Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A new research paper claims that the Antarctic Ocean is staying cold, because it receives large infusions of “old water”, water which has been sitting in the freezing cold ocean depths since before the start of the machine age.
Antarctic Ocean Climate Change Mystery Could Be Explained By Deep, Old Water
A new study suggests that the Antarctic Ocean has remained unaffected by climate change and global warming due to deep, old water that is continually pulled to the surface.
A new University of Washington study reveals why the Antarctic Ocean might be one of the last places to experience the effects of global warming and human-driven climate change.
Over the years, the water surrounding Antarctica has stayed roughly the same temperature even as the rest of the planet continues to warm, a fact often pointed out by climate change deniers.
Now, a new study uses observations and climate models to suggest that the reason for this inconsistency is due to the unique currents around Antarctica that continually pull deep, old water up to the surface. This ancient water hasn’t touched the Earth’s surface since before the machine age, meaning it has been hidden from human-driven climate change.
“With rising carbon dioxide you would expect more warming at both poles, but we only see it at one of the poles, so something else must be going on,” said Kyle Armour of the University of Washington and lead author of the study. “We show that it’s for really simple reasons, and ocean currents are the hero here.”
The abstract of the study;
Southern Ocean warming delayed by circumpolar upwelling and equatorward transport
The Southern Ocean has shown little warming over recent decades, in stark contrast to the rapid warming observed in the Arctic. Along the northern flank of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, however, the upper ocean has warmed substantially. Here we present analyses of oceanographic observations and general circulation model simulations showing that these patterns—of delayed warming south of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and enhanced warming to the north—are fundamentally shaped by the Southern Ocean’s meridional overturning circulation: wind-driven upwelling of unmodified water from depth damps warming around Antarctica; greenhouse gas-induced surface heat uptake is largely balanced by anomalous northward heat transport associated with the equatorward flow of surface waters; and heat is preferentially stored where surface waters are subducted to the north. Further, these processes are primarily due to passive advection of the anomalous warming signal by climatological ocean currents; changes in ocean circulation are secondary. These findings suggest the Southern Ocean responds to greenhouse gas forcing on the centennial, or longer, timescale over which the deep ocean waters that are upwelled to the surface are warmed themselves. It is against this background of gradual warming that multidecadal Southern Ocean temperature trends must be understood.
Read more: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2731.html
The world’s oceans contain enough cold water to quench any imaginable anthropogenic global warming for hundreds, more likely thousands of years. If that deep water is upwelling around Antarctica, keeping the Southern Ocean cold, it is difficult to see how significant global warming can occur, or significant Antarctic contribution to sea level rise can occur, until that reservoir of freezing cold deep ocean water is finally depleted.
..Wow, they get more and more desperate everyday !! LOL
I thought that the Antarctic was Melting, Losing Ice Mass, and that it was this thinning of the ice that was allowing for greater intrusion of Cold Fresh Water into the Southern Ocean that was creating the greater Ice Extents that have been recorded recently. Now it seems that it is rather (C)old Water from the ocean depths (That is supposed to be hiding the warmth ALA Kevin Trenberth) is upwelling and negating the effects of Warming in the southern region???
Still waiting for the Straight Story
NObama 16
Does this mean that the models (a) weren’t quite right (gasp!), (b) as right as they have always been, or (c) righter than ever, but in a different way?
I’m pretty sure we’re still doomed, regardless.
My college freshman class are laughing at this article. The one girl said that it reminded her of the glacier ice scene in the “Water Boy” movie by Adam Sandler. Too Funny!!!
Yep. Now it’s the cold that has been hiding in the oceans.
That’s really funny.
That was my first thought. First it was the heat hiding in the deep oceans and now it is the cold! Do they listen to themselves?
Not cold– Dark Heat….
Isn’t it the change of state energy requirements that makes ice so good at “storing cold?” This must be SUPER WATER. LMMFAO!
The depicted Taylor glacier belongs to the area: “The Dry Valleys, McMurdo”. And why are the Valleys dry, and why are the glaciers melting instead of building up frontal moraines. I’m sure most People don’t know this, and the climate scientists don’t like this. It has to do With the sub-surface geology of the dry Valleys.
If you sprinkle salt on ice and snow – what happens? It melts. Well, beneath the Taylor glacier there is salt in the soil and the glacier melts from below and upwards! Scientists have been wondering for centuries, why the Dry Valleys are devoid of fresh snow and ice. It’s a trick of Nature again. It has to do With physics and chemistry, as always…
You’re neglecting katabatic winds, it seems.
