Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I see that Zeke Hausfather and others are claiming that 2018 is the warmest year on record for the ocean down to a depth of 2,000 metres. Here’s Zeke’s claim:
Figure 1. Change in ocean heat content, 1955 – 2018. Data available from Institute for Applied Physics (IAP).
When I saw that graph in Zeke’s tweet, my bad-number detector started flashing bright red. What I found suspicious was that the confidence intervals seemed far too small. Not only that, but the graph is measured in a unit that is meaningless to most everyone. Hmmm …
Now, the units in this graph are “zettajoules”, abbreviated ZJ. A zettajoule is a billion trillion joules, or 1E+21 joules. I wanted to convert this to a more familiar number, which is degrees Celsius (°C). So I had to calculate how many zettajoule it takes to raise the temperature of the top two kilometres of the ocean by 1°C.
I go over the math in the endnotes, but suffice it to say at this point that it takes about twenty-six hundred zettajoule to raise the temperature of the top two kilometres of the ocean by 1°C. 2,600 ZJ per degree.
Now, look at Figure 1 again. They claim that their error back in 1955 is plus or minus ninety-five zettajoules … and that converts to ± 0.04°C. Four hundredths of one degree celsius … right …
Call me crazy, but I do NOT believe that we know the 1955 temperature of the top two kilometres of the ocean to within plus or minus four hundredths of one degree.
It gets worse. By the year 2018, they are claiming that the error bar is on the order of plus or minus nine zettajoules … which is three thousandths of one degree C. That’s 0.003°C. Get real! Ask any process engineer—determining the average temperature of a typcial swimming pool to within three thousandths of a degree would require a dozen thermometers or more …
The claim is that they can achieve this degree of accuracy because of the ARGO floats. These are floats that drift down deep in the ocean. Every ten days they rise slowly to the surface, sampling temperatures as they go. At present, well, three days ago, there were 3,835 Argo floats in operation.
Figure 2. Distribution of all Argo floats which were active as of January 8, 2019.
Looks pretty dense-packed in this graphic, doesn’t it? Maybe not a couple dozen thermometers per swimming pool, but dense … however, in fact, that’s only one Argo float for every 93,500 square km (36,000 square miles) of ocean. That’s a box that’s 300 km (190 miles) on a side and two km (1.2 miles) deep … containing one thermometer.
Here’s the underlying problem with their error estimate. As the number of observations goes up, the error bar decreases by one divided by the square root of the number of observations. And that means if we want to get one more decimal in our error, we have to have a hundred times the number of data points.
For example, if we get an error of say a tenth of a degree C from ten observations, then if we want to reduce the error to a hundredth of a degree C we need one thousand observations …
And the same is true in reverse. So let’s assume that their error estimate of ± 0.003°C for 2018 data is correct, and it’s due to the excellent coverage of the 3,835 Argo floats.
That would mean that we would have an error of ten times that, ± 0.03°C if there were only 38 ARGO floats …
Sorry. Not believing it. Thirty-eight thermometers, each taking three vertical temperature profiles per month, to measure the temperature of the top two kilometers of the entire global ocean to plus or minus three hundredths of a degree?
My bad number detector was still going off. So I decided to do a type of “Monte Carlo” analysis. Named after the famous casino, a Monte Carlo analysis implies that you are using random data in an analysis to see if your answer is reasonable.
In this case, what I did was to get gridded 1° latitude by 1° longitude data for ocean temperatures at various depths down to 2000 metres from the Levitus World Ocean Atlas. It contains the long-term monthly averages at each depth for each gridcell for each month. Then I calculated the global monthly average for each month from the surface down to 2000 metres.
Now, there are 33,713 1°x1° gridcells with ocean data. (I excluded the areas poleward of the Arctic/Antarctic Circles, as there are almost no Argo floats there.) And there are 3,825 Argo floats. On average some 5% of them are in a common gridcell. So the Argo floats are sampling on the order of ten percent of the gridcells … meaning that despite having lots of Argo floats, still at any given time, 90% of the 1°x1° ocean gridcells are not sampled. Just sayin …
To see what difference this might make, I did repeated runs by choosing 3,825 ocean gridcells at random. I then ran the same analysis as before—get the averages at depth, and then calculate the global average temperature month by month for just those gridcells. Here’s a map of typical random locations for simulated Argo locations for one run.
Figure 3. Typical simulated distribution of Argo floats for one run of Monte Carlo Analysis.
And in the event, I found what I suspected I’d find. Their claimed accuracy is not borne out by experiment. Figure 4 shows the results of a typical run. The 95% confidence interval for the results varied from 0.05°C to 0.1°C.
Figure 4. Typical run, average global ocean temperature 0-2,000 metres depth, from Levitus World Ocean Atlas (red dots) and from 3.825 simulated Argo locations. White “whisker” lines show the 95% confidence interval (95%CI). For this run, the 95%CI was 0.07°C. Small white whisker line at bottom center shows the claimed 2018 95%CI of ± 0.003°C.
As you can see, using the simulated Argo locations gives an answer that is quite close to the actual temperature average. Monthly averages are within a tenth of a degree of the actual average … but because the Argo floats only measure about 10% of the 1°x1° ocean gridcells, that is still more than an order of magnitude larger than the claimed 2018 95% confidence interval for the AIP data shown in Figure 1.
So I guess my bad number detector must still be working …
Finally, Zeke says that the ocean temperature in 2018 exceeds that in 2017 by “a comfortable margin”. But in fact, it is warmer by only 8 zettajoules … which is less than the claimed 2018 error. So no, that is not a “comfortable margin”. It’s well within even their unbelievably small claimed error, which they say is ± 9 zettajoule for 2018.
In closing, please don’t rag on Zeke about this. He’s one of the good guys, and all of us are wrong at times. As I myself have proven more often than I care to think about, the American scientist Lewis Thomas was totally correct when he said, “We are built to make mistakes, coded for error” …
Best regards to everyone,
w.
PS—when commenting please quote the exact words that you are discussing. That way we can all understand both who and what you are referring to.
