old England?
rooter, once again you illustrate for everyone that you have to rely on misrepresentation and fabrication in your arguments.
To explain El Nino-caused warming of ocean surfaces, I do not present global sea surface temperature data. I divide the sea surface temperature data into subsets. Every month in my sea surface temperature updates…
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/december-2014-sea-surface-temperature-sst-anomaly-update/
…I present the sea surface temperature data for the East Pacific Ocean (covers about 33% of the surface of the global oceans) and the data there indicate very little warming in 34 years:
And I present the sea surface temperature anomalies of the South Atlantic, Indian and West Pacific Oceans (represents about 52% of the global ocean surfaces) which show the El Nino-caused upward shifts in sea surface temperatures:
That leaves the North Atlantic which is also impacted by another mode of natural variability called the AMO, which caused the surface of the North Atlantic to warm at a higher rate as part of its cyclical nature.
rooter, as I’ve suggested before, you really should shift your blogging efforts by commenting at HotWhopper. There, they are more than happy to misrepresent my work. You’d fit right in. Here you look foolish.
Ninjo causes warming because there is very little warming in Equatorial East Pacific?
Ninjo causes warming because ocean temperature varies with Enso?
At last someone found that ocean temperature is strongly affected by Enso.
The upward shifts would not happen with no warming trend. With no warming there would be as saw instead of at stair.
I will from now on boil my potatoes by heating the air above the pan.
5 hairdyers
Good one, lol… I’ve never believed the air heated the water any more than the heating was uniform for either the ocean or that atmospheric warming is uniform. The are convection currents in the ocean just as there are in the atmosphere. The silliness of the alarmists’ focus on CO2 has blinded them to how both mediums work; they have lost sight of the bigger picture. http://schools.bcsd.com/fremont/5th_sci_weather_wind.htm
“””””””””””It’s difficult at best, therefore, to imagine how manmade greenhouse gases could be warming one-third of the oceans to depths of more than a mile but not the other two-thirds.””””””””””””””
It is the same ( or the opposite if you want ) for the sea ice; I stress , physical properties of the CO2 are different in both hemisphers
fritz, the Pacific Ocean, with little to no warming to depths of 2000 meters, spans both hemispheres.
Cheers.
So sorry, physical properties of the CO2 only change from one pôle to the other ; its probably linked to magnétism
(I thought , you understand french humour)
So there is warming then. Much energy needed to accomplish that warming. And for some reason unknown to Tisdale much energy is needed to warm the biggest ocean basin.
Some day Tisdale may even discover ocean currents.
rooter, CO2 has no effect on SST
IIRC, when the Soon and Baliunas paper came out showing that the last century wasn’t the hottest of the last 1,000 years no matter which proxy record or dataset was used, one of the major criticisms was that even though essentially all proxy records had a past temperature greater than now they were not all “contemporaneous” with each other.
They insisted that because these warmer temperatures of the past were not contemporaneous across the entire globe at one time that they were seeing regional effects within each proxy.
So, if the current warming is NOT “contemporaneous across the globe” does the same criticism apply now?
The global mantra is a political conscript. It is the only way that politicians can argue that we are all in it together, the world has to act as a whole etc.
The reality is something rather different. There is (on the timescales we are talking about) no such thing as global warming; some parts of the globe are warming, some parts are cooling, and some parts are neutral.
Likewise, climate. Climate is a regional not a global phenomena (unless one is talking about ice ages/inter glacials).
Further, some areas (countries) will respond favourably to a warming world, some will be neutral, and for some, it may be a negative.
Likewise sea level rise will impact differently on different countries. Heck some do not even have a coastline (eg. Switzerland), and some have rocky cliffs rising high out of the sea (such as Norway).
It is unscientific to talk about global warming and global climate change. This illustrates why climate science is not a real science, or at any rate it demonstrates that the majority that practice in this area do not apply the highest standards of scientific rigour to their work. .
One of the major problems in this area of ‘science’ is the almost universal practice of using averages. This masks what is really going on, and unless one knows what is really going on, one cannot begin to understand the reason why changes are taking place.
For those who accept the AGW conjecture, I would ask one simple question:
How long does it take for a photon (or its exchanged cousin) emitted from the planetary surface to make its way up to TOA and from there to be radiated out to space when CO2 concentration is say 280ppm, and how long does it take a photon (or its exchanged cousin) emitted from the planetary surface to make its way up to TOA and from there to be radiated out to space when CO2 concentration is say 400ppm?
If one cannot answer that question, one cannot even begin to seriously discuss whether rising levels of CO2 are causing planetary warming.
Interesting discussion above by several people about the plausibility of downward IR warming the ocean down to layers beneath the surface absorption layer .
Perhaps one could settle the question by presenting it as a problem, a challenge , the sort of question that candidates aspiring to enter a Cambridge college might be asked to solve in an entrance exam because in essence the problem seems quite simple:
Consider a flat , windless ocean on which IR , of a spectral distribution that is absorbed to 99% in d microns , and of intensity W watts/m^2.
