By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Tom Karl’s paper (Karl et al. 2015) purporting to abolish the global-warming pause, recently published in Science, may be partly my fault. I first ran across the National Climatic Data Center’s (NCDC) accident-prone director in a Congressional hearing room in about 2009, when I was the witness for the Republicans, Karl for the Democrats.
I showed the energy and environment committee a graph showing the mean of the temperature anomalies from the three terrestrial and two satellite datasets. The graph showed that in the first eight years of the 21st century the Earth had cooled:
Representative Joe Barton of Texas, the formidable Republican ranking member of the House climate committee, feigned astonishment. He rounded on Karl and said: “You and other officials have made repeated appearances before this committee in recent months, telling us over and over again about “global warming”. Not one of you has ever told us that there has been global cooling throughout the past seven or eight years. Why not? Or is Lord Monckton lying to us?”
Tom Karl, who was sitting next to me, looked as though he wished the “warming” Earth would swallow him up. He shifted from one well-padded butt-cheek to the other. He harrumphed, “Er, ah, well, that is, we wouldn’t have quite – oof – um – done the calculations that way, aaahh… We wouldn’t have averaged the anomalies from – umf – multiple datasets with different fields of coverage, err – aaagh…”
Karl was Saved by the Bell (perhaps he saw himself in the role of Screech to my Zack Morris in the hit 90s teen TV series). A division was called and proceedings were suspended while Hon. Members shuffled out to vote.
While the committee members were doing their democratic duty, Tom Karl rounded on me and hissed, “How do you expect to be taken seriously?”
“I don’t,” I said. “I expect the data to be taken seriously.”
Karl also took issue with my having told the committee there had been no particular trend in landfalling U.S. hurricanes over the past 100 years. He was carrying a vast artist’s portfolio of charts about with him. He flipped it open and said, “You’re wrong.”
“No,” I said, “I’m right.”
He pointed to the graph. I was indeed wrong. Karl’s graph showed no trend in landfalling hurricanes not only for 100 years but for 150 years. His face fell, then brightened again: “Ah,” he said, “but just look at how tropical storms have increased in the past 30 years!”
“You know perfectly well,” I replied, “that that apparent increase is merely an artifact of the satellite coverage that began 30 years ago. Before then, you knew if a hurricane had hit you, but you would probably not be able to detect every tropical storm.”
The committee members murmured back into the hearing room and took their seats. Joe Barton snapped, “Both of you had better write to this committee informing it of how you reached your mutually incompatible conclusions about whether there has been cooling over the past seven or eight years.”
I was quick off the mark, sending the committee a letter that week pointing out that each of the datasets individually showed the cooling. I had particular pleasure in pointing out that Karl’s own NCDC dataset showed it:
Karl sent a rather testy reply to the committee saying that the mere data were not relevant. Eight years was too short a period to draw any conclusion, yada yada. What he could not quite bring himself to admit was that he had been wrong in suggesting there had been no global cooling from 2001-2008. His own dataset showed it.
Now, perhaps still smarting over his trouncing at the hands of a mere layman trumping predictions with data, Karl has done his best to abolish outright the Pause of 18 years 6 months that makes a standing mockery of the wildly exaggerated predictions of the error-prone models unjustifiably but profitably favored by the politico-scientific establishment of which he is a member.
Skeptical scientists including Bob Tisdale, Judith Curry, Ross McKitrick Dick Lindzen and our kind host, have all weighed in with commendable speed to point out how much is wrong with Karl’s overt data tampering.
There is one glorious point they have not mentioned. Karl’s paper appears to repeal the laws of thermodynamics.
Suppose, ad argumentum, that he is right. In that event, in the past 15 years global warming at the Earth’s surface has continued at the not particularly alarming rate of 0.116 K per decade. In 1990 the IPCC’s central business-as-usual prediction for the medium term was equivalent to 0.28 K per decade, so, on any view, Karl’s paper is an admission that the models have been exaggerating by well over double.
But let us look at what happened either side of the surface over the same period.
Beneath the surface heaves the vasty deep. The least ill-resolved source of data about the temperature of the top 1900 m of the ocean is the network of some 3600 automated ARGO bathythermograph buoys.
Unlike the assorted ship’s buckets and engine intake sensors and promenade-deck thermometers that preceded them, the bathythermographs were specifically designed to provide a consistent, calibrated, competent ocean temperature dataset.
They have their problems, not the least of which is that there are so few of them. Each buoy takes only 3 measurements a month in 200,000 cubic kilometres of ocean – a volume 200 miles square and a mile and a quarter deep. The bias uncertainty is of course less than it was in the bad old days of buckets and such, but the coverage uncertainty remains formidable.
Another problem is that ARGO only began producing proper data in 2004, and there seems to have been no update to its marine atlas since the end of 2014.
Nevertheless, ARGO is the least bad we have. And what the buoys show is that the rate of global ocean warming in those 11 full years of data is equivalent to less than a fortieth of a degree per decade – 0.023 degrees per decade, to be more precise:
The lower troposphere extends about as far above the surface as the ARGO-measured upper ocean extends below it. Its temperature is measured by the satellites from which the RSS and UAH datasets come. They have a highish bias uncertainty, but a low coverage uncertainty. Following the recent revision of the UAH dataset, they now tell much the same story. Here is the RSS graph for the 11 years 2004-2014:
These considerations raise an important question, which – once it has been raised – is obvious. But, as Dr Lyne, my wise tutor in Classics at Cambridge, used to remind us: “Do not be frightened to state the obvious. It is surprising how often the obvious goes unnoticed until someone points it out.”
Here is the obvious question. Where is Karl’s surface warming coming from?
It is not coming from above, for in the lower troposphere there was no warming over the 11-year period 2004-2014 (or, for that matter, over the 15-year period 2000-2014).
Four-fifths of it is not coming from below, for Karl’s paper says that from 2000-2014, the 15-year period that includes the 11 years for which we have ARGO data, the surface warming rate was equivalent to 0.116 degrees per decade – more or less exactly five times the measured ocean warming rate.
Not much is coming from the land, for Karl’s paper makes few adjustments to the rate of warming of the air above the land, which in any event accounts for only 29% of the Earth’s surface.
Where is the missing heat coming from? Spukhäfte Fernwirkung, perhaps? Have Mr Karl, and the peerless peer-reviewers of Science who ought surely to have spotted this huge error, inadvertently repealed the laws of thermodynamics? I think we should be told. For if I am right this is the simplest, clearest, most complete refutation of Karl’s paper.
Lord Monckton – you are very adept at poking holes in the Global Warming/Climate Change articles.
Here is another line of attack for you – confidence limits. In order to apply confidence limits you need a statistical distribution. In order to do, this you need to make certain assumptions, which in these case do not apply for a variety of reasons.I could go into detail.
