I’m a bit skeptical of this claim, “Satellite images reveal ocean acidification from space” but it may be mostly due to how the press release is written, for example, nowhere is the term pH used in the press release, though it is in the abstract. Curiously, the caption for the graphic provided with the press release says it is “total ocean alkalinity from space” which is actually correct, since the ocean pH is not below 7.0, and not acidic, it is simply less alkaline. Then there’s the statement “The new techniques use satellite mounted thermal cameras to measure ocean temperature while microwave sensors measure the salinity.” This makes the measurement appear more like a proxy for OA than direct measurement. Dr. Roy Spencer comments on this and the technology below.
From the University of Exeter:
Pioneering techniques that use satellites to monitor ocean acidification are set to revolutionize the way that marine biologists and climate scientists study the ocean.
This new approach, which will be published on the 17 February 2015 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, offers remote monitoring of large swathes of inaccessible ocean from satellites that orbit the Earth some 700 km above our heads.
Each year more than a quarter of global CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels and cement production are taken up by the Earth’s oceans. This process turns the seawater more acidic, making it more difficult for some marine life to live. Rising CO2 emissions, and the increasing acidity of seawater over the next century, has the potential to devastate some marine ecosystems, a food resource on which we rely, and so careful monitoring of changes in ocean acidity is crucial.
Researchers at the University of Exeter, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Institut français de recherche pour l’exploitation de la mer (Ifremer), the European Space Agency and a team of international collaborators are developing new methods that allow them to monitor the acidity of the oceans from space.
Dr Jamie Shutler from the University of Exeter who is leading the research said: “Satellites are likely to become increasingly important for the monitoring of ocean acidification, especially in remote and often dangerous waters like the Arctic. It can be both difficult and expensive to take year-round direct measurements in such inaccessible locations. We are pioneering these techniques so that we can monitor large areas of the Earth’s oceans allowing us to quickly and easily identify those areas most at risk from the increasing acidification.”
Current methods of measuring temperature and salinity to determine acidity are restricted to in situ instruments and measurements taken from research vessels. This approach limits the sampling to small areas of the ocean, as research vessels are very expensive to run and operate.
The new techniques use satellite mounted thermal cameras to measure ocean temperature while microwave sensors measure the salinity. Together these measurements can be used to assess ocean acidification more quickly and over much larger areas than has been possible before.
Dr Peter Land from Plymouth Marine Laboratory who is lead author of the paper said: “In recent years, great advances have been made in the global provision of satellite and in situ data. It is now time to evaluate how to make the most of these new data sources to help us monitor ocean acidification, and to establish where satellite data can make the best contribution.”
A number of existing satellites can be used for the task; these include the European Space Agency’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) sensor that was launched in 2009 and NASA’s Aquarius satellite that was launched in 2011.
The development of the technology and the importance of monitoring ocean acidification are likely to support the development of further satellite sensors in the coming years.
###
The research is published in the scientific journal Environmental Science and Technology.
Source: Eurekalert http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-02/uoe-sir021315.php
Salinity from Space Unlocks Satellite-Based Assessment of Ocean Acidification
Land et al.
Synopsis
Approximately a quarter of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that we emit into the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean. This oceanic uptake of CO2 leads to a change in marine carbonate chemistry resulting in a decrease of seawater pH and carbonate ion concentration, a process commonly called “Ocean Acidification”. Salinity data are key for assessing the marine carbonate system, and new space-based salinity measurements will enable the development of novel space-based ocean acidification assessment. Recent studies have highlighted the need to develop new in situ technology for monitoring ocean acidification, but the potential capabilities of space-based measurements remain largely untapped. Routine measurements from space can provide quasi-synoptic, reproducible data for investigating processes on global scales; they may also be the most efficient way to monitor the ocean surface. As the carbon cycle is dominantly controlled by the balance between the biological and solubility carbon pumps, innovative methods to exploit existing satellite sea surface temperature and ocean color, and new satellite sea surface salinity measurements, are needed and will enable frequent assessment of ocean acidification parameters over large spatial scales.