Math Notes: Here is the calculation of the conversion of zettajoules to degrees of warming of the top two km of the ocean. I work in the computer language R, and these are the actual calculations. Everything after a hashmark (#) in a line is a comment.
heatcapacity=sw_cp(t=4,p=100) # heat capacity, with temperature and pressure at 1000 m depth print(paste(round(heatcapacity), "joules/kg/°C")) [1] "3958 joules/kg/°C" seadensity=gsw_rho(35,4,1000) # density, with temperature and pressure at 1000 m depth print(paste(round(seadensity), "kg/cubic metre")) [1] "1032 kg/cubic metre" seavolume=1.4e9*1e9 #cubic km * 1e9 to convert to cubic metres print(paste(round(seavolume), "cubic metres, per levitus")) [1] "1.4e+18 cubic metres, per levitus" fractionto2000m=0.46 # fraction of ocean above 2000 m depth per Levitus zjoulesperdeg=seavolume*fractionto2000m*seadensity*heatcapacity/1e21 print(paste(round(zjoulesperdeg), "zettajoules to heat 2 km seawater by 1°C")) [1] "2631 zettajoules to heat 2 km seawater by 1°C" z1955error = 95 # 1955 error in ZJ print(paste(round(z1955error/zjoulesperdeg,2),"°C 1955 error")) [1] "0.04 °C 1955 error" z2018error = 9 # 1955 error in ZJ print(paste(round(z2018error/zjoulesperdeg,3),"°C 2018 error")) [1] "0.003 °C 2018 error" yr2018change = 8 # 2017 to 2018 change in ZJ print(paste(round(yr2018change/zjoulesperdeg,3),"°C change 2017 - 2018")) [1] "0.003 °C change 2017 - 2018"
When it comes to measuring temperature I can speak from some experience. I was very heavily involved with development of a scientific instrument product, part of which required precise measurement of temperature inside a 10mm * 10mm cuvette. We of course used the best thermal sensor around – a high precision platinum resistance thermometer. Now remember we needed to GUARANTEE our measurement accuracy. So what did we achieve? +- 0.1C. For the next product upgrade I came up with some novel circuitry which was able to reduce that to +- 0.01C for the sensor – not necessarily for the contents of a cuvette. For example, whether the contents of the cuvette are stirred or not makes far more than 0.01C difference – indeed more than 0.1C difference. That circuit concept was significant enough to warrant a patent application. This is over a volume of 1 cubic centimeter in a cuvette that is reasonably well insulated from the environment! Trying to get 0.01C in something the size of a swimming pool let alone an ocean is pretty much a joke!
Thanks, Michael, I figured someone with real-world experience would chime in. And they’re not just claiming ± 0.01°C, they’re claiming ± 0.003°C …
w.
psst.
its not a measurement accuracy.
you might be fooling yourself
steven mosher January 12, 2019 at 5:32 am
Steve, I HATE this kind of laconic drive-by commenting.
First, it’s not clear who you are claiming is fooling himself. Me? Michael Hammer?
Second, it is not clear what you mean by “measurement accuracy”. Do you mean it is the wrong terminology? Or do you mean the terminology is right but it is applied to the wrong concept?
Third, it is not clear what you are referring to. The claimed accuracy of the AIP product? Mr. Hammer’s discussion of his professional experience with measuring a cc of water?
Grrr … you’re a smart guy, but trying to unravel what you put forward as some kind of scientific haiku is an exercise in frustration.
w.
Scientific haiku!
I think we have a new nickname for S.M.
Hi Willis,
Interesting article. Clearly the oceans are heating which is consistent with the expected warming from increased levels of CO2. I wonder how easy / difficult it would be to translate the observed level from this data to surface temperature warming? Specifically to what this implies with respect to the expected warming from a doubling of CO2.
Happy New Year and all the best!
Willis,
Australia has a government body named the National Measurement Institute. (Years ago, a neighbor was a scientist there, useful to talk with between his work to restore his 1932 Bentley). In the coming week I shall attempt to obtain information from them concerning the accuracy of measurement of water temperature under their controlled conditions.
Technology has advanced since I owned a chemistry laboratory, but I do recall problems in measuring water temperatures to +/- 0.5 deg C. Apart from the electronics, the instrumentation and the special rooms with controlled atmospheres, there is the problem of making a measurement in water representative of the whole volume of water. Mixing is a remedy, but mixing creates heat. That is but one complication.
Readers here would help the effort by contacting their own country reps.
BTW, our NMI is running a course next month.
https://shop.measurement.gov.au/collections/physical-metrology-training/products/introduction-to-estimating-measurement-uncertainty?variant=4291206184991
Geoff.
Geoff
As a result of a recent post on historical OHC, I dug up a report on the HMS Challenger 1873-76 Expedition that I found fascinating. In particular, their efforts to determine temperatures in the abyss. That section starts on page 84. I was surprised at their ingenuity in trying to accurately measure those temperatures. They even have a section identifying the weaknesses in the measuring devices.
I thought you might enjoy reading it and mention it on your visit with NMI.
http://19thcenturyscience.org/HMSC/HMSC-Reports/1885-Narrative/htm/doc.html
As I mention below, the Argo floats use platinum resistance thermometers, which depending on design and application have an absolute accuracy of 0.001 to 0.01 deg. C, with high stability. The problem is making a measurement representative of the ocean water around the float.
Roy
Did you mean “accuracy,” “precision,” or both?
wow.
Now I understand the ad homs against Mann or me,
But Zeke?
I had hopes folks would lay off the personal attacks as Tim Ball sugested.
Steve
Forget the personal stuff. Who has the better case, Willis or Zeke?
Good to point it out Steve but it is a very small subset of commentators on here.
In the interest fairness perhaps you would like to go on the ‘alarmist’ sites and tell us what proportion of there is of dogs abuse of people like Willis, Spencer, Curry when their names crop up.
Playing the well known game is it higher or lower, perhaps the most obvious answer ever I would say.
The 8 ZJ increase in ocean heat was the same as in 2014 when it was asserted that energy equal to 4 Hirochima atomic bombs pr second got into oceans. Now there is a rebirth of the atomic bomb analogi: “They say the oceans are absorbing around 90 percent of the excess energy caused by greenhouse gas emissions and by their estimates, since 1871, it’s added up to about “436 x 1021 Joules.” Since most of us don’t speak math, The Guardian decided the “1.5 atomic bomb explosions per-second” would be a suitable analogy to digest after crunching the numbers.” https://www.theinertia.com/environment/oxford-research-oceans-warm-at-the-equivalent-of-1-5-atomic-bomb-blasts-per-second/
I think the trends are much more interesting than what year will win the heat contest.