Who in G’s Name would publish this trash. OMG Please make these morons stop. The desperation is truly building and when it crashes I hope EVERYONE is watching!
I can also think of a really simple explanation as to why the waters around Antarctica aren’t warming as predicted. The theory that CO2 drives global temperature is wrong. Can I have my grant check now please ?
Sorry but I thought all of the extra heat that the climatists predicted would be in the ocean, is supposed to be “hiding” in the deep ocean (via Trenberth). So if all of the missing heat is in the deep ocean, how can deep old water being keeping the Antarctic cold? Shouldn’t it be heating it up?
It would be nice if they could keep their theories straight….
BTW I have started calling them “climatists” because they certainly are not “scientists”…
+1 Eric
Great term, “climatists”. I’m going to use it too.
the extra heat is UNDER the cold water pushing it up of course!
Perhaps the climatists’ theory is that the heat hides into the ocean carried down by the warm water that goes down into the ocean driven by the weatherological currents that oppose Archimedes (“natural”) convection. In the meantime the climatological upwelling currents bring cold, -“old”, -ld, -d water to the surface (climatists here stutter a lot since the “old” water is really cold). And that is explanation for the hidden heat, issue is closed, finem scientia…
A climatist is created, when scientist cannot supress the ego enough, to utter the words “I was wrong”. It is a condition that has become absolute in climatology. GK
Climapaths?
Eric H
This is the ‘missing cold’
… try to keep up
Seems like a major malaise going on in this article.
They are neither to me, “climatists” appears to give some sort of title with implied knowledge, a group of “scientists” ( 90 of them ) just send a letter to the Minister of the Environment in BC Canada. In it they claim further exploration and use of NG will increase GHG’s by 22 % over the next what ever years. They are all “professors” at UBC but none of them actually tell us what their real background is, but a little research shows the usual list of shrinks , prof’s of English, biologists and so on.
What they claim is that BC cannot because of this reach the targets set in Paris last year. They do not mention that those targets were set by themselves and their fellow “Professors” .
Very similar to the Scientific Findings De-Jour that get peer reviewed and published one day to solve a mystery (vis-a-vis missing Heat in hiding in the lower oceans and that is why there is no real hiatus on global temperature increases) then others are peer reviewed (by the same people??) and published the next day (week, Month, Year in the same Scientific Magazines) that say (C)old water upwelling from the ocean depths is causing the observed southern ocean cooling in Antarctica, practically refuting the first paper yet, at some point in time, it’s very likely that either or both papers will be cited in future research and perhaps in the same research as consensus papers.
Climatists of Gang-Green. That has a certain ring to it. Sounds like a book title, a fantasy tale where Climatists of Gang-Green are the bully-boys of the rainforest, out there swinging in the trees and stealing everyone’s bananas.
Sorry, I get carried away sometimes…
I think this is deeper deep water. There are deeper patches of water all the way down.
“keep their theories straight”?? Naw, that would take all the fun out of it.
Gang-Green? Who came up with that? It’s brilliant!
No.
But Ian, think of the children. If Antarctica begins to warm in only 300 years or so …
Think of the penguins! Think 0f the penguins children!
Bad Pablo!
No Grant for You.
Come back 6 months.
Don’t be silly.
The CAGW theory is the ONLY correct theory.
Since, for it to be a correct theory, we must accept that all other theories are wrong.
And that the data is wrong.
Or maybe we’ve been studying the wrong planet.
Occam’s razor – it’s the best a man can get.
Or was that the other brand?
What the hell are ‘climatological ocean currents’?
Climatological ocean currents go up, Weatherological ocean currents go down. Just like temperature.
Glad I could help.
Thanks for that. It’s much clearer to me now
Is that sort of like ‘up’ and ‘down’ on a map with reference to the north arrow?
@PiperPaul
It depends on how you look at it.
TonyL, OMG that was funny!
Climatological ocean currents are a nice fat funding cheque.
You prefer the term climatillogical ocean currents?
Climatillogical ocean currents are probably the result of Climatastrology:
http://modernvedicastrology.com/node/189
‘Climatological ocean currents’ are caused by Climate Change. When they occur they cause Global Warming. Do keep up. /s
That depends. Are they AC or DC?
Oh, their probably ‘non-binary’ .
They could be transC
Looks like another excuse for the Pause. A bit late, but that’s OK, we will count it.
Excuse #37
I thought that deep ocean overturning taking hundreds of years was very well known. Maybe this is new because they used a model?
In order to make an excuse for the pause, they have to acknowledge that there is a pause.
Ah, you are correct. Excuse # withdrawn.