Dr. Roy Spencer, a remote sensing specialist himself, comments to me via email:
The technique for measuring salinity with low-frequency microwave
measurements is nothing new, although we haven’t had satellites to do it
globally until relatively recently. But I’m not aware of how you get pH
from salinity and temperature…never heard of that before.
I did find this paper on satellite instrumentation designed to measure salinity:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20050139772.pdf
So if they are using temperature and salinity to come up with pH, how can they determine that the “ocean acidification” they claim in the PR is truly a function of dissolved CO2, and not just part of the normal regional and seasonal salinity pattern? That concern is backed up by one of the images in a photo collage they present with the paper, which shows what seems to be a salinity image from the Aquarius instrument, note the arrow:
I found NASA’s press release on the first full year of salinity measurements using the Aquarius instrument and an interesting image similar to what is presented in the Land et al. press release.
Putting that image next to the one they provide with the press release suggests they are simply measuring a a dominant effect of seasonal and regional salinity variation, and not CO2 driven “ocean acidification”:
Note how similar the ocean regional patterns are. NASA writes of the salinity image:
One of the features that stand out most clearly is a large patch of highly saline water across the North Atlantic. This area, the saltiest anywhere in the open ocean, is analogous to deserts on land, where little rainfall and a lot of evaporation occur. A NASA-funded expedition, the Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study (SPURS), traveled to the North Atlantic’s saltiest spot to analyze the causes behind this high salt concentration and to validate Aquarius measurements.
So it seems Land et al. (2015) isn’t actually measuring CO2 driven OA.
And more importantly, how did Land et al. (2015) calibrate the proxy for pH? Have they sent ships to do in situ sampling as NASA did? There seems to be no mention of it…except that calibration of their algorithms is sorely needed. From page 3 of the paper:
Wow. Their own paper emphasizes the need for in situ measurement, and that the algorithms aren’t calibrated.
It seems to me that they are still a long way from the claims made in the press release that they can reliably measure ocean pH via satellite remote sensing over time. I wonder if Dr. Land is happy with how the press release makes claims about the work?
Sadly, this press release seems to fit the hype pattern discussed yesterday: From #AAAS Why Some (Many?) Scientists Tend to Hype their Findings
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Confused – first image shows akilinity in umol/kg? umol of what?
TA=[CO3–]*2 + [HCO3-] – [H+]+borates etc
[Nick, try not to be dense, just for once? This doesn’t matter, they aren’t actually successfully measuring what they claim, be it pH or Alkalinity. NASA points out that at least for the Atlantic, the process that drives the change in salinity, and thus the derived change in Alkalinity, is rainfall and wind patterns. The posited CO2 driven change in ocean acidification isn’t the process. Logic fail. – Anthony]
Nick (and Anthony) it seems to me that the assumption by the authors is that the relative concentration of NaCl and CaCO3 is constant, so they just mapped the salinity and rescaled it as alkalinity. There is no pH measurement there, and whoever wrote the press release was either scientifically illiterate or a liar.
“There is no pH measurement there, and whoever wrote the press release was either scientifically illiterate or a liar.”
No. As the head post said:
“nowhere is the term pH used in the press release”,/i>
The problem is that, as I said above, people see the term Total Alkalinity and think it refers to pH. It is different.
The paper does suggest that the ratio of dissolved ions (not CaCO3) is fairly constant, so TA and salinity should vary together. The thing about TA is that it is unaffected by adding CO2 (that’s why they titrate to pH 4.5), so what measures that is DIC, which they seek through chlorophyll, and the known gas concentration pCO2. I don’t know how well it will all work, but that is what they are saying.
color
Colour
sorry – Colour – how could I? My spell check says that’s wrong, but I’ll give it to you.
As per the label of the graphic, alkalinity. Alkalinity is defined as all basic species, in this case, bicarbonate, carbonate and hydroxides summed together, and then expressed as the equivalent amount of CaCO3.
I make no comment as to what the graphic actually shows vs. what it is purported to show.
“This process turns the seawater more acidic, making it more difficult for some marine life to live”.
So settled science once again, clearly the oceans by default of this statement are already acidic, & our emissions are merely making them “more acidic” than they already are! Therefore al you clever cloggs out there who keeping droning on abouth the oceans bein alkaline clearly no nothing! (Sarc-ometer off!)