However, there is a simpler line of attack. When they revise their data, look and see what the confidence limits were claimed to be in the original data. Every time they revise the data, the new data is outside these confidence limits. So their methodology is flawed.
And the moment I do all that I lose nine-tents of the audience. The beauty of the method in the head posting is that only a fool can’t understand it and only a knave won’t.
Knave, huh?
Doesn’t that represent a promotion for those climate rogues?
They have been adjusting the historical temperature records to values outside of their own error bars for years.
Tony Heller has all the dirt on this particular brand of shenanigan.
Thanks, Christopher, Lord Monckton.
Very good demonstration, unless thermodynamics has been repealed and we didn’t know about that.
The ‘missing heat’ is ‘hidden’ in the engine rooms of ships and polluting the temperature readings of engine cooling water intakes.
According to Wikipedia:-
“The first automated technique for determining SST was accomplished by measuring the temperature of water in the intake port of large ships, which was underway by 1963. These observations have a warm bias of around 0.6 °C (1 °F) due to the heat of the engine room.”
It is likely this bias has changed over time as there have been massive changes in ships since that time generally in the size of many tankers, bulk carriers and container vessels which means a longer passage through the engine room from the sea intake at the hull shell as well as being deeper below the surface. In addition there has been a trend from engine intake sensors to those fitted at ships side/sea intake generating another progressive bias. How do you actually quantify that? Is there a bias in that trend between vessels in warmer vs cooler waters? Is that reflected in the data?
In the case of the bulk carriers and tankers the depth of the sea intake from the surface may vary by 5 to 10 metres depending on whether they are loaded or in a light / ballasted condition. Is there a bias in where such data is gathered? Is that reflected in the data?
Since we are chasing tenths of a degree per decade or less I fail to see how this was a robust data set for the purposes now being put to by the CAGW mob. To then leverage that data for the ‘adjustment’ of other data is just plain nuts.
Mob science it seems to me, i.e. in the same sense as ‘mob rule’.
PS
There is a very informative paper by J. B. R. Matthews of
School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada
‘Comparing historical and modern methods of sea surface
temperature measurement – Part 1: Review of methods,
field comparisons and dataset adjustments’
Working your way through the minutae of the accuracy issues, ranging from parallax reading errors to bias due to heating from the engine room is seems to me that this data is so corrupted that it should only be published with the implicit wide error bands. Use it as a ‘benchmark’ in any way to ‘adjust’ other data is quite lunatic IMO.
I have often commented on ship’s data since I have reviewed many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of entries in ship’s logs.
I would not give the time of day to data set out in these logs.
One point that the climate scientis have failed to play sufficient regard that water tmeperature when assessed by recording water intake manifold temperature is assessing the temperature of water drwan at depth, not surface temperature.
Depending upon the design, configuration and trim of the vessel, the water may be drawn between some 3m to 20m depth, but typically 5 to 10metres. This water is significantly cooler than surface temperatures!
It is correct that the engine room is a hot environment, but the water is not stored in the engine room for any lengthy. It is being pumped and at a rate depending upon the speed and requirements of the engine. Becauase of this, there is little time for the cooling water to be heated up by the warmth of the engine room.
But even if the water is being heated up by some marginal extent because of the heat of the engine room, such heating is not sufficient to off-set the fact that the ship is drawing water from depth which water is cooler than surface temperatures.
IF CORRECTION is reuired, it is that ship’s data is UNDER RECORDING (not over recording temperatures) because it is sampling water drawn at a depth of typically 5 to 10 metres below the surface and water at this depth is significantly cooler (especially during the day time) than surface temperature.
Of course you are right that the design of ship’s has altered over the years, but perhaps more material than that is the fact that the laden trim of a vessel also alters as the voyage progresses; sometimes the vessel may be in ballast, sometime partially laden, sometimes fully laden, the amounts of consumables and stores changes, the manner in which a vessel is trimmed to the stern may be altered. All of this means that the depth at which water is drawn to be sampled, is constantly changing and evolving. One is never comparing like with like.
If the data is coming from commercial vessels there are commercial reasons why the data may not be correctly recorded. There are good reasons why the ship may wish to claim that the sea temperature is lower than it truly is (if the vessel is carrying a cargo that needs to be heated), or if there are engine problems, it may wish to record that the sea temperature is warmer than really is because this may conceal and explain engine over heating problems. Or perhaps because of bottom fouling which is usually exacerbated in warm tropical waters. I would not wish to base hard science on data comingfrom commercial vessels
The upshot is that prior to ARGo there is no data on ocean temperature worth its salt (and as has been noted above, there are issues with ARGO data).
Am I missing something? How can you use seawater temperature to determine the temperature of the air above it? It’s like inserting a thermometer into the ground or placing it in a cave.
One of the starting points for thermodynamics is just defining properties. Two masses in direct contact will have the same temperature, or will reach thermal equilibrium with each other if energy is added or removed.
One mass has one temperature and one amount of thermal energy.
For example. The atmosphere at the surface to one meter height with area of one square meter has a volume of one cubic meter. That volume contains about 1.2 kilograms of gas. The kinetic thermal energy in that mass is known. In this case the absolute amount does not matter, only the change from initial conditions.
At say 273 kelvin (zero celsius) it takes about 1 kilojoule of energy to increase the temperature of one cubic meter of air by one degree.
The one cubic meter of ocean below that atmosphere contains 800 times the mass of the cubic meter of air above. The seawater also has a specific heat capacity 4 times the air above. That means it would take 3200 kilojoules (800×4) of thermal energy to increase the seawater by one degree.
For the two cubic meters at the surface, the amount of energy needed would be 3201 kilojoules.
I think you miss my point. The air two meters above the surface of the sea (Stevenson Screen Level) will have a much warmer temperature than the sea water a meter or two below. If you have ever gone swimming in an ocean or beach, you would realize this.
Mr Nelson is not including the time factor. At night or in winter, for instance, the water may well be warmer than the air. Over a decade or more, however,nether absolute temperatures and trends should be the same. Even Karl has admitted this.
Ad DB Stealwy has shown upthread, the upper 3 m of the oceans has not warmed. The lower troposphere has not warmed either. So how can the surface have warmed? It can’t.
The air temperature above oceans (away from land masses), at least in modest wind conditions, is very similar to the ocean temperature. This is because it it the ocean that heats the air (primarily by conduction and convection), and of course, the ocean has (in relative terms) almost limitless heat capacity with which to heat the air above it.
If one is in the tropical ocean, the air temperature at night does not drop much, since it is constantly being reheated by the vast storage reservoir below which does not cool quickly (given the volume and heat capacity) even though the sun has set.
When I refer to ocean temperature, I am talking about surface temperature.
Historically the mean SST has been warmer then the land measurements only. The oceans are a 3 D SW absorbent surface, with far greater heat capacity.