The Argo floats use platinum resistance thermometers (PRTs), which depending on application and design are accurate to 0.001 to 0.01 deg. C, and very stable. Between 2005 and 2017, the 0-2000m global average temperature has risen about 0.04 deg. C, and I doubt the error in this due to Argo float accuracy is as large as 0.01 deg. C. As Willis points out, spatial sampling is probably the largest source of error. These are point sources of temperature measurement, as opposed to the satellite microwave measurements (also calibrated with on-board PRTs) which are volumetric with each footprint on the Earth representing about 1,000 cubic km of air, rather than a tiny point. I think the main uncertainty is, as Willis alludes to, is back before the Argo float era. I really don’t believe we know to a few hundredths of a degree the average temperature of the upper half of the ocean in 1990, 1980, 1970, or any other year before the Argo floats.
Oh, but we can model them and then use circular reasoning to claim the unprecedented.
I’m sorry, I just wish this was just a joke. But it is clear there is no accurate knowledge of old temps, it is all a modelled guess that works backwards from the ‘basic physics’ .
Yup.
What is the record of “adjustment” and “removal” of Argo sensor data? Have Argo floats been removed from service because they are “reading too cold”?
Hi Stephen, There are loads of Argo adjustments. Just to give one example see https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Taiyo_Kobayashi/publication/228863360_Argo_float_pressure_offset_adjustment_recommendations/links/0c960515944df8b5ba000000.pdf (pdf) where they say “We strongly suggest the adjustment of all known pressure drifts in Argo data. These adjustments will improve the consistency and accuracy of the hydrographic dataset obtained by Argo Program. Even small errors should be corrected because the potential impact of a small bias in Argo data pressures from uncorrected pressure sensor drifts could be quite significant for global ocean heat content anomaly estimates. In the worst case, a bias could introduce an artifact comparable in magnitude to ocean heat content changes estimated for the later half of the 20th century”.
Yep, the errors could be as large all the ocean heat estimated for the 2nd half of the 20th century. And that’s only one adjustment.
Here’s a recent overview of the biases and corrections https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JTECH-D-17-0122.1
Great post, even I can understand it (and my mathematical abilities are highly atrophied). I completely agree about not ragging on Zeke. Maybe he and the other authors will challenge your view, but assuming this largely survives, it’s another in a growing list of symptoms regarding the enterprise of science generally (and some areas particularly of which climate science is one). No system can be perfect but this seems to me a very basic issue which has gotten through (the system should not just be one man’s science and so subject as we all are to one man’s mistakes). Unfortunately, a lot of press off the back of this already.
Hate to disappoint. There is no man made global warming. I could not find it.
If the globe is heating [at some places] it is due to natural reasons.
http://breadonthewater.co.za/2019/01/06/does-man-made-climate-change-exist/
There are some other aspects to this false alarm. In particular, Cheng et al. relies partly on Resplandy et al. which Nic Lewis critiqued at Climate Etc. My post is
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2019/01/11/scare-of-the-day-ocean-heat-content/
Anyway, if man made global warming really existed,
e.g. due to more GHG being released into the atmosphere,
would you not say that the increase of observed warming of each place on earth must be the same?
[all CO2 and other GHG’s are mixed and spread 100% into the atmosphere?]
I could not find any warming here where I live. In fact, minimum T seems to be dropping…
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tps2cd4kuds8o6g/SUBMISSION%20by%20Henry%20Pool.docx?dl=0
I often see the claim that CO2 is ‘well mixed’ into the atmosphere, but I don’t think so. Why?
Because ALL of the CO2 is emitted from the surface.
And ALL of the CO2 is absorbed at the surface.
And the atmosphere is densest at the surface.
Thus, CO2 MUST be highest near the surface.
Granted, it will mix through convection, wind, etc, but it cannot be true that the percentage of CO2 is the same everywhere in the atmosphere because CO2 is ‘well mixed’. CO2 comes out of tailpipes – isn’t it higher near that tailpipe than at 1 meter from the tailpipe? 2 meters? 1 km?
John
They measure the CO2 at several places around the earth and although they [the stations] do differ a small tiny little bit, amongst one and another, it seems the rate of increase is undeniable, the same,
in the case of CO2 due to both human emissions and the warming of the oceans, i.e.
HCO3- (there are giga tons of bi-carbonates in the oceans) + heat => CO2 + OH-
Obviously, in any vessel {earth?} , all CO2 would eventually diffuse and mix to the same concentration
as per the relevant gas law.
Density may make a difference from top to bottom but the ratio of all gases in the atmosphere stays the same, no matter what altitude.
Prove me wrong?
True. CO2 is also denser than air. Some studies have shown muvh higher concentrations and daiky changes above crop acreages. Can’t find link but recall it may have been at jonova.com.au website.
John
They measure the CO2 at several places around the earth and although they [the stations] do differ a small tiny little bit, amongst one and another, it seems the rate of increase is undeniable, the same,
in the case of CO2 due to both human emissions and the warming of the oceans, i.e.
HCO3- (there are giga tons of bi-carbonates in the oceans) + heat => CO2 + OH-
Obviously, in any vessel {earth?} , all CO2 would eventually diffuse and mix to the same concentration
as per the relevant gas law.
Density may make a difference from top to bottom but the ratio of all gases in the atmosphere stays the same, no matter what altitude.
Prove me wrong?
There is a constant exchange of CO2 at the interface of the entire earth at all times. When CO2 is released by the oceans, it is obviously more dense at that interface than at higher elevations, where it is more dispersed. Why do you suppose they measure CO2 at the tops of mountains? Because they want to measure the more well mixed atmosphere. There are CO2 domes over cities, that is well known. And, CO2 is heavier than ‘air’ regardless of its ability to ‘disperse’. It can suffocate you in higher concentrations, which would not be possible if it were ‘well mixed’ at all times.
It’s too bad they don’t include CO2 % on weather balloons…properly calibrated, it would be at a higher percentage where it is emitted than it would be ‘at altitude’, where it is naturally dispersed.
John
I am happy to see that I donot have to lecture you on CO2
Indeed people have died because of sudden outbursts of CO2 in confined places
[died due to asphixciation – not due to poisening – just so we are all clear]
but, undeniably, all gases mix to the same proportion available in the vessel/
Must tell you also that CO2 cools the atmosphere by deflecting sunlight off from earth.
I can prove this easily. One of the results of this is the very reason how we can identify and quantify CO2 on other planets.
Now Tyndall and Arrhenius only looked at closed box eperiments [similar like your shower cubicle] trapping some heat where earth emits and never realized that the CO2 is also cooling the atmosphere due to a number of prominent absorptions in the range where the sun emits. i.e. 0-5 um
So, who of you all here present can show me the balance sheet of the tests showing to me that the net effect of more CO2 in the atmosphere is that of warming, rather than cooling?