Don’t be so cynical, this is going to revolutionize everything. We may be able to test the water quality of our hot tub from space. The applications are endless.
So is academic inanity, I guess.
“This process turns the seawater more acidic, making it more difficult for some marine life to live”
Firstly some marine life will thrive as I mentioned above with references (here).
Secondly they don’t know whether the “some” will find it more difficult to live over long time scales. Most of the tank experiments pump in huge amounts of co2 over short time scales. Adaptation / acclimatisation and evolution did not stop in the 21st century.
I’m not sure who it was (Dr. Tim Ball?) that pointed out in one interview that ocean ph can vary greatly throughout the day.
” But I’m not aware of how you get pH from salinity and temperature…never heard of that before.”
Seems like a straight-forward research task, perhaps even worthy of a dissertation or two. First collect some sampled salinity and pH data, along with some metadata for conditioning any hypotheses. Then compute the correlation and try building some models which predict pH from salinity, or vice-versa, perhaps conditioned by the metadata, where necessary. (But don’t cheat by depending too much on metadata)
I would be surprised if this has not already been tried. For starters:
Not criticizing your comment Johanus, just criticizing the funny idea about borates controlling ph variations in sea water.
Nick Stokes makes the implied claim above that borates a major component of the sea water ph formula. Part of that concept is because boric acid can act as a weak buffer.
The reality is that boron is a minor constituent of sea water, unless local conditions, (e.g. volcano, wastewater), changes the availability of boron.
Boron concentration in sea water is about 2.5 atoms of boron per million atoms of sea water. A frequency of availability that greatly limits boron interaction with carbonic acid.
Salt water is typically neutral ph 7.0. Given the huge amounts of salts, (e.g. sodium chloride, potassium chloride) in sea water it would take massive amounts of carbonic acid to materially change the overall ph. This is without taking into account the buffers available throughout ocean basins.
Borates are a misdirection when discussing sea water.
So when building a “pH predictor” model I think you would then have to consider borate concentration, if any, disjunctively as a conditioning metadatum (“feature”) in the model, along with with many other kinds of metadata, e.g. temperature, which all are available to condition the relationships between pH and salinity.
These seem to be complicated relationships, so the resulting model would be a lot complex than just finding some weights to fit a curve. I would be included to build a piece-wise linear regression model using something like Cubist/M5, because it helps you learn and understand the relationships in the training set, where the metadata are the training features. Cubist generates rules which partition the feature space into multidimensionsal hypercubes, each containing a linear predictor.
The training proceeds recursively decomposing the problem space into sufficiently small hypercubes with acceptable error rates. Or the researcher may learn that the training set does not support the prediction accuracy desired. Either way it seems like a useful endeavor.
“Nick Stokes makes the implied claim above that borates a major component of the sea water ph formula”
No, my implication was that borates are minor, as with phosphates, and indeed hydroxide. But they affect the TA titration so are usually mentioned.
Those dissertations would be wasted. You’d never be able to get the accuracy down to a viable level with such paltry information. It’s a simple matter of attempting to use a howistzer for ice sulpting. An extremely crude measurement such as that is not viable for measuring alkalinity on such tiny perturbations.
If the research is conducted in a sufficiently data-rich environment, then quite a lot will be learned while trying to build such a model, perhaps enough to publish a paper and contribute to knowledge of the domain. And the researcher is given the opportunity to demonstrate some mastery of the domain, which is the essential criterion of a MS thesis.
Unfortunately, Johanus, academia is a BS-rich environment, and research there often results in learning a lot of things that simply aren’t true.
I cannot refute that.
Dr Spencer,
Both the temperature data and the alkalinity data is from a surface measurement? Microwaves being the in the inch too foot wavelength roughly suggests limitations in depth resolution?
So the satellites measure microwave absorption at the surface of the oceans and IR measures temperature of the ocean surface. Correct?
Exactly…and temperature data at the same place on the ocean can vary up to 6C in just a 24 hour period. And then there are seasonal variations in salinity and ocean surface temps as well. So, are these measurements taken by satellite over a given spot in the ocean just once, or are they taken repeatedly AND at the exact same time of day AND year?
As usual, Anthony easily deconstructs this grant-trolling paper.
WRT satellite measurements vs other measurements, when we compare them we see that they are all just about the same:
http://woodfortrees.org/graph/rss/from:1997/to:2005.67/plot/rss/from:2005.67/offset:0.05/plot/uah/from:1997/to:2005.67/offset:0.14/plot/uah/from:2005.67/offset:0.09/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1998/offset:-0.16
Satellite measurements are no more different than measurements between non-satellite data. They are all slightly different from each other.
The criticism of satellite data falls flat. And unlike some of the others, it measures most all of the planet, not just SST, or land temperatures.
I doubt that the government would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to launch a satellite if the measurements were no good. Some folks just don’t like what the satellites are telling us.
“The criticism of satellite data falls flat. And unlike some of the others, it measures most all of the planet, not just SST, or land temperatures.”
No data is perfect. So you have to remain skeptical of everything rather than blindly believing in just one thing.
Yes, satellites “measure” the whole planet.
BUT.
1. clouds
2. Sensors change
3. Time of observation changes over the life
4. location changes ( orbital decay)
BUT, For the sake of argument. Lets grant that satillites measure the truth.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/GlobalAnomalies.png
Correlations would be 1, except where satellites see clouds
http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/SATCorrelationFinal.png
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/berkeley-earth-airs/
And the Arctic?
http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ArcticAnomaliesCompare.png
NOTE: from AIRS I get the surface temp AND the air temp at 2m
So agreed, Satellites measure the truth and since we agree with them…..
petard. hoisted.
yea, yea Mr Mosher and the problem with ground stations from the WMO-
“The representativeness and homogeneity of climatological records are closely related to the location of the observing site. A station sited on or near a steep slope, ridge, cliff, hollow, building, wall or other obstruction is likely to provide data that are more representative of the site alone and not of a wider area”
and
“These changes can also occur to weather stations that are still in rural locations and are often harder to detect. For instance, the growth of trees around a farmstead that maintains a weather station alters the local wind flow and temperature patterns, and so reduces extreme wind speeds and the incidence of frosts (where they occur). The trend in the observations reflects the changes in the microclimate of the farmstead while the general climate may not have changed”
“As usual, Anthony easily deconstructs this grant-trolling paper.”
but if they get more money, your logic would say, that the government would only spend the money because it gave them accurate results.
Steven, you always know perfectly what other people would say. Awesome.
wait, I’m lost:
(my bold)
I read here yesterday that temperatures around the poles aren’t good because satellites can’t “see” those regions and land based are otherwise whacked.
I caught that too. +5
Bubba
Its very difficult to maintain a satellite in geosynchronous orbit over the poles. Also if I remember there were some treaties & understandings between us and the Soviets (now Russian Fed) about placing satellites over the Arctic; some silly thing about them being used for ICBM course corrections.
michael
Satellites have been over the Arctic in the 1960s. See the Nimbus satellite.
“NASA launched Nimbus-1 50 years ago, the agency’s key goals were to test instruments that could capture images of clouds and other meteorological features”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/04/1960s-satellite-imagery-of-polar-ice-discovers-enormous-holes-in-the-sea-ice/
There was Nimbus 1,2,3 and 4.
http://nsidc.org/data/nimbus/
While it is certainly possible to put a satellite into a polar orbit it happens to be impossible to do it if you want a sun-synchronous orbit, i e a orbit that passes the same places at the same time every day, which is essential for long-time monitoring. The best possible sun-synchronous orbit has 98 degrees inclination which leaves two “pole-holes” about 1000-1500 km across, depending on how obliquely your measurements can be.
Also there is ice-cover, darkness in winter and a lot of clouds and fog in summer. Monitoring arctic seas from space is often quite impossible.
[98 degrees inclination? Or 88 degrees? .mod]
Jimbo true there have been many satellites that could do pole to pole orbits, but certain orbital profiles were frowned upon. We were concerned with anything that match a F.O.B.S. orbital profile
I spent way to much time taking “Nation Security Policy” classes in college. Was fun .
michael
[98 degrees inclination? Or 88 degrees? .mod]
98 is correct. It is possible to have inclinations from 0 to 180 degrees.
hell, the Norga airship flew over the North pole in the early 20th century and flagged up open waters. Who needs satellites.