For so long as the liars, thieves, and morons have you looking at, and pontificating on, graphs that purportedly depict a temperature history of any element of the natural history to something that amounts to a small fraction of a degree C – and you take it as information/data worth discussion – you are part of the problem.
Stop.
Doing.
That.
No one has ever measured a non-isothermic [non isolated and stabilized] fluid to that granularit.
No one ever will.
Presenting data in this format [small fractions of a single degree] for a fluid in a natural state is bullshit.
Bullshit.
You would fail a high school physics lab assignment if you claimed the ability to accomplish a temperature measurement task to that granularity even if using a brand new $100k freshly calibrated temperature probe and data gathering rig dipped into a beaker of water.
Its anti-science.
Why are you anti-science?
Do you hate children?
Spukhäfte Fernwirkung, perhaps?
If you seek to dazzle us with you vast knowledge, at least spell it right: Spukhafte
* your
Tee hee!
Mr Svalgaard unerringly misses the elephant in the room, as usual.
And he appears unfamiliar with the Niedersachsen dialect.
What matters is what Einstein said. And being from Ulm in Baden-Württemberg he would not have used the dialect you claim to be so expert in, so you just fall flat.
Mr Svalgaard still misses the elephant in the room.
Too busy picking nits.
Not very adult.
The elephant is irrelevant when it comes to demonstrating your silly and childish reference to a dialect that Einstein didn’t even use. So, as I said, I did not miss the Monkey.
Mr Svalgaard, as usual, is unwilling to discuss the main point, and is unwilling to debate at all in a civilised or adult fashion. The surface cannot be warming as Karl says it is, unless a closely similar rate of warming were also toe observed immediately above and below the surface.
This is not a debate. I am just pointing out that your credibility suffers by wrong reference. Intended to impress, perhaps, but falling short. And ‘spukhäfte’ is not even niedersächsisch.
Leaving Elephants and Monkeys for others to decide but
“Spuckhäfte” is definitively not the dialect of Niedersachsen…
““Spuckhäfte” is definitively not the dialect of Niedersachsen…”
Well, “Spuck” is “spit” (imperative), “Spuk” is “spook”.
I looked around but I don’t find any historic sources using “spukhäfte” so; maybe it’s just one Heavy Metal Umlaut too much…
(and yes, it is not known to me as a Lower Saxon. The only dialects we had before they mostly died out were variants of Platt and those are a different thing entirely.)
More to the point since Einstein wrote the phrase in a letter to Max Born in 1947 and the letter is archived we know that he didn’t use the umlaut!
[blockquote] lsvalgaard
June 6, 2015 at 6:54 am
This is not a debate. I am just pointing out that your credibility suffers by wrong reference[/blockquote]
And your credibility suffers when you attack everything except the topic at hand. If you have a problem with the topic of Lord M of B’s article then that is what you should be addressing, not irrelevant nits.
Others have adequately pointed out that Mr M’s article is junk and that it should be withdrawn. My comment goes to the misguided and fumbled attempt to impress and not being man enough to admit it. Being dishonest in small things is often a harbinger of dishonesty in large things.
I believe the elephant got bored, and has now left the room.
It seems the Monkey is still here…
Still picking nits too.
The nits show the dishonesty of the esteemed lort. But, it seems they are acceptable in this echo chamber.
lsvalgaard
June 6, 2015 at 7:16 am
“Others have adequately pointed out that Mr M’s article is junk and that it should be withdrawn. My comment goes to the misguided and fumbled attempt to impress and not being man enough to admit it. Being dishonest in small things is often a harbinger of dishonesty in large things.”
Leif, it is too bad that you don’t explain how the surface layer of the oceans can persistenly maintain a higher warming trend than the layers above and below it. I found no likely explanation in the other comments, to which you defer, as well.
It is obvious that the surface layer can have a different temperature than layers above and below, but what Karl posits is that this difference is growing. I will refer to this as the Karl Phenomenon.
But this has never been conjectured by the CO2AGW originators. And nobody gives a possible mechanism for this GROWTH in temperature difference. I guess we all have to accept “The CO2 dunn it” as catch all. Ah, that wouldn’t be scientific enough. “The backradiation dunn it”. Now that’s better.
So, when the best numerical expression of the CO2AGW theory are the climate models, and said climate models have NEVER shown the Karl Phenomenon, then, has Karl “discovered” an entirely novel mechanism? CO2 Orgone energy.
It is too bad that you don’t explain how the surface layer of the oceans can persistently maintain a higher warming trend than the layers above and below it.
That is a question of what the data actually shows, and that is not clear. I guess with time we’ll get to know,but people don’t like to wait, so will jump on their favorite bandwagon as they see fit in support of whatever agenda they are pushing. It is difficult to argue with agenda-driven people of either persuasions.
(please excuse the caps because I’m not sure how to bold)
To state what should be obvious:
DISAGREEING WITH THIS POST DOES NOT MEAN YOU ACCEPT KARL’S NONSENSE.
There are more than two choices here. Really.
lsvalgaard
June 6, 2015 at 8:32 am
“That is a question of what the data actually shows, and that is not clear.”
So no plausible mechanism is proposed to explain the Karl Phenomenon. Thanks.
Wouldn’t matter how many there were. You still can’t average all of them together and come up with a meaningful result.
“Beneath the surface heaves the vasty deep.”
From which Karl can summon spirits of Global Warming.
Well, so can I, and so can any man, but will they come when we do call upon them?
Somewhere I read an account of a well the Russians dug on land around 35,000 feet, when they had to stop because of the heat. Do deep wells in the sea have the same effect as those on land?
Thank you Lord Monckton. Well done!
Karl reminds me of Darth Vader…
I am altering the data
Pray that I do not alter it any further.
@ur momisugly Steven Mosher June 5, 2015 at 3:27 pm
You say two “scales” but you don’t say anything about their accuracy, the quality, the precision, etc. Scale != Scale.
Therefore more averaging is appropriate, IMHO. They are both independent measurements which have to be taken as such. How that relates to decision-making, is another issue, e.g. does the +2 lb “measurement” by the second scale warrante an emergency new weight-loss regime?
Ooops. Should have been “Therefore more averaging is inappropriate, IMHO”.
Averaging gets you the wrong answer. The accuracy, the quality, the precision do not matter. Read the example again and try to understand why.
A case could be made for rms’s averaging argument.
In Mosher’s example, he steps from scale A to scale B and back again. Therefore, it is reasonable to infer that Mosher’s true weight (temperature) has not actually changed, and that there is instead a calibration difference between the scales.
For the ocean temperature data the case is not nearly so clear. We will always be comparing data taken at different times, and places, using different methodologies. For that situation it is much harder to exclude the possibility that the temperatures (weights) being measured actually ARE truly different.