Heat is lost through evaporation from that layer , and also by conduction away from the layer , by a saline fluid of conductivity k , W/m.K and thermal diffusivity ( the most important factor perhaps) , t , m^2/sec.
Questions : 1: how does the temperature of the surface layer change with time after the IR irradiation starts?
2: what is the equilibrium temperature?
3. ( to sort out the really clever ones ) what is the effect of a wind across the surface , with a relative humidity of RH and a velocity of v m/sec?
The only prize for solving this is personal satisfaction.
Mike, the temperature profile of the sea shows that in daytime heat is conducted to the surface from beneath, not downward from the surface.
The daytime upward conduction is presumably from warming created through a (500?) m water column by absorption of visible and NIR out to 4um wavelength . But there must be a net contribution from the LWIR down from the CO2 emission ,effectively at night perhaps , otherwise there is no greenhouse effect on the SST , contrary to the opinions of 97% of scientists far more knowledgeable than I. And if 71% of the Earth’s surface is water , then the major greenhouse effect must be on land. But land surface temperatures do not necessarily substantiate that conclusion do they ?
I am totally confused , and embarrassed now.
I suggest a little research. Get the radiative absorbance of water and also the temperature profile of the sea surface. Study these and you will see for yourself that IR, GHE, CO2, have no effect on SST.
Guess what happens when skin is warmed. What happens to to the transport of heat through the skin from below?
Mpainter and rooster , a belated reply : I think that it comes down to kinetics . We all are aware of how IR laser ablation can be used to correct defective vision or remove tattoos by focusing short pulses of high power , highly absorbed IR onto tissue. The surface then is boiled off , or vaporised without roasting the underlying tissue because the dwell time of the pulse is very small compared to the conduction times given by the low thermal diffusivity of tissue ( which is largely water) . The energy absorbed on a short time scale is transferred into the kinetic energy of the vaporised atoms of the surface layers and not conducted down.
In the theoretical flat windless ocean the same principle exists , but the IR pulse is infinitely long , so eventually there would be conduction to the layers below , but I recognise that there may be upwards conduction that masks it .( You could incorporate the direction of heat flow into the continuity equation) This theoretical model has no real bearing on the actual ocean situation , but I thought that it was an interesting theoretical problem that might resolve some of the differences of opinion expressed much earlier about what happens when IR meets a water surface ( or a cold ice sheet).
I bet there are old , dusty copies of J. Ind Engineering from the 60/70s in which the equations for IR ablation have been thoroughly discussed..
Mike:
Two incontrovertible principles:
1. DLWIR is caught on the surface of water; for example, CO2 emits at about 15 microns and this wavelength is absorbed within 3 microns.
2. The temperature profile shows that the heat moves toward the cooler surface from beneath, which is warmer.
The whole time the surface evaporates and IR is converted to latent heat very quickly, as per my illustration for Rob G above.
Bob
What’s the accuracy of the thermometers used in ARGO? I understand glass thermometers have measurement accuracy of +/- 0.01 C. Temperature change of 0.006 C per year seems to be within the measurement error range and insignificant.
Evaporation carries about 1,000 Btu/lb, driven by how dry the air is not how hot. Sensible heat by conduction: 1 Btu/lb F for water, 0.24 Btu/lb F for air. Air/CO2 just doesn’t have the cojones to make a difference.
0.01 C? I doubt that.
ARGO won’t be reading glass thermometers, more likely thermistors, RTDs, T/Cs.
+/- 0.01 C would be what, 0.01 C/55 C = .019%. Where are you going to find an instrument with that resolution/accuracy?
“Where are you going to find an instrument with that resolution/accuracy?”
A lot of digital temperature ICs have between 9 & 12 bits of resolution, accuracy is a different animal.
I built a system in the 90’s that monitored each battery module voltage and temperature, across a full EV pack. It was automotive, so it had to be cost effective (cheap).
The temp sensor I chose had 0.0625 C resolution, +/- 0.5C accuracy. (akin to Dallas DS18B20). To meet the design & cost spec, I had to calibrate the array of modules for voltage & temperature, and save cal constants on-board. I could detect a hand held above the sensor from several inches away.
Here is a description of the enthalpy of vaporisation for water under existing Earthly
atmospheric pressure:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthalpy_of_vaporization
“the molecules in liquid water are held together by relatively strong hydrogen bonds, and its
enthalpy of vaporization, 40.65 kJ/mol, is more than five times the energy required to heat the
same quantity of water from 0 °C to 100 °C (cp = 75.3 J K−1 mol−1). ”
Water boils away at 100 degrees C so in other words the process of evaporation removes
from the local environment (in the form of latent heat) over five times the amount of energy
required to induce that evaporation.
In the face of that energy imbalance the extra longwave IR radiation in the air from more
greenhouse gases has no opportunity to heat up anything other than the specific water
molecules that then evaporate earlier than they otherwise would have done. Nothing is left to
add energy to the oceans, it all disappears as latent heat and the background energy flow from
oceans to air continues undisturbed.
from here:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/the-setting-and-maintaining-of-earths-equilibrium-temperature/
The ARGO temperature increases seem to correlate to the OCO-2 averaged carbon dioxide concentration.