An aquarist would never, ever rely on temperature and TDS / conductivity as a measure of ph. But there is a general correlation between soft and acid on one hand and hard and alkaline on the other. I’m afraid they’ve picked on a rather complex set of variables when they pick on water chemistry and their proxies are new and poorly defined. In addition, the front-loaded topic of “acidification” is a hat tip to too narrow a perspective with too wide a conclusion.
Read the paper. There is a third proxy the say they need, chlorophyl (relative biological activity) measures by greenness. Then they fit a statistical model to guesstimate the favtors that lead to the carbonate system pH. This makes no sense for three reasons.
1. They admit the salinity data is very noisy.
2. pH also changes with upwelling. Along the US Pacific Coast, from 8.1 down to 7.7.
3. Biological activity is not as simple as surface chlorophyll. There are, for example 8 Pacific ‘biospheres’ with measured seasonal pH variations ranging from 0.1 to 1.43. Hoffmann et.al.PLoS One 6: e28983 (2011)
It seems Dr. Spencer is right on this one. Any proxy model they develop is going to be awful.
Doesn’t pass the litmus test – aye!
Since they are talking about future possibilities, I would not be over certain about it “awefulness” . That would be like guys who looked at the moon and said we will never get there. After all if it showed no change in Ph
some people would be less skeptical.. Kinda like the way attitudes toward RSS changed over time.
On this I agree with Steven Mosher.
The proxy isn’t calibrated. It doesn’t measure very deep below the surface. And it won’t ever tell you about pH or its drivers.
But it is a new proxy of “something” real on a global scale.
OK. It is a work in progress that has been over-hyped by the press release. But the paper seems to be working towards something of significance. Why scorn it because it isn’t fully developed yet?
It’s in Environmental Science and Technology after all. It isn’t in the worthless Nature Climate Change.
A change in pH……. since when ??? (not Ph.. that changes when I change address)
The system isn’t even functional yet. And requires many years of empirical validation.
(Unless its going to be treated like a climate model . of course)
It will be many many years before it can see a change (if any).
I posted three separate reasons why I think this effort will never produce something useful.
More background info from essay Shell Games.
AR4 got the ‘acidification’ scare BAU pH 7.8 wrong because it missed buffering. The Station Aloha pH (MLO and PMEL) is deceptive because the ocean is very ‘barren’ there. Taking chemical buffering alone into account, the BAU pH by 2100 at Station Aloha would be on the order of 8.0, down around 0.15. The seasonal variation in the Southern Ocean (Pacific side) is 0.5 around roughly 8.15. Coastal Pacific seasonal variation is on the order of 1.0 to 1.4. And In the Florida Bay, it ranges from 5.8 offshore Everglades mangroves winter, to 9.8 near Key West summer. The maximum separation is 90 miles, the average just 25. Yet sea life thrives.
Mosher, like many AGW supporters, you have no intuition for the measurement.
Lets say over 20 years this measurement shows a trend in “pH”. Was it really a trend in pH or was it a trend in biological function since colour is crucial to the proxy measurement? Or upwelling? or rainfall since they directly impact the pH as measured at the surface? Or windspeed since surface roughness introduces the largest error?
This proxy is close to worthless for measuring trends, Mosher.
A WUWT commenter on oceanic pH some time ago brought up an important but overlooked point about deep scattering layers, or the diurnal vertical migration of zooplankton from the daytime depths to the nighttime surface, and then back down again at sunrise. This migration takes place through pH changes that are much greater than those foretold by the doomsayers.
Today’s California Water News has added a Climate Change section, and posts this item:
“Quick, go visit the ocean one last time before it dies”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/12/1358855/-Quick-go-visit-the-ocean-one-last-time-before-it-dies
There is a collection of climate scare stories, including ocean acidification.
Neil, Read essays Shell Games and No Bodies as antidotes. Gift copies to your local politicians (Amazon has the ebook currently on sale). They will also get a wake up call out of essay California Dreaming concerning the CPUC response to the crisis the state faces thanks to its renewable mandate intermittency. Then go justify Ivanpah, other than a get rich at other’s expense scheme. Essay Solar Sunset.
[REPLY: Mr. Mosher in his irrational anti-satellite trash talk mode for all data that that aren’t his beloved and highly adjusted, and highly uncertain surface “BEST” temperature record fails to notice that the OA remote sensing claim is a product of TWO indirect measurements, making it even less reliable. The surface temperature has far more problems than the satellite record, IMHO, but of course, Mr. Mosher thinks he’s always right, much like Gavin Schmidt. -Anthony]
1. Not anti satellite. Just the facts. a) they are highly adjusted b) they dont measure temperature directly
c) they rely on radiative theory. d) the two major groups differ greatly from each other. In other words, one cannot rely blindly on them. Like any data. e) you dont measure reliability by counting the number of
indirect measurements.
2. Always right? nope. I used to think that RSS was better than UHA, now since they differ so much
I dont know which satillite dataset is more reliable. Roy thinks RSS has a big problem. Monckton
doesnt. Who to believe?
3. Compare RSS, which Monckton claims is most precise, with UHA.
Listen to RSS team leader who writes
“As a data scientist, I am among the first to acknowledge that all climate datasets likely contain some errors. However, I have a hard time believing that both the satellite and the surface temperature datasets have errors large enough to account for the model/observation differences. For example, the global trend uncertainty (2-sigma) for the global TLT trend is around 0.03 K/decade (Mears et al. 2011). Even if 0.03 K/decade were added to the best-estimate trend value of 0.123 K/decade, it would still be at the extreme low end of the model trends. A similar, but stronger case can be made using surface temperature datasets, which I consider to be more reliable than satellite datasets (they certainly agree with each other better than the various satellite datasets do!). So I don’t think the problem can be explained fully by measurement errors.”
In other words the man in charge of RSS notes that UHA and RSS dont agree with each other.
one is less reliable that the other. which one? and why do you think that.
There are documents folks can read before you use satellite data. Basically explaining the theory of how the data product is created. I suggest people read them. I do.
Lighter reading is here
http://www.remss.com/measurements/upper-air-temperature
“Our MSU/AMSU products use data from 14 different satellites. The data need to be intercalibrated before being merged together. This is a complex process, as shown in the flow chart below.
First, adjustments are made for changes in local measurement time (diurnal adjustment) and Earth incidence angle.
Then, intercalibration is performed by comparing measurements from co-orbiting satellites, yielding a set of “merging parameters”.
Uncertainty that arises earlier in the process (e.g. from the adjustments for local measurement time) can cause uncertainty in the merging parameters, which adds to the uncertainty in the final results.
Because of the complex nature of the errors, they are difficult to calculate and describe using simple statistical methods. Instead, we use a Monte Carlo technique to produce a large number of possible realizations of the errors that are consistent with the sources of error that we have studied.”
http://images.remss.com/papers/rsspubs/Mears_JGR_2012_MSU_AMSU_Short_Term_Trends.pdf
http://www.remss.com/blog/recent-slowing-rise-global-temperatures
Mosh, I’m not trying to pile on. But the fact is that satellite measurements differ from each other. So do other measurements. No database tracks another perfectly. They are all different from each other. Satellite measurements are just as accurate as any others, and they are probably more accurate. The government would not waste hundreds of $millions on satellites if they weren’t accurate.
There is too much being made of tenth and hundreth of a degree differences. Those tiny fluctuations generate lots of hand-waving, but not much else. The elephant in the room is the fact that global warming stopped many years ago. That is the big deal, not some tiny blips on a chart.
“Mosh, I’m not trying to pile on. But the fact is that satellite measurements differ from each other. So do other measurements. No database tracks another perfectly. They are all different from each other. Satellite measurements are just as accurate as any others, and they are probably more accurate. The government would not waste hundreds of $millions on satellites if they weren’t accurate.
1. The amount of money spent is no predictor of accuracy.
2. Agreed. all measurements differ.
3. A blanket statement about which is more accurate will get you in trouble. For example,
That would prove that Cowtan and Way are right.
There is too much being made of tenth and hundreth of a degree differences. Those tiny fluctuations generate lots of hand-waving, but not much else. The elephant in the room is the fact that global warming stopped many years ago. That is the big deal, not some tiny blips on a chart.