Right! As I already noted in another comment (was it on this thread?) both the TCS and ECS remain undetermined, and both their ranges could include <0.
Sorry. TCS and ECS =?
Various sources of CO2 measurements are shown in two of the graphs at http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/pangburn.html . There were no significant conflicts. This has been confirmed, global range only about +/- 2%, by satellite OCO-2 as discussed at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/04/finally-visualized-oco2-satellite-data-showing-global-carbon-dioxide-concentrations/
An important question about recent ocean heating is whether it represents the entire ocean, not just down to 2,000 meters, and thus represents net warming, OR whether it represent changes in the mixing ratio between the more surface ocean and the deep ocean, which is only a few degrees above freezing. In the latter case, the actual total ocean heating is undefined. The AMO, which drives vertical ocean mixing, is know to be time variable.
Since none of the probes ever sample the parts of the ocean deeper that 2000 meters, I do not see how there is even any theoretical possibility that the total ocean heat content is known, and consequently it cannot be known how much it has changed, unless one was to assume the ludicrous case that the parts they never measure do not change and hence can be ignored.
true
This is what peer review is supposed to be.
Ike, it’s why I write for the web and not the journals. Peer review on the web is both instantaneous and brutal, which is the best of combinations. I know any mistakes I make won’t last long out here … it’s great!
w.
No Willis, you are not writing for “the web.”
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You are writing for WUWT which is not a representative cohort of actual scientists or for that matter a representative of the web.
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When did you publish an article for realclimate.org, which is part of the web?
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Too bad your work isn’t good enough for journals. Ever notice how Monckton emphasizes his past and pending journal publications? That is because he understands that to have a lasting impact in the realm of scinec you need to publish where real science is done.
Thanks, Steve. I’ve had much more effect writing here than I ever could have had writing for the journals. I know because of the feedback I’ve had from the pieces I’ve had published in the journals. They are far less visible and less impactful.
In addition, science is a war for the opinions of the general public as well as for the opinions of scientists. Unfortunately, climate alarmists have been winning that war. So it’s important for me to be out here writing where my ideas are read by more than just scientists.
Next, my intention is to influence the current direction of the ongoing scientific discussion regarding climate. This can only be done on the web—by the time a piece can be peer-reviewed and published in the journals, the discussion will have moved on.
But as in this case, Zeke can put an idea out in the public marketplace, and before his incorrect claims have time to become part of the scientific landscape, I can point out the huge problems with it. Zeke hears about it. Likely the good folks at AIP hear about it. And if they don’t, likely someone will point it out to them. This blog has an incredible reach.
Next, WUWT holds a curious place in the climate discussion. It is the one website that both sides of the debate read. Why? Because it’s interesting. Because new ideas are discussed here. Because it’s only lightly moderated.
Finally, for me it is invaluable to publish here because it prevents me from following false leads or persisting in error. Someone with some kind of specialized knowledge will jump up and say “Ah, Willis … ya messed up in paragraph 3 claim 2 …”. Or more likely they’ll say “Stupid idiot Willis is making mistakes again”, personal insult is far too often conflated with identification of scientific errors …
And that alone is hugely valuable regardless of how the person tells me I’m wrong. I could have gone down blind trails or followed mistaken ideas for weeks or years. How much time has that saved? And how much have I learned about how to do it properly?
Those are some of the reasons I publish my work on WUWT. I have more, but you get the point.
Best regards,
w.
1) ” They are far less visible and less impactful.”
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WUWT does not have a measurable “impact factor” which is a concrete metric used in ranking the significance of a specific journal…………. https://www.scijournal.org/
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2) Science is not about “opinions” it is about facts.
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3) There is a distinct difference between the “science of climate” and “scientific discussion regarding climate.” You may be writing for/of the discussion, but you are not doing the actual science. This blog contains news and opinion in the area of climate science, but this blog is not where actual science is done.
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4) WUWT is a blog. It’s not a journal, and as I noted above it has no impact factor. As such, real science is not done here
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5) “it prevents me from following false leads or persisting in error. ” Hardly. Your publications are not being reviewed by the science community. For example, you published your “thermostat hypothesis” which was savagely cut down by Roy Spencer because you inadvertently reinvented the wheel. Normal peer review in established journals by veterans would have pointed this out quickly as Roy did.
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6) You post: ” How much time has that saved? “……I’ll agree with you on that point, quite a lot. But the problem is that once your work is put to the WUWT community, that’s where it ends, and you don’t seem go beyond that and actually contribute to science. When was the last time you put out your work to the WUWT community, corrected errors, then subsequently published in a reputable journal?
That may have been the best thing I have seen you publish. I love your writing, don’t get me wrong. But it isn’t simply getting one thing ‘thought of’ in another way, but rather demonstrating that there are more than one way of looking at things, and exposing the errors of thinking that are published.
Peer review is perhaps the worst example of a way to a scientific end as there is. In my mind, peer review is expected to check your math, look for errors, etc. But it has devolved into a group that ‘agrees’ with your ideology, rather than attempting to validate your results. What peer review these days catch math errors? What so-called ‘skeptic’ is asked to peer review a report by an acknowledged ‘warmer’? As such, the peer review system is broken, and may never recover. It is the mavericks, like you, Willis, that take a stance and back it up with math to show these errors of thinking that are so prevalent. (It happens to you too, but not as often.) Keep it up – I, for one, will always read and evaluate everything you write. I hope you have many more followers as well. There is a lot of erroneous thinking in this world…and few to expose those errors.
Steve Heins January 12, 2019 at 7:03 pm
The New York Times, CNN, Wikileaks, and lots of other publications and websites don’t have an “impact factor” either … and despite that, they have a huge impact on our world. I fear your view of impact is far too narrow. Why do you think that many scientists like Dr. Roy Spencer and Judith Curry and Gavin Schmidt and Stephen McIntyre have blogs? To get the word out, to increase their impact, to discuss the science.
True. However, the public perception of the science is just as important these days … and that is mostly opinion and not a lot of facts. I deal with both, because I publish my scientific findings here.
Not doing science? Science is a process. In the scientific method, someone publishes a scientific claim, along with the data, logic, math, etc. that supports the claim.
Other people then look to see if they can replicate the results, and if they can find any errors in the data, logic, math, etc.
So yes, science most definitely goes on here.