That being so, Karl’s claim that observed differences are due to calibration errors becomes a good deal more dubious, and a case can be made that since all the data is crappy anyway, a simple average may be the least bad choice.
Right or wrong, and it certainly is wrong, Karl has achieved his objective. He made headlines in our newspapers and further cemented in the minds of a gullible public and media that “we’re gonna fry!!!”
Mission accomplished!
“promenade deck thermometers” love that line 🙂
Karl’s paper is bad; but not for the reason given in this post. Solar radiation could easily heat the ocean surface to a greater or lesser degree than the air above it. One doesn’t even need to be a scientist to understand that.
Container in a microwave. Skin in air on a sunny day. Roof in air on a sunny day. Many other examples. We should not give in to the temptation to overcomplicate and twist good sense in an attempt to have every one of our arguments be right…
This post should be withdrawn, or, better yet, marked by its author as disproved, to serve as an example to Alarmists (and everyone, for that matter) that those who adhere to scientific principles have no qualms about accepting facts and admitting error.
Take back the green is repeating a comment made earlier – a troll technique.
The Earth’s surface is where the lower troposphere and the upper ocean meet. None of the examples in tbtg’s comment ate analogous to that.
The surface cannot warm over as long as a decade at a rate at least five times faster than the air and water of which it is composed.
The heat has to come from somewhere and it has to go somewhere. Otherwise the laws of thermodynamics are breached.
Monckton: You use the exact same tactics that are rightfully denounced when used by Alarmists. Attack the messenger. “Troll techniques?” Uncalled for and unbecoming. Elsewhere I’ve expressed admiration for your efforts against CAGW nonsense. To clarify, and for what it’s worth, my admiration is directly proportional to the thinness of your skin.
Perhaps if you did what we rightfully encourage alarmists to do (step back, take a breath, and keep an open mind), you would see that if many people make the same argument, perhaps you should freshly consider it. Why attack those who are on your “side” but who disagree with you? Must we really be a circular firing squad?
As to the reasoning in your post, maybe an overview will help you understand the problem. Like the Alarmists, you are considering a vast and chaotic portion of a vast and chaotic system, and falsely assuming it can be 1) understood beyond a rudimentary level and 2) be treated as a simple lab experiment with two or three discrete variables that will plug into known equations and behave accordingly. Those assumptions are false.
You’ve asserted several times that the layers MUST be in sync because a system wants to find equilibrium, and that heat must come from somewhere and it can’t be the sun.
Well, you are artificially (just like Karl) eliminating or ignoring variables. (How much time would it take for this particular system to reach equilibrium if it were isolated? Unknowable. If there are thousands of other influences on this system, how much less knowable is this single question?) Like Alarmists everywhere, you also casually dismiss the Sun, THE source of heat for our little corner of the universe. Active or not, it would require more than a statement from your lordship to eliminate it as a source.
And remember, all of this is done in order to argue against a paper that has already been convincingly shown to be false, and which attempts to support a delusion (GAGW).
Of course CO2 doesn’t cause the effect Karl’s paper discusses. The effect may or may not even exist. But it is over-reaching to declare in a few paragraphs that it is IMPOSSIBLE for the effect to exist because you understand the totality of the system and can confidently assert that the effect would violate the laws of thermodynamics.
I have nothing more to add to this thread, but I’m sure I’ll continue to learn from the discussion. It would feel more like a classroom and less like a bar fight if you (again, I feel like I’m talking to an alarmist here…) take a step back, discuss with civility, don’t attack those who disagree, keep in mind that you can be mistaken, keep pride and passion out of it.
Regards!
How long would it take to reach near-equilibrium?
Well, a massive tropical storm crosses the Atlantic in two+ weeks, leaving clearly “visible” heat trails across the surface where the oceans are measureably cold – compared to the nearby (no hurricane) regions. Then, 5 days after the hurricane has crossed, the surface is back to normal for that region and that time of year.
So, to reach near-equilibrium? Very short time.
Compare to the AMO and PDO. Both are 60 year cycles, un-regulated (uncontrolled) by man. Both cycles exhibit behavior that “exceeds” equilibrium BOTH WAYS: The ocean region gets “too hot”, releases “too much heat,” crosses the nominal temperature and wind conditions, BUT KEEPS COOLING at an ever-decreasing rate as the temperature decreases, then cools off “too much”. In the next 30 year heating interval, the heat losses are exceeded by the heat gains, and temperature/pressure/humidity go back up again – from a “too cold” condition, through equilibrium, and back up towards the future “too hot” conditions.
So the time to return THROUGH normal – by observation – is about 30 years.
See, the earth’s systems never stop “at zero”.
They are NEVER “in balance” but are ALWAYS either heating up (too little cooling) or cooling too much (too little heating.) Because BOTH the heating forcings and the cooling forcings never “stop.” They just are not ever in synch with each other. And never will be.
Sounds sensible to me…
Lord Monckton of Brenchley, with all due respect and my eternal admiration of your courage to oppose this CAGW nonsense from the start; ‘take back the green’ is indeed correct, there is no thermodynamic laws violation to the surface warming at a faster rate than the lower troposphere and the deeper ocean.
As the atmosphere is transparent to many wavelengths of sunlight the surface is heated without heating the air above it. (Heated directly from the sun.)
The surface cools by radiating IR, convection, conduction, and evaporation.
Radiated IR from the surface could be absorbed by a GHG in a vibration node which does not affect the temperature of the gas directly. Equipartition of energy may result in some increase in translational motion and therefore temperature but those molecules are likely to merely emit IR increasing the downwelling IR which in turn reduces the NET IR flow to the atmosphere in effect somewhat insulating the surface from radiant heat loss (slowing the cooling).
Heat loss from convection, conduction, and evaporation does indeed increase the internal energy of the bodies in which the energy is flowing. The deep ocean’s vast heat capacity ensures that anything less than monumental heat gain could only cause an unmeasurably tiny temperature increase. The atmosphere’s fluidity, extreme temperature variation (with altitude and latitude), and ability to convert translational motion to IR (GHG’s) similarly guarantees that only a truly immense heat uptake could be measured.
On a much smaller scale but much greater temperature gradient a stovetop heats up incredibly fast but the air above and the oven below do not. The air just above the stovetop warms rises and mixes with the rest of the air in the room such that the rate of temperature gain is nowhere near the rate of temperature gain the stovetop underwent. The oven below has a lot of mass/heat capacity and thus absorbs the heat gained from above without increasing in temperature anywhere near the rate of temperature gain the stovetop underwent.
The rate of temperature increase of a surface heated directly (like the ocean surface in sunlight or a stovetop) can be dramatically different than the rate of temperature increase of the heat sinks it is in thermal contact with.
Takebackthegreen should stop whining. It has breached the usual conventions by repeating the essence of a petulant posting made a long way upthread. It must not expect to be treated gently if it behaves thus. It has remarkably little understanding of the scientific point being made.
Mr West weighs in with remarks about a stove-top heating more quickly than the air above and below it. Well, yes, but the stove-top is made of steel and the air isn’t. However, the Earth’s surface is composed of lower-troposphere air and upper-ocean water, intimately mixed by both radiative and non-radiative transports. It is made of the same stuff of which the media above and below it are made.
The surface, therefore, must warm over periods as long as a decade at a rate similar to the rates of warming of the two fluid media of which it is composed. It cannot go on warming at five times the ocean rate and infinitely faster than the lower-troposphere warming rate.
If the surface were to warm at so very great a relative rate, where is the heat coming from, and where does it go? Or why does it not go? Why does it stay, for a decade, despite the mixing caused by, say, tropical afternoon convection?
Since you are fixated on my accidental double post: I made the mistake of thinking my reply had not appeared because it appeared where I didn’t intend. WordPress makes no provision for deletion. I can’t apologize enough for this terrible breach of etiquette.
I’m an adult who is capable of civil conversation, and who understands very well the point you tried to make in your post. So your “gentleness” is irrelevant. Your tone and manner of engagement reflect on your character, not the content of your argument, which is what I’m interested in.
——————————-
I would leave it there. (It’s frustrating to be drawn into the kind of distraction I try my damnedest to avoid, and which is clearly not fixable by me.) But I think it matters to say it plainly at least once:
Your character does impact your effectiveness as a somewhat high-profile opponent of CAGW. It doesn’t matter when preaching to the choir. But when I’m discussing/debating the issue with friends who are educated, serious and thoughtful, how useful are you as a recommended reference?
“petulant.” “whining.” “little understanding of the scientific point being made.”
Not very useful. And that’s a shame.
Regards!
Consider the evidence. Takebackthegreen posted its original demand that this posting be retracted at 1.04 am June 6. Then, 24 minutes later, it made the same demand again. Two of the three paragraphs of its second such demand had wording identical to that of its first such demand. Inferentially, they were cut and pasted. What is more, in the second demand, a third paragraph has been inserted between the two original paragraphs, ruling out the possibility that a button had been pressed twice by mistake and the Internet had taken its time about delivering the second comment.
It is legitimate to conclude that takebackthegreen, in now attempting to state that its malicious repetition of its earlier comment was inadvertent, cannot be telling the truth. Outright falsehood is another troll technique, as is the cloying pretense that “I’m on your side really, and I do wish you’d be nice when, on no evidence, I demand that you retract a perfectly sensible posting.”
I blame myself for this sad and distracting diversion. With each reply you demonstrate more clearly that you will never have the confidence to question your own thinking. And yet I keep trying to convince you to do that very thing. Not the best use of my time. So… I’ll keep doing it.
A) To repeat: this should not be personal. It is a scientific matter.
B) Your name calling and cattiness reminds me almost exactly of that Connolly person.
C) By the way, I love your use of the neuter pronoun. It makes me feel like a corporation.
D) You’ve stubbornly personalized this interaction. I guess I have no choice but to temporarily abandon principle and do likewise. So, thanks for that.
E) Let’s be clear: You’re having a tantrum because I dared to say I think your proposition in this post is wrong, and you had the opportunity to demonstrate that admitting one’s error shouldn’t be a problem.
Clearly I’m wrong about that last part. I may very well be wrong about the first part, too. Incorrect. Mistaken. Wrong. See how that works? It’s survivable!
I don’t (yet) think I am wrong, though. Here’s an additional thought about why: Does it strike you as strange that you were the first person to propose this idea? That no professional—or better, or smarter—scientist saw such a fundamental error? Struck me as strange as soon as you enthusiastically pointed it out.
F) If Freeman Dyson (or an equivalent combination of lesser mortals) agrees with your proposition, I’m sold. In an ideal world, you’d be compelled to sit across from him while he reads your charming commentary in this thread and others. If that doesn’t elicit shame, you have none.
G) You don’t seem to be aware that evidence isn’t always required to falsify a hypothesis. Pointing out formal and/or logical errors can also tank an idea.
H) I’m tired of this “discussion” for a reason I mentioned earlier. Karl’s paper has already been convincingly debunked. Your proposition doesn’t matter enough for anyone to become unhinged by the mere debate of it.
Lastly… You’ve become inexplicably fixated on my double post, to the point of imagining a storyline that allegedly proves I’m a troll. This is stupid. Read anything else I’ve posted. Also, what exactly is a troll? Nevermind. I don’t care.
However, since you aren’t just wrong, but also determined to insult my integrity, I guess I have to engage on this pointless, asinine non-issue. It’s pretty simple:
1 – When my reply is going to be more than a few sentences, I usually type it in MS Word first, so that I can edit it and check it before posting.
2 – When it’s ready, I copy it from Word and paste it into the Reply box.
3 – Because WordPress has well-documented issues with making clear where one’s reply will appear, the first time I posted my reply, it didn’t go where I thought it would. (Since every boring detail seems to be of paramount importance: I believe it occurred because I typed into the bottom reply box on a page that had originally opened for a reply to another commenter which I canceled. Whew. Riveting.)
4 – After it didn’t appear where I was expecting, I figured it hadn’t gone through.
5 – I saw some web babble at the end of the page’s address. So I re-navigated to this page from scratch and clicked in the Reply box.
6 – I went back to Word to recopy my reply.
7 – While there, I re-read it and thought of additional edits I wanted to make, including the addition of a paragraph.
8 – I made those edits and copied the now 3 paragraph reply.
9 – Back at this page, I pasted the revised reply into the box and hit the button.
10 – Later I was informed that the earlier version had indeed landed elsewhere, thus becoming undeletable and sealing my doom.
11 – I never said I accidentally “hit the button twice.” It doesn’t even work that way. Why would you disconnect from reality over such a small thing? My degree is in Biomedical Engineering, not Psychology, but I sense inner turmoil.
12 – Can you accept that you are wrong here? The way you imagined it happened, then loudly proclaimed that it happened, is false. Your characterization of me is false. I would seriously like to know if you can concede even such a tiny, meaningless point when confronted with the facts. I should get some bit of data about human nature for all this wasted time.
13 – I’d like the apologies you owe me, and a promise to raise the level your discourse in future. (KIDDING! I’m not delusional.)
I still bear you no ill will.
I hope one day your great passion for this scientific issue is matched by the ability to follow commonly accepted standards of scientific debate
I also hope one day They let you sit and vote. I believe it will make you a lot less cranky.
”If the surface were to warm at so very great a relative rate, where is the heat coming from, and where does it go?
The energy comes from the sun and into the heat sinks of the ocean, atmosphere, and space.
”Or why does it not go?”
It does go but all of these paths of energy transfer are not measurable with a thermometer.
”Why does it stay, for a decade, despite the mixing caused by, say, tropical afternoon convection?”
It doesn’t stay for a decade; you’re confusing temperature (an incomplete measure of internal energy) with heat (the transfer of energy).
Just completely made up numbers: A surface with a small heat capacity is warmed from say 24 degrees to say 25 degrees that is in contact with heat sinks that were at 23 degrees and 20 degrees @ur momisugly varying heat capacities and their own heat sinks. The new temperature of the surface might raise the heat sinks temperature to 23.00002 degrees and 20.00001 degrees (depending on heat capacities of the bodies in thermal contact and their ability to transfer enegy to their heat sinks). An unmeasurable change. Just to make it even more difficult let’s say one of the heat sinks is a gas mixture that contains GHG’s such that it can have internal energy that doesn’t affect temperature in vibration nodes and then transfer that internal energy to the infinitely immense heat capacity heat sink of space.
The bottom line is that temperature doesn’t tell the whole story of energy into, within, or out from a system. Statements such as “ The surface, therefore, must warm over periods as long as a decade at a rate similar to the rates of warming of the two fluid media of which it is composed” simply aren’t true.
+1
takebackthegreen
June 6, 2015 at 1:28 am
“Container in a microwave. Skin in air on a sunny day. Roof in air on a sunny day. Many other examples”
Wait, you mean that the warmunist Karl, while trying to prove his beloved Global Warming, has found a hitherto unknown and unobserved effect, a sunlight-induced warming of surface waters, completely unrelated to the theory of CO2AGW which posits a faster warming of the troposphere than the surface?
But, in that case, has he not completely destroyed his own CO2AGW cult beliefs?
Also, has it not been known since the day Homo Sapiens learned to swim -well some of them anyway-, that the surface layer of water bodies is much warmer than the water a few meters down? According to Karl, this temperature difference is now vastly increasing day after day! He has created a thermodynamic monster, a Maxwell’s demon!
Hmmm… I’m not sure how to respond other than: Karl’s paper is ludicrous, as is CAGW. At the same time, I believe that this post is illogical. (It is also tonally smug with a dash of snide, rather than dispassionately scientific. IMHO, that tone debases the discussion no matter who uses it. But what do I know about strategy or tactics?)
Clarification: “the post” to which I referred is the original post, not Dirk’s reply.
Takebackthegreen shoul stop whining.
Tom Karl is now 64.
He should be retired. Not because of his age, but the fact that he has been leading the most important climate data collecting agency in the world and he has never been an objective enough person to do this job.
From his first papers in the mid-1980s, he has been adjusting the data to meet global warming prediction rates and undermining any other explanations.
I mean 30 years of adjusting climate data.
Given he has led the NCDC for so long, he will have imprinted his own philosophy on the whole organization and removed people who have been more objective. To fix this organization will require wholesale changes at all levels of executive and supervision. Always a tough slog to make changes to an organization which has been doing things a certain way for a long time.
But it has to happen because this is where all the data is stored.
When I first read about this scientific garbage, it seemed to me to read as “F-you Inhofe. I’m in control of the phony data along with the Science reviewer collaborators and editor”. I don’t know the exact reporting relationship, but I’m hoping that it allows for a tangible response.
sea surface and land surface readings cannot be combined to reach a “global temperature average” they are measuring 2 different things … the land readings are AIR temperatures ABOVE the ground … sea surface readings are of the water not the air above the water … apples and oranges … if the land reading were made of the soil then they would be comparable … but they aren’t …
Sir Monckton, I think you are on the right track with your arguments in this thread. As you apparently understand well, the sequence is Sun Heats Surface (land/ocean), Surface Heats LT air, etc. As you pointed out, the difference in heat capacity means that the atmosphere is the thermodynamic slave of the surface. On average, the LT air cannot rise above the surface for long and if the surface increases in temperature, the air is sure to follow. Therefore, what you’re saying seems plausible.
However, I’ve got four statements of caution:
1) While only delta T matters for which direction Heat is flowing, Climanrecon is correct when he says “You can’t compare temperature rates of things with different heat capacities”. The key part is bolded. We can compare the temperatures themselves, but the rates of temperature change will depend on the relative heat capacities. Place your hand on a large marble pillar, and your hand will cool quickly, while the pillar warms very slowly.
2) The OHC data is presented as an energy anomaly, which is a delta from some unknown average. (I’d love to find the real underlying data). Therefore, just because the deeper water has increased in energy more than the surface LT does not mean that it is warmer. Cool (relative to LT) water could be warming considerably, but still be below the LT in temperature, therefore, a warming trend in the ocean will not be reflected in LT.
3) While the warming trend in the oceans represents a considerable amount of energy compared to atmospheric energy, the tremendous heat capacity of the oceans means that it’s on the order of .025 deg C. Our surface temperature measurements are not precise enough to pick this up.
4) The OHC data naturally represents the oceans, while the surface temperature data represents land as well. Therefore, it’s logically possible that the land has cooled to a similar extent as the oceans have warmed. The air would be the average of the two, and therefore may not show a significant change.
[To confirm, are you using LT as Lower Troposphere (Air) temperature? .mod]
Viking:
1) Yes.
2) Yes.
3) Yes. And….
4) Yes
Viking explorer should understand that the surface air and surface water have the same heat capacities as the air above and the water below. That deals with his point 1.
The head posting concerned changes in temperature, not in heat content. That deals with his point 2.
The Argo floats measure not surface temperature but temperature from the surface to 1900 m depth. They claim to detect warming at a rate equivalent to 0.23 K per century. Yet Mr Karl says, on no evidence, that the ocean surface is warming five times faster than that. That deals with his point 3.
The measured change in temperatures over land is greater than the change in ocean temperature. That deals with his point 4.
Here’s one last attempt. Maybe you will recognize its significance.
Monckton, what would it take to change your mind? What would falsify your proposition?
Sir Monckton,
1) What you say is true, but I don’t see how that effects point 1.
2) Good point, but the important part is that Twater can be compared to Tair, but dTwater/dt can’t be compared to dTAir/dt in the way you’re doing. For example, the graph in the head post appears to conveniently show the actual temperature. If we assumed that the air temperature is 15C, a water temp of ~6.45 C cannot heat air at 15C. A positive dTwater/dt does not imply a positive dTair/dt, and the lack of a positive dTair/dt does not preclude a positive dTwater/dt. Only if Twater >= Tair would a rising water temp cause a rising air temp.
3) Sorry, I was sloppy about which temperature I was referring to. I meant to say “Our surface air temperature measurements are not precise enough to pick this up.”
4) Sorry, I was again vague about what temperature I was referring to. I should have said “Therefore, it’s logically possible that the actual land (not the air over the land) has cooled to a similar extent that the oceans have warmed. We have no temperature readings of it, yet the lithosphere is a major and dominant part of this thermodynamic system. I’m not saying that this is the case, I’m just pointing out a logical possibility.