1. Global warming is not a descriptive term. You need to be more specific
Mosh, whether or not satellites are more accurate, combining satellite measurements with surface measurements has no guarantee of improving either. Cowton and Way were using things that measure two different regions of the atmosphere.
Surface measurements have the problems of being poorly distributed, almost totally lacking in ocean coverage, failure to accurately account for UHI, and poor homogenization methods in general which result in numerous ridiculous local adjustments (e.g. Darwin). Satellite measurements have problems with combining data from multiple satellites, and problems measuring over ice vs. water. The satellite measurements also started from a very cold period in recent history, although the Winston Smiths of CliSci have rewritten history eliminating the 1970s cold spell.
Steven,
no mater how you thrash and flex, there is no way out. Satellites are our best global temperature record. Surface station data is hopelessly corrupted by micro and macro site changes. It is unfit for purpose.
Your BEST effort is a total waste of time. Trying to use surface station data and making adjustments without reference to individual station meta-data speaks to motive. More time in the blender could never unscramble the egg.
But to answer the AGW question you don’t need to fumble around with corrupted data from any source. You only need to answer two very simple questions –
1. Are the oceans a near blackbody as climastrologists claim, or an extreme SW selective surface?
2. Given 1 bar pressure, is the net effect of our radiative cooled atmosphere warming or cooling of the oceans.
The oceans cover 71% of our planet’s surface. Get the right answer to those two questions, and you will know that AGW is a physical impossibility. Not too hard is it?
Mosh, would you please name a temperature measuring technique that does not measure temperature indirectly based on a variety of physical theory.
Mosher:” Not anti satellite. Just the facts. a) they are highly adjusted b) they dont measure temperature directly”
There are no devices anywhere on Earth or in space that measure (quantitatively) ‘temperature’ directly. Temperature is a man-made abstraction which always requires some kind of numerical model as a ‘proxy’. e.g. mercury expanding in a calibrated (i.e. “adjusted”) capillary, current flowing in a calibrated resistor etc. These models generally tend to be wrong and are useful (i.e. with acceptable errors) only within narrowly defined constraints. For example, you can’t measure the temperature inside a blast furnace with a weather thermometer.
You might say: “I don’t need no stinking calibrated models. When water freezes, that’s a ‘direct measurement’ of 32F exactly!”
No, that’s only true for distilled water. Sea water freezes at 28.4F, so not really that accurate, enough even for climate science.
Q: And how would you measure other, arbitrary, temperatures with your water thermometer? Ans: Perhaps 212F could be crudely estimated by observing boiling. Otherwise your “direct read” thermometer is quite limited and virtually useless.
A suggestion. This thread is about claimed remote sensing of ocean pH, NOT subpart temp (one of three proxies for the pH statistical model, the third missing from the paper’s abstract but essential in the text–poor form, since it reveals immediately the futility of this approach). Take your temp arguements outside, and come back in when any of you have something interesting on ocean pH or its possible remote sensing. JEEZ. I learned this stuff in a couple of self education years, you can learn it from me in minutes by reading a fun essay–and still crosscheck every reference used.
With an apparent difficulty in even measuring pH reliably and accurately enough with instruments designed for the job, I have to say I’m going to need a lot of convincing to buy this. Apropos of this, scientific reporting should be done with a strong awareness of a vigorous sceptical environment into which they are releasing their news that can slap them in the head before the ink dries. This wary sceptical atmosphere is the one positive creation of the CAGW plunderers after the unmonitored free-for-all they enjoyed for a couple of decades. I’m waiting for more info and an explanation that will get by sceptical chemists in this community.
Anti satellite? Hardly.
as always you need to understand the satellite dataset you are using and how it was created.
Here is a small sample of an “anti satellite” guy using satellite data. In fact, more than
half of my work is dependent on satellite data.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/08/metadata-fail-230-ghcn-land-stations-actually-in-the-water/
https://stevemosher.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/pilot-study-small-town-land-surface-temperature/
https://stevemosher.wordpress.com/2012/11/10/terrain-effects-on-suhi-estimates/
There are many more.
The point is one doesnt blindly trust or blindly condemn.
