by Jim Steele
There are 2 narratives claiming to explain most of the observed ocean warming. One suggests recent ocean warming has been totally driven by human emissions that amplified the greenhouse effect. That narrative is supported the correlation with rising CO2 that blankets the globe. The second suggests the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and solar heating have conspired to warm the oceans. This 2nd narrative is supported by data illustrated in NOAA’s graphic (A) of ocean heat flux, with more heat entering into the eastern tropical Pacific and Atlantic (yellow) than is released. That high heat flux region is moderated by ENSO and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (Graphic E). The white regions show no net heat flux into a quarter of the ocean surfaces. Such observations do not support the first narrative of homogeneous warming from a thickening CO2 blanket.
Wherever there is a greater flux of heat into the ocean than ventilates out, the oceans will warm. All scientists agree that any absorbed heat can only be ventilated away through the ocean’s cool skin surface which is just 2-10 microns thick.
Coincidentally, greenhouse infrared heat only penetrates a few microns into that skin surface. Thus, any infrared warming of the skin surface can be quickly radiated back to space. Any warming of the skin surface also increases evaporation which further cools the ocean. Finally, 99% of the time the skin surface is warmer than the layer of air immediately above and so warms the air. Those 3 dynamics make ocean warming by greenhouse gases relatively insignificant. In contrast, because solar heat penetrates the subsurface where it cannot radiate away, solar heating is more capable of heating the ocean.
Oceans can store heat for longer periods of time wherever saltier water is overlaid by fresh water. That condition creates what is known as a subsurface barrier layer that inhibits normal upwards convection of heated water to the skin layer for ventilation. Because a salty barrier layer is more dense it doesn’t rise with limited subsurface heating.
The natural Hadley circulation causes rising moist air around the equator and sinking dry air in latitudes north and south of the equator. That causes high rates of evaporation but reduced precipitation in those latitudes (yellow regions in graphic B) which causes relatively saltier ocean water. As the Trade Winds are pulled towards the equator, they also curl westward driving the saltier ocean water and atmospheric water vapor towards the equator and westward. Where the northern and southern trade winds converge, the Intertropical Convergence Zone forms (blue equatorial region) creating a zone of concentrated water vapor and the greatest rainfall. The freshwater rainfall caps the saltier subsurface water resulting in tropical barrier layers that trap heat which then is redistributed around the globe (graphic C).
The tropics register cooler temperatures than solar heating predicts, while temperatures outside the tropics are warmer than predicted (Graphic D) Although the tropics receive the greatest amount of solar heating, they gain a “surplus” of heat that does not increase air temperatures while stored in the subsurface layers. Ocean currents carry that surplus heat pole-wards into cooler waters. There, it’s easier for heated subsurface waters to rise to the skin surface and ventilate any stored heat (blue regions in graphic A). That ventilation allows air temperatures outside the tropics to be warmer than predicted.
Still, for narrative 2 to best explain the observed ocean warming trend, there must be an increase in absorbed solar heat in the eastern Pacific and eastern Atlantic. Believers in the CO2 narrative dismiss such increased solar heating by simply pointing to the sun’s decreasing solar irradiance. However, observed decreases in cloud cover increase solar heating. A La Nina event and the 20 to 30-years of a La Nina-like (negative) Pacific Decadal Oscillation (Graphic E) create a cooler eastern Pacific that reduces cloud cover and increases solar flux into the ocean.
Furthermore, the increased east-west temperature difference during La Nina-like conditions amplifies the Trade Winds’ intensity. The stronger winds increase the transport of warm surface and subsurface water into the western Pacific where it can be stored down to 200-meter-depths (Graphic F) until ventilated by an El Nino event, as well as supplying heat to the Indian Ocean (Sprintall 2014) or into poleward currents. More warm water transport raises global temperatures. This is why Jones (2022) refers to these dynamics as the Pacific Ocean Heat Engine.
During El Nino events and a positive Decadal Oscillation, a cloudier eastern Pacific and weaker Trade Winds results in ocean cooling. El Nino-like conditions dominated during the Little Ice Age. The switch to more La Nina-like conditions since 1850 increased heat flux and heat redistribution that has contributed to modern warming. La Nina-like redistribution of heat also explains why NOAA doesn’t observe an increase in heat content in the eastern Pacific (gray regions Graphic G) but observes increased heat content in the western Pacific.
Finally, scientists integrating heat and salt transport from all ocean currents construct an Ocean Conveyor Belt that carries warm water from the Pacific, through the Indonesian Island passages into the Indian Ocean, around southern Africa into the Atlantic and northward into the Arctic (Graphic H). The Ocean Conveyor Belt explains why the Atlantic is warmer and saltier. The Conveyor Belt also explains reduced Arctic sea-ice. Where warm Atlantic water first enters the Arctic accounts for most of the observed lost sea ice inside the Arctic Circle. A thick layer of warm Atlantic water exists 100 to 900-meter depths (Graphic I). It slowly ventilates its heat through the insulating sea ice, but open water ventilates 35 times more heat than greenhouse warming, causing the Arctic temperature to be 3 times warmer than the global average.
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Interesting timing of the article as I have a question about why would the water off the New jersey coast be so cold in July. I live in California but I am from New Jersey. This past week we were visiting NJ and spent a day at the Beach. The Atlantic water was California pacific cold.:)
I saw this article saying The cooling is caused by the upwelling process. From what i read it seems to fit what you are saying. Does that make sense?
Don’t know about New Jersey but upwelling is a, as they say so much now, more common than thought event. Lots of smaller currents, eddies with peculiar diffusions, some with “salt fingers.”
When you blow warmer surface waters offshore they have to be replaced and the water below is usually cooler as happens in the Gulf off Louisiana and south Texas rarely in the summer. (Amos, T. Swimmers feel chill as water temperature hits a rare 78 degrees. Corpus Christi Caller-Times, July 17, 1998.) Another occurs off Florida. (Green, C. K, 1944. Summer upwelling northeast coast of Florida, Science. 100(2607): 546-547.)
According the National Data Buoy Center which doesn’t have many shown in the Gulf Beryl cooled off part of it by a few degrees. I had a physical oceanography course when they had actual measurements and did a fair amount of ship time helping such. They need now to go back to sea not only for data but to experience the magnitude of the ocean.
As someone who has fished off the N Jersey shore for many years I can explain it. When we have sustained Southerly winds the warm inshore surface water is blown off shore to be replaced by cooler offshore water from deeper. We always knew that when we had southerly winds it wasn’t worth going fishing! We had those conditions last week.
I’m curious why fishing is worse with southerly winds that woul cause upwelling of colder water. Indeed in NH, the winds from the north pump water to the west causing California’s prolific upwelling and rich marine life. Winds from the south pump water eastward and resulting upwelling as you have observed off NJ. But upwelling usually brings nutrients that sparks more photosynthesis and I would expect that to bring in the fish.
In the summer it’s a general observation that the S wind ‘kills the bite’, particularly the fluke fishing. Whether it’s the bait moving offshore or the fish just shutting down their activity I don’t know but particularly in June/July that’s what happens. The worst example I remember was when my brother visited and wanted to go fishing, it had been a S wind for a few days but I had no choice. That day of the four party boats that left from that dock (about 200 anglers) only one fish was caught!
I don’t know what the situation there is now but the New York Bight as it is called was the victim of a serious oxygen free zone from dumping garbage. These might have something relevant, but jubilees as they are called from low oxygen upwelling generally force fish and crabs to shore and cause mortality. Flukes as bottom fishes might be expected to be the most affected. One should expect someone there could explain it, but in most cases I know about not much is known. Fishermen see more of these than biologists nowadays.
Boesch, D. F. and N. N. Rabalais. 1991. Effects of hypoxia on continental shelf benthos: Comparisons between the New York Bight and the Northern Gulf of Mexico. Spec. Publ. London Geol. Soc. 58:27-34. https://doi.org/10.1144/GSL.SP.1991.058.01.02
Swanson, L. and C. J. Sindermann. (Eds.)1979. Oxygen depletion and associated benthic mortalities in New York Bight, 1976 . NOAA Prof. Paper. 11:345pp
Yes I remember that there was a dumping area way off shore from NYC . As I recall that was stopped in 1988, I do remember seeing the ships going off-shore in the mid 80s.
“That narrative is supported the correlation with rising CO2 that blankets the globe.”
CO2 changes lag ocean changes by five months, so both natural and anthropogenic CO2 are significantly controlled in part by the ocean temperature via CO2 outgassing and sinking.
“The second suggests the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and solar heating have conspired to warm the oceans.”
I vote for the second option, and let’s not leave out the solar cycle influence on ocean warming, where it warms after solar activity exceeds the decadal warming TSI level, as it did since 2022, again. TSI accumulated 19 W/m^2 more in SC#25 than in SC#24 by the 54th month.
“Believers in the CO2 narrative dismiss such increased solar heating by simply pointing to the sun’s decreasing solar irradiance.”
The sun has returned to high levels of solar irradiance. Besides, it only matters how long & how high it goes above the warming threshold that measured TSI has exceeded in every cycle since 1978.
The Mg II Index correlates with solar activity very well, this year it is statistically tied* with 1979-80 and 1991 (*within the 0.0005 margin of error), so activity (TSI) has hardly “declined” in SC#25.
Nor should we forget the contribution of increased solar input from sulphur free marine fuels. The recent paper may have been presumptive in attributing the bulk of recent increase in ocean heat content to it, but it has to have an effect.
Should have included sulfur free diesel fuel for trucks and cars.
https://youtu.be/ibSyTyuLpuw?si=q5hTHM6SaB74YdTY
I’m sure that this is accurate but got to say that a TSI variation of 1 W doesn’t seem like too much. No clue what MgII index is, maybe some magnesium spectral line. I’ll just accept that maybe I don’t need to understand everything on climate change.
David,
The word to describe the use of that tiny 1 w/sqm as meaningful is “scandalous”.
Geoff S
Geoff
There are three meaningful features of that 1W/m^2:
One is that is that it applies globally albeit reduced to 0.25W/m^2 as area average.
Two is that it is part of a persistent increase over the last 4 centuries due to gravitation transfer of mechanical energy through the gravitational field into the sun.
Three is that it is real and actually measurable rather than imagined.
There is possibly a 4th that is related to the higher frequency radiation that comes at the peak of the cycles that is likely to alter high level cloud formation.
I have been looking at the interchange of mechanical power between the sun and planets and the cycle has a period of 1683years (give or take a few decades). The present climate optimum aligns with the Roman climate optimum from the perspective of solar system gravitational power transfer.
The Medieval optimum aligns with the peak power transfer from sun back to planets. The absolute power curve has a period of 840years.
Title of a book comes to mind as I read your post…
“Global Warming -Every 1500 Years.”
Good story and well-illustrated, nice to see the EL Nino (EN) warming effects also in the tropical Indian and Atlantic oceans making it a more global effect as indicated in the satellite air temperature data.
I gather from Humlum’s annual climate reports that the warmer tropical oceans are degassing CO2 at a higher rate during EL Nino’s, but the higher gas levels don’t show up in the atmosphere until 6-9 months later. Might this extra CO2 cause minor GHG warming peaks after the EN peaks?
How does the movement of water around the oceans explain a long-term statistically significant ocean warming trend, both surface and at depth? What is the heat input?
Re:
See NOAA:
See also Wong & Minnett, 2018
‘Rising amounts of greenhouse gases are preventing heat radiated from Earth’s surface from escaping into space as freely as it used to.’
You are aware, aren’t you, that OLR has been increasing concurrent with decreasing cloud cover? In other words, the recent warming ain’t fitting your canonical AGW narrative.
OLR increases as earth warms from any cause.
And CO2 does not affect it in any way.
Correct but the reflected short wave has come down more than the OLR has gone up. The difference is 1.1W/m^2 due to more sunlight being thermalised:
?ssl=1
So the OLR is simply following the rising temperature as a consequence of reduced clouds.
Unless you can dream up some mechanism whereby CO2 is reducing cloudiness it is not responsible for the observations
The only place where cloudiness is increasing is just north of the Equator. If CO2 was the factor in reducing clouds, you would need to be able to imagine a highly selective process that is doing the opposite of everywhere else just north of the Equator.
Well TheSpinalFail doesnt read so good! Always prefers to just troll! Half the article is about changes in heat flux input into the ocean. And the “the movement of water around the oceans” simply explains the redistribution of tropical heat that can cause a perceived “global warming”.
TheSpinalFail then reaches for the refuted narratives to troll. Regardless of how much greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere, the atmosphere does NOT warm the ocean. NOAA is shamelessly pushing an unscientific narrative to maintain the climate crisis meme. Instead of regurgitating a false narative, alarmist trolls should at least try to refute the science presented in my 3rd paragraph explaining why CO2 doesn’t warm the ocean.
And then shamelessly TheSpinalFail reaches for the one and only published paper that all unthinking alarmists regurgitate, the Wong and Minnett paper, whose own data contradicts the alarmist narrative in their conclusions. Wong & Minnett, 2018 should be retracted!! To examine the effect of downward infrared into the skin layer they compared the increased infrared from cloudy skies to clear skies. Despite the extra infrared from the clouds, they measured the same amount of heat being emitted from the ocean surface, as there was with less infrared on clear days. So the created the novel narrative that greenhouse warming must be trapping that extra heat. However, dishonestly they ignored their own data showing the clouds also caused LESS SOLAR HEATING, that offset the increased infrared, and that was why less there was no change in ventilating heat. Alarmists are such disgusting scam artists!
Meaningless nonsense, Jim.
Nowhere in your hypothesis do you explain where all this extra ocean-warming energy is coming from.
Over to you then, Jim. Submit the above risible nonsense as a rebuttal to that paper.
You won’t; not because “they” are against you; but because you will be laughed out. As you should be, anywhere other than at this dismal website/support group.
THESPINALFAIL says “Nowhere in your hypothesis do you explain where all this extra ocean-warming energy is coming from.”
Damn your stupid TFN!
TFN cannot refute a single word so he must rely on insults like all good little trolls do!
If I wasn’t I wouldn’t be spending time here, Jim; so that’s a given.
Meanwhile, where does all your magic heat come from?
But I probably would have spelled “your” as “you’re” in this case, despite my stupidity.
Always be careful to check your grammar when accusing others of stupidity, Jim.
Free advice.
The only thing fungal picks up.
Totally ignores all the science.. as usual.
You are the one insisting on “magic heat” little child !!
“If I wasn’t I wouldn’t be spending time here”
So you come here specifically to show how stupid you are.
Ok. we get that.
More diversions from the scientific issue presented here
Again damn you are stupid. The answer is in the article posted here!
Seeing as the atmosphere is only warming at El Nino events..
… your comment is totally unsupported by any measured science whatsoever.
Only risible nonsense… is your comments.
Only it’s not.
It’s warming even during ENSO neutral and even cooling phases, over the longer term.
Show us the warming between El Nino events.
Show us the human causation.
So far, you have failed moronically every time you have tried.
“Regardless of how much greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere,”
H2O can retain heat in the atmosphere… it alters the lapse rate in the lower atmosphere because of its latent heat and changes of state.
CO2 does not and can not. !
Don’t forget the reviewers that passed on incorrect conclusions. Partner reviewing at its worst!
“Rising amounts of greenhouse gases are preventing heat radiated from Earth’s surface from escaping into space as freely as it used to. Most of the excess atmospheric heat is passed back to the ocean”
FAKE AGW-mantra anti-science BS.
Where is the “excess atmospheric heat” in the UAH data.. apart from that released a major El Nino events?
They are making up crap that is not supported by any measurements.
It doesn’t. It is as silly as the notion that atmospheric CO2 can directly alter Earth’s energy balance.
Shame on you RickWill! Movement was Never argued here to increase a warming trend. Only that any increase in solar flux is spread around the world to suggest heat influx is global.
I think RW was actually agreeing with you Jim. It is the solar input, not the circulation, which of course is totally disregarded by the usual AGW foamers.
Just for a moment, ignore CO2 IR. What would warmer water below the surface cause at the skin layer?
Do you reckon it might cause increased evaporation?
Why would increased heat at the skin layer from CO2 not cause the same increase in evaporation as heat from below?
Amazing
The first sentence is a logical fallacy
“There are 2 narratives claiming to explain most of the observed ocean warming.”
That is a false dilemma — the either – or fallacy
And narratives are irrelevant
Evidence is relevant
There is evidence of more sunlight reaching Earth’s surface
There is evidence of a stronger greenhouse effect that impedes cooling
The author keeps talking about CO2 causing warming, when the correct description of the CO2 effect on the climate is impeding cooling.
Does the author believe CO2 in the atmosphere over land has a very different effect than CO2 in the atmosphere over the oceans? If so, that would be silly science.
Early in the article we have evidence the author is an El Nino Nutter, blaming EL Ninos for ocean warming.
Like all El Nino Nutters, he ignores La Nina cooling events. He also ignores the fact that there were El Ninos during periods of global warming and during periods of global cooling. Does that mean El Ninos cause both global warming and global cooling?
The author has always appeared to be an All Climate Change is Natural Nutter who ignores or minimizes evidence of manmade causes of climate change. He is the mirror image of the IPCC, that ignores or minimizes natural causes of climate change. But unlike the cool and calm IPCC, when criticized, this author often blows his top and his replies often include character attacks.
> this author often blows his top and his replies often include character attacks.
You mean like? “The author has always appeared to be an All Climate Change is Natural Nutter”. That kind of character attack?
The author blew his top, as predicted, with a Steele nastygram posted a few minutes after your comment
Dearest Richard, I must disagree with your strawman characterization of me “blowing my top”. Actually my response was a very calm, deliberative and accurate assessment of all your dishonest insults and strawman arguments which suggest that in all honesty that all can see, it is you who has once again “blown your top”.
I liken RG’s posts to an extreme ADHD tantrum combined with a deep-seated case of Tourettes.
Basically everything he says is based on erroneous and limited scientific understanding.
CO2 does not impede cooling.. that is an anti-science AGW meme.
The only warming in the atmosphere has come at major El Nino events.. RG has been asked many times to show the effect if La Nina in the UAH data.. he fails every time.
He keep saying things like “Evidence is relevant”… but when asked to present some empirical evidence of CO2 causing warming.. he fails every time.
Mr. Greene says:”Evidence is relevant”
Mr. Greene you have shown evidence through results of experiments that CO2 can’t do what you claim. You have been shown specific heat tables showing why CO2 requires more energy to raise its temperature.
So your statement about “evidence is relevant” is laughable. You don’t care about evidence. You care about calling people names.
I hope Mr Steele doesn’t take your bait because you don’t deserve a second more of his time.
Now you are claiming to be smarter than almost 100% of scientists since 1896 who recognize the existence of a greenhouse effect based on evidence.
I have never read any of them saying the greenhouse effect exists over land but not over the oceans. Never heard the greenhouse effect impedes cooling over land but not over the oceans.
You are indulging in more dishonest strawman arguments once again Richard. Do you ever take a good look in the mirror and recoil at your dishonesty?
Poor RG, it is as if seeing Jim’s name immediately causes an intense case of ranting and tantrums.
Would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
Again RG goes with an fake consensus.. and thinks it is “evidence”
CO2 does not impede cooling.. There is no evidence of that.
RG says “”Evidence is relevant”” but he can’t produce any.
No I am not smarter. I just need to be smart enough or educated enough to pick between two people smarter than me who I think is correct. I am done I will react no more to your comments.
Amazing, