Heat trapped below the surface will begin moving up kicking off a warming cycle
A new study of ocean temperature measurements shows that in recent years, extra heat from greenhouse gases has been trapped in the subsurface waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans, thus accounting for the slowdown in the global surface temperature increase observed during the past decade, researchers say.
A specific layer of the Indian and Pacific oceans between 300 and 1,000 feet below the surface has been accumulating more heat than previously recognized, according to climate researchers from UCLA and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They also found the movement of warm water has affected surface temperatures. The results were published July 9 in the journal Science.
During the 20th century, as greenhouse gas concentrations increased and trapped more heat on Earth, global surface temperatures also increased. However, starting in the early 2000s though greenhouse gases continued to trap extra heat, the global average surface temperature stopped climbing for about a decade and even cooled a bit.
In the study, researchers analyzed direct ocean temperature measurements, including observations from a global network of about 3,500 ocean temperature probes known as the Argo array. These measurements show temperatures below the surface have been increasing.
The Pacific Ocean is the primary source of the subsurface warm water found in the study, though some of that water now has been pushed to the Indian Ocean. Since 2003, unusually strong trade winds and other climatic features have been piling up warm water in the upper 1,000 feet of the western Pacific, pinning it against Asia and Australia.
“The western Pacific got so warm that some of the warm water is leaking into the Indian Ocean through the Indonesian archipelago,” said Veronica Nieves, lead author of the study and a UCLA researcher with the UCLA Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering, a scientific collaboration between UCLA and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The movement of the warm Pacific water westward pulled heat away from the surface waters of the central and eastern Pacific, which resulted in unusually cool surface temperatures during the last decade. Because the air temperature over the ocean is closely related to the ocean temperature, this provides a plausible explanation for the global cooling trend in surface temperature, Nieves said.
Cooler surface temperatures also are related to a climatic pattern called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which moves in a 20- to 30-year cycle. It has been in a cool phase during the entire time surface temperatures showed cooling, bringing cooler-than-normal water to the eastern Pacific and warmer water to the western side. There currently are signs the pattern may be changing, with observations showing warmer-than-usual water in the eastern Pacific.
“Given the fact the Pacific Decadal Oscillation seems to be shifting to a warm phase, ocean heating in the Pacific will definitely drive a major surge in global surface warming,” Nieves said.
Previous attempts to explain the global surface temperature cooling trend have relied more heavily on climate model results or a combination of modeling and observations, which may be better at simulating long-term impacts over many decades and centuries. This study relied on observations, which are better for showing shorter-term changes over 10 to 20 years.
Pauses of a decade or more in Earth’s average surface temperature warming have happened before in modern times, with one occurring between the mid-1940s and late 1970s.
“In the long term, there is robust evidence of unabated global warming,” Nieves said.
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Co-authors are Josh Willis and William Patzert of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
So isn’t this a natural experiment for climate sensitivity? This year’s El Niño will either ramp global temperatures up to a new level, like the 1998 El Niño, or give us a short-term temperature spike and drop us back onto the same thermal plateau, like the 2010 El Niño. Given the generally negative PDO and inactive sun, the former would suggest a stronger climate sensitivity to AGHGs than the latter. Suspense.
I understand how oscillations in ocean currents can bring about warming and cooling from storage or release of heat that entered the ocean originally as visible-UV light, but how does infrared radiation absorbed by atmospheric CO2 cause cyclical warming? Wouldn’t the downwelling infrared radiation be nearly constant on annual timescales and not be cyclical in any way? Did they suggest a mechanism for how downwelling IR is cyclical? Does physics take days off?
Even better: Downwelling IR cannot penetrate the surface skin layer of the body of water. Any IR hitting the surface just adds to evaporation potential of the skin layer and has the effect of cooling the water.
Put an IR heat lamp over a bucket of water – the temperature will not budge. Do the same with an ultraviolet light of the same intensity (warning: don’t enter the room while such a bright UV source is active) and you will find the bucket temperature increases. Of course you have to be sure there is no (or little) visible spectrum energy in the lamp output as visible light will also warm water.
nice that it is no longer the aerosols that did it beteen 1945 and 1970
time to reprograme ur models boys
Just did a little figuration based on figures from the paywalled paper than Earthobservatory.NASA.gov now has on line. Paper facts. The maximum anomaly found from 2003-2012 (second EO.nasa.gov figure) is about 0.15C/year at about 150 meters; the average is less. The maximum areal extent of the anomaly is about 3x Australia in the 100-200 meter layer (first EO.nasa.gov figure).The upper and lower layers are less, although the areal extent is more diffuse.
Some additional simple facts. The surface density of seawater is ~1027kg/cubic meter, and its heat capacity is 3850 J/ (kg delta 1degree C). Australia comprises 1346200 square km (rounded to 1.4 million for figuration). The missing heat in Trenberth’s 2013 paper explaining the pause-GCM difference was ~7.25E+22 joules (essay Missing Heat).