Come on, some climate-botherer just wanted to publish a pic of the planet with a big smudge of red on it (even if the red represents the nice pH, which doesn’t pickle fish on the fin).
By the way, David Jones of Australia’s BoM has some fab new colours for climate scares. The Extreme Heat Purple is to die for. What a colourist!
Yeah, that’s pretty much the whole story, here.
pH by definition is the log of the reciprocal of the hydrogen ion activity in aqueous solution. It can be approximated by the concentration of [H+]. The definition is based on the MEASUREMENT of the potential between a reference electrode and a second electrode (Nernst equation.) To estimate pH you have to measure either the hydronium ion concentration or the hydroxyl ion concentration. To know the pH you have to measure it. Absent dragging an electrode pair from the satellite, it isn’t going to measure pH. All other discussions on what affects pH aside, to know what it is get out your electrode with the glass membrane.
This is the stuff in very basic chemistry books.
at one time it was said;
“Dip your finger in the water and then lick it. If it tastes salty it is British”
Am I reading those images correctly? It looks like the most saline/acidic regions are those with the highest evaporation. Shock & awe !!
back in 2012 the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute were pushing stories about the seas becoming more acidic. I wrote to then and said would a better term, if this was happening, be becoming less base.
They replied-
“Yes, “less basic” would be a more appropriate term. However, it would
also be very confusing for members of congress and the general public”
So I responded that perhaps as a scientific organisation it would be
better to educate the public and congress that the seas are not
becoming acidic but less base,
his or her response,
“Thanks for trolling me”
Somewhat related – there was an article in yesterday’s Seattle Times about the testing of some 14 designs for measuring ocean pH as part of prize challenge.
The description of the science was on par for someone who last had chemistry in the 9th grade.
Let’s throw the cat amongst the dogs eh.
“As Wallace emphasized: “there is no global acidification trend.””
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/23/touchy-feely-science-one-chart-suggests-theres-a-phraud-in-omitting-ocean-acidification-data-in-congressional-testimony/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/02/a-neutral-view-of-oceanic-ph/
Don’t the ARGO buoys measure pH? Wouldn’t they provide the in-situ calibration?
No. Argo measures-records conductivity (salinity), pressure, and temperature profile as it slowly rises from 2000m to surface. At the surface, the newer Argo acquire a GPS position-time solution, and then transmit all data to satellite.
Aren’t computers and satelites wonderful. As I remember in process control here on earth pH is notoriously difficult to measure accurately. But now that we have satelites no problem.
Now I has read the paper, it certainly didn’t take long and wasn’t intellectually taxing. Essentially it is 100% pure waffle. In short they piously hope that ift they measure SST, salinity and chlorophyll in sufficient number of places they will somehow be able to figure out algorithms that give them the alkalinity. However these algorithms don’t exist yet, and they do admit that measuring chlorophyll has some “challenges”, particularly in the Arctic (I suppose they are thinking of darkness, clouds and ice).
Actually coverage is rotten as can be seen here:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/view.php?d1=MY1DMM_CHLORA
Essentially there is no data at more than 45 degrees latitude in winter in both hemisphere and coverage is very spotty along the Equator too (probably due to the ITCZ). Amusingly the coverage is only good in the areas with the lowest chlorophyll concentration (the mid-latitude doldrums)
This is a link to some of the information on the “Aquarius Satellite” and its capabilities as well as some of the people involved with the project.
https://www.esr.org/aquarius_sat/aquarius_main.html
michael
Is this really measurement, or another model?
It is measurement. But of what is not quite clear.
It is a combination of real measurements of attributes of the Oceans.
It is measurement of temperature, salinity and chlorophyll. From which they hope to model alkalinity from which they hope to model pH, but they don’t know how yet.
So this is measurement that may sometime be used to model something.
There is a reason the pH of the oceans is that high…and it’s not from a lack of buffers
Buffers are in saturation…that’s the way it works, and has to work that way
Biological processes (denitrification, ammonification, nitrification, etc) produce an unimaginable amount of acids (CO2 included) and would have crashed the oceans making them unworkable as we know them.
…and it’s the biological processes that replenish the buffers
It’s a circle…..
…in addition, adding CO2 will only increase the buffers