>> To confirm, are you using LT as Lower Troposphere (Air) temperature
Yes, sorry to have been vague.
My question above generated no response, in a follow up, does the heat from the earth’s center have any affect on the temperature found at the bottom of the sea?
WilliMc,
Yes, the ocean bottom is in thermal equilibrium with the ocean crust. Any heating of the water causes that water to rise, with the result being that the thermocline is maintained. Any change in crust temperature, for example, a Deep Ocean Volcano, will result in Heat flow to the water. Therefore, OHC energy increases could very well be from below. The situation is thermodynamically complicated, and so the present conflict between Karl and skeptics is more about political manipulation than it is about science.
If it can be shown that expelling CO2 would cause our deaths, then we should make that activity illegal. Otherwise, I would assert that life, property and liberty are inalienable rights, and therefore are not dependent on scientific theories, measurement adjustments, or boat exhaust.
IOW, this whole thing is a silly waste of time.
“thermodynamically complicated”
YES! That. Thank you!
I thought that 50% of the energy in the biosphere keeping us alive was due to fission the earth’s rocks.
You should not think this.
I’m not sure what global warming is. Is it the heating of the atmosphere due to increased atmospheric CO2 mopping up all the available IR emitted by the globe’s surface. Followed by an increase in surface temperatures by conduction, convection and radiation effects to maintain the equilibrium outflow of heat to space. If so which of the datasets would best show this without contravening the second law of thermodynamics or contradicting the other datasets?
“Specific heat capacity has nothing to do with it. It is only temperature differences that matter. Suppose you had a ham sandwich where the top layer of bread was at 15 C and the ham was at 15 C and the bottom layer of bread was at 15 C. But then, the bottom layer of bread was replaced with a whole ocean at 16 C. It does not matter if the whole ocean had 1000 times the specific heat capacity of the top layer of bread, the ham should not warm to more than 16 C.”
Well, yes … and no.
There is a difference between heat capacity of a substance and the temperature it achieves when absorbing that heat. FI water requires ~4x the amont of heat to warm by a specific temperature than does air. When considering the total volume of the oceans they contain ~1000x more mass than the atmosphere … so that plus the specific heat capacity makes the oceans able to hold 4000x more heat than the atmosphere BEFORE they exhibit the same temp.
Now Mr Monckton’s 0.023 deg C/decade, because of the above equates to ….
Ocean depth of 1900m is ~1/2 of their total volume.
So 0.023 x 500 x 4 = 46C.
The top half of the oceans (72% of the planetary surface) stores ~1/2 of ~97% of all the energy in the climate system and is heating at ~the equivalent of 46C/decade (if that heat went *ONLY* into the atmosphere.
(***PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ACHIEVE AS THE HEAT WOULD ESCAPE TO SPACE could NOT warm above the SST and not accumulate)
Never-the-less you cannot equate temperatures taken in water over such a massive volume with temperatures in the atmosphere. Apples and pears BECAUSE of specific heat, and the energy (solar) that was absorbed to raise the oceans by that temperature. The Oceans are a storage radiator system for the planet. Just as a storage radiator consumes (say 10KWh) of electricty to heat up to 25C in your house it will warm it up to something below that for some time becasue air needs much less energy to warm to 25C.
An ocean whose surface “might” warm by 1/4 of one degree in 100 years “might” be able to – at maximum! – heat the atmosphere above that warmed water by 1/5 of one degree in 100 years.
Regardless of how many quadrillions of heat heat energy (billions of Hiroshima’s, remember the propaganda?) have gone into the ocean, the ocean can never heat the atmosphere above it by more than the ocean itself has heated.
Mr Cook, with an engineer’s gift for getting straight to the point, has nailed it in one. The surface cannot be warming at five times the ocean.
“The surface cannot be warming at five times the ocean.”
That’s not quite right. Remember, the ARGO estimate is a volume average temperature. The actual surface is but one tiny sliver of that volume, its outer face exchanging heat with its surroundings. There is no rule against internal processes of the ocean/atmosphere system distributing the total energy content in such a way that some parts become vastly warmer than the average over some period of time. This happens all the time. One particular interesting case in point is what has taken place in the Northeast Pacific over the last couple of years, a decidedly regional phenomenon that has effectively managed to raise global SSTs high above the average of the last 15 years. It looks like ‘global warming’, if you look at a global plot. If, however, you know where to look, you quickly realise it’s anything but.
The surface at large of the NE sector of the Pacific Ocean (65-10N, 100-180W) has warmed by about 1.2 K (!!) since 2012/13. During that same time, the corresponding regional 0-100m ocean volume warmed by ~0.8 K, the 0-700m volume by ~0.15 K, and the 0-2000m volume by ~0.1 K (data from NODC and Climate Explorer).
There’s nothing weird about this. It’s quite natural. Internal movement of absorbed energy.
Would Kristian please explain how, if the ocean surface were warming over the relevant period at the rate mentioned by Karl (and not confirmed by the ARGo data), the air immediately above it is not warming at a similar rate – or, indeed, at all?
>> please explain how, if the ocean surface were warming over the relevant period at the rate mentioned by Karl (and not confirmed by the ARGo data), the air immediately above it is not warming at a similar rate
Sir Monckton, Climanrecon, myself and Kristian have all tried to explain why, although your conclusions may be correct, your reasoning is not valid. I gave you 4 points to consider, which all still stand. Kristian gave you a 5th reason.
However, short of writing out the differential equations for you, I need to figure out an explanation that can be understood without a detailed knowledge of thermodynamics.
Let’s focus on my point 3. Take a look at your AGO graph (“The ocean is barely warming”) and the figure just below it (“RSS global “).
A tic mark on the top graph represents .01 C. Let’s imagine taking that data and super imposing it on the RSS graph. A tic mark on the RSS graph is .1 C. The scale in the upper graph is 10 times smaller than the lower graph, so it would be a tiny wiggle. The graph shows temperature in the upper graph only growing by .023 from 2005 to 2015. It’s unreasonable to expect that a small change/variation in water temperatures would show up in air temperature, which has a lot more variability. This signal is lost in the noise.
Viking explorer presumes to lecture me on differential equations, but the instance he cites has nothing to do with the fact that the surface is said to be warming at five times the 0.023 K/decade he mentions, and yet the air above shiws no warming at all, and the ocean below only warms at one-fifth the alleged surface rate.
Sir Monckton,
Presume: to suppose that something is the case on the basis of probability
In my BSEE degree, I learned about differential equations in no fewer than 4 courses. I later analyzed a thermodynamic system with approximately 20 equations in 20 unknowns.
Your educational background appears to be: MA in classics, 1974; diploma in journalism studies.
