Feature | June 13, 2017
NASA-MIT study evaluates efficiency of oceans as heat sink, atmospheric gases sponge
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
By Ellen Gray,
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
The world’s oceans are like brakes slowing down the full effects of greenhouse gas warming of the atmosphere. Over the last ten years, one-fourth of human-emissions of carbon dioxide as well as 90 percent of additional warming due to the greenhouse effect have been absorbed by the oceans. Acting like a massive sponge, the oceans pull from the atmosphere heat, carbon dioxide and other gases, such as chlorofluorocarbons, oxygen and nitrogen and store them in their depths for decades to centuries and millennia.
New NASA research is one of the first studies to estimate how much and how quickly the ocean absorbs atmospheric gases and contrast it with the efficiency of heat absorption. Using two computer models that simulate the ocean, NASA and MIT scientists found that gases are more easily absorbed over time than heat energy. In addition, they found that in scenarios where the ocean current slows down due to the addition of heat, the ocean absorbs less of both atmospheric gases and heat, though its ability to absorb heat is more greatly reduced. The results were published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
“As the ocean slows down, it will keep uptaking gases like carbon dioxide more efficiently, much more than it will keep uptaking heat. It will have a different behavior for chemistry than it has for temperature,” said Anastasia Romanou, lead author and climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University in New York City.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
She and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts used the NASA GISS ocean model and the MIT General Circulation Model to simulate one of the Atlantic’s major current systems that delivers absorbed heat and gases to the depths.
In the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf Stream is part of what’s called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a conveyor belt of ocean water that carries warm water from Florida to Greenland where it cools and sinks to 1000 meters (about 3281 feet) or more before traveling back down the coast to the tropics. On its northward journey, the water at the surface absorbs gases like carbon dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) – the latter are, to a large extent, the gases responsible for the ozone hole over Antarctica – as well as excess heat from the atmosphere. When it sinks near Greenland, those dissolved gases and heat energy are effectively buried in the ocean for years to decades and longer. Removed from the atmosphere by the ocean, the impact of their warming on the climate has been dramatically reduced.
To understand and quantify the ocean’s sponge-like capabilities, the researchers used the two independent models of Atlantic Ocean currents together with shipboard observations of chlorofluorocarbons as a starting point. Chlorofluorocarbons are what’s called a passive tracer.
The red line on the map shows the Gulf Stream current, the surface portion of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Shown in shades of blue are the concentrations of CFCs at depth in the ocean. Nearer to the equator, the CFCs only occur at the surface. As the Gulf Stream current moves north, they begin to be drawn down to depth with the downward pull of the conveyor belt. Image credit: NASA/Jenny Hottle.
“I think of it as a colored dye,” said co-author John Marshall, a professor of oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “If I have a bucket of water and just stir it around and put some food coloring in it, the dye goes down into the water, and it doesn’t influence the circulation of the water.”
In the real world as well as in the model, this allows scientists to “see” how much of the gas is absorbed from the atmosphere into the ocean and then follow it as it travels around the world in the currents. Adding heat to the ocean, in contrast, slows down the overturning circulation because ocean currents depend on temperature gradients – moving from warmer locations to cooler locations – that weaken under global warming as cooler waters heat up. This means that estimating how much heat the ocean absorbs by only using a tracer may not be accurate.
“The results show that we need to think differently about how the ocean responds to taking up heat and passive tracers or greenhouse gases. Then we need to study them in parallel but using different methods,” Romanou said.
These results from the computer models of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation are one of the many moving parts that come together in global climate models. By refining scientists’ understanding of how efficiently gases and heat are taken up, the finding will improve global climate model projections for future climate scenarios, said Marshall. This is especially true for projections that stretch tens or a hundred years into the future, when those tracers and other gases that behave similarly like carbon dioxide, as well as excess heat energy, reach the upward turn of the conveyor belt and return to the surface. When that happens some portion of them will return to the atmosphere after their long underwater journey around the planet.
“Most of the excess heat from climate change will go into the ocean eventually, we think,” Romanou said. “Most of the excess chemical pollutants and greenhouse gases will be buried in the ocean. But the truth is that the ocean recirculates that extra load and, at some point, will release some of it back to the atmosphere, where it will keep raising temperatures, even if future carbon dioxide emissions were to be much lower than they are now.”
This eventual release of buried gases and heat from the oceans is sometimes called the “warming in the pipeline” or “warming commitment” that people will eventually have to contend with, Romanou said.
Reference
Romanou, A., J. Marshall, M. Kelley, and J. Scott, 2017: Role of the ocean’s AMOC in setting the uptake efficiency of transient tracers. Geophys. Res. Lett., early on-line, doi:10.1002/2017gl072972.
Media contacts
Leslie McCarthy, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, N.Y., 212-678-5507, leslie.m.mccarthy@nasa.gov
Michael Cabbage, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, N.Y., 212-678-5516, mcabbage@nasa.gov
“Over the last ten years, one-fourth of human-emissions of carbon dioxide as well as 90 percent of additional warming due to the greenhouse effect have been absorbed by the oceans.”
Um,why only 25% of human emitted CO2 and not an equal amount of natural atmospheric CO2?
“…90% of additional warming…” – do they give data to explain this?
Just curious.
Did they take plankton into account?
That’s Yuge!
Plankton have an effect on clouds. They affect the climate. Are they a positive feedback or a negative feedback?
Plankton cloud link
If it be granted that more CO2 causes some warming, then they are a negative feedback, since the clouds which they seed cool the surface.
Gabor, I don’t know that CO2 seeds clouds.
Clouds are two faced. During daytime they intercept sunlight and reflect it back, giving them a cooling effect. At night they act like a blanket, intercepting heat radiating from below and reflecting it back, giving them a warming effect for the lower atmosphere.
@ Commie Bob:
Don’t tell Lief Svaalgard. Because Jasper Kirkby at CERN just proved that GCR’s cause biogenics to form cloud condensation nuclei. Lief still hates Svensmark’s hypothesis anyway. Lief has a sad. This will only make matters worse for Lief.
However, in Kirkby’s announcement of CERN’s findings, Kirkby made the odd statement that most condensation nuclei are caused today not by biogenics but by sulfuric acid which does not need GCR’s to cause cloud condensation nuclei.
How would Kirkby know that most of today’s atmosphere is dominated by sulfuric acid?
Where was Kirkby’s proof for that? Maybe in some polluted places. But the entire earth? We haven’t had acid rain in to speak of in North America for quite some time. We have had a huge greening of the earth since 1985 due to CO2 and a Yale study just reported we have three trillion trees instead of the 400 billion we had thought. Now we have plankton to add to the mix? I had wondered about clouds forming over the ocean and bingo, you have the answer.
Seems like biogenics are coming from all corners of the planet to create clouds due to GCRs
Thanks for a missing link (pun intended).
Perhaps because the IPCC says (and NASA follows, for now at least) that only ‘human caused’ GHG emissions matter to them – i.e. their charter only requires them to consider ‘anthropogenic’ GHGs, so they infer that to mean that they ‘must’ ignore any other sources, sinks and effects of GHGs on ‘climate’. How convenient! More CAGW disinformation.
So the plankton are consumers of specific isotopes of CO2; missed that study – anyone have a link.
“additional” means predicted but not yet observed
it is in the process of being coaxed from it’s hiding place by the correction of data
““…90% of additional warming…” ”
How can “warming” that mostly comes from artificial “adjustments” be absorbed anywhere ????
They seem to have forgotten that there is a difference between their delusions and the actual planet.
There hasn’t been any warming, so we’re going to claim the oceans took it?
They seem to also forget that there are cold ocean currents at the ocean surface. Guess these cold currents do not fit their conjectures.
By mean of another adjustements and homogeneizations with invaluable assistance of flawed computer models…IMO
John Who,
Natural CO2 emissions are more than compensated by natural sinks:
– Seasonal changes, due to warming and cooling surface waters: ~50 GtC over months as CO2 in and out.
– Continuous changes, due to equatorial upwelling and polar sinks: ~40 GtC/year in and out.
Both near completely depend of temperature changes / variability.
Human emissions are independent of the temperature cycle/difference and increase the CO2 pressure (pCO2) in the atmosphere. That pushes more CO2 into the ocean surface (due to buffer chemistry, about 10% of the extra in the atmosphere), supresses the CO2 release from the upwelling and increases the deep ocean uptake at the poles.
Current uptake is about half human emissions of which about 50/50 between (deep) oceans and vegetation.
A good oversight (with large margins of error and year by year variability):
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/
About heat absorption by the oceans and other components of the earth, see Levitus e.a., Figure 3:
http://junksciencearchive.com/Greenhouse/grlheat05.pdf
Thanks Ferdinand again.
John asks “why only human emissions”?
The above means the oceans are taking up more CO2 than giving it out, on the average. And the sink rate appears to about one fourth of what humans emit. Which I find probably underestimated, these papers so often have a political bias or they are based on previous results that have political bias. But that is nit-pick.
So oceans sink so much CO2 if we’d drop human emissions by 75%, the atmospheric CO2 would actually go down.
Hugs,
Indeed, if humans would reduce their emissions to half what they are now, emissions and sinks would be equal and CO2 levels would stay about the same.
If that was possible to do without harming the economy. then there was no problem at all, but nowadays the “green” movement wants to reduce CO2 whatever the costs, for questionable result, while more CO2 seems to have more benefits, with a small increase in temperature and a lot more plant growth, than drawbacks…
FerdiEgb July 14, 2017 at 3:48 am
“Indeed, if humans would reduce their emissions to half what they are now, emissions and sinks would be equal and CO2 levels would stay about the same.”
According to Law dome ice core data (also Siple), atmospheric CO2 has been raising for 200 years prior to the mid 1900s when man began dumping large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Does the above comment imply the current (i.e. land, water, atmosphere, sun, etc.) equilibrium atmospheric CO2 should be between 300-400ppm? Does this also imply that without man’s contribution the earth would reach equilibrium sometime this century?
FerdiEgb July 14, 2017 at 3:48 am
“Indeed, if humans would reduce their emissions to half what they are now, emissions and sinks would be equal and CO2 levels would stay about the same.”
According to Law dome ice core data (also Siple), atmospheric CO2 has been raising for 200 years prior to the mid 1900s when man began dumping large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Does the above comment imply the current (i.e. land, water, atmosphere, sun, etc.) equilibrium atmospheric CO2 should be between 300-400ppm? Does this also imply that without man’s contribution the earth would reach equilibrium sometime this century?
pmhinsc,
Depends when human emissions did start in reality… Some see the early rise mainly as the expanding of settled communities, larger towns, agriculture and livestock farming… That also means more and more wood use, in the early days one-way cutting without replacement, and clearing for livestock, thus land use changes with extra CO2 release… Early industrial increase and use of coal was already in 1750, but full expansion of the coal based steam engine was around 1850…
For the current (weighted) average surface temperature, the dynamic equilibrium (“steady state”) between ocean surface and atmosphere would be around 290 ppmv per Henry’s law, where mainly oceanic CO2 sinks and sources are more or less in equilibrium. 300-310 ppmv would already involve an extra source.
The observed decay rate for an extra increase of CO2 above steady state is about 51 years e-fold rate, or about 35 years half life time. If human emissions should cease today, after 35 years the current 400 ppmv would drop to 235 ppmv, after 70 years gets 317.5 ppmv and after 105 years 304 ppmv… At 3 half times we are already back to the early 1900’s…
Ferdinand Engelbeen
July 14, 2017 at 1:43 am
“Over the last ten years, one-fourth of human-emissions of carbon dioxide as well as 90 percent of additional warming due to the greenhouse effect have been absorbed by the oceans.
—————-
Hello Ferd…Again.
Now let me be fair first. My reply and argument to you is in the context of the blog post in question here.
Meaning that I have not checked the actual paper been in the spot light.
But if by any chance the above selected statement is an actual claim and a conclusion of that paper then I have to say that you do not even understand the most basics of it, and this time around you not only in backward reasoning and logic but you also in a backwards negative math approach….
I do not think you understand the full implications of the above statement…..
As it stands, it actually says that the human or the anthropogenic forcing according to the numbers and ratios given, it is completely insignificant and mathematically meaningless .
First of all, when claimed and stated that ” one-fourth of human-emissions of carbon dioxide have been absorbed by the oceans over the last ten years”, is as same and equal as claiming and stating that ” one-fourth of yearly human-emissions of carbon dioxide have been absorbed by the oceans every year for each year during that ten years period”
That claim and statement being put in the frame of ten years instead of every year for that time period, is so put only due to the importance and significance considered of the CO2 yearly emissions and GH warming in coupling, where the addressing of the warming due to greenhouse effect in the yearly manner will be quite “silly” so to speak….
The other thing when it comes to the warming in question there is no any actual quantifying of it, as far as I can tell…….So 90% of an ~0.1C for a selected 10 year period is of no any real significance for the AGW, while actually according to the data the whole warming that can be considered due to greenhouse effect for the last 250 years is no more than 0.4C in a warming trend of ~1.1-1.2C, ~1/3 of the whole experienced warming…..As with CO2 Flux, so is with the heat content FLUX,,, it is not only how much it is absorbed only, but it is also about how much it is emitted too for the same time period in question, and the actual disbalance occurring…
In the context the “numbers” given in the CO2 emissions and GH warming coupling are very interesting indeed,
For once, a 25% absorbing of the yearly CO2 anthropogenic emissions by the oceans due to the yearly CO2 flux, it means if you look closely in any way weighted that it is a number that claims or “confirms”, the 5 year half life residence time of CO2 in atmosphere….
As the natural CO2 flux does not distinguish or “discriminates” between the human or the natural yearly emissions of CO2, then, is easy to see that ~75% of the natural CO2 every year ends up as a mass of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere,
Meaning that the refresh rate or the replenishment rate of the CO2 mass in concentration is at ~10-12% in yearly bases…… a very “Strong” or a very “Quick” one……making the anthropogenic CO2 emission impact on the CO2 concentration as non existent, even at the extent that it has reached in the last ten years……….. completely meaningless……
As there is no any data or evidence shown that the GH warming has ever passed over and above 0.4C warming for the entire warming trend, there is no any way to consider that the absorbing of any projected such warming from the oceans during the last ten years consist as more that 90% of a 0.1C, and that is at a stretch because there is another ten years previous to that that has a so called missing GH warming, and as this things goes that is not actually addressed because if the thermal Ocean-Atmosphere energy (or heat content) flux considered than this kinda of decade GH warming absorbed can not be considered incremental, meaning that the amount of GH warming absorbed in the last 10 years is the same as for the last 20 years……Still ~0.1C, and so at that amount it may stay for as long as you can imagine or dream about……
Strange is it not it, Ferd…….!
Please read this reply to you carefully before you may decide to follow also with a reply to me….
Another thing,,,,, don’t know about others but to me it has been always helpful and very supportive, when actually considering seriously that
” when the numbers very rarely tell the truth, end even then in a relative manner, still numbers if respected and addressed rightly, will never lie…so when numbers may more than not fail to show the “truth” numbers if considered seriously and with no biases more often than not will show you clearly what is false and not true”
“In their own numbers can not and will not ever lie”
Cheers
Whiten:
”one-fourth of human-emissions of carbon dioxide have been absorbed by the oceans over the last ten years”, is as same and equal as claiming and stating that” [is the same and equal to] one-fourth of yearly human-emissions of carbon dioxide have been absorbed by the oceans every year for each year during that ten years period”
Here you make an essential mistake: the removal of any extra CO2 (whatever the cause) above the long term equilibrium per Henry’s law doesn’t depend of the emissions of one year. It depends of the total, accumulated extra CO2 pressure (pCO2) above the equilibrium and nothing else.
That the long term absorption rate remained around 50% (total) of human emissions is pure coincidence as result of human emissions which increased quasi linear each year: a fourfold since 1960, so did the increase in the atmosphere and so did the net sink rate. That gives that the “airborne fraction” over the past 60 years remained about constant.
If human emissions halved, then they would equal the sinks, thus no further increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. If they dropped to zero, the CO2 levels in the atmosphere would drop, until the long term equilibrium was reached again, with a half life time of about 35 years.
If one calculates the difference between yearly emissions and net sink rate, one obtains the theoretical increase of CO2 in the atmosphere: that nicely fits within the huge noise of the (12 month moving average) observed CO2 rate of change:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em6.jpg
The noisy rate of change is caused by short-term temperature variability which is leveling off to near zero in 1-3 years.
the refresh rate or the replenishment rate of the CO2 mass in concentration is at ~10-12% in yearly bases…… a very “Strong” or a very “Quick” one……making the anthropogenic CO2 emission impact on the CO2 concentration as non existent
Any bookkeeper calculating only the incomes and forgetting the expenses would not keep his job for long: all what you have done is adding the emissions and forgetting the sinks.
Without human emissions, seasonal oceanic CO2 emissions are around 50 GtC and seasonal oceanic sinks are around 50 GtC: zero change after a full seasonal cycle. That forms – together with the opposite cycle in vegetation – the 5 year residence time. That doesn’t change the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere with one gram.
Human (and volcanic) emissions add extra CO2: more CO2 pressure: less (oceanic) emissions, more sinks. In the current case the removal of the extra CO2 (half life time about 35 years) is slower than the addition by humans, thus CO2 keeps increasing. That is the full balance…
For the effect on warming, again one need to take into account the total increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. The absorption of outgoing IR was measured by satellites and the back radiation by CO2 was measured by a few ground stations. The theoretical effect of that is known, the real effect is much smaller: the warming of the oceans is only a fraction of what can be expected from the ~2 W/m2 which should have warmed them. So other -natural cooling- factors have a larger effect than the extra warming by CO2…
Ferdinand Engelbeen
July 15, 2017 at 2:39 am
Whiten:
”one-fourth of human-emissions of carbon dioxide have been absorbed by the oceans over the last ten years”, is as same and equal as claiming and stating that” [is the same and equal to] one-fourth of yearly human-emissions of carbon dioxide have been absorbed by the oceans every year for each year during that ten years period”
Here you make an essential mistake:
—————————————————
Ferdinand, are you trying to prove my point that you are dealing in backwards and “negative” math, or are you trying a say that you do not accept and find essentially mistaken the numbers given by NASA-MIT modeling in question???…….because your own understanding and the estimation of the CO2 Flux-concentration has to be considered correct and superior to this NASA-MIT approach……
As far as I can tell, it is clearly not me who has come up with ocean absorbing ratios, either for human CO2 emission or the GH warming.
And still the fact mathematically can not be changed. If the oceans absorb 25% of of 10 years human CO2 emissions, the oceans do absorb 25% of yearly human CO2 emission for each and every one of these 10 years, meaning also that the yearly absorbed of the overall natural emissions is at ~25%, meaning also that the yearly amount of overall emissions making it to CO2 concentration is at ~75% of the yearly CO2 emissions, which leads to the conclusion that 10-12% of CO2 mass concentrated in the atmosphere is refreshed or replenished yearly.
Same yearly ratio you get from a 5 year half life residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere.
That shows a very strong impact of the CO2 flux into the CO2 concentration…..
This NASA-MIT approach and method is definitely more superior than yours or any one previously because it relies in the “tracer”, human co2 emission, to estimate the “translation” and the impact of the CO2 flux into the CO2 concentration, where the human CO2 emissions are much easy and correctly estimated than the natural emissions, and also any errors there will have very very little impact on the estimations, as the human versus natural emissions is very small.
To be continued if you still interested…….got some ’emergency..:)
Ferdinand Engelbeen
July 15, 2017 at 2:39 am
Whiten:
the refresh rate or the replenishment rate of the CO2 mass in concentration is at ~10-12% in yearly bases…… a very “Strong” or a very “Quick” one……making the anthropogenic CO2 emission impact on the CO2 concentration as non existent
Any bookkeeper calculating only the incomes and forgetting the expenses would not keep his job for long: all what you have done is adding the emissions and forgetting the sinks.Sorry because of the hurry, missed to address the explanation about the “book keeping” you mention.
——————
First the mass of the 75% of the yearly overall emissions making it to concentration, means that the other ~75% of the absorbing from the sinks, is from the mass of the CO2 concentration, at ~10-12% of the concentration mass. Aka,the refresh ratio or the replenishment of CO2 concentration ….
Then, second, when considering that the emissions vary far much more significantly than sinks, there will be a considerable variation of the CO2 concentration dependent in the CO2 emissions variation, The time periods when the sinks are equal to the emissions, so to speak, is when there is the same ratio of replenishment without a concentration variation, but these are very short-transitory periods indeed when compared to the overall time period of the variation.
Besides to keep a simple clean book keeping, the refresh ratio as per concentrations, the value was given in a range, and that range, 10-12%, and as it stands can very much count for the CO2 concentration variation……
No meaning to upset you but I still do very much indeed “envy” your book keeping….. and your math….. 🙂
Cheers
Whiten,
That shows a very strong impact of the CO2 flux into the CO2 concentration…
No, the refresh rate has zero impact on the CO2 concentration, no matter if 10 or 100 or 1000 GtC is exchanged with other reservoirs over the seasons… Only the difference between all ins and all outs together does change the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
It is like the turnover of goods – and thus capital – in a factory compared to the gain or loss of the same factory at the end of the fiscal year. Two totally different items. largely independent of each other.
The main problem is that you don’t see that different mechanisms are at work: seasonal changes are temperature driven: as long as the temperature change over the seasons is about the same, then about the same amount of CO2 is transferred in and out oceans and biosphere. Any extra CO2 injection in the atmosphere doesn’t change that. The extra CO2 pressure only changes the balance between inputs (from the oceans) and outputs (both oceans and vegetation). These two mechanisms are practically independent of each other.
First the mass of the 75% of the yearly overall emissions making it to concentration
That doesn’t happen at all: about 60 GtC out and in is exchanged between atmosphere and biosphere over the seasons. About 50 GtC in and out is exchanged between atmosphere and ocean surface. At no point in the year there is (60+50=) 110 GtC (~55 ppmv) extra present in the atmosphere, the maximum is the difference: 10 GtC (~5 ppmv) between biosphere and ocean uptake/release, as both work counter to each other with seasonal temperature changes. But even the (global) +/- 5 ppmv level changes over the (mainly NH) globe get off to near zero at the end of a full year. Thus (near) all of the increase of over 2 ppmv/year is from the 4.5 ppmv/year emissions from humans, not from the seasonal CO2 movements…
Thus again: the refresh rate has next to nothing to do with concentration changes over longer periods (one year for seasonal changes, 1-3 years for natural variability).
when considering that the emissions vary far much more significantly than sinks
Wrong again: the variability is in the sinks, not the sources: mainly the influence of temperature on oceans and tropical vegetation (Pinatubo, El Niño). The latter is even a net CO2 source by (too) warm temperatures and drought during an El Niño period…
As the only overall net source over the past 60 years, human emissions, shows little year by year variability, most variability is in the sinks, driven by temperature (and rain patterns).
Ferdinand Engelbeen
July 15, 2017 at 2:38 pm
Ferdinand……you are really a desperate case…….very very desperate one…..so desperate that you are not even in the Planet B of Nay.
You are in your own B Universe………..Universe B of Engelbeen…..
Sorry for saying that but you are completely backwards with the rationale and math in your arguments, to such a bad point that it really becomes ridiculous to keep having an argument with you…….
You can not even understand why in this study everything is been outside the actual metric quantifying and tightly related to the sinks , either in the case of CO2 or heat content, when GCMs versus reality considered…………..Oh probably because the sinks and their variation have nothing to do either with the CO2 atmospheric concentration or the atmospheric heat content variation….
The other thing that you fail to understand is, that if the CO2 Flux is as strong as shown by this study, then any other flux either in CO2 or Heat content from the earth hard surface is and becomes entirely insignificant when compared to the ocean-atmosphere one, including the bio mass and human CO2 emissions………also in that regard the actual CO2 concentration increment of 120 ppm for the last 150 years is well withing the natural range and is projected to still be with in it for at least another further 80-100 ppm increase, before some one like you can start contemplating that it is becoming “unprecedented”……
Also what you have to consider carefully is that in this study the CO2 Flux is considered in a very tight connection and link to the thermal Flux…
If you dislike and have a problem with this NASA-MIT study, which is clearly based in the “experiment”, and tries to make a connection between the experiment and nature through the “Tracers”, the CO2 human emissions and the GH warming, then please do clearly state so, and stop trying to argue against that study by using me as a passage, and stop claiming that I am wrong when actually almost all your argument about wrong seems very clearly to be about and aimed at the study in question,,,,,,,, please do have some guts for once, if you have to question the authority of this NASA-MIT, please stop hiding your self behind me and my understanding of that study……and state your objections clearly towards the actual target meant….
One more thing,,,,, the human CO2 emissions, the tracer, does not depend and conforms to Henry’s Law, I think…….. and while the ratio of it’s sinking may or may not have to do with that law, still in the context of this study is estimated by the GCM experimental simulation…..and it is taken as a GCM related result, regardless what actual processes carried in that simulation…..
So if you think that you and your hypothesis and backward rationale-math still at this point could be considered as superior in this aspect towards this NASA-MIT study, please do make this clear so we do not keep arguing past each other…………Unless that is what your actual aim and goal is….
cheers
Whiten,
I have very little problems with the NASA-MIT study, I only have problems with your misinterpretation of this study’s meaning…
It is quite simple: every housewife (there are exceptions…) with a very tight to very specious budget knows that no matter how much you have in your pocket at the beginning of the day/week/month: if you spent more than what you start with, you are in trouble…
Like in this case: it doesn’t matter how much CO2 is cycling in and out the atmosphere: at the end of the year, over a full seasonal cycle, all what counts is what ends as plus or minus in the atmosphere. That is already 60 years less than what humans emitted in the same year. Thus humans are (near) fully responsible for the increase in the atmosphere, no matter how much CO2 circulates: about half of human emissions (as mass) is absorbed by oceans and vegetation. Of which about half by the oceans. That is all this study says. Thus the oceans are a net sink for CO2, not the cause of the increase, no matter how much CO2 goes in and out the oceans over the seasons within a year…
Again: how much CO2 circulates within a year between the atmosphere and other reservoirs is not of the slightest interest for what remains in the atmosphere at the end of the year or for the radiation budget
Ferdinand Engelbeen
July 16, 2017 at 12:26 pm
Whiten,
I have very little problems with the NASA-MIT study, I only have problems with your misinterpretation of this study’s meaning…
It is quite simple: every housewife (there are exceptions…) with a very tight to very specious budget knows that no matter how much you have in your pocket at the beginning of the day/week/month: if you spent more than what you start with, you are in trouble…
—————————-
Ha ha, you are resolving now to “pot on a stove” kinda of explanations now to explain and uphold your point and “scientific” understanding of this particular matter…….and yours, the above one, is even worse than the “pot on the stove” one….:)
And this claim of yours is a beautiful example to show how backwards your reasoning and logic is, also your math :
“about half of human emissions (as mass) is absorbed by oceans and vegetation. Of which about half by the oceans. Of which about half by the oceans. That is all this study says.”
——
First, that is not all what this study says, as it clearly says that only 25% of human emissions are absorbed by the Oceans, meaning that ~25% of the overall emissions is absorbed by the Oceans.
You seem to be blind mathematically, that when you try to increase the absorb ratio to 50% for the human emissions by including and invoking vegetation or whatever else, the absorb ratio, or the sink ratio for the overall CO2 emissions does not increase much, by considering the such means and invocations,, as the human versus overall emissions is at the very least 10 times smaller. So you get a very little change in sink ratio to the overall emissions when you would invoke the whole possible sinks there. That actually what this numbers give.
Second that kind of arbitrary increase from 25% to 50% by trying to invoke vegetation, still makes the case of the human emissions even more silly,and weak as of any significant forcing……….you just lost another 25% human CO2 there without a dent in the overall natural CO2 emissions and its flux,, lost more of human CO2 forcing, with no any dent in the CO2 natural flux, without even realizing it.
That is what considered as the effect of a strong CO2 flux..::)
Any mathematical cheap acrobatics will definitely backfire, as there is very very little room for such as acrobatics if the CO2 flux is or happens to be as powerful as given by this study
The “strength” of the CO2 flux is very important and makes a huge difference when trying to asses the possible human impact on it and on to the CO2 concentration…….
According to ratio numbers .given by this study, the Human effect in the CO2 flux and the CO2 atmospheric concentration ends up as non existent…….
Again that is what the strength or the “‘power” of the natural CO2 flux does show, and that is why is so important, and very much interesting……..contrary though to your liking…..
cheers
Whiten,
You really don’t know where you are talking about…
If NASA/MIT says that about 25% of human emissions (as mass, not the original molecules) is absorbed, that does mean that the overall sink capacity is equivalent to 25% of human emissions, whatever drives the sinks.
Your interpretation then is that natural sinks get most of ALL emissions (natural and human together) out of the atmosphere, where human emissions are only a tiny fraction.
No way. That is not what this study says. At no place in the study, they point to the total emissions, as that is completely irrelevant for the removal of any extra CO2 into the atmosphere: the removal of seasonal emissions is (near) completely caused by temperature changes, the removal of any extra CO2 (volcanoes, humans) is (near) only caused by pressure changes. Two different mechanisms with little connection to each other.
Take a fountain where 1,000 l/min is blown in the air and falls back into the basin under the fountain. Someone opens the supply valve, adding 1 l/min of fresh water to the basin. After some time, he measures the increase of the water level in the basin, and concludes that the increase is about 50% of what he added via the supply. The rest probably evaporated or was lost by dropping outside the fountain.
It doesn’t matter at all if the circulating water flow was 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 l/min, the result of the supply valve would be (near) the same… And if he forgot to close the valve, the basin would certainly overflow, even if 1 l/min is only 1% or 0.1% or 0.01% of the circulating waters…
That is about what this study has done: looking at the fate of human emissions, regardless of natural CO2 fluxes.
Ferdinand Engelbeen
July 17, 2017 at 12:41 am
Ferdinand…..
I am really sorry, but I do not think that I should continue further with you in this argument. (or probably any other in the future)
It would be easy for me to excuse my self by simply saying that you have ended up to trolling.
But I do not think that is the reality in this case.
I think more like in the lines of you completely losing your intellectual coherence at this point…..;for not saying worse….
I told you, I think, from my first reply to you to really carefully read and consider my replies and comments to you, before you would ”engage”, something that you may very much have ignored, as it seems.
In your last reply to me you even go so far as to tell me about my own point made, about what I actually meant and tried to argue and explain to you, by portraying it in your own version and according to your own liking, very backwards, perverse and in the actual opposite of what I in my own meant and tried to brink as a line of argument….. in very very a messy and incoherent manner!
Wondering why!
Whatever “gibberish” you tried in your last reply to me, especially when you try to describe what I did mean or what was my point in the other previous arguments and comments to you, shows that you really have a problem………..
Few comments later and few days later, and you end up going backwards and perverse with me, with my own line of argument and may point made.
“I do not think I said or argued or made a point in my earlier comments to you any where near or in a “coherently” backwards manner as described and portrayed by you, in your last reply to me……What do you think!”
cheers
I call “horse puckey” on the entire paper and will gladly list a few points:
1: Using static locations for measuring the temperature of the current near Greenland, observing an increased temperature over time period X, and concluding slowing conveyor action is shortsighted. I am having a difficult time imagining ocean water still giving up equatorial heat sinking beneath Arctic water just a calm night away from freezing. The shortsightedness of the MIT observations is that this gradient/density point is a dynamic data set. The point at which the Gulf Stream waters sink or become well mixed…. (segue: Why is the Gulf Stream sinking at Greenland and not bathing Western Europe and the U.K. in its warmth anymore? Wow! I missed something.) …will depend on the cacophony of expected factors such as water density due to salinity/TDS, temperature, storminess, loop currents/gyres, cloudiness, upwelling/downwelling (forced downwelling), and others I am not considering at this moment.
2: A brief thoughts on the vertical circulation I would point out are the critical importance played by influences of both salinity and temperature on the density of water.
During the Arctic melt season, the input of fresh water from floating ice and land runoff has an observable and significant impact on the density of the surface layers of Arctic region seawater. Would this not have an observable impact on the point of forced redirection of the warmer and saltier waters either vertically or horizontally?
Conversely, during the freeze up periods hypersaline waters are sinking and must also be considered in our thought experiment.
3: I like to use the crude analogies of a naturally circulated utility boiler and a styrofoam cup with a warm liquid containing neutrally buoyant particles to demonstrate and discuss heat circulation/loss in water.
As the power boiler is a long discussion, my thumbs are cramping, and animals are hungry… the cup will suffice.
As an eight year old many decades ago, while making mint jelly under the direct tutelage of my mother, we watched the steeping hot mint purée slowly “turning over” in a big insulated cup. The purée was losing heat at the surface and sinking down the center of the cup, while the warmer purée rose along the sidewalls. I suppose due to my age and curiosity it is a visual and olphactory memory that I recall when the physical explanation made sense, or I eat lamb. Enough of the W.E.’ish memory walk.
Last remark on vertical circulation: watching the satellite visible/color observation of the seasonal plankton blooms reminds me of the circulation, striations, fascination, and mesermerization of a water utility coagulation/precipitation unit (clarifier). The coagulated particles flow with the currents in the water, bunch, settle, the character changes the further you move from the mixer and the overall density of zones of the clarifier changes due to the co-precipitation of both suspended and dissolved solids. Do these MIT and NASA scientists adequately account for the upwelled nutrients and gasses (why would we not consider CO2 to be a nutrient? Why do they even bother to mention nitrogen in the paper?) and the subsequent downwelling? Have they attempted a mass balance of the Si, Ca, Fe, Mg, S, PO4, or K? Are we so blinkered by C, we can’t consider another nutrient, then do a bit of math to establish a mass balance ratio? This may be a good point of reference as an accuracy check.
Off to feed the chickens which are loudly proclaiming my tardiness.
John – it’s just the imprecision of language. You were expected to understand that they meant ‘a fraction of the total CO2 representing 25% of human emitted CO2’.
I think bias towards a foregone conclusion probably led you to not see that – that’s something we all have to guard against.
where is the data that supports the computer models?
Data. Shush!
The oceans are absorbing about one-quarter of human CO2 emissions and about 90% of the actual energy being absorbed by the Earth. So, the basic statements are correct.
Now 90% of the energy is still only about one-third of that originally expected in the climate models and it is only about one-tenth of the total energy that is supposed to be there from GHGs and feedbacks.
So, it is more that 90% of the energy is missing and of the 10% that is showing up, 9% is going into the oceans and 1.0% is going into heating the atmosphere/land and melting ice.
Plants are absorbing another 25% of our emissions so, combined with the ocean, the net absorption rate is close to 50%.
All those numberz make my head start spinnin’!
O
I found it interesting that no mention was made of any heat escaping to space. Since this is the final destination of all heat that visits planet Earth I feel it is important to recognize heat loss in any evaluation of warming. “Additional ” warming, in fact leads directly to additional cooling. We require constant warming from the sun precisely because the game is rigged against us in this way. But according to the AGW theory, heat escape is a constant. This clearly incorrect preconception, plus the obvious determination to not find any potential negative feedback mechanisms, allows the fantasy of AGW to exist. Like the bogeyman, it is terrifying until you look under the bed.
“Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality”.
Nikola Tesla
Stephen Skinner, you did super great.
Your posting of that quote attributed to Nikola Tesla was absolutely, positively appropriate …….. and “right-on-the-money” ……. given all the previous postings that employed “fuzzy” mathematics as their means to crunch and manipulate the guesstimated numerical quantities in futile attempts to offer “proof and reason” to a various collection of climate related “pet theories”.
Stephen,
Tesla’s relationship with reality was pretty dodgy.
And that absurd vague ad hominem serves what purpose?
Likely to distract the conversation and minimize Tesla and Tesla quotes.
Tesla led a brilliant and extremely productive life.
> These results from the computer models of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation are one of the many moving parts that come together in global climate models.
What a disappointment. I thought I was reading about science.
This is the 25th anniversary of the publication of Al Gore’s book ‘Earth in the Balance’, in which the then-senator called for eliminating the internal combustion engine by 2017 or all hell would set loose.
So ,,,,
A thought experiment for my NASA/MIT friends. I have an indoor swimming pool, that has a heat capacity 1000x times the heat capacity of air in the facility. Both the pool temperature and the air temperature are the same. My swimmers complain it is too cold, so I turn on the heat system and raise the air temp by 5 degrees. How much will that raise the temp of the water?
Next I find that my pool heating system is failing to keep the pool at a warm enough temp, so I install a clear membrane that allows the sun to shine into the pool during the day. That raises the temperature of the water. Do you think it would raise the temperature of the air in the facility as well, all other things being equal?
All the atmosphere can do is slow down the release of heat from the oceans to space. Now that does have a small effect on the equilibrium temperature of the oceans, and the atmosphere, but it does not really change the heat going into the oceans in the first place. That is where the convoluted logic, that is being used to “find the missing heat”, goes off the rails.
+10
If you started with the water in the pool being signicantly colder than the air, before long the air and water would be about equal in temperature and the water wouldn’t be much changed.
If you then heated the air for a couple of hundred years, the pool water would be unfit for tropical fish.
“All the atmosphere can do is slow down the release of heat from the oceans to space.”
Yes, and that is exactly what the excess carbon we are pumping into the atmosphere is doing. The heat that would normally be radiated back to space is held within the atmosphere and transferred to the ocean. We didn’t really notice it for the first couple of hundred years, but now the situation is forcing itself upon us and we should do something about it.
Jack Davis
As regards “the pool water would be unfit for tropical fish” check out the Eocene Climate Optimum. You can read reports that the seas were teeming with fish and that the sea surface temperature in some places may have reached 40’C.
When it comes to reversing Climate Change it seems to me reversing it to the Eocene Climate Optimum might be good. Global temperatures 10′ greater than now and much higher levels of CO2. It is also worth reading about the mass extinction event at the end of the Eocene when the climate cooled significantly and ice sheets started developing.
By what mechanism is heat transferred to the ocean from the atmosphere?
The heat in the atmosphere can act as insulation to slow heat loss from the ocean, but by what means does atmospheric heat that only penetrates a millimeter or so into the surface of a turbulent, rough, evaporating ocean surface warm the ocean?
This is the mechanism that is never explained by anyone (including the iPCC), yet we are expected to accept it without a method of how it’s supposed to happen. It sounds like an unsubstantiated, desperate attempt at fobbing off a lack of atmospheric warming for the past 2 decades more than anything else.