Bob,you say
Then why does the IPCC AR5 WGI Ch3 on oceans have the following graph showing the rise in heat content from 1970?
Maybe a bit of inconsistency here?
https://ipcc.ch/report/graphics/index.php?t=Assessment%20Reports&r=AR5%20-%20WG1&f=Chapter%2003
Bob Tisdale,
I don’t see any trend in those ocean basin ARGO temperature data, except for the Indian Ocean in 2008 and 2009. 2008 was a moderately weak Monsoon, and 2009 the 3rd weakest monsoon since 1901.
http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/monsoon-2009-third-worst-since-1901-imd-report/577802/
Demonstrating horizontal water vapour transport from oceans to land regulates the Indian Ocean water temperatures. Probably true for all oceans. Just more pronounced variation for the Indian Ocean. And probably a/the major regulator of the entire climate system.
mpainter January 23, 2015 at 4:48 am
//////////
Hi
One cannot begin to meaningfully discuss the reasons for ocean warming without knowing full details of clouds. This is very complex since it is not simply the area of clouds, but also the height at which they form, the volume, the composition of the clouds, the time of the day they form, the time of the day they disperse, the season and the latitude. All of this has an impact on how much solar reaches the oceans and the grazing angle of solar reaching the oceans.
I am of the view that to the extent that there has been any real warming of the oceans, then the probable explanation lies in changes in the amount of solar insolation reaching the oceans. It is possible, to some limited extent, that some deep ocean warming may be explained in some areas by local changes in plate tectonic/subduction zones (energy/heat being released in the shifting) and volcanoes.
The equatorial and tropical oceans are the heat pump of the planet. Energy absorbed in these oceans is circulated across the globe. That makes it difficult to look at each ocean basin independently, since some ocean basins are (to some extent) reaping the rewards of energy inputted in a different ocean basin. So one has to be circumspect in drawing definitive conclusions from different patterns observed in each ocean basin.
That said, Bob has shown that the ocean basins are warming quite differently. This is not likely to be the case if warming was the result of increased CO2 (whether naturally occurring or due to manmade emissions) and if CO2 is a well mixed gas (which it may not be as well mixed as some assume). The trends in these circumstances should be similar, at any rate in broad terms, across all basins, but it is not.
DWLWIR and the oceans is a problem since no one has offered a sensible physical explanation as to how DWLWIR absorbed in the top 2 or 3 microns of the oceans can result in heat/energy be dispersed and dissipated downwards at a speed greater than the speed that energy absorbed in the top 2 or 3 microns would otherwise power evaporation from the very top of the ocean.
I have seen some suggest that an IR heater can heat water, but first the wavelength of a typical IR heater is different, second, the temperature of a typical IR heater is very different (and we are dealing with T to the power of 4 so differences in temperature are extremely significant).
Konrad has done some experiments demonstrating that when water is free to evaporate, LWIR does not heat the water; it merely powers evaporation.
Climate scientists need to conduct some real experiments to obtain some real data on the extent to which DWLWIR heats the oceans, the amount of energy absorbed on a micron by micron basis for the top few centimetres and the rate at which energy absorbed in the top 2 or 3 microns is dissipated downwards to depth and via what mechanism.
When this edifice falls down (as it almost certainly will as mother nature continues to show that the assumptions made by cAGW proponents were wrong), climate scientist will no doubt revisit the role played by the oceans, and will appreciate the problems with DWLWIR and the oceans, and that it does not effectively warm the oceans.
I will be sorry to see this thread expire since it is getting so interesting , but the subject will recur no doubt (everything to do with climate is cyclical it seems ).
Your comments on clouds led me to read what Salby says in Ch 9 of his book , talking about cloud forcing .
I know that I should not “cherry pick” comments but , after a rigorous mathematical discussion of the effects of SW and LW heating and cooling effects in clouds and their effect on the climate near the ground he states that , under certain conditions , global mean cloud forcing could be a negative effect , -15W/m^2 , representing cooling about three times as great as the warming introduced by a doubling of CO2.
(Is Salby OK to quote as a reliable source? The copy that I have is second hand from UMIST library and is in such an excellent condition that it appears never to have been opened. )
IPCC AR5 TS6 admits poor understanding of clouds.
Rehashing the same lie that got debunked a few years back, Tisdale?
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/10/bob-tisdale-hides-warming-and-tries-out.html
Climate is the continuation of oceans by other means. Not only the climate influences the ocean, but the ocean influences the climate. So, when climate is heating, it means that the ocean is already heated and that there is something happening on the ocean. What else could it be? Naval activity, warfare, etc. It is obvious that we should pay attention to the ocean to see whay global warming is happening. You can read on http://www.1ocean-1climate.com about the way the factors that affected the ocean caused the most dramatic climate changes in the past 150 years.
What does one mean by “global warming”? It seems to me that one does not mean anything!