According to the definition, on the basis of probability, you are unlikely to have a strong background in differential equations.
As has been explained to you, it’s your focus on rates that is simply invalid. What you’re describing as thermodynamically impossible is actually normal.
When two objects have a delta T, the temperature of each moves toward a middle ground. The slope of the warmer component would be negative and the colder component dT/dt would be positive. If the two components have equal thermodynamic mass, they will meet in the middle. If one (e.g. the extremely large volume of “ocean below”) has a much larger thermodynamic mass than the other (e.g. the small volume surface water), then the colder component will rise slowly, and the warmer component will drop quickly. The rates are not comparable, yet you are doing just that.
If the surface water is being Heated, it will rise quickly, and the “ocean below” with the much larger thermodynamic mass will rise much slower. It’s simply irresponsible to claim that the surface warming can’t be happening because the “ocean below” is warming slower. That’s exactly what one should expect.
As for the “air above”, it’s already been explained to you (and not refuted) that the atmosphere is unlikely to show these small changes, because of the signal to noise ratio.
I believe the biggest threat to our rights is bad/invalid arguments from the anti AGW side. It’s especially bad tactics to react to ineffective arguments on their side with bad science from our side. It’s a tactic with no advantage and significant disadvantage. No upside and all downside.
+1
The lower troposphere is not warming. The top 3 m of the ocean is not warming. So how is the surface warming?
I suspect journalists ask the same question over and over, hoping to trip up the politician. However, I’m not a politician. I don’t think you’re actually reading my answers, so this is getting silly.
Obviously, in this case, the fiddled with the adjustments. However, excluding that, the situation can’t be ruled out thermodynamically. You ask ” So how is the surface warming” [and not the LT air]. Well, it depends on the actual temperature of the water and air. If the air is 1 degree warmer than the surface water, then a rising trend in the water of about .1 C will not affect the air. It’s still got .9 C to go before it starts heating the air.
“Viking explorer” now at last concedes that, since the lower troposphere is not warming and the upper 3 m of the ocean is not warming, the only way to make the lowest 3 m of the lower troposphere and the topmost 3 m of the upper ocean warm is to “fiddle with the adjustments”. Thank you. The laws of thermodynamics do not allow for any other possibility.
I was not and am not concerned with whether a differential warming might occur in theory. I was and am concerned with whether it has or, given the facts, could have, occurred in practice. I was and am concerned with the fact that the lowest 3 m of lower troposphere has not warmed for a decade and more; the topmost 3 m of the upper ocean has not warmed for a decade and more; and that, therefore, it is not thermodynamically possible to make out that those 6 m or so have warmed for a decade and more.
That they may in future warm has not at any point been disputed.
“Viking explorer” now also at last concedes that a warming of those 6 m “depends on the actual temperature of the water and air”. My point all along. The temperature of neither has risen in more than ten years. There has been no “rising trend” either in the air or in the water.
Ok, you’re outright lying? I’m not quite sure, because the other possibility is that you are really dense, can’t imagine being wrong, incapable of learning, etc. Everyone can read both what I wrote, and can see that you have clearly misstated my view.
Obviously, I actually said the opposite. There are many ways for this situation to have occurred, and it’s not the slightest bit impossible thermodynamically. In fact, this situation is to be expected: Sun warms the surface. The deeper water would rise slower than the surface, and if the water is colder than the air, the air would not be driven up. If the rise was only .1, it wouldn’t show up anyways, in all the noise.
>> on the actual temperature of the water and air
Yes, that statement means Tair and Twater, but then you interpreted that as dTair and dTwater.
Analogy:
Q) To determine which horse won the Triple Crown, should we examine the position or the speed of the horses at the moment one of the horses crosses the finish line?
do while( NotYetExhausted )
{
VE) The position
M of B) The speed.
VE) but sir M, the race is won by who crosses the finish line first
M of B) That’s right, that’s why whichever horse is going faster when one of them crosses the line is the winner
}
The inability to distinguish a parameter from it’s derivative can also be confusing to policemen:
Po Po) m’Lord, you were going way over the speed limit of 65 mph.
M of B) But I’m not yet 65 miles from home!
Po Po) Have you been drinking? Why don’t you step out of the car.
Viking: You are wasting your words on someone who has no integrity or ability to engage in civil discourse. He is unfixable.
The fact he’s given a pulpit on this blog is baffling.
The earth’s atmosphere is an open system that can expand and contract. The ONLY accurate reading of the current heat content at a given moment is the density of gas in a fixed measurement volume. Gravity will force the pressure to stay the same at sea level whether the atmosphere has expanded to drag down the space station or contracted so that we could retire the shuttles. Because gravity controls the pressure it controls the temperature as well. At NO TIME have I seen anything that indicates that any climate scientist is actually aware that the earth’s atmosphere is an open system that can expand and contract in response to energy input.
The constant arguments about temperature and heat are ignorant drivel. We live in a gravity driven open system, WHAT’S THE DENSITY AT SEA LEVEL?
prjindigo,
You are confusing gravity and a gravity collapse. A gravity collapse increases temperature because kinetic energy is transformed into heat. However, gravity doesn’t maintain a lapse rate, since this would violate the 2nd law. It’s well explained here. The lapse rate is caused by being heated from below and cooled from above.
You can tell by looking at PV = nRT. Gravity may set P, but we can still increase or decrease T, and V will change accordingly. If it wasn’t for being heated from below and cooled from above, it would be the same temperature from bottom to top. As altitude increases, P decreases, but this would be matched by decreasing n, the amount of gas molecules.
Monckton of Brenchley June 6, 2015 at 2:03 am
… The surface cannot be warming as Karl says it is, unless a closely similar rate of warming were also toe observed immediately above and below the surface.
Sometimes you need to highlight for posterity teh crazy stuff that Monckton says. Completely inane as far as this “repealing” any laws of thermodynamics. Something that as has been repeatedly pointed out throughout this thread.
Note, I am just highlighting, bookmarking this. The original is sure to be saved for posterity in any event, since it already snuck through under an equally inane top post by Monckton that also snuck through at WUWT. And I am confident that WUWT follows strict principles both *against* revisionism and *for* sharing the data.
Does Mr Morrison have any evidence that the Earth’s surface is warming at a rate greater than the two fluid masses that comprise it? If so, where is the heat coming from, and why are neither the lower troposphere or the upper ocean warming at a similar rate?
Tom Karl was interviewed a couple of years ago. He referred to the Argo and satellite measurements and said they should show about the same rates of warming. And so they do. A fortiori, the interface between them should show something like the same rate of warming.
None of this is difficult. Show me how, in compliance with the laws of thermodynamics, the surface can warm persistently at a rate so much greater than the rates of the lower troposphere and upper ocean. And not with hand-waving. With evidence.