We’ve only been pumping large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere for about 70 years. Not several hundred.
Regardless, so freaking what?
Magoo, conductance.
You are missing a critical fact, Jack. The atmosphere doesn’t only slow the cooling of the water. It aso facilitates it! The weather locally and globally is a heat engine. Adding more heat just speeds it up! There has been life in the oceans for 4 billion years! CO2 has often been many times higher than it is now.
The warming we saw in the late 20th century was very minor, it was beneficial and it appears to have ended. These three simple FACTS refute the entirety of AGW theory and the purpose for the existence of the IPCC. They sought to stop mankind’s progress and leave billions in ignorance and poverty. It cannot be allowed!
@ Jack Davis July 13, 2017 at 10:23 pm
BUT, ….. but, ….. but, ….. Jack Davis, …….. the excess carbon we are pumping into the atmosphere in desert locales, ……… such as are located in the southwest USA, in the states of Arizona, New Mexico and Death Valley in California, ……. don’t slow down one damn bit, …… the release of surface heat back into space from which it came.
Care to explain that, Jack?
When I dive in the ocean the deeper I go, the darker it gets and the colder the water is. The upper layers are absorbing warmth from the sun, not the atmosphere. The only time it is colder above is when the water is loosing heat to the cold atmosphere. That is why water freezes from the surface down, not from the bottom up. Water has a large capacity to warm the air above it, because heat rises, and water has a higher density, and greater heat capacity than air. Air has a very low capacity to heat the colder water below it. The tropical sun heats the oceans, and to a lesser degree the mid-latitude sun. The polar sun barley penetrates the surface of the water, for most of the year.
The atmosphere is warmed as the oceans release that heat to space. There is no guarantee that the oceans will give up the heat, in a continuous stream in direct proportion to incoming heat. The Pacific is a vast heat pump, and sometimes it is storing heat, and sometimes it is releasing it, and that is why the climate varies. It has been going on for millennia and will continue to do so. Climate change politics has nothing to do with the actual climate. It is not about the Gulf Stream or the Jet Stream. It is about controlling the Energy Revenue Stream.
Samuel Cogar – nothing to explain – the CO2 in the atmosphere does absorb heat radiated back from deserts. It still gets cold at night in the desert – we’re talking effects noticeable on a timescale of decades.
John Harmsworth,
I’m not ignoring that, and it’s my answer to Magoo – the air and the ocean are in constant exchange of heat – it’s a very turbulent system, as anyone ever caught in a storm will attest.
Jack Davis, you say: “we’re talking effects noticeable on a timescale of decades.” You are correct, and they’ve even measured this effect: https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html
What excess carbon? It was there before natural processes sequestered it. Who says it is “excess”? Looks about right to me given how well those Carboniferous plants and plankton must have been doing a few million years ago. Excess to what?
Looks like opinion, not science.
Sunlight comming down to the surface meets mostly water (2/3) and heats it. Vegetated land has 1000 times more heat capacity than air. Water has five times more heat capacity than vegtated land.
So you can just look at the oceans to see whats going on. The rest is peanuts.
Water at a certain temperature will radiate a certain amount of energy towards space. Clouds and the so-called greenhouse gasses will dampen this effect a bit.
Hotter air will cause more convection, ergo more heat tranfer towards top of atmosphere, where it will be radiiated towards space. Means more cooling. Hurricanes and cyclones are the extreme sort of convection, keeping the Ocean surface below 30°C maximum.
Hotter water and air will cause more evaporation. Means more clouds. Clouds are protecting the surface from beeing heated up.
ENSO (El Nino/La Nina) is the extreme kind of heat release from water to the atmosphere. It releases this much heat, that it affects the atmosphere for some months.
MARKW:
‘Conductance’ is the theory of how heat gets from the atmosphere into the ocean, but in reality it doesn’t wash. The warmth from the atmosphere only warms the top millimeter or so, which will quickly be expelled by both evaporation and turbulence on the ocean surface – there’s no way it can warm the ocean to depths more than a millimeter or so.
JACK DAVIS:
‘it’s my answer to Magoo – the air and the ocean are in constant exchange of heat – it’s a very turbulent system, as anyone ever caught in a storm will attest.’
The air can only really transfer heat to the ocean during La Ninas. The warmth from the atmosphere only warms the top millimeter or so, which will quickly be expelled by both evaporation and turbulence on the ocean surface. The chances of any warming below the immediate surface as a result of a warm atmosphere are nil.
Magoo, if you knew anything about thermodynamics, and the flow of heat, you would know that heat will flow from air to water if the temperature of the air is higher than the temperature of the water. It doesn’t matter at akk one stinking millimeter, the direction of flow is always from warm to cold. PERIOD. Nothing you can post can refute this fact of reality.
MICHAEL DARBY:
Try warming your bath up by blowing warm air on the surface with a hairdryer whilst stirring the bath, see how much it warms.
Where does the heat go when the surface of the ocean evaporates, back to the atmosphere? The more you heat, the more it evaporates.
Where does the heat go when you stir a pot of boiling water and it ceases boiling momentarily? Guess what happens to the heat in the top millimeter of the ocean when the ocean is churned up with swells of a metre or more. Bye, bye surface heat.
Heat can be transferred into the water from the atmosphere, but that doesn’t mean it will stay there. Surface temperature is different from deeper warming – heat stored 2 kilometers down isn’t expelled as easily as that in the top millimeter during rough surface conditions.
There is a better example than bathtubs.
Swimming pools.
As anyone who has one knows, one cold night will cool of a pool by more than a week of blazing sun and hot temps can add back in.
A recap, Sam C queried:
Jack D responded to the above query: July 14, 2017 at 11:35 am
Jack Davis, there is no scientific evidence or historically recorded records that proves the daytime near-surface temperatures in the desert southwest have been gradually warming up (increasing) during the past 150+ years (15+ decades) ……… even though atmospheric CO2 ppm has increased 120 ppm (280 to 404 ppm).
And Jack D, there is also no scientific evidence or historically recorded records that proves the nighttime near-surface temperatures in the desert southwest have been gradually warming up during the past 150+ years (15+ decades) ……… even though atmospheric CO2 ppm has increased 120 ppm (280 to 404 ppm).
So, I’m asking you, Jack Davis, ….. just who in the hell is it, or was it, that has been noticing or noticeable of those “warming effects” on a timescale of decades?
Magoo, when warm moist air hits a cold body of water, the moisture in the air condenses onto the surface of the water transferring heat to the water. You’ve seen morning dew on land, it’s the same process. The problem is that you can’t see the dew condensing onto the water.
MICHAEL DARBY:
The problem with your dew theory is that the ocean surface is usually warmer than the air & land at night, as the ocean releases the warmth that it has stored from the sun at a slower rate.
I actually do have an indoor pool that is enclosed in an uninsulated metal building with no windows to allow sunlight to heat the water. The pool is above ground and insulated, so there is only heat loss to the ground at the bottom of the pool. The air temp inside can get to 110 F (and above) easily in the summer, but that does very little to raise the water temp. I also have a rudimentary solar water heater consisting of a 100′ length of black poly tube uncoiled outside that is connected to the pool pump. That can raise the pool temp 4-5 degrees F in a day (to a point that I haven’t determined yet). If I leave the pump on during cool nights, the water temp will drop noticeably. If I turn it off during the night, the same drop in temp doesn’t occur.
This tells me that a still body of water absorbs little heat from the air.
I should have mentioned a phenomena that I didn’t expect. I put a fan in the building because I expected the humidity to go through the roof, so to speak. The exact opposite occurred during the day. The humidity gets so low during the day that the meter doesn’t even register it, even though water is dripping off of the ceiling in the morning. This shows that a lot of interior heat during the day is going into evaporation rather than the body of pool water itself.
I had a very similar set up. Something wrong with your rh readings there though . Mine worked great in the spring to raise the water temp, but even at 100f I couldn’t get the water above mid 70’s. I just lost more water to evaporation. I eventually made a heat exchanger to heat off my boiler.
“Something wrong with your rh readings there though”
Could be, but several units do the same thing. 60-70% rh in the morning and then once the visible moisture is driven off they read “LO”. There are many air gaps at the corners of the building where the metal siding meets, plus many screw holes in the faces of the metal panels (I bought it used). So the only thing I can figure out is that the intense heat drives out the water vapor faster through air flow than water evaporates from the pool. I can be in there at 110 F and I can definitely feel it, but it’s not like a humid 110 F. It really is an unusual and unexpected outcome.
Was your building sealed fairly well preventing air exchange with the outside?
Relative humidity is a measure of the moisture content of the air “relative” to how much the air is able to hold. As air temperature rises, it is able to hold much more air, therefore its relative humidity will go down, even though the total or “absolute” humidity ( the actual number of molecules of water in the air ) has not changed. If your hygrometer was more accurate, as opposed to just reading “low”, I think it would show that you still have a relative humidity over 50%.
When rh gets to 100%, you have condensation on any surface cooler than the air temperature.
What you are describing is how a swamp cooler works minus fans. Swamp coolers are very inefficient in high humid areas such as Florida where as they are very efficient in dry climates such as AZ.
Even Florida has a very long dry season during which time evaporative cooling systems work just fine.
This looks to me like linear global extrapolation based on short-term, local trends. Where have we seen this before?
“Where have we seen this before?”
In Russia R’s pool?
Russ – not Russia! Sorry – bloody predictive text!
“Most of the excess heat from climate change will go into the ocean eventually, we think,” Romanou said. “Most of the excess chemical pollutants and greenhouse gases will be buried in the ocean. But the truth is that the ocean recirculates that extra load and, at some point, will release some of it back to the atmosphere, where it will keep raising temperatures, even if future carbon dioxide emissions were to be much lower than they are now.”
And that future raising temperature will increase the CO2 levels in the atmosphere which will again warm the ocean which will then warm the atmosphere which will then warm the… whoa, I must be having a bad day, ’cause it sounds like it will just continue until the oceans boil.
Perpetual motion is alive and well at MIT.
Love that: “we think”. So this isn’t an actual scientific paper, but just the opinions of a couple of warmist shills?
Thought so.
When plants absorb CO2 molecules, those molecules leave the atmosphere, don’t they? If the oceans are also absorbing CO2, don’t we risk a CO2 deficit? Where am I going wrong?
“Where am I going wrong?”
Well, there’s a fair amount of extra CO2 to play with:
“According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the world’s volcanoes, both on land and undersea, generate about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while our automotive and industrial activities cause some 24 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year worldwide.”
That’s more than 100 times what volcanoes produce – produced by us!
And how much does mankind know about the volcanos under the oceans? Sounds like U.S. Geological survey is pulling figures out of their hat.
The volcanoes have been doing it for over 4 billion years. So why aren’t the oceans boiling cauldrons of acid?
And Jack Davis, termite colonies world wide emit 10 times more CO2 each year than humans do.
Horace,
Most of the CO2 uptake by plants is recycled within a few months to a few decades, when the plant dies or is eten as feed/food. Only what is stored in more permanent layers (humus, peat, browncoal, coal) over many years is removed out of the atmosphere.
The same for the oceans: what sinks near the poles is mostly returned the same year (in quantity, the original molecules need +/- 800 years…) by the upwelling zones near the equator.
In both cases, the extra CO2 pressure caused by human emissions caused a little more (permanent) uptake than release by oceans and plants.
That does go on until the “old” equilibrium between CO2 in the ocean surface and the atmosphere is reached again. For the current average ocean surface temperature, that is about 290 ppmv.
For (C3 type) plants, already at the low side, 1000 ppmv and more are ideal for that type of plants (all trees, most other plants).
This is only partially correct. The most absorbed CO2 of the individual plant is returned to the atmosphere on medium-term time scales (except the plankton sinking to the seabed), but in long-term time scales C is permanently sequestrated by the build-up of a humus layer in the soil. And the thicker this humus layer becomes the more. In addition, CO2 is permanently stored by renewable wood or plant parts (if you look at it as a whole and do not fall down on the individual plant). For example, old forests are not net CO2 sinks, but they store C permanently when they remain in the stable state (regrowth of the dead plants). Moreover, the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere also improves the ability of the plants to absorb CO2 and a stable forest management helps to store C permanently. If, of course, forests are burned, they lose their ability to do so. For the formation of a humus layer as described in the entry of my post, by the way, Grassland contributes much more than the forest. So this is also important for the long-term storage of CO2.
Hans-Georg,
Based on the oxygen (and δ13C) balance, the total seasonal carbon cycle is about 60 GtC in and out within a full year, while the more permanent storage is around 1 GtC/year (up to 2002) and around 2 GtC/year nowadays. That includes the uptake by plankton organics, as these also use/produce oxygen. The oxygen release / uptake by the ocean surface is accounted for as the solubility of O2 in seawater with temperature is known, thus any extra release is from bio-life in the oceans.
As the ratio between CO2 uptake and the extra CO2 pressure in the atmosphere above the ocean-atmosphere equilibrium of oceans + bio-life is surprisingly linear over the past 50 years and the uptake by the oceans is linear per Henry’s law (with a small correction for the temperature increase), the ratio between extra CO2 pressure in the atmosphere and the extra uptake by plants in more permanent storage must be quite linear too…
I wouldn’t call it linear Ferdinand.
The net absorption rate has increased from 0 GTs to about 5.0 GTs expected this year. It is rising as the amount of excess CO2 is rising. That rate is about 1.8% of the excess above 280 ppm, but this rate might also be increasing as well.
FerdiEgb:
“Only what is stored in more permanent layers (humus, peat, browncoal, coal) over many years is removed out of the atmosphere.”
Don’t forget the carbonates, Ferd. They probably out-mass peat and coal by a wide margin.
Bill Illis,
I was surprised myself when I saw how linear the uptake was, while many of the sink processes are far from linear (CO2 diffusion in plant alveoli – water – organic chain reactions)…
In 1959: 25 ppmv, 0.5 ppmv/year, 50 years, half life time 34.7 years
In 1988: 60 ppmv, 1.13 ppmv/year, 53 years, half life time 36.8 years
In 2012: 110 ppmv, 2.15 ppmv/year, 51.2 years or a half life time of 35.5 years.
That looks very linear, even with a quadrupling of the extra CO2 pressure in the atmosphere above steady state and widely within the borders of accuracy of the emission inventories and natural sink capacity variability.
Another desk bound short sighted estimate; aka useless.
“Ms. Werner and her colleagues found that Yellowstone’s Mud Volcano area produced about 176,300 tons of carbon dioxide each year.
Loosely expanding those figures based on the park’s underlying geology, they suggest that each year the entire park may emit about 44 million tons of carbon dioxide, a colorless, odorless and incombustible gas.”
One mud volcano – 176,000+ tons per year.
One volcanic area – 44 million tons per year.
“Ash column generated by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, a volcano in the Philippines Luzon volcanic arc, on June 12, 1991. The climactic eruption of Mount Pinatubo occurred three days later on June 15, 1991, and was one of the largest eruptions of this century. The climactic event lasted about 9 hours and erupted over a cubic mile of rock material. It injected a 20- million ton sulfur dioxide cloud into the stratosphere to an altitude of more than 20 miles. ”
One 9 hour major volcano eruption – 20 million tons.
Currently active volcanoes:
Name _________________ Location _________ Activity
Bogoslof _________ Fox Islands (USA)________ New
Fuego ________________ Guatemala __________ New
Rincon de la Vieja ___ Costa Rica ____________ New
Sheveluch _______Central Kamchatka (Russia) New
Aira ________________ Kyushu (Japan) _______ Ongoing
Bezymianny _____ Central Kamchatka (Russia) __ Ongoing
Cleveland _______ Chuginadak Island (USA)_____ Ongoing
Copahue ____Central Chile-Argentina border ____ Ongoing
Dukono ____________Halmahera (Indonesia) ___ Ongoing
Ebeko _________Paramushir Island (Russia) ____ Ongoing
Karymsky ______ Eastern Kamchatka (Russia) ___ Ongoing
Kilauea ________Hawaiian Islands (USA) _______ Ongoing
Klyuchevskoy __ Central Kamchatka (Russia) ____ Ongoing
Nishinoshima __________ Japan ______________ Ongoing
Poas __________________ Costa Rica _________ Ongoing
Sabancaya ________________ Peru ___________ Ongoing
Santa Maria _____________Guatemala _________ Ongoing
Sinabung ________________Indonesia _________ Ongoing
Turrialba _______________Costa Rica _________ Ongoing
• These are solely the active magma volcanoes; e.g. Yellowstone is not listed. Hundreds of volcanoes are simmering away and emitting volcanic gases.
• There are a great number of active mud volcanoes.
• There are far greater numbers of active hot springs and geysers.
• Then there are many tens of thousand miles active rifts and volcanically active faults; “ring of fire”.
Your estimate above is specious, at best.
ATheoK,
The Pinatubo eruption, one of the largest of the previous century emitted a lot of CO2 besides SO2, but its effect on the CO2 increase in the atmosphere was negative: the temperature drop and the increase of photosynthesis due to scattered sunlight (by the SO2/water drops in the stratosphere) had more effect that the extra CO2…
Several active volcanoes are actively followed, one of the most active is mount Etna, Sicily, Italy:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v351/n6325/abs/351387a0.html
That is a subduction volcano, where the CO2 from the carbonate rock from the sea bottom is recycled into the atmosphere. Deep magma volcanoes (Hawaii, Iceland) and most arc volcanoes (mid-Atlantic rift) have much lower releases. The latter -mostly- do not even reach the atmosphere and CO2 is already absorbed in the enormous mass of C species in the deep oceans.
Thus still, volcanic emissions are only a fraction of human emissions. Moreover, there is no sign that volcanic emissions/eruptions increased over time. Seems overall rather constant with stochastic peaks and calm periods…
“The world’s oceans are like brakes slowing down the full effects of greenhouse gas warming of the atmosphere.”
Presumption without supportive evidence in the way of measurement or observations! Court rules Inadmissible!
Another Religious Preamble Fail from a “Pope Want-A-Be”.
BTW the Catholic Church has never admitted a woman to the Papacy and neither with the Church Of The Anthropocene (An-flop-ocene) irrespective of the “Old Girls Club” of the American Geophysical Union, American Meterological Society, American Physical Society and the National Academies of Science – Medicine – Engineering and the National Science Board and the NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION.
“Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink!” … heard after a FY18 budget hearing in Congress.
I’m not a smart man, usually, but if the ocean banks the excess heat and the ocean is getting bigger because of the excess heat, wouldn’t a bigger ocean benefit the globally warming theory?
Yes, and it should be evident as a marked acceleration of sea levels above the long run trend, beginning with the advent of the CO2 Era in ~1950.
This should be obvious in every tide gauge around the globe, and most obvious in the longest records.
Instead there is zero evidence of any marked change in sea level rise in any tide gauge that begins in~1950. I can think of one single exception for a tide gauge in the western pacific, who’s trend change was caused by a strong earthquake.
These are climastrologists…they have never let actual real world observations intrude into the fairly tales they spin so fancifully.
The oceans are two-thirds of earths surface, and it reflects less light than land, hence 90% of what is not reflect is in the oceans, ok, that’s fine.
So why did this fail to prevent warming between 1970 to 1990s, then what changed from 2000 to present, when it suddenly decided to hide the missing heat deep?
I am sure the explanation was written down, unfortunately their dog ate the homework?
They’re trying to explain the lack of rising temperatures anyway they can.
One day the warmists will work out that their theory is completely wrong. Possibly after the next glacial period starts. Nah, they’ll just blame carbon dioxide, that incredibly magical molecule.
That is the wonder of CO2 and its basic physics.
Before one can properly understand science, it is necessary to get the basics right, and it is vital to properly understand the basic physics of the CO2 molecule and what this can do in the real world. Let me briefly detail:
The basic physics of CO2 is that at times, increasing levels of CO2 cause the atmosphere to warm, but not the oceans. But other times, the basic physics of increasing levels of CO2 is that it does not cause the atmosphere to warm, but instead energy completely (or very substantially) by passes the atmosphere all together, and instead it causes the oceans to warm
Another of the basic physics of CO2 is that at times, increasing levels of CO2 will not cause the atmosphere to warm nor the top of the oceans, but instead energy will completely by pass both of these and will instead cause the mid to deep ocean to warm.
Yet a further example of the basic physics of the CO2 molecule is that at times (say between 1940 to mid 1975) rising levels of CO2 neither cause the atmosphere nor the oceans to warm, but instead impacts upon climate scientists brains causing them to adjust data so as to get rid of the 1940s blip (as documented in the Climategate emails).
The basic physics of the CO2 molecule is truly one of the 7 wonders of the modern world.
There is a nasty ole Anthropogenic Global Warming secret about CO2 that the proponents of CAGW are not telling you. Surprise, surprise, there are actually two (2) different types of CO2.
There is both a naturally occurring CO2 molecule and a hybrid CO2 molecule that has a different physical property. The new hybrid CO2 molecule contains an H-pyron which permits one to distinguish it from the naturally occurring CO2 molecules.
The H-pyron or Human-pyron is only attached to and/or can only be detected in CO2 molecules that have been created as a result of human activity. Said H-pyron has a Specific Heat Capacity of one (1) GWC or 1 Global Warming Calorie that is equal to 69 x 10 -37th kJ/kg K or something close to that or maybe farther away.
Thus, said H-pyron is very important to all Climate Scientists that are proponents of CO2 causing Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) because it provides them a quasi-scientific “fact” that serves two (2) important functions: 1) it permits said climate scientists to calculate an estimated percentage of atmospheric CO2 that is “human caused” ……. and 2) it permits said climate scientists to calculate their desired “degree increase” in Average Global Temperatures that are directly attributed to human activity.
As an added note, oftentimes one may hear said climate scientists refer to those two (2) types of CO2 as “urban CO2” and ”rural CO2” because they can’t deny “it is always hotter in the city”.
And there you have it folks, the rest of the story, their secret scientific tool has been revealed to you.
Yours truly, Eritas Fubar
Don’t forget, at times it causes warming that is unmeasurable in any medium- yet still dangerous!
When I got to “Using two computer models that simulate the ocean” I realized that it’s models all the way down and there was no need to read any further.
Exactly, if it doesn’t say “Using two computer models that simulate the ocean, we optimized our experimental design for our data collection/sensor build …” then I stop reading.
Aye!
Then the researchers finish with:
Quite an assumption there. Without proof.
Then there is the impending disaster money quote, “warming commitment”, that people will eventually have to contend with”.
When is that?
2,000 years?
3,000 years?
Never?
Ocean depths hold incredible volumes of very cold water. At the current ocean heating rate of, 0.017°C per decade for a very small amount of ocean. The true answer is never.
The quantitative finding on CO2 absorption by the oceans is likely to be erroneous — as they are not accounting for the biological processes that remove CO2 from both the air and the water. CFCs may be a good proxy for ocean/atmosphere mixing, but not for CO2 accounting.
Someone doesn’t know their diffusion theory very well do they.
CO2 will only be taken up by the oceans if the partial pressure of CO2 are towards that happening
Oceans hold 98% of the world’s CO2, and Henry’s law etc control the interchange
CFC’s on the other hand are probably not at high relative concentrations in the ocean relative to the atmosphere.
So the whole premise of the study is based on NONSENSE. !!!
CFC’s are NOT a good marker for CO2 !
Not sure that Henry’s law applies strictly to CO2. It would apply to CFCs, which are just gases that dissolve in water according to temperature and partition with the atmosphere. But CO2 doesn’t just dissolve, it reacts with water, so that most of the CO2 in sea water is in the form of bicarbonate and/or carbonate ions. And this of course makes it available to carbonate-shelled organisms that are busy living, dying and sinking to the bottom, i.e. sequestering the demon gas.
So don’t expect it to come bubbling back in the near future.
Smart Rock,
“But CO2 doesn’t just dissolve, it reacts with water, so that most of the CO2 in sea water is in the form of bicarbonate and/or carbonate ions.”
Exactly correct, and the formation of those ions moves seawater towards the acidic end of the scale.
I don’t think we should, based on what we recall of eighth grade chemistry, jump to the conclusion NASA planetary scientists don’t understand science.
AndyG55,
You need to make a distinction between the ocean surface and the deep ocean. Only the ocean surface has a direct contact with the atmosphere over a large area. The surface contains ~1000 GtC inorganic carbon mainly as bicarbonates, comparable to the ~800 GtC in the atmosphere.
Henry’s law is only for the gaseous form of CO2 in seawater, which is only 1% of all inorganic carbon in seawater, thus a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere in first instance only increases total carbon in the surface with 1%. Thanks to its buffer working, the other carbon species also increase, so that the total increase is about 10% of the change in the atmosphere.
The main oceanic CO2 sink is where the cold ocean waters sink in the deep: the pCO2 difference there is maximal with a difference of 400 μatm (atm) and 250 μatm (ocean surface). Ocean chemistry and buffer capacity don’t play any role once in the deep oceans, thus the sinking waters still are largely undersaturated for CO2. Temperature at the surface reduces the pCO2 difference between atmosphere and surface (+16 μatm/K) somewhat, but that is only a small percentage of the uptake speed. The same, but reverse at the upwelling sites.
Thus CFC’s are not good tracers for the CO2 uptake in the ocean surface, but are good tracers for following the fate of human CO2 in the deep oceans (as good as the 14C from the atomic bomb tests is).
“Using two computer models that simulate the ocean, NASA and MIT scientists found that gases are more easily absorbed over time than heat energy.”
When I got to this sentence. I stopped. What follows is mathematical onanism not science. Science would be measuring the the amounts of heat and gas the oceans absorb. But that would be expensive, time consuming tedious, sweaty, and dirty. It would take years. Why not pad your resume with a garbage paper based on fun with numbers.
““Using two computer models that simulate the ocean, NASA and MIT scientists found that gases are more easily absorbed over time than heat energy.”
When I got to this sentence. I stopped. What follows is mathematical onanism not science.”
It doesn’t pay to underestimate the power of modern computer modelling. The models would have all relevant physical chemistry parameters built into them – think of them as calculators rather than models – that’s how they are employed. It is standard practice in many fields of science to use these ‘simulation calculators’ on super computers to investigate complex situations that can be tackled no other way.
I guess that explains why there are more than 90 climate models, all disagreeing with each other and not one of them agreeing with reality.
http://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Climate-Model-Comparison-1024×921.png
If your assertion was correct, there would be but one climate model for each of the three CO2 scenarios (ie., BAU, reducing CO2 emissions, no further CO2 emissions). What we know as fact is that your assertion is very far wide of the mark.
This is already true, but the chemical and physical mechanisms of the climate system are only partially (in the direction of catastrophic heating), while some existing thermostats of the system are missing in the models. However, I trust the models already, the discrepancy described in the work between the absorption of heat (why is this word in English always described only with heat, between cold and heat there are many intermediate stages, I praise nevertheless the German language) and of gases in a “quieter” ocean. This is work, which can also be simulated in the laboratory.
Jack Davis: “The models would have all relevant physical chemistry parameters built into them ”
Then please plug in the actual parameter values of the Mars’ atmosphere and, show that the model correctly models the Mars’ atmosphere. And then as a follow up, please explain which parameter over-rides the CO2 Greenhouse Property since CO2 traps no heat on Mars.
I have some mortgage bonds that you would like to buy — cheap. They were created with mathematical models have all relevant economic parameters built into them. – think of them as calculators rather than models – that’s how they are employed. It is standard practice in many fields of science to use these ‘simulation calculators’ on super computers to investigate complex situations that can be tackled no other way.
A fool and his money …
Jack: Not even in theory. Here are your assignments:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navier%E2%80%93Stokes_equations
Climate Models for the Layman By Judith Curry, GWPF, 2017 http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2017/02/Curry-2017.pdf
Believing in Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, and Climate Models
“The models would have all relevant physical chemistry parameters built into them – think of them as calculators rather than models – that’s how they are employed. ”
You’ve just verified Stephen Skinner’s comment above
“Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality”. – Nikola Tesla
Add this to your assignment list:
“This is How Climate Works – Part 2” Guest essay by Mike Jonas posted on January 29, 2017
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/29/this-is-how-climate-works-part-2/
“All output from all climate computer models – as currently structured – is a work of fiction.”
“As the IPCC itself said (AR4 WG1): ‘we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled nonlinear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.'”
CO2 in the ocean does not behave like an inert tracer gas. It is reactive and it is converted to carbonates by organisms which die and sink to the bottom never to be seen again.
Yep, that too. 🙂
Except as limestone millions of years later.
Exactly. What is the solubility of an acid gas in an infinitely buffered alkaline solution?
Let me begin by saying that I am neither a physicist nor a mathematician. But, I don’t think I am an idiot either.
When looking at the Earth and its atmosphere, I notice that:
1. 70% of the earth is covered by water,
2. the atmosphere is mostly transparent,
3. most of the sunlight, which is the source of the energy that powers the climate, falls on the oceans, which are dark, and must therefore absorb most of that energy.
4. that the mass of oceans is more than 200x the mass of the atmosphere, and the specific heat of water is 4.2x that of air.
Doesn’t all of this mean that we should begin our study of the climate with the oceans. Are they not the dog?, and, is not the atmosphere the tail? (actually few, if any, dogs have a tail that is one thousandth of their body).
“and, is not the atmosphere the tail? ”
More like a flea on the tale of the dog. 😉
And anthropogenic emissions might be one hair on the flea.
The idiots are on the side that thinks 0.04% of the air can warm undersea to any depth.
So sad that NASA & MIT can’t figure out that the sun deposits all the heat that enters the ocean, nor that it takes time for that heat to resurface, and that all the heat they think the air is losing to the ocean is going to space.
…except for seamount activity…
“Bob Weber July 13, 2017 at 8:18 pm
The idiots are on the side that thinks 0.04% of the air can warm undersea to any depth.”
It’s worse than that. The claim is only human emissions of CO2 are driving climate change, so that’s about 4% of that 0.04%. 9.99999999999999999/10th’s of SFA.
Exactly Bob.
I never even got to this in my comment on their factual errors.
They state several times that water which descends as part of the thermohaline circulation can reappear at the surface in a few years.
Once that water gets cold and dense, and then sinks, it encounters water which is very cold. It does not soon appear again at the surface.
It is instead gone, most likely on an 800 or so year sojourn to the deep ocean.
“Doesn’t all of this mean that we should begin our study of the climate with the oceans. Are they not the dog?, and, is not the atmosphere the tail?”
Yes, I guess it’s because we inhabit the ‘tail’ that we are more conscious of changes there. Perhaps if Earth’s sentient/industrial species were the dolphins they would have noticed the problem earlier – though they might have had difficulty getting the coal fired power stations running in the first place!
The ‘tail’ atmosphere is what drives the greenhouse effect though – without it, the energy absorbed during the day by all that ocean (and land) would be sent off planet in the night.
You’ve actually come to an understanding that is in complete agreement with the accepted science.
In my opinion the front end of the dog is better in many ways Jack, but you choose of course.
Jack Davis July 14, 2017 at 1:36 am
With your greenhouse effect warming the deep oceans, why are the same deep oceans on an 85 million year cooling track, losing ~18K over that time.
When do you expect the oceans will be back at the temperature they were around 85 million years ago?
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1029/2011JC007255/asset/supinfo/jgrc12191-sup-0010-fs09.pdf?v=1&s=79e93e124ca1fd8a33753fc667ff17deaa20b3e6
from this study
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011JC007255/abstract
“The ‘tail’ atmosphere is what drives the greenhouse effect though – without it, the energy absorbed during the day by all that ocean (and land) would be sent off planet in the night.”
Wrong again. Water holds 4.2 times as much heat as air. It loses heat far more slowly than air. Water temperature varys far less over the diurnal cycle than air temperatures.
the impact of their warming on the climate has been dramatically reduced.???? their warming IS part of the Climate … circular logic …
Sorry if I sound a bit confused but why then do the oceans cool down when the seasons change from summer to winter? Where does all that accumulated heat go?
Computers have become marvels at animated simulations. Whether or not they represent reality is another thing. Sadly the scientist behind the work strongly believe so and with the support of the media, forgone conclusions are promoted as the final word.
When someone demonstrates basic ignorance of the subject material, why would you believe anything they have to say about some crystal ball gazing guesswork regarding the future evolution thereof?3.png)
And when assumptions are made at the outset of any study that are questionable at best, of what value is the work done? If these underlying assumptions are wrong, then everyone’s time has been wasted.
“The red line on the map shows the Gulf Stream current, the surface portion of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation”
The map shows a red arc originating in the Atlantic ocean, and approaching Florida from the East, turning north up the East coast of the US, and then swinging northeastward.
But that is not the path taken by the Gulf Stream!
The Gulf Stream originates in…wait for it…the Gulf! The Gulf of Mexico to be specific. It then passes through the straits of Florida between Cuba and the Florida Keys, turns northward and runs very close to the East coast of Florida until gradually moving offshore starting at around Palm Beach.
The red arc is about 50% comprised of an area called the Antilles Current.
Basic factual error of a glaring nature.
“In the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf Stream is part of what’s called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a conveyor belt of ocean water that carries warm water from Florida to Greenland where it cools and sinks to 1000 meters (about 3281 feet) or more before traveling back down the coast to the tropics.”
Calling this a conveyor belt is ridiculous and unsupportable.
The implication is, that it is only the water sinking in the North Atlantic that draws the Gulf Stream northward out of the tropics.
This is mostly false.
The Gulf stream is largely wind driven.
And it is also driven by the currents which converge into the Gulf of Mexico…the North Equatorial Current, and an incredibly long fetch of water from near Cape Horn which is comprised of, in turn, the Benguela Current, The Guinea Current, the South Equatorial Current, and the Caribbean current.
All of that water has to go somewhere!
It may be that water becoming dense and sinking in the north Atlantic is where some of the water of the western limb of the North Atlantic gyre winds up, but I think it is far from proven to be the case that world wide oceans currents will grind to a halt if less water sinks near Greenland!
It is not like it has nowhere else to go, and the winds are still pushing water, in any case.
Several assumptions on very weak evidence, and that flat out ignore huge inputs.
And then there is this:
“Adding heat to the ocean, in contrast, slows down the overturning circulation because ocean currents depend on temperature gradients – moving from warmer locations to cooler locations – that weaken under global warming as cooler waters heat up”
Now, just on the basics, this is plainly illogical. If ocean currents depend on temperature gradients (they seem to have forgotten that wind is a thing, but letting that go for now), and the globe and hence the oceans are warming, this would equate to an increase in the energy of the system. So there is that.
And the tropics are still hot, all year around. And the polar regions are still very cold, especially in Winter season. And what is the difference in temperature between these regions? Is there any indication of warming oceans to an extent that approaches magnitude of the difference in the temperature of the ocean between the tropical and the polar regions? Are they talking about the missing heat which is hiding in the deep ocean again?
The inanity is breathtaking.
Large groups of supposedly educated people just making stuff up, and then play pretending it is real and that they are scientists saving the world.
They do not even seem to have much idea of what they are talking about, regarding the basics of the subject matter of ocean currents.
Ocean currents depend on temperature gradients?
Did they really do an entire study of ocean currents and never once mention a thing called wind?
Of course, if they have there way, we may just suck a large amount of the wind energy in the atmosphere into the electric grid, and this really might slow down the currents.
Here are maps of worldwide ocean currents and generalized atmospheric circulation patterns…wind.
Notice any similarities?
http://www.seos-project.eu/modules/oceancurrents/images/global_currents.png
Now that is a great map of the oceans, thanks for posting.
Yes, that is one really great Ocean model when they have the AMOC completely wrong.
This is what happens when climate scientists move into other areas. They take their pre-conceived notions with them and end up with the completely wrong analysis.
I made a series of comments on this thread which people should find interesting.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/22/yet-another-prediction-of-doom-over-greenland-ice-melt-and-the-amoc-that-we-can-ignore/#comment-2127010
Archived version that preserves some of the important charts.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160124095602/http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/22/yet-another-prediction-of-doom-over-greenland-ice-melt-and-the-amoc-that-we-can-ignore/#comment-2127146
That was a great comment thread Bill.
There was another one a while before this one where a bunch of people really drilled down into the physics of water density and salinity, and just where the deep cold water really does originate.
Let me look for it.
It was around when I first started commenting here.
Nicely done, excellent post. Other basic science they conveniently ignore!
We know:
1) All Greenland and Vostock ice core analysis show that Earth’s temperature changes ALWAYS leads CO2 concentration changes by ~400 years on way up and ~800 years on the way down.
2) Cold water is denser and sinks, warm water is less dense and rises (as does air).
3) Cold water can retain more dissolved CO2 and outgasses excess CO2 as it warms.
4) Land surfaces warm faster than the oceans.
5) Plant life flourishes in warmer climates with adequate moisture, absorbing more CO2 due to photosynthesis.
Conclusion: As the Earth warms, it takes more time to warm the oceans than the land which is primary cause of the time lag in CO2 concentration! The time lag is lengthened as vegetation covers more and more of the land surface and absorbs more CO2 outgassed by the oceans.
CO2 is a LAGGING parameter. Lagging parameters are never drivers, they are RESULTANTS! CO2 is NOT the control knob for Earth’s climate! CO2 concentrations below 180ppm result in the cessation of plant respiration and plant life dies, humanity will soon follow! Now that’s a catastrophe to worry about.
This is great information regarding the simulated ocean but what about the real ocean. The greenhouse gas, CO2, is trivial when considering the real ocean. The real ocean is made up of more than 98% of the liquified form of another socalled greenhouse gas, H2O. which should be much more of a concern than CO2.
The environment is so large and dynamic that there is always a balancing act going on. Other than an all out nuclear war, I don’t mankind’s activities have the ability to majorly impact the environment worldwide. Local areas, yes. But worldwide is another matter.
They “discovered” features of ocean behaviour in their models the same way I “discover” carrot cake in a pan after leaving batter in the oven.
These are the same people who, upon discovering ice cubes melting on the kitchen floor, conclude that this is proof that the house warming rapidly and must therefore be about to burn down.
—- “Most of the excess heat from climate change will go into the ocean eventually, we think,” Romanou said. “Most of the excess chemical pollutants and greenhouse gases will be buried in the ocean. But the truth is that the ocean recirculates that extra load and, at some point, will release some of it back to the atmosphere, where it will keep raising temperatures, even if future carbon dioxide emissions were to be much lower than they are now.”
This eventual release of buried gases and heat from the oceans is sometimes called the “warming in the pipeline” or “warming commitment” that people will eventually have to contend with, Romanou said. —-
All this is hypothetical. It is far from the reality. It is not science.
So far nobody has presented what is the global warming component of global average temperature anomaly. Without this understanding, making statements like those referred above has no meaning in terms of Science.
With reference to chemical pollutants and greenhouse gases — There is no quantitative data to show this. Also, how will they be carried in to oceans? Hypothetical argument.
All this highlights the hypocrisy in peer reviewing in important journals.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
You want the truth about that big iceberg cracking off?
There has been constant man made haarp interference right alng that crack.
Dont believe me?
Do a search on utubes “earthquake caused larsen shelf iceberg” and you will see a record of 10k deep earthquakes that were later deleted from earthquake history.
I have full records that show the listings that were deleted.
Cracked off by man 100%
Peter Evans — It is true.
I in fact presented in my books on Natural disasters, man made disasters [physical impact], etc on their role on climate chand and thus the impact on nature.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Yea, stupid NASA-MIT. What is driving the Ocean currents? Not the atmosphere, to even suggest that indicates a serious failure to grasp basic physics. Try “Gravity” your physic professor might not flunk you. Without earths moon oceanic currently would be determined almost exclusively by Newtons Second Law; conservation of angular momentum.
The water would accumulate most at the equator, where density, temperature and salinity would dictate the velocity of currents flowing pole-ward. As water evaporates from the surface, salinity increases. The higher saline content water sinks. As it sinks, it gets colder, causing it to sink faster.
Earth, however does have a moon, and said moon has a gravitational field that interacts with earths oceans in dynamic manner. That gravitational field does not pass exclusively over the exact same geographic position every single orbit. It literally wobbles. As that gravitational field is passing over over the earth it literally is dragging the earths oceans with it. Hello, high tides, low tides anyone?
The moons gravity is dragging the oceans, but it is not dragging it perfectly or consistently around the equator. The atmosphere may affect the oceans surface, but only to a depth of a few dozen meters. Beyond that ocean currents are a combination of gravity and conservation of angular momentum as effected by water density, salinity and temperature.
Somebody at NASA-MIT should be unemployed for ever agreeing to spend one penny on this farce of a research project.
Indeed, and the Moon also creates ‘tides’ in the Earth’s atmosphere. We’re told more atmosphere ‘traps’ more heat. Has NASA – MIT – Columbia University shown how high tide at noon ‘traps’ more heat than low tide at noon in the same location?
I almost (but not quite) feel sorry for Leftist wackos that still blindly believe in this CAGW sc@m…
Facts and physics thwart all of CAGW’s main premises, especially: Henry’s Gas Law (98% of CO2 end up beneficially in the oceans), 4 laws of Thermodynamics (especially entropy and heat transfers from warmer to cooler objects), the Coriolis Effect (earth’s rotation drives ocean currents, not CO2), the heat capacity of the oceans is 1,000 TIMES more than the atmosphere, etc…
The top 1,000 meters of oceans have only risen about 0.09C since 1950… Oh, the humanity…
Because .09C of ocean warming over the last 70 years (Levitus et al 2012) isn’t scary enough, CAGW advocates use giga joules and Hiroshima-bomb equivalents to scare the mindless masses over ocean “catastrophic” waaaaarming—lions and tigers and bears, oh, my…
CAGW advocates realize the CAGW sc@m already exceeds the parameters necessary for official disconfirmation (CAGW projections already exceeded reality by over 2 standard deviations for 21 years, and the disparity continues to rapid expand), so they’re relegated to: ranking warm years, manipulating raw global temp data, lying (i.e. “97% of all scientists believe in the CAGW hypothesis”, “severe weather is getting worse and worse”, etc), and name calling…
This silly new paper is just cover for when global temps start falling in about 5 years from collapsing solar cycles and PDO/AMO 30-year cool cycles.
CAGW advocates will claim, “See! CO2 induced Global Warming causes global cooling from decreased ocean currents…”– just watch them make this claim..
+10
Banzai!! Banzai!! Banzai!!
Thanks, Seward-san!
Here is the cool looking kanji for banzai: 万歳, which means “10,000 years”.
Let’s hope this CAGW sc@m doesn’t last that long..
I would just like to point out that the Coriolis is not an actual Force. It’s more like a phantom..
When air moves across the surface of the Earth or water moves across the ocean it is deflected by the fact that the Earth is a sphere and is spinning. The spinning of the Earth by itself doesn’t cause the oceans to move. Any more than it causes air to move.
Because the water in the air are moving right along with the Earth. But if air or water near the equator let’s say for instance begins to move poleward, wines of being deflected because the angular momentum it has at the equator causes it to move in a different direction once it’s not at the equator anymore.
Another way to look at it is that at the Equator the Earth is spinning at a thousand miles an hour but every place else it’s spinning slower than that. So a air or water that moves poleward from the equator, find itself moving faster than the earth that’s underneath it.
Coriolis causes winds to deflect into gyres, and wind causes ocean currents which are then deflected by the Coriolis Force.
The primary circulation of the earth is the Hadley cells. Air flowing around the Hadley cells is deflected by coriolis Force. This is what leads to the huge gyres of air and water.
Hiroshima bomb equivalents…when you hear that unit of thermal energy being bandied about, you know that the people speaking are the straight-talking and unbiased sort.
“New NASA research is one of the first studies to estimate how much and how quickly the ocean absorbs atmospheric gases..”
you mean based on actual data recorded from the oceans etc…?
Umm no, ….
“Using two computer models that simulate the ocean, NASA and MIT scientists found that gases are more easily absorbed over time than heat energy.”
and then the doozy
“These results from the computer models of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation are one of the many moving parts that come together in global climate models. By refining scientists’ understanding of how efficiently gases and heat are taken up, the finding will improve global climate model projections for future climate scenarios, ..” aparently says some turkey.
“Two computer models were used …….”. I do no believe a word of it. I have developed and used computer models. They can be instructive, but not determinative. That is, provided no garbage has been entered.
Heat transfer from the air to the oceans requires violation of the second law of thermodynamics. Garbage. There’s also the small problems arising from the 4:1 water:air specific heat capacity ratio and the water to air mass difference…
Female CAGW advocate to her significant other:
“Honey, does my stupid make my butt look bigger?”
“No honey, your incredible stupidity and your giant butt are completely unrelated”.
As the ocean slows down, it will keep uptaking gases like carbon dioxide more efficiently,
So, gas absorption by water, is a function of it’s speed of movement? Really? Temperature we know about but speed. Now I always thought that turbulence aided absorption but turbulence isn’t flow.
Moderators
I have posted a couple of comments but these have gone into moderation because I have mispelt my own name (vernney instead of verney). Please look out for them and post them with the correct spelling of my name. Thanks.
———–
Okay then. Will Do. Mod
It will take 500 years to raise the average ocean temperature by 1C and the water is absorbing CO2 so fast that it clearly has not reached saturation even for current CO2 levels. So as far as anthropogenic global warming is concerned, it won’t be returning “heat in the pipe” or degassing for a VERY long time. It is effectively a bottomless pit since we will likely have stopped burning coal long before any of the water comes back up and CO2 will have returned to close to normal levels, along with whatever temperature impacts are felt.
You call the preindustrial levels of CO2, which were among the lowest in the history of the Earth, normal?
Taking everything that we know regarding Earth history, levels of CO2 in the air through geologic time, the relationship between CO2 and the entire food chain of the terrestrial and oceanic biosphere, and the levels of CO2 which create optimum growth conditions in plants…I think it is fair to conclude that for life in general, CO2 levels of somewhere between 3 to 5 times present levels, or about 1200 to 2000 PPM of atmospheric CO2…would be normal, best, and most productive and thus healthiest for life on Earth…humans included.
Right now the biosphere is the functional equivalent of a person with severe kwashiorkor malnutrition who has had a few bites to eat and will not die today.
Lets make sure the biosphere has plenty to eat tomorrow and for all of the tomorrows.
By what mechanism is heat transferred to the ocean from the atmosphere?
The heat in the atmosphere can act as insulation to slow heat loss from the ocean, but by what means does atmospheric heat that only penetrates a millimeter or so into the surface of a turbulent, rough ocean surface warm the ocean?
This is the mechanism that is never explained by anyone (including the iPCC), yet we are expected to accept it without a method of how it’s supposed to happen. It sounds like an unsubstantiated, desperate attempt at fobbing off a lack of atmospheric warming for the past 2 decades more than anything else.
NASA is extending itself beyond parody, but this may still work
In itself it is no problem to use models to simulate changes which are difficult to know from reality, as long as the underlying physics are based on real life data. Unlike climate models, ocean data are relatively known, based on (currently) over three million ocean surface and less abundant deep ocean data, here for the CO2 uptake/release:
https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml
The same ocean survey data include temperature, pH, DIC (total inorganic carbon), total alkalinity, sea salt content,…
See e.g. the longer series at Bermuda:
http://www.biogeosciences.net/9/2509/2012/bg-9-2509-2012.pdf
Thus I suppose that these two models are not so far off from reality as most climate models are. The latter have far more problems like clouds which are far below their resolution range…
Despite that, I have two main objections:
– The MOC/THC is not only dependent of temperature differences, it is also largely dependent of winds: at the pulling side: off-land winds in the East Pacific which pulls deep ocean waters up, to the joy of the fishermen of the Peruvian and Chilean coasts. El Niño is the main game breaker there. At the pushing side: the SW-NE winds which pushes the warm Gulf Stream along the North America coast to NE Europe. Thanks to the Himalaya plateau that pushes the normal West-East circulation northwards.
Thus even with less temperature differences, a large part of the MOC/THC would survive.
– Even if the average ocean temperature increases, the main temperature difference remains about the same: Tropical waters show their main variations during ENSO events, but the average tropical temperatures show the lowest change over history, as the top temperature is topped due to evaporation and hurricanes. The same for the sink side: mostly at the edge of the sea-ice, where temperatures are always near freezing and salinity is highest.
Is this a prelude to man-made ocean change? Over millennia?
This is such patent bullshit: “Acting like a massive sponge, the oceans pull from the atmosphere heat”
The oceans are warmer than the lower troposphere on average and the energy emitted by CO2 as a GH gas can not penetrate water, and cant therefore cause warming.
Many of the comments here clearly demonstrate the damage that climate models have done to scientific credibility.
Most scientific endeavors rely to some extent on models, particularly the the areas of Earth and Atmospheric sciences. Hypotheses are essentially models.
The utter and abject failure of climate models to demonstrate predictive skill has led many people to simply stop reading after the phrase “computer models.”
David you are correct. As soon as I read Mears uses climate models to make empirical adjustments to RSS, or the other recent study attempting to reconcile mode v analysis, adjusted model data and claimed bingo.
This is not only Climate science.
A NASA team sent quartz gyroscopes to space, and the experiment failed totally due to unforeseen influences on the ultra sensitive gyroscopes (that this was not foreseen was tragic science by the NASA team). After the actual experiment failed utterly, NASA team adjusted and changed the obs data for 5 years and then claimed success.
ugh UGH an elaborate Heidi Cullen “my dog ate global warming” nonsense.
Do these clowns even understand the way in which a heat sink works, the analogy is incorrect.
There are no heat sinks in the natural world.
unless anyone can tell me what nature does to deal with unwanted heat that is? 😀 There is no such thing as “unwanted heat” in the natural world
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/65_Myr_Climate_Change_Rev.jpg
I think most people do not understand that we are living IN an Ice Age.
and the common lie in response is the “rate of change”. << that is how Bill Nye among many other alarmists\propagandists resolves his own cognitive dissonance.
Climate Central Heidi Cullen are still trying to blame Larsen C on AGW 😀
Oceans are a “sink”? They’re the primary source of greenhouse gasses.
The oceans are not a heatsink. It’s more nonsense language from people at NASA.
Idiots DO work for that agency, regurgitated edu is not intelligence. Sadly many think it is
mairon62,
The oceans are more CO2 sink than source in the past near 60 years of measurements:
https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/maps.shtml
David, maybe you can put a number, rough number on how much money NASA have blown in 50 years. I bet it would make one’s eyes pop from the sockets.
Eyeballing it, I’d say a little over $120 billion since 1993…
http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/670757.jpg
And it appears that almost every bureau, agency and administration of the alphabet soup have been involved…
http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/671057.jpg
http://www.gao.gov/key_issues/climate_change_funding_management/issue_summary
Drain the swamp!
JFC!!
Thanks for getting that info David, I had no clue wjere to start
Going by “heatsink” logic, the atmosphere would be the heatsink in a relationship between the ocean and air.
The oceans get almost all of their heat from the sun, but shhh
Back Radiation can’t heat the ocean.
Robert ….. this is my thought as well. I have always read that the transfer of heat is almost always from the ocean to the atmosphere, not the reverse. Energy input into the ocean is in the visible and below range where it is transformed into heat and radiated back to the atmosphere as IR. As such, I don’t see how they can say that the ocean is much of a heat absorber from the atmosphere at all. Further, wave action would tend to decrease penetration at the surface of short wave, thus calmer water would increase the overall absorption of energy into the ocean, though it sounds plausible that waves would increase the uptake of what minimal LW is striking the surface. But that amount is so small, it’s not worth mentioning.
This article is a bunch of propaganda that serves the agenda, and ignores all else.
Spot on, but we already know AGW warming the oceans to boiling was nothing but James Hansen science fiction.
https://moyhu.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/can-downwelling-infrared-warm-ocean.html
Or, if you prefer …..
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/04/can-infrared-radiation-warm-a-water-body/
Problems?
How far back in time are CFCs measured/found in sea water? Only after man started making them?
There are 2 broad ways to look at gas dissolution/exsolution with water. One is the lab model, where small containers are used and the experiment continues until the liquid is fully mixed. Henry’s Law is derived this way.
The other way has a large container that is not even constrained at the sides and bottom. The ocean. Currents can bring new water to the test region, whose response is affected by continuous renewal with liquid whose composition reflects its generally unknown past. Henry’law is not immediately useful, except maybe to set some boundaries.
Climate work is dogged with a continuing impediment. A hard scientist would say of a study like this “We cannot report these results yet because we cannot correct for the many other variables, including unknown unknowns.” The Climate world approach more often is ” There are likely to be other unknowns but we will forget about them for the purpose of this investigation. Off to print now.”
Geoff
These people can’t seem to get it into their heads that nobody believes their COx/Greenhouse Gas modelistic schtick anymore.
Wow….basic physics as old as the universe are presented Disney style as valiant fighters being crippled by wicked humans. Humans so wicked, these cynical climate extremists claim, that we are going to ruin the ocean’s very current and circulation system.
What utterly corrupt nonsense the climate hypesters expect the rest of us to believe.
After decade-long alarmist prognostications big oil has never paid a dime back, but let’s see if Macron’s million euro check from the local taxpayers is in la poste already:
Sun cannot possibly have anything to do with the ocean temperature. It must be man-made hot gases forcing their way down from the troposphere sinking all the way to Mariana trench. And back up via volcanic eruptions revenging reproductive and other decadence of our ancestors over millennia.
No mechanism for thermalised energy in the air to penetrate into the ocean and heat the ocean. And why would they need one? Their ‘discoveries’ via ‘observation’ are in the model world that do not have to obey the laws of thermodynamics and the actual geophysic structure of the ocean Atmosphere interface.
Does the model show how thermalised energy first doesn’t rise from its point of thermalisation in the air, second is able to move downwards and navigate through the ocean’s Knudsen layer – that consumes thermalised energy immediately above the ocean to find vaporisation of water molecules -, thirdly how any remaining thermalised energy after navigating the Knudsen layer can penetrate into and through the ocean surface tension skin when the molecules at the very top of the skin in contact with Earth’s sea level atmospheric pressure are in a constant higher kinetic energy state than any thermalised energy in the air above the ocean – or anywhere in the atmosphere for that matter.
Of course the models do not recognise these basic first order principles, otherwise they can’t make the unphyduxal claims that they have here – that thermalised energy in the atmosphere can and does penetrate into the ocean from above the ocean. Can’t happen in the real world which is why these Pythagorean’s live in model world superimposed on the real physical world.
All these unvalidated models!! Somebody should say, “When a scientist creates a ‘study’ using unvalidated models, he crosses over into being an advocate. While every American has the right to advocate whatever they want, then they can’t try to pass themselves off as scientists – and they can’t work for GISS or any other (supposedly) scientific agency of the government.”
More fake science (I love throwing the liberal’s new catch words back at them). First, I don’t give a hoot about dissolved gases and their “impact”. Second, water has to be COLD (near freezing) to sink. Heat isn’t being “buried”, COLD is!
I think where they go wrong, is they seem to think that CO2 hangs on to that heat as it dissolves in the ocean, thus taking its heat with it as it magically defies physics and sinks. The truth is more likely that CO2 looses its additional energy immediately upon absorption, taking on the heat environment of the water, with the excess energy being used up in the process of evaporation.
To listen to these guys, every molecule of CO2 is a little floating nuclear power plant spewing heat out wherever it goes.
Is space cold or hot? There are no molecules in space so our common definitions of hot/cold/heat/energy don’t apply.
The temperatures of objects in space, e.g. the earth, moon, space station, mars, venus, etc. are determined by the radiation flowing past them. In the case of the earth, the solar irradiance of 1,368 W/m^2 has a Stefan Boltzmann black body equivalent temperature of 394 K. That’s hot. Sort of.
But an object’s albedo reflects away that heat and reduces that temperature.
The earth’s albedo reflects away 30% of the sun’s 1,368 W/m^2 energy leaving 70% or 958 W/m^2 to “warm” the earth and at a S-B BB equivalent temperature of 361 K, 33 C colder than the earth with no atmosphere or albedo.
The earth’s albedo/atmosphere doesn’t keep the earth warm, it keeps the earth cool.
Over 3,000!! (up 1,200 since 6/9) views on my WriterBeat papers which were also sent to the ME departments of several prestigious universities (As a BSME & PE felt some affinity.) and a long list of pro/con CAGW personalities and organizations.
NOBODY has responded explaining why my methods, calculations and conclusions in these papers are incorrect. BTW that is called SCIENCE!!
SOMEBODY needs to step up and ‘splain my errors ‘cause if I’m correct (Q=UAdT runs the atmospheric heat engine) – that’s a BIGLY problem for RGHE.
Step right up! Bring science.
http://writerbeat.com/articles/14306-Greenhouse—We-don-t-need-no-stinkin-greenhouse-Warning-science-ahead-
http://writerbeat.com/articles/15582-To-be-33C-or-not-to-be-33C
http://writerbeat.com/articles/16255-Atmospheric-Layers-and-Thermodynamic-Ping-Pong
Nick,
As the earth is a sphere, didn’t you forget to take into account that you need to reduce the flat earth surface radiation of 1,368 W/m^2 with a factor 4?
Solar IR is changed to heat by the ground. The ground is short term storage. the ground heats up the oceans. The oceans are long term storage and are conveyors.
I am not sure how you are supposing that heat is transferred from ground surfaces into the ocean water?
And I do not think conveyors is a very good word to use for ocean currents. The conveyor belt is a continuous loop in which one part is connected to all the other parts and pulling on one part or pushing on one part will move all the other parts by necessity.
The oceans are not like conveyor belts, they’re huge pools of water that are very deep, and have complex shapes, multiple layers with various degrees of mixing between the layers, and have currents in them, and that are constantly changing.
Are they implying that NASA has found the hidden heat?
If they put more emphasis on solar variations adding heat to the oceans they might actually find out the truth, instead of chasing this flawed CO2 hypothesis. I wish NASA would abandon climate research and focus on what we (The Taxpayers) pay them to do.
Indeed. NASA doing climate science is like climate scientists probing Uranus. However much the latter may want to do that it’s really not their business to be going where no man has gone before. NASA should stick to space and aeronautics and let climate scientists play with their virtual reality video games.
Somebody ought to teach these people some physical chemistry, Absorption of gases, heat, etc. by water occurs at the gas/water interface – something called the ‘surface’, which is far more efficient when the surface-to-volume ratio is high, as on a raindrop. The rain falling on the oceans in the tropics and temperate zones is saturated (or nearly so) with atmospheric gases – some of which (CO2, NOx) are more soluble in water than others (N2, O2, ozone). Raindrops are also in thermal equilibrium with the air, so they transport atmospheric heat into the ocean. The rain ‘scrubs’ the air. The main driver of ocean currents is gravity – specifically the tidal forces of the sun and moon acting on the earth and the oceans – which is why the main circulation is always eastward on that part of the circuit nearest the equator.
Any model of chemical and thermal transport in the oceans that does not include the influence of rainfall and tides is hopelessly oversimplified.
Gravity !
Who knew ?
tadchem,
Solubility of CO2 in fresh water is very low, as there is no buffer capacity in fresh water. Even without extra pollution from SO2 and NOx, the pH would drop to around 4.
Most CO2 is released from warm equatorial waters, together with water vapor. When that condenses to rain, it needs several hundred m3 air to form 1 l of rain, what it absorbs from the CO2 at that height is negligible. If that rains out, falls on the ground and evaporates, that gives 1 ppmv CO2 extra in the first m3 of the atmosphere…
Only if you take into account the massive quantities of water transported via the atmosphere, there may be an appreciable amount of CO2 circulating with it, but mostly between the oceans and the oceans, thus a null operation… What falls on land still needs millions of years to form the beautiful caves we see everywhere in carbonate rocks and the returning waters are in many cases buffered with (bi)carbonates…
I’m hardly a scientist, and please feel free to educate me if my ignorance is unbearable, but…
Doesn’t what they’re proposing run counter to CAWG dogma? The dogma says, “If left unchecked, DOOM”. Wouldn’t the world’s oceans in this scenario be the ultimate ‘check’ on CAGW? Am I still supposed to believe that the human race will be extinct by 2100 if we don’t eliminate all fossil fuel consumption by 2030?
I’m so confused.
Ignorance is far more bearable than stupid. I speak from the former perspective.
If I were speaking from the latter perspective, then I wouldn’t even know it.
AJ_74,
According to the Bern model, used in near all climate model’s calculations for the IPCC, the deep oceans get saturated when they have absorbed about 10% of all our CO2 emissions. Thus according to them a lot of CO2 remains in the atmosphere for very long periods…
The problem is that this only may be true when you burn all know reserves of gas and oil and a lot of available coal, but by far not for smaller total emissions.
The original calculations were made for the above scenario when 3000 GtC CO2 was released and worse for 5000 GtC CO2, thus including enormous amounts of coal.
Currently we have burned fossil fuels in the past 165 years, emitting some total 370 GtC CO2 in the atmosphere. If we should cease all emissions, that will ultimately end mostly in the deep oceans, where already some 37,000 GtC in different forms is present. Thus all our emissions together will increase the deep oceans with less than 1% (minus what is buried permanently in vegetation). In equilibrium with the atmosphere, that also will end 1% higher, thus 293 ppmv CO2 instead of 290 ppmv for the current ocean surface temperature…
There is until now not the slightest sign of saturation of the deep oceans, thus wait and see what the future brings…
Given the ratio of Co2 in the deep oceans compared to emissions of humans, there will not be a signal by the time oil runs out, dear lord!
and truth be told we know nothing about the deep oceans, relatively speaking, we are 5th graders on that topic
“Mark – Helsinki July 14, 2017 at 12:34 pm”
We know more about the moon than we do deep ocean.
“AJ_74 July 14, 2017 at 10:00 am
I’m hardly a scientist, and please feel free to educate me if my ignorance is unbearable, but…
The dogma says, “If left unchecked, DOOM”.”
Let me correct you there;
The dogma says, “If left UNTAXED, DOOM”.
Do these authors even consider the amount of CO2 the oceans are capable of absorbing on a semi-permanent to permanent basis? Good grief, there are entire mountain ranges build of marine limestone in the Western U.S. Do the authors give any thought to the capacity of marine organisms to steal CO2 and turn it into rock?
Isn’t the largest long term Carbon sink CaCO3? As seen in limestone and chalk (The White Cliffs of Dover for instance) CaCO3 created naturally for shells of marine organisms, snails, and eggs, corals and many other sources.
Heat sink analogy is a bogus concept and with concepts reality leaves the room.
I suspect night time and clouds on the night side of the planet have a large influence on the energy budget.
I think this is the route for radiation to head out into space, and is regulated by clouds.
What if CFCs aren’t just a passive tracer?
Does anyone remember that from the ’60s through the ’90s we gaily sprayed and leaked chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) into the atmosphere? And that Mario Molina told us that this was a no-no because in so doing we were destroying our all-important ozone shield? That allowed solar ultraviolet radiation (UV-B) to stream through the thinned ozone layer (remember the ozone hole?) and cause all sorts of horrible things like bad sunburn and genetic damage. UV-B is HOT!
So, we very sensibly shut down CFC production with the Montreal Protocol. No one thought, however, that this ultra-hot ultraviolet radiation could also cause global warming. No, because “obviously” the cause of global warming was rising carbon dioxide! Funnily enough, shortly after the Montreal Protocol, global warming went into “hiatus” mode, but carbon dioxide just kept on rising. The climate scientists were baffled. What happened? They tried to pretend that the so-called “hiatus” didn’t really exist, and they even performed various data manipulations to make it go away.
But it didn’t. It’s a reality. And guess what: almost all the chlorine from all the CFCs we put into the atmosphere is still up there, destroying ozone catalytically, and chlorine has a very long residence time in the atmosphere.
So, you see, the inconvenient “hiatus”and its elevated temperatures will be with us for quite some time to come, but eventually, the chlorine will precipitate out and global cooling will begin, while carbon dioxide continues on its merry way upward, doing nothing at all to the climate.
So,it seems that all the climate scientists are, like Don Quijote, tilting at the wrong windmill. “It’s chlorine, stupid, not carbon dioxide.”
Extended periods of darkness has more to do with lack of ozone at the poles. Sunlight is necessary for ozone production. 🌞