By Mike Bastasch
Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography recorded the warmest sea surface temperature taken in 102 years off the school’s pier in Southern California.
Scripps researchers recorded a high of 78.6 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday after a string of daily sea surface temperature records off the pier.
The researchers were quick to claim, “This is how global warming will play out,” according to a press release.
Wednesday’s sea surface temperature reading beat the previous record set on July 30, 1931, but only by 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit.
“It surpassed the previous record of 78.4°F (25.8°C) set on July 30, 1931, during an unusually warm period that year,” reads the Scripps release touting the new record temperature reading.
“Records related to heat and intense weather will become easier to break having been given a boost from anthropogenic climate change that has added about [one degree Celsius] to ocean temperatures over the past century,” scientists said, according to the release.
But while Scripps is trying to tie the record-high ocean reading to the broader wave of media coverage on global heat waves, there are a few caveats to note about what the scientists found.
First, these measurements are taken from a pier that’s near the shoreline, which would not necessarily make it representative of the entire Pacific Ocean, and therefore easily influenced by local weather events.
The “anomalously warm temperatures for the past week” that Scripps researchers observed at their pier somewhat mirror the temperature pattern in 1931, and indeed, the daily records broken in the past week have been very close to readings from 87 years ago.
There is an upward trend in temperature readings from Scripps’ pier, but the trend seems to also broadly coincide with the flipping of a natural ocean cycle, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, to its warm phase. That flip occurred around 1976.
Source: Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego
Also, the scientists themselves admit there’s lingering heat from the incredibly strong El Nino that peaked in 2016. Pacific Ocean temperatures don’t seem to have returned to normal in El Nino’s wake — in fact, forecasters say there’s a 65 percent of an El Nino forming this fall.
“It looks like we took a step up during 2014-2016 from which we have not completely recovered,” Scripps oceanographer Reinhard Flick said in a statement.
Scripps has been measuring sea surface temperatures and salinity off its pier since August 1916, and the school began gathering seafloor data in 1925.
Scripps still takes temperature measurements off its pier by hand, but in that time the technology used to log readings has changed dramatically.
Read more at Daily Caller
Billions of gallons of wastewater and runoff from ~23.8 million people finds its way into the ocean off the Southern California coast daily, some of which flows through hot concrete channels. Could that help account for a .2F increase at San Diego’s shoreline?
Evapotranspiration from water cycle gives 486000 km^3/year. WIKI gives 503000 and Babkin in a Russian study gave 577000 but we will use the lowest figure.
1 km^3 = 10^12 kg
Heat of vapourization of water at 20C = 2,450,000 Joules/kg
Number of seconds in a year = 3.1536 x 10^7
1 watt = 1 Joule /second
Surface area of earth = 5.1x 10^11 m^2
NASA graph gives evapotranspiration = 86.4W/m^2 Check their Earth’s energy budget graph on their website
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2641/keeping-an-eye-on-earths-energy-budget/
The task is to convert the latent heat that is represented inside the water molecule from the water cycle upon evaporation to a W/m^2 equivalent of NASA’s figure of 86.4 W/m^2. I want to see if NASA’s figure has any basis in reality.
Solution : Total evapotranspiration = 486000 km^3/year * 10^12kg = 4.86 x 10^17 kg/year
Total number of Joules = 2,450,000 Joules/kg * 4.86 x 10^17 kg/year
= 1.1907 x 10 ^24 Joules/year
Number of Joules/second = 1.1907 x 10 ^24 Joules/year divided by 3.1536 x 10^7 sec/year
= 3.775684932 x 10^16 Joules /sec
= 3.775684932 x 10^16 Watts
W/m^2 from surface = (3.775684932 x 10^16 Watts) divided by 5.1x 10^11 m^2
= 7.403303788 x10^4 W/m^2
~ 74,033
divide by 4 because the earth is a sphere and is diurnal = ~18,508 W/m^2
which is 214.2 times the NASA figure. Where did I go wrong?
I love how the alarmists cherry pick there statements and references in order to show a absolute truth that is used falsely for their point. All one has to do is simply google the high and low temperature records for each US state. With the exemption of the Wikipedia site, pick any posting of this particular record. I use this to show young people that maybe they need to look deeper to see what other lies they have been told.
This link provide you with the live temperature data of Scripps Pier:
http://sccoos.org/data/autoss/
There is something which seems to me rather weird. How can the temperature of Pacific ocean raise 8 celsius during less than 60 minutes?
For example:
Time1: 08/01/2018 08:58:02 Temperature: 16.1844 celsius
Time2: 08/01/2018 09:54:02 Temperature: 24.1019 celsius
This rapid rise of temperature is observable every day.
Please, explain me.
Why would Scripps … intentionally … omit any and all SCIENTIFIC context for this ‘shocking’ and ‘horrifying’ measurement? As if anyone with a brain doesn’t already know the answer …
Isn’t it sophistry to call ocean energy heat.
wheres the process, ?.
You only have a state of energy, constantly changing, heat the process does the warming. then it stops.
So we have a 0.2 degree F difference in 87 years. In another 348 years it might get up to a whole 1 degree F. That’s almost as much as the temperature difference between my living room and bedroom. Time to start the panic now! We’re all gonna fry!
This is just common sense. If there were two earths, one globally warmer than the other by some measurable temp (let’s use 1.0°C or 1.8°F for the global difference between 1931 and today) then you would expect that more warm ground records would be set than cold √ and more warm ocean records to be set √ in the warmer earth. Both are happening.
Oceans are warmer, trend is still up. Land is warmer, trend up. Why is something as simple as “warm records will be broken at a faster pace than cold records” that difficult?
El Nino and La Nina still exist of course, and as long as the current are not disrupted by other factors that change with the warming earth, then the colder earth’s El Nino years will show, on average, 1°C colder temps. The colder earth’s La Nina years will show, on average, 1°C colder temps than the warmer earth (land and oceans together.
CO2 is the primary forcing, and the oceans are simply moving heat around. There is simply no “oceans are warming miraculously on their own, thus El Ninos are warmer.” But that seems to be what some are saying here.
“Desperately Seeking a NSF Grant”.
“It’s All In The Error”!
Ha ha jajajajajajaja
So how was AGW to blame for 1930? If you’re going to compare something. Then make the accusations that the new reading is because of something. Makes the whole thing garbage. Cycles are never exactly on time like clockwork.
Look at https://bobsaw.smugmug.com/Nature/Pacific-Ocean-1/i-2WjbhTd image 104.The texture on the ocean surface is caused by oil/surfactant pollution. These patches will have lower albedo and reduced evaporation, which will warm the surface.
Scripps, do the research.
JF
I stand to be corrected on this but observe that sea surface temperatures rarely go much above 30C. OK sometimes in some places like the red sea it gets up to 35C ; but generally 30C seems to be the norm as the top end of the range.
I also observe that the Vapour Pressure of water equals the saturated Partial pressure at 30C. This may be a coincidence but I think NOT; for at and above this temperature the rate of evaporation equates to the level of energy input and thus provides a balance in temperature.
This may be checked in your kitchen; as when you turn up the heat under the kettle it just boils faster and the temperature remains the same.
I do wish that some of these scientists would extract their heads from their statistical computers go and put the kettle on and start thinking as they wait for the brew.
It would save us all a great deal of bother.
Overall sea surface temperatures down .2c since last year.
I detect the start of a hockey stick.
Sounds like budget justification for maintaining the pier. Otherwise, what is is good for?
“Scripps still takes temperature measurements off its pier by hand, but in that time the technology used to log readings has changed dramatically.”
Unfortunately the techniques for marketing snake oil have not changed at all.
And BTW, just what was the accuracy of the measurements ‘taken by hand’ back in 1916 or so? <0.2˚F?
What is the difference in coastal development and population in that region between 1930’s and now? I suspect it has changed. 😉
And the accuracy level for that 1931 thermometer reading is?
There are likely other concerns about their asssumptions:
e.g.
A) Was it a student recording temperatures in 1931 and now?
B) A student that never drank or stayed up late cramming?
C) A temperature reading written in ink? Unchanged and unadjusted.
And how long was that 1931 pier?
At what depth was the pier location where the 1931 temperature taken and the same question for today’s temperature reading.
Given the school’s eagerness to trumpet their new record in the press, one must question whether activism is biasing their temperature readings?
Get ready to start hoarding ice cubes, everybody!
Love knowing we had a global ocean temperature monitoring system in 1931…
I have to say that water was nice. Spent a few hours on Saturday and Sunday near Oceanside pier and the water felt really warm (for southern California. Of course the water is usually warm in August.
“First, these measurements are taken from a pier that’s near the shoreline, which would not necessarily make it representative of the entire Pacific Ocean, and therefore easily influenced by local weather events.”
Nobody argued that it WAS representative of the ENTIRE Pacific ocean.
Here’s the simple fact. There was an LIA. IT has been warming since the LIA. As the world warms
past high records will fall. If it continues to warm they will continue to fall. NOT in a uniform fashion
because global warming theory ( REGARDLESS OF THE CAUSE) predicts NON UNIFORM warming,
over short runs some places will warm more, other less, some may not warm for a long time.
Its warming. As it warms where we have measured temperature you can expect there to be new records.
At some point every location will have a new record. At some point new LOW records will cease.
The fact of new records should not surprise anyone. It is warming.
Comes the question. WHY is it warming. what is the physical cause.
1. Global warming theory holds that increased radiative forcing causes the earth to warm.
Radiative forcing ( + and -) include
A) Solar
B) GHGs
C) Aerosols.
D) land change.
This adding warming ( or cooling if the sum of forcings is negtaive) Is added to a small natural
variablity.
2. Skeptics have no explanation. They believe its Anything BUT C02.
Only one of these counts as an attempt at science. #1
What are the error bars on both readings? I suspect it’s a lot more than 0.2F.
PS: 0.2F in 87 years. At that rate it will take 435 years for the ocean to warm one whole degree Fahrenheit.
What is totally absent in this discussion is any recognition of a fatal flaw in the much-touted, century-long SIO-pier record of SST: until digital recording was adopted a decade ago, the manual sampling was done only ONCE A DAY! Thus the diurnal cycle there is ALIASED into zero frequency, i.e. the apparent mean level of the time series. To make matters worse, the nominal time of daily sampling (noon) was not stringently adhered to, as became evident to me when conducting flow-meter evaluations at the pier many decades ago.
The upshot of this ill-conceived manual sampling scheme (adopted well in advance of the derivation of the Shannon Theorem) is that the ultra-low frequency spectral content of the SST series is irretrievably corrupted. It provides no serious scientific basis for estimating even the local temporal trend of any duration. Nor is there any credible basis for claiming that the daily readings capture the daily maximum temperature. All we have is a record non-descript instantaneous reading–not record temperatures in any accepted sense of the term.