Well the whole Atlantic and Pacific Oceans go sloshing back and forth twice a day, between the Antarctic Peninsula and the tip of South America, so it gets pretty rough down there and the waters are well mixed.
Southern Winters are much colder than Northern Winters, because the earth spends a longer time at a greater distance from the sun during Antarctic winters.
Conversely, the earth spends a shorter time closer to the sun during the Antarctic Summers, than it does during the Northern Summers.
G
not to mention that every 18 years or so the moon cycles between 18.5 degrees and 28.5 degrees declination, which definitely will affect the mixing rate of the oceans, and will likely give rise to warming/cooling oscillations north and south. bipolar see-saw?
But you have to give them some credit. They keep trying!
Doesn’t this finding fly in the face of earlier assertions that the reason why we’re not experiencing as much warming as the models predicted is because the extra heat was hiding in the deep?
The extra heat must have found a good place to hide in the deep oceans because even these researchers can’t find it.
Reality changes daily depending on the widely-publicized press releases’ contents. It’s like that Twilight Zone episode with the kid who could manifest stuff with just his mind.
Oh no, the new Warm water going into the deep is what’s pushing the old cold water out!
How sick can things be before even the media is able to smell the stench?
They smell it now. It’s just that they choose to ignore it.
Heck, they can’t smell the gangrenous stench of their own corruption. Why should we expect them to sniff out corruption elsewhere?
They have learned to love that stench, like some delicacies have a stench, and assume it goes with global warming.
There’s that evil “could” word again.
And models all the way down.
Hey Washington University, I have a much simpler explanation than yours, and the thing is that I can PROVE mine. And it is not a computer model, but actual factual real world Antarctic Ocean experimental measurements.
The real reason that The Antarctic Ocean has not warmed up, is because Antarctica is surrounded by freezing cold water. We know it is freezing cold, because we have measured the water Temperature many times and it is freezing cold.
That’s why it is cold in the Antarctic; very low water Temperature.
And it stays cold because it doesn’t get much sunshine down there.
“Old water” my a*** !!
G
Hey, that dihydrogen oxide is billions of years old. Those hydrogen atoms have mostly been around since the Big Bang. See, it is real, real, real old. I admit the oxygen needed a supernova or two. Now that is warming.
So modern wager must have more of that supernova oxygen in it. No wonder it’s hotter than the old water!
If it’s not man-made, it’s not global warming.
FFS. I have heard them reference “old ice” versus “new ice” in order to explain why things are not happening the way they should be according to the AGW hypothesis. So now it is “old water?” Does this mean that “new water” is warmer? LOL! Well, I guess even idiots can be creative.
Well, it must be that old water is heavier than new water. That’s why it stays down there keeping the oceans from warming up.
I thought “heavy water” was radioactive or had an extra electron or something; would that affect its temperature?
Extra neutron. Science!
The study does not use the ter, only the article.
How much did this nonsense cost the tax payer??
“The dog–I mean the deep ocean–ate my homework–global warming” 🙂
I gotta write that one down!
more unsettled science?
…Antarctic Ocean Climate Change Mystery Could Be Explained By Deep, Old Water…
It could also be explained by corruption and lying on the part of Climate Scientists…
Climate Scientist or Climate Fictionist
What’s wrong with the old favourite, “climate scientologist”?
Could be this, may be that, might be this other thing. Meh, whatever. Good enough for
government workgovernment-funded climate speculation work and PR messaging.Now this is an interesting 180-degree turn. Hitherto it has been generally accepted that the very cold bottom water in the Oceans is created around Antarctica by the very cold catabatic winds coming off the continent, sinks because of its high density and spreads northwards along the bottom. Google “Antarctic Bottom Water” or “AABW”.
Now apparently it’s suddenly the other way around. This cold water (created where, by the way, in the tropics?) comes to the surface around Antarctica instead.
Yes they are actually suggesting very cold water sits atop relatively warm water as the cold water passes the warm water on it’s way to the surface.
LMAO
More lost in a concept cack.
The only thing we know for certain is climate science now accounts for 5.51% of all models in science now 😀
55.1%
ditto 55.1% – it’s about 4% of total funding.
Why not 97%?
I thought it had bee fairly well established that ultra cold very dense (highly saline) water was SINKING in a more-or-less steady way, thereby pushing deep cold water currents outward and Northward, away from the Antarctic continent, causing major up-welling on the Western coast of South America? And now I see that tty has already posted a similar question.
Oh, and the mandatory feminine cryosphere narrative: Antactica is a frigid bitch.