The scientific method, and science itself, existed long before there was peer-review or scientific journals. How do you explain that? And it definitely goes on today outside of peer-review and the journals.
You’re the kind of guy who, if you saw a scientific proof written on a blackboard, would complain about the quality and location of the blackboard … science is not about where it is published. It is about the validity or falsity of the scientific claims.
Actually, Dr. Roy’s false claim was that I was just repeating the work of Ramanathan without crediting him, what you call “reinventing the wheel”.
If either you or Dr. Roy had done your homework you’d have noticed that a) my hypothesis is very different from that of Ramanathan and b) when I had discussed Ramanathan’s ideas, I had indeed credited him.
Dr. Roy is one of my scientific heroes, but in that case he didn’t do his due diligence on either matter, nor did you … see here for the details.
Say what? Normal peer review takes months. Here I get the answer in hours. That’s simply not true.
Steve, you are certainly free to write for the journals all you want. Go for it. But don’t bother trying to lecture me about impact. I get on the order of a million page views per year of my work here, my work here on WUWT is quoted and discussed around the web, and I get my errors pointed out in real time … I’ll settle for that.
My best regards to you,
w.
1) ” I fear your view of impact is far too narrow. ” Hardly. The New York Times, CNN, Wikileaks, etc. are not cited in scientific studies. Impacting opinion is not impacting science, which is why WUWT has no impact factor.
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2) ” I publish my scientific findings here.” Which is why you have no impact (see #1 above.)
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3) “So yes, science most definitely goes on here.” No, all you and all other article posters are doing is publishing your opinions here. You claim “peer review” by the readers and commenters, but sadly most of the readers of this blog are not scientists. The peer cohort stinks.
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4) “if you saw a scientific proof written on a blackboard, would complain about the quality and location of the blackboard ” That is hilarious Mr. Eschenbach. First of all, I was hoping that I wouldn’t need to explain this to a “scientist” such as you, but there is no such thing as a scientific proof.
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5) Roy nailed you.
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6) “That’s simply not true.” Actually it is true. A real climate scientist (Roy) had to point out that you re-invented the wheel. Your problem is that you were simply not well versed in prior work.
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7) ” I get on the order of a million page views per year of my work here,” You’ve just committed the logical fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
Steve Heins
I am not sure I follow you. Willis’ post is correct. It is impossible to estimate global T or global SST from a ‘few’ measurements. I am clueless as to how they can correctly do the calibrations on all those measuring points.
By my results, UAH and RSS have also been going wrong, due to the sensors having received too much solar radiation, I am sure. Low magnetic solar polar field strengths menas more of the most energetic particles being able to escape from the sun.
Are you saying that man made [global] warming is happening?
I could not find it. How did you measure this?
http://breadonthewater.co.za/2019/01/06/does-man-made-climate-change-exist/
Steve Heins
I am not sure I follow you. Willis’ post is correct. It is impossible to estimate global T or global SST from a ‘few’ measurements. I am clueless as to how they can correctly do the calibrations on all those measuring points.
By my results, UAH and RSS have also been going wrong, due to the sensors having received too much solar radiation, I am sure. Low magnetic solar polar field strengths means more of the most energetic particles being able to escape from the sun.
Are you saying that man made [global] warming is happening?
I could not find it. How did you measure this?
http://breadonthewater.co.za/2019/01/06/does-man-made-climate-change-exist/
Must say, also
Zeke has managed to get his ‘scientific news’ on the main news on radio, here,
telling me to be ‘alarmed’ because the SST has been increasing at the highest rate in 2018 than at any year before..
which is of course the usual hype you get from from the media from this type of nonsense papers..
Zeke is therefore not in my good book;
for the record.
Some thoughts from a daring and hopefully not ignorant layman:
1. Quick research on the Argo floats shows they transmit data 4-5 years. The existing 3800+ floats are added to at the rate of about 800 per year, which is about replacement rate. They do transmit location data.
2. A quick look at Figure 2, the distribution of Argo floats, suggests dense coverage throughout the earth’s seas and oceans. A closer look shows otherwise. First, the polar icecaps and sea-ice zones have few to no floats. Their combined area of 5 million or so sq miles may be only 4 or 5 % of the oceans’ area, but it may be significant. Climate change always has as a component the transfer of heat from the tropics to the poles or vice versa. Without knowing what is happening near the poles, I am reluctant to accept a mere 0.1°C increase in the nonpolar seas as representative of the entire world’s seas.
3. Not only are the polar areas undermeasured, we see considerable clustering of the Argo floats. This is conspicuous along the US eastern seaboard, Canada’s maritime provinces and southern Greenland. You see coastal clustering on a number of other coasts as well. Dense coverage along coastlines reduces coverage in the more open seas, affecting accuracy.
4. More important, you see clustering in the open seas as well. Some of these clusters are clots of floats in a relatively small area, while others are linear and curvilinear. As a result you do, on closer look, see broad areas (central South Atlantic, central Indian Ocean and large patches of the Pacific) with little to no coverage at all. Obviously this could affect the accuracy of conclusions as to worldwide ocean warming.
5. Most importantly, I ask why are there these clusters? The floats float and drift. If they drift at 1/10th mph in a current, they will move about 20 miles every 10 day cycle. After a year or two of drifting on currents, they may very well end up in those dense coastal (or other) clusters I described. I am suggesting that drift due to currents and the like leads to both the open water, low coverage areas and also to the clustering observable on Figure 2. The effect would be to markedly reduce the number of temperature measurements in the no and low coverage zones, as well as lead to unnecessarily redundant measurements in densely covered zones. No doubt some attempt is made to “adjust” (gee, I wonder if those adjustments are based on political science or just plain science?) the data so that measurements are properly distributed over the globe’s seas, but the relative paucity of measurements over large areas may stymie the ability of one to accurately adjust.
6. Moreover, it is probably important to know whether Argo float replacement is conducted seasonally (as opposed to throughout the year) in areas where floats drift in a general direction. Once you move away from the tropics, avoiding winter weather may be important for the safety of ship and crew, furthermore, if students and academics are frequently utilized, such may favor float replenishment during summer months. My point is that if floats are replaced seasonally in areas of low coverage, that improvement in coverage may be short-lived and lead to systemic data shortages in large swaths of ocean during winter months. This may make accurate adjustments impossible.
7. Conclusions. A closer look at Figure 2, the worldwide distribution of Argo floats, reveals clustering in some areas and low to no coverage in other areas. This may be the product of drifting on currents. The coverage gaps might be minimized through targeted float replacement practice, but particularly if replenishment is conducted seasonally, the low-coverage areas may systemically produce little data throughout much of the year, every year. All of this leads one to question whether temperature within the top 2 km of the world’s oceans is being accurately measured.
DaveAllentown January 12, 2019 at 8:04 am
And interesting thoughts indeed … Let me answer a few of them.
I’m not sure if #3 is a bug or a feature. I say that because along the coasts the temperature varies over a shorter distance than in the open ocean, where vast areas may have the same temperature.
One place that I see problems in that regard is the equatorial Pacific. You can see the dotted line along the equator where the Equatorial Undercurrent flows eastward. There is also a general dimiution of coverage in the inter-tropical convergence zone. Here’s a map I made a while back …
(SOURCE: From my post, Where In The World Is Argo)
Not sure what to say about the non-uniform distribution. They do use algorithms plus kriging to fill in the gaps, but still …
Thanks for your thoughts,
w.
Dr. Cheng addresses this problem in the article in Science accompanying his paper. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6423/128
If the ocean is heating, it is from the sun, not some trace gas that is ‘well mixed’ in the atmosphere. Suggesting that this trace gas is somehow able to heat the ocean is ridiculous. Try shining your flashlight on your stove to see how much those photons can increase the stove temperature.
IF, and that is a HUGE IF, the surface of the ocean were to be heated by something other than the sun, the increased temperature would result in an increased RATE of radiation FROM the ocean, causing the additional ‘heat’ to be radiated away.
The thermal laws confirm the presence of the almost perfect thermostat that is the earth in its entirety. ANY warming ANYwhere results in instantaneous increased radiation to remove that increase.
100%
The irony is that all this fuss about CO2, which has little if any effect on climate and is actually beneficial for food production, has obscured the real human-caused threat. Water vapor, which is a greenhouse gas, has been increasing 1.5% per decade since 1960. That is about twice as fast as calculated from the liquid surface water temperature rise (feedback). The WV increase correlates with irrigation increase. The added warmth is welcome but the risk of disaster from precipitation related flooding has been increasing.
According to all temperature reporting agencies and a main water vapor reporting agency (NASA/RSS) the water vapor increase and warming appear to have ended in about 2002-2005. https://images.spot.im/image/upload/q_70,fl_lossy,dpr_3,c_limit/v200/134b513024a391b7991814166ad45b5d
Dan
I respect your opinions
and indeed, if I thought that burning of fossil fuels would be a problem, I would think of the H2O produced, by all those planes, rather than the CO2. You can see the water trails of the aeroplanes?
However, my observation here [in South Africa] is that a cloudy day is generally a much cooler day due to deflection of sunlight. That difference is considerable, I measured up to 10-12 degrees difference from one day to another, like from 38 going down to 26….degrees C/
In winter, I notice of course minimum T rising during the night when the clouds make a blanket, trapping some heat from earth. But the difference in T is not as much. May be just a 5 or 6 degrees.
So, you guessed it, I wonder how you came to the conclusion that it is rising H2O that is warming the planet, rather than cooling it?
Water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas, much stronger than CO2.
Hen – I ruled out CO2 because of eight compelling reasons listed in Section 2 of my blog/analysis (click my name).
Willis identified warming from WV at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/07/25/precipitable-water
I incorporated WV in my b/a and got 98.3% match with measured 1895-2017.
Detailed calculation of sources of WV is included in my b/a. WV from burning fossil fuels doesn’t amount to much compared to other sources. Irrigation accounts for about 86%.
Clouds make it cooler by reflecting more sunlight and they also radiate full spectrum so cloud temperature/altitude matters. I discuss clouds at http://lowaltitudeclouds.blogspot.com
WV is present whether there are clouds or not.
I track el Nino weekly, all else monthly. For the big comparison, I average for each year.
Dan
{any] warming on earth is actually caused by increased UV radiation into the ocean [this is the process of increased UV via the window of ozone, peroxides and N-oxides and the related solar factors that produce these chemicals TOA]
this [warming] process would release both more H2O and more CO2 in the atmosphere.
the question is whether the entrapment of radiation of these components by earth 5-15 um is greater than the deflection of radiation 0-5 um
like I stated before ,
I don’t believe more CO2 or more H2O causes more warming. At least I could not find the trend here – and you say it should be a global ternd?
http://breadonthewater.co.za/2019/01/06/does-man-made-climate-change-exist/
Hen,
I think TSI includes all EMR which would include UV. TSI only varies about 0.1% or so which is way less than needed to account for average global temperature change on earth. Thus some magnification mechanism is required. IMO the magnification is done by the influence of something (probably solar magnetism on clouds) which is accurately quantified by a proxy which is the time-integral of SSN anomalies. The sensitivity of earth temperature to clouds is analyzed at http://lowaltitudeclouds.blogspot.com .
I have not seen a quantative assessment of the phenomenon you described.
Yes, the liquid surface water temperature increase forces more water vapor into the air but measurements and calculations show that the increase in WV is about twice expected from T increase alone (Section 8 of http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com ). The combination of factors considered there produces a match of 98.3% with measured T 1895-2017.
WV made the planet warm enough for life as we know it. The increased WV has contributed to the warming. My calculation is that the human contribution to warming 1895-2017 is about 0.18 K which is half the warming due to WV increase.
Graphs shown earlier with trend lines show a change in slope from uptrend to horizontal (maybe slightly down) for both WV and UAH v6.0 around 2002-2005 while CO2 trend shows no indication of slope change.
Dan
Interesting discussion.
It is complicated. TSI is not my favorite as I don’t trust the probes too much of the sats measuring it.
I notice that you know that the sun gives us a chi-square energy distribution. But do you realize that it is not a static distribution? It may shift a bit to the left or right, /depending on the solar cycles/ leaving essentially the area under the curve the same [i.e. no change in TSI]. However, if it shifts to the left it means more of the most energetic particles are able to escape from the sun, due to the lower solar polar magnetic field strengths. Our atmosphere is protecting us from the most energetic radiation coming from the sun by forming ozone, peroxide and N-oxides. In its turn, more ozone, peroxide etc. means more UV being deflected off from earth instead of heating the oceans. IMHO this is definitely one of the most important factors causing warming or cooling of the oceans, and, hence, global T. But there are also other factors, like the moon, the planets, the elephant in the room and what not?
However, I have found a relationship between ozone and the solar polar magnetic field strengths.