So, Nieves anomalously warm water volume is ~ 3* 1.4E+6 square km* 1E+6 square meters/square km* 3E+2 meters depth, or ~1.26 E+15 cubic meters.
Now, a temperature anomaly <0.15degrees C max is <0.15* 3.85E+3 J/kg* 1.027E+3 kg/cubic meter, or <5.9E+5 Joules/cubic meter.
So, the heat Nieves et. al. measured using Argo is ~1.26E+15 cubic meters* <5.9E+5 J/cubic meter, or <~7.4E+20 Joules per year. So something less than 7.4E+21 Joules over the full decade (1E+1 years).
This means Nieves measured <7.4E+21/7.25E+22 or about E-1 or ~10% of what Trenberth said was missing from the pause/model discrepancy.
I call BS on the UCLA press release and double BS on Nieves' statements in it about having found the missing heat which will restart and restore the previous warming trend. Absolute nonsense. It simply does not figurate. BY AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE.
And that is before considering actual temps at these depths and realizing this "heat" is not going to warm anything at the surface. Water gets colder with depth, the EA.nasa.gov figure 2 anomaly is relative cold at different depths. Triple BS on Nieves statements.
Trenberth’s model is off by a decimal point, and so the earths average temperature (if they stop adjusting the data) will actually be 0.2 °C warmer by 2100.
Seriously? They’ve never heard of “El Niño” before?
They must be “climate scientists”.
I never believed in magic – until now. “The atmosphere stops warming – the surface water remains cool – but the Argo floats show layers under 300 m warming”. The “obvious” inference is that the missing heat has gone there!!!!
Well, isn’t that magic??
It appears NASA and the NOAA aren’t properly communicating the narrative with one another.
Hey – that could be a study worth a government research grant:
“Techniques for coordinating multiple plot lines”.
“In the long term, there is robust evidence of unabated global warming,” Nieves said.
There is no real evidence of much of anything. The surface temperature data sets have been bastardized to the point of total uselessness and they are working on doing the same to any ocean historical records.
Besides that, how does anyone claim that heat “hides” in the deep ocean? After all, we think the near surface ocean temps have been cooling so the heat must have taken a dive. (an the authors of this story seem to have taken a dive also)
“how does anyone claim that heat “hides” in the deep ocean? ”
Mark; The heat stole Batmans cape. That is how it’s hiding. I learned of it from very reliable sources, I’ll have you know.
michael
Hey, if you say so then OK. 🙂
Classic Comedy, much in the vein of Marx Brothers.
“A child of five could understand this! Go get me a child of five!” – Groucho Marx
What remains wholly unexplained here is how heat gets “trapped” below the surface…and then mysteriously “begins moving up” in a thermally stratified ocean. Sadly, such aphysical notions are par for the course in “climate science.”
How these numbskulls can be allowed to go around calling themselves scientists is beyond me. First we have back radiation, now they also claim we can have back diffususion. The surface of the ocean is warmer than water at depth, so how can heat be hiding down there? Heat flow goes from hotter to colder. Always! The surface cools first
OK then. One silly question for the group here.
If any excess heat “caused by CO2” goes into the ocean and hides in the deep portions of the ocean; then what is the worry? It would take millions of years to overheat the ocean would it not?
NOTE: I don’t believe that CO2 heated anything, I’m just going with the logic of the paper in question.
A question. I was under the impression that the AGW theory required the mid-troposphere to heat up due to all the horrible CO2 humans were excreting. But if the heat is missing in the mid-troposphere, how did it get to the ocean layers and wouldn’t that negate the AGW ‘theory’?
I have decided to accept this hypothesis so I have set up my experiment. But I must be doing something wrong. I am trying to heat warmer water with colder water in my pool by stirring up the bottom cold water with a broom after it has sat in the Sun for a while, convinced that my pool must be absorbing visible wavelengths, and short and longwave infrared, storing some of it at the bottom, just like the study says it does. I did however notice that when I took a break from my broom mixing to sip a Long Island Ice Tea, the calm top layer begins to heat up again. Again and again, trial after trial, interspersed with glass after glass, the only thing that shappens is that the original shemperature of the top warmer shater goesh down, not up after my furioush effort to stir things up. Thinking that thish was the sopportune time to warm it up shome more I hash shuriously mished the pool again wish my broom. Alash, the shermometer at the shurface again goes in the wrong shirection. I am shutterly shausted from my eshorts to shix the bottom shater wish the shop shater in an effort to warm it shup. On the (hick) upshide I shended (hick) up shipping a (hick) a (hick) few shong Islands, shtill low and b’hold, I don no longer gshive a dinker’s tam about my hyp–hyth—mypsothesis.
Pamela, I really enjoyed that one. Thanks. 🙂
me too, excellent pamela
This is very funny Pam. lol I like this.
Pameula, thish should defrinitely qualifey yous for a hughe goverenrent grant.
Pamela, I laughed til my sides hurt!
Pamela,
That was really funny; but was so effective in mocking the irrational claims of the CAGW crowd. Often that is more effective than trying to use logic with these folks.
I’m beginning to wonder if CAGW doesn’t stand for Clueless Amateurs Guessing Wildly!
+10
Wunnerful
Pamela properly shows that ideation is often intoxicating, but experimentation is always sobering.
I don’t know where else to put this one.
The funniest post on science I have seen this year is over at the Bishop Hill blog. It is priceless. The title is “Minority Report and the polar bears” and here is the link:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2015/7/16/minority-report-and-the-polar-bears.html
Whatever the temperatures turn out to be in reality – you just know they are going to fiddle them upwards anyway, which is the depressing part.
It really will take an Ice Age to put these people in their place.
As I’ve said before, come the year 2100, science will “discover” that pure water actually freezes at 2° C!
Is there a sarc tag missing ? Plenty of YouTube videos showing water below 0° C then tap the bottle and it freezes in a few seconds.
“A specific layer of the Indian and Pacific oceans between 300 and 1,000 feet below the surface has been accumulating more heat than previously recognized.”
So between 91.5 and 305 metres. Hmm, that’s a large non-specific range so where is this magic layer?
Doesn’t show up in the JMA Pacific Depth-Time Cross Sections since 1991. And all other ENSO indicators are up and down like a widow’s drawers, broadly in line with surface conditions. Including the PDO which may have just turned and not forgetting OLR. The convective by-pass valve is pretty much open full bore right now. Hence the big whirly things travelling west whistling a vaguely Spanish tune.
The Indian Ocean 0-2000 metres increased in temperature by 0.1C from 1955 to 2014.
So, an average of 0.0017C per year.
I don’t see how any surface warming was avoided by this tiny warming rate and I don’t see how climate science could not have foreseen that the oceans would absorb a very tiny amount of the warming expected at the surface (not unless the climate scientists were completely illiterate when it came to ocean-atmosphere interactions).
http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/woa/DATA_ANALYSIS/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/DATA/basin/yearly_mt/T-dC-i0-2000m.dat
We can laugh and make fun all we like, but the sad fact remains that people believe this crap!
I didn’t read their stuff but I have to assume they have no more than conjecture without any actual scientific measurements.
“A new study of ocean temperature measurements shows that in recent years, extra heat from greenhouse gases has been trapped in the subsurface waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans, thus accounting for the slowdown in the global surface temperature increase observed during the past decade, researchers say.”
Nice wording. They have a “study” which they say shows what they claim. But their study is really just speculative assertions with no real evidence or real measurements showing any of the links or indications of heat movement .
They phrase it, “study of ocean measurements” to mendaciously imply they have scientific measurements showing their conclusions.
They have a bad case of Climate Model Hyper-Conjecturetosis
“starting in the early 2000s, though greenhouse gases continued to trap extra heat, the global average surface temperature stopped climbing for about a decade and even cooled a bit.”
Not according to the latest NOAA and GISS temperature data. They now claim that there never was a pause. They say that global temperatures have risen just as fast this century as they did at the end of the previous century. So who are we to believe, UCLA and JPL, or NOAA and Karl et al?
I don’t believe any data the government issues because all the agencies have been politicalized!.
The first Law of Thermodynamics has a bit of a problem with Msrs Willis & Patzert’s scenario but lets assume it works that way. Then around the year 2000 there must have been a seachange (no pun intended) in the way heat is stored in the ocean-atmosphere system. What was it, what caused it, when precisely did it happen, what were the symptoms and who predicted it? And now we’re being told that the system will revert to its former state. So again: what will cause that, what will the symptoms be by which to recognize that it is happening, when will it be and, possibly, how long before the the system flips again?
The answer to all these questions is obviously: nobody knows.
So, what we have here is a hypothesized phenomenon that nobody has observed to explain another that nobody has observed either and of which it is now hypothesized that it will disappear shortly.
One must admit, it’s a bit more involved than a discussion about how many angels there are in the fifth heaven. But only a tiny bit.
This is from the Jet propulsion Lab?
No wonder NASA can no longer perform the job of getting USA into space these days.
Sorry state of affairs that we have to pay the Russians to ferry our Astronauts to the space station .
The state of decay in the last 6 years has been crippling as they focus on the historical accomplishments of those who want to eliminate us..
+1
“Oh missing heat
Where have you gone?
The search for you
Goes on and on,
They’ve looked in the oceans,
They’ve looked out in space,
You must be hiding
In some secret place….”
From: http://rhymeafterrhyme.net/global-warming-and-the-missing-heat/
Not only was there no pause, the subsurface temperatures are rising also. The world is warming twice as fast as the models predicted!
Quick, buy more ice cream!!