Don’t confuse them with facts, they don’t like it. It upsets them. They’ll need cookies and blankets and a safe space.
“With rising carbon dioxide you would expect more warming at both poles, but we only see it at one of the poles, so something else must be going on,” said Kyle Armour of the University of Washington and lead author of the study. “We show that it’s for really simple reasons, and ocean currents are the hero here.”
Perhaps the something else that is going on is that the hypothesis is wrong.
No Kyle, I would NOT expect anything of the kind.
With rising CO2 I would expect there to be more clouds, which block more sunlight and cool the earth, by lowering the total solar energy that reaches the earth’s surface.
But I do agree with your principal conclusion.
It IS for ” really simple reasons .” Too simple to even bother modeling; and yes it has even been MEASURED.
Is “measurement” something that they teach at the University of Washington ??
G
Is there a separate “climate science” curriculum in today’s universities? If so, I wonder if a mandatory course is “Coming up with bullshit excuses for natural events that refute the climate change meme.”
But I thought all the heat was going into the deep ocean so how is there any cold in the deep ocean?
And Antarctic ice is magical now? Able to be less affected by CO2 than Arctic ice?
These people are so caught up in their delusions they have lost any semblance of common sense.
It’s all those penguins they protect it against the heat by blocking the sun’s rays with their bodies 🙂 and their happy feet too
Myron, if you were a real scientist you understand these things.
The deep water is warmer, but due to quantum uncertainty, it turns cold as soon as it’s measured.
The quest for an excuse as to why gaia isn’t following the CAGW script continues. You can smell the desperation and fear of these “researchers”. The end of the CAGW gravy train is nigh.
Since the rest of the ocean has only warmed by about 0.001C, how can you tell the difference?
Yeah, they act like the North Pole has warmed up just like the CAGW theory predicted. It’s just that presky South Pole that is not cooperating, but now we know why.
Meanwhile the tempertures are dropping. I guess we’ll have a new measurement tomorrow.
Which of course is an unmeasurable amount
AH makes sense…
The deep cold water is coming up….and behind it it’s sucking the hot water back down…
I think we found the global warming that’s been hiding in the deep oceans
….my headache just came back
The global warming ‘science’ is something of a magic act, with a top hat containing an infinite number of hidden white rabbits to be pulled out as the occasion warrants to amaze and distract, and a magic wand to change data before our very eyes.
See:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL066749/full
“We investigated this in detail and show that for central Antarctica an increase in CO2 concentration leads to an increased long-wave energy loss to space, which cools the Earth-atmosphere system. These findings for central Antarctica are in contrast to the general warming effect of increasing CO2.”
woops………..
Excellent link to a fairly recent scientific paper, Werner. So higher concentrations of CO2 in central Antarctica actually cools the atmosphere. I think the climate alarmists should simply ignore Antarctica because all of their nattering on about why it is becoming colder there versus warmer is drawing attention to the fact that it really IS becoming colder there. This defeats their purpose.
That seems physically reasonable. Above the tropopause where radiative transport dominates over convection and temperature increases with altitude greenhouse gases have a cooling effect. And in Central Antarctica there really isn’t any troposphere or tropopause, at least in winter, so yes more greenhouse gases would presumably cause cooling there.
Finally, the science is settled. All we needed after all was simple reasons and heroes.
Now any time the Antarctic is brought up, they have an obfuscation to apply, “it’s the last place to show global warming you denier”
Yawnn.. nothing but creating obfuscation.
Models are not science.
““it’s the last place to show global warming you denier””
That’s because of “polar amplification” 😉
Anybody want to have some fun?
I followed the link back. It appears to be a trendy, current events, “news magazine” type of web site with a very “millennial” type of vibe. Chances are that the editor, or at least the copy writer is fully absorbed into the whole millennial ethos, so prevalent on college campuses these days. That includes charges of racism, sexism, white privilege, and calls for safe spaces, perpetually offended, and all the rest. And of course, censoring speech they do not like.
They used the term “den*er”, in the piece, and we can’t even use that word here without getting sent to the doghouse.
How about some of us surf over there and complain about the use of “den*er”. Say it is racist, techno-privilege, offensive, and makes us feel threatened. Demand an apology issued here at WUWT. Then we can make them grovel for forgiveness.
That would be one news outlet that never uses that term again.
Whoops! This, cough cough, research is another one of those confirmation bias hunting expeditions.
State a desired finding.
Claim to use observations.
• ‘Find’ an upwelling current.
• Claim to find where the displaced surface current flows.
• Claim that the surface water ‘warmed’ while on the surface near Antarctica.
• Claim that the surface water ‘carried away the Antarctica CO2 warmed water’
• Claim that the warmed surface water then are subducted on their way north… (another tropical hot spot?)
Observations show cooling waters near Antarctica, so these researcher yahoos turn to models and CMIP5 to ‘show’ warming near Antarctica.
To no one’s surprise, they then use NOAA’s fabulous nebulous zeta-joules to highlight the alleged warming.
What these yahoos fail to explain is how this upwelling ancient current flows unfrozen to the surface, swirls around in sub-zero temperatures; then flows northward warmer?
These University of Washington yahoos are playing a rigged shell game proving their warming water is imaginary modeling.
“What these yahoos fail to explain is how this upwelling ancient current flows unfrozen to the surface,”
Well it would certainly be a turn up for the book if the water froze below the surface and bobbed up as an iceberg. Physically impossible my friend.
“…. swirls around in sub-zero temperatures; then flows northward warmer?”
The average freezing point of Antarctic ocean waters is ~ -1.8C.
Considering that the stated reason for the up-welling is an increase of surface winds (created by the increased deltaT between the SH temperate zone and Antarctica) then increased turbulent mixing would (at some point going away from the continent) prevent freezing …. and so the waters start their journey north.
Arguing false straw men Toneb?
I state unfrozen, you state frozen.
And you make fun of the ‘frozen’ concept you just stated.
Then you write about the ‘average freezing point of Antarctic waters is’, but I wrote about the sub-zero temperatures.
Toneb also points out that the reason for the up-welling is an “increase of surface winds” along with increased turbulent mixing, somewhere to prevent freezing.
Wouldn’t the upwelled water being CO2 warmed prevent freezing? Or do their use of the term ‘delayed’ imply the warming happens later?
Now about that upwelling in a circumpolar current being caused by winds? How does that work?
Toneb; you’ve stepped in a hole of your own digging.
Without providing any evidence that the waters surrounding Antarctica, upwelled or not, are made warmer by CO2 before they travel north?
Nor did you provide any rationale for the alleged warming, instead you argued against your own straw men writing.
At least the researchers above included a “Southern Ocean’s meridional overturning circulation” as part of their circumpolar wind beliefs.
Though just how the researchers northward flow of water is:
Then they claim that the anomalous process is centennial; anomalous centennial process? Makes one wonder just what is normal in the climate world.
Normal certainly can not be storing warm water preferentially subducted to depth…
Confirmation bias!
“Well it would certainly be a turn up for the book if the water froze below the surface and bobbed up as an iceberg. Physically impossible my friend.”
Physically impossible?
Some strange things happen in Antarctica. I´ve personally seen snow fall on the sea-surface and cover it without melting since the temperature of the water is below zero (this only works in an absolute dead calm, which is not common in Antarctica).
“Arguing false straw men Toneb?
I state unfrozen, you state frozen.
And you make fun of the ‘frozen’ concept you just stated.”
Yes, because….
You said “What these yahoos fail to explain is how this up-welling ancient current flows unfrozen to the surface”.
Sorry, that implies that sub-zero water should have “frozen”.
“Then you write about the ‘average freezing point of Antarctic waters is’, but I wrote about the sub-zero temperatures.”
Correct. So?
“Wouldn’t the up-welled water being CO2 warmed prevent freezing? Or do their use of the term ‘delayed’ imply the warming happens later?
Now about that up-welling in a circumpolar current being caused by winds? How does that work?”
No, it means that the extra warming incurred by surface waters due AGW is removed becasue the waters are – and replaced by cooler waters from below.
See my other posts re up-welling. But same thing happens in the E Equ Pac during a La Nina.
“Toneb; you’ve stepped in a hole of your own digging.
Without providing any evidence that the waters surrounding Antarctica, upwelled or not, are made warmer by CO2 before they travel north?
Nor did you provide any rationale for the alleged warming, instead you argued against your own straw men writing.”
No “hole” my friend.
I do not need to provide “evidence”. My post was countering yours and the paper (I assume – pay-walled) provides evidence in that regard.
The paper is regarding increased up-welling of cold bottom waters due to increased wind-stress of surface waters, overcoming warming that *would have* taken place were surface waters to have remained. That is all.
“Then they claim that the anomalous process is centennial; anomalous centennial process? Makes one wonder just what is normal in the climate world.
Normal certainly can not be storing warm water preferentially subducted to depth…
Confirmation bias!”
I read that comment to mean that the process has taken ~100yrs in order for it to kick-in. You know?
Like, things don’t happen instantaneously.
And no I would suggest the “bias” lies elsewhere.