Essentially, wv also deflects a lot of sunshine. IMO it deflects more heat than it traps or it is about the same.. E.g. you will notice less heat will come through to you [on earth] if the RH rises suddenly, all else being equal. What wv does is essential for life in that it [i.e. the weather] keeps the temperature much the same everywhere on earth and preventing extreme temperatures by re-distributing energy. But I don’t believe there is a relationship between increased wv or CO2 and increased global T.
My own data set of 54 weather stations taken folling a specific sampling procedure just follows the Gleissberg cycle. That cannot be a coincidence. By my results, it is cooling already since around the new milennium. But it is not much.
Click on my name to read my final report on that.
BW
H
While water vapor may indeed be increasing, the IPCC’s charter is to identify human causes of climate change, and recommend what to do to ‘fix’ it. Since they glommed onto CO2, and no one has disproved it, they are free to continue with the scare stories about CO2.
Never mind what the ‘real’ cause might be, they are unmoved by any natural concern, since natural is, by nature, not human-caused, and thus not in their bailiwick to study. That is exactly why you don’t see *any* mention of solar changes, other interstellar interference, or even water vapor, which cannot be measured globally and cannot be controlled. No, you won’t see water vapor mentioned by the IPCC, because that would be goring their own ox. After all, if CO2 is not the boogeyman, they are out of business!!
It seems to me that there must be active ‘real’ scientists that would be able to validate the CO2 hypothesis or break it – but they can’t get funding for that because the billion/trillion dollar freight train could be derailed…and politicians don’t want that.
heat moves away from its source towards colder bodies, the greater the differential the FASTER that movement is….correct any tiny warming in our atmosphere INCREASES the rate the radiation leaves the earth
It appears that you are mixing two different heat transfer laws. Heat travels toward cool bodies through CONDUCTION only. Radiated energy has no clue where it radiated from, nor where it lands. Thus, photons from earth heat the sun. Not much, granted, but some of the photons from earth do reach the sun, and are absorbed there…just as they are here on earth.
I often read that radiated energy cannot be absorbed by a warmer body than the emitter – not so. A photon is simply a unit of energy that can be absorbed by any molecule it strikes. Or, the photon can be deflected to a new path, or it can be reflected back. None of this matters regarding the emitting source temperature.
The First and Second Laws of thermodynamics prevent such ludicrous notions.
If a photon is emitted from some source and happens to approach a object much hotter than the its emitter, what does it do, go into reverse, curse and commit suicide, create a worm hole and vanish into another universe?
How does an object at the same temperature as the other know not to transfer heat to the other?
And when does this vicious selfheating cycle end?
Find me a physics textbook that states the First and Second Laws apply only to conductive heat transfer.
I guess with climate science anything is possible.
I’m afraid some here do not understand the thermodynamic laws. If one doesn’t accept that a photon is simply a unit of energy with no mass, and no memory of where it came from, then one cannot possibly understand radiation theory. Photons, once emitted, travel in essentially a straight line forever, at the speed of light (in a vacuum), unless they strike something. There are three things that can happen to that photon – it can be absorbed, it can be deflected, or it can be reflected. If it is absorbed, the energy of the ‘receiver’ is increased. If it is deflected, it will simply change path. If it is reflected, it will be returned in the direction of original travel, but not necessarily to the exact point from which it was emitted. Once absorbed, it is no longer a photon, and the concept of ‘re-emission’ is meaningless. The receiving molecule may emit a photon, but it is a new photon, not a recycled one.
Everything that is above absolute zero K emits radiation. So, a photon emitted from your own body can absolutely be absorbed by a molecule of the sun, provided none of the above happens first. Photons have no memory of where they came from, so the concept of hot objects absorbing photons from cold objects is normal, and happens constantly.
In conduction, such as heating the top end of a metal rod, the heat will travel throughout the rod, eventually heating the bottom end of the rod. The rod will also be radiating in all directions throughout the entire rod, and heat will leave the rod by convection because the hot rod will heat the air in contact with it and that air will rise. So, all three methods of heat transfer will occur simultaneously with that rod. Does the rod absorb photons radiated from your body? Absolutely, regardless of the temperature of the rod. (But your body will absorb more photons from the rod than the other way around…)
The First and Second Laws of classical thermodynamics are based on statistical analysis of a very large number of interacting atoms or molecules (a “continuum” state). Those laws are not applicable to the quantum mechanics governing the interactions of several photons.
John Shotsky is correct. When a photon is emitted from any object, it has no “knowledge” of where or when it might interact with another object, nor if in such interaction(s) it will be absorbed, be deflected/refracted (with some energy loss/frequency change . . . think particle physics and Dr. Feynman), or be reflected either retaining its full energy or “losing” some energy in the process (think Doppler effect).
Any photon that transfers all (absorption) or part of its energy to another particle, including other photons, will therefore raise the energy content (not necessarily indicated “temperature”) of that particle or those particles. Thus, in a very general QM sense, a “cold” photon can indeed heat a “warm” photon.
I should let this pass, and I would if I didn’t think it would confuse some people. Photons have never been seen to interact with each other. A photon is a massless unit of energy. A photon can interact with anything that has mass…but so far, not with another photon. There is study going on that would use the world’s most powerful accelerator to try to demonstrate a photon interacting with a photon.
The way to think of photons is simply for a way to pass some energy from one entity to another. The photon is the energy packet which does not exist before emission, and ceases to exist upon absorption.
@John Shotsky January 13, 2019 at 6:24 am
OK, now I see where you’re coming from. But it’s irrelevant to anyone other than a particle physicist, and I’m talking died-in-the-wool can’t-match-his-socks kind of a guy, with 3 PhD.s, because well, he was only 12 credit hours away from that last one, who has never had any job in his life other than as a researcher at an institution with Huuuuu-uuuge research dollars. To answer the question we came here to discuss, that is what happens if the atmospheric CO₂ concentration doubles? For that we only need the standard 3 means of heat transfer governed by the Three Laws of Thermodynamics. So AndyHce’s comment,
, while it did elicit a smile at the imagery, doesn’t really matter, the “photon” can do whatever it likes, since a photon is just a mythical construct anyway, attempting to explain the unexplainable (I don’t want to hear about all the experiments “proving” a photon exists, for our purposes it just doesn’t matter). When John gave a better explanation of the “properties” of a photon I agreed I can let it go; so a photon from an object can reach an object of higher temperature and impart energy, but still, it doesn’t matter, the object of higher temperature will be emitting its own photons at a greater rate (since the temperature is higher) that will simply overwhelm (WRT how much heat is transferred) that one lone photon from the object radiating at a lower temperate, and there already exists equations to model just how much it doesn’t matter, that use the temperature of both objects, so they take into account the overwhelmed photons from the object of lesser temperature. So still, the Second Law of Thermodynamics still stands (yes I know I used “still” twice in the same sentence, and I did that because the photon still doesn’t matter), the net effect is, heat travels only from the higher temperature to the lower temperature (don’t argue anymore, you’ve gone beyond splitting hairs). I have no authority here, but I urge you to take the photon discussion to a blog totally devoted to photons! Really! Oh, yeah, and please, thank you.
Yes, John, perhaps you should.
“Two-photon physics, also called gamma–gamma physics, is a branch of particle physics that describes the interactions between two photons. Normally, beams of light pass through each other unperturbed. Inside an optical material, and if the intensity of the beams is high enough, the beams may affect each other through a variety of non-linear effects. In pure vacuum, some weak scattering of light by light exists as well. Also, above some threshold of this center-of-mass energy of the system of the two photons, matter can be created.” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-photon_physics
But keep in mind we were also considering photon-matter particle interactions, such a solar UV photons being absorbed by ocean water, and LWIR photons being “absorbed” by CO2 molecules.
What do the oceans radiate? The distance probably differs by wavelength but the value of 10 microns for total absorption of IR is often quoted. That means hat radiating away from the ocean can only occur extremely close to the surface.
Aside from daily heating from direct solar input, which is frequently quoted to penetrate about 100 meters at the shortest wavelength end of the spectrum (UV), heat is conveyed down to great depths by currents, e.g. warm water travels from the tropics to the artic where it sinks to the great depth and makes a return journey towards the tropics again. Some heat deposited deep by such currents is believed to have at least a 1000 year cycle time before arriving back near the surface again.
The IEA estimates that, in 2013, total primary energy supply (TPES) was 1.575 × 10^17 Wh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
As a thumb suck can the author of this article (or any one) tell us how many degrees the top 2 km of the ocean would rise if it were assumed that ALL of the TPES were to heat the top two km of the ocean?
Then it would be interesting to assess human generated heat to the alleged rise in ocean and atm temperature rise…is it noise or is it a potentially perceptible contributor?
It is hardly even noise. The geothermal heat flow from the ocean bottom is larger.
I agree but human energy release has to go somewhere….maybe into the atm as wtr vapor.
1.40E+08 area of ocean sq mi, http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/8o.html
3.90E+15 area of ocean sq ft
6600 ft wuwt depth of interest
2.58E+19 ft^3, vol of interest
1.58E+17 Whr total world primary energy supply
5.37E+17 btu
1.60E+21 lbs wtr wuwt in interest
0.0002 C, dT/yr
0.003 C, 2018 margin of error
16.100 error margin is 16x TPES in the top 2000 meters
5367 yrs at present TPES to lift top 2000 m 1C
As an aside, if the plot of the Argo buoys could show their actual size, it may appear different. If those dots represented their actual size imagine the Sea Monster stories we would hear.
If you were lost and adrift in midocean, and could snag one of these things when it rose to the surface and Morse code in an SOS…you would be saved.
What are the odds of anyone ever seeing one out there?
I think you have a better chance of winning the lottery.
What are the odds that the lost-and-adrift-at-sea person would have the skill sets—let alone tools—needed to break into an Argo buoy and modify its transmission to send out the equivalent of an SOS pulse train?
Convention.
Better than the odds of tossing it back and hoping for the best?
Thanks for another good article Willis,
Zeke’s graph strikes me as an adjustment of the secondary y axis scale to get an agreement with the last 15 years of data. As you know, anyone who is proficient at Excel graphing could do this. The rest of the graph does not match very well, as other posters have noted. Zeke could have used Yotta Joules which would have knocked off 3 decimal places, but even this would have given a secondary y axis value that is orders of magnitude larger than the temperatures upon which the number of joules is based.
Your excellent analysis of the statistical error shows that the data does not support Zeke’s conclusion. I expect that the intrinsic errors (both precision and accuracy) of the Argos temperature sensors is far larger than the statistical error which you calculated, however your analysis shows that the year on year temperature change is statistically insignificant.
Anthony says
there is no warming here, man made, or otheriwse
Henry says
you are quoting me out of context
I said ‘here’ meaning where I live. If you think it is warming where you live, let me have your figures on that?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/11/a-small-margin-of-error/#comment-2585817
ARGO has only been operational since 2003. How can Zeke et al make any claims going back to the 50’s? There was sparse coverage of the oceans at that time to say the least. So right off the bat is a yuuuge red herring to me. Bad or incomplete data does not make for an accurate study.
Micrometring a Brick!
The elephant in the room: an undergraduate experiment showing unreasonably low scatter is assumed to be the result of cheating. (Mendeley ‘s related case is famous).
Maybe it wouldn’t be nice, but for the sake of scientific ethics, shouldn’t we be accusing Zeke of fudging his data, or at least insisting upon an explanation?
It’s a serious accusation, I know, but is it not inescapable?
” plus or minus nine zettajoules … which is three thousandths of one degree C. That’s 0.003°C. Get real! Ask any process engineer—determining the average temperature of a typcial swimming pool to within three thousandths of a degree would require a dozen thermometers or more”
…and damned good thermometers at that.
This reminds me of the story about the difference between accuracy and precision.
The recent grad was working on a problem (this was in the days be personal computers). He was calculating out the result of a problem to several decimal points. His boss walked over, look over his shoulder and his work and said, “I don’t know about the last number, but the first one is wrong.”
Decreasing error by increasing the number of measurements is only applicable to random errors of independent measurements of the same entity.
It is therefore not applicable to Argo buoys.
Argo buoys also miss large and very important areas. They can’t measure ice-covered areas (they can’t surface there). That is something like 5% of the ocean.
There are other large “Argo-free areas”: Indonesia, the Carpentaria Gulf, the Sea of Okhotsk, the Bohai sea, the Patagonian shelf, the North Sea, Hudson bay, the Persian Gulf….
All in all about 10 % of the World Ocean is probably completely unsampled.
Willis 0.07 C error estimate is too low. Notice that while he did leave the high latitudes unsampled his random Argo distribution is much more random than the actual Argo distribution. The unsampled areas I mentioned above are well filled out.
The actual uncertainty is certainly well over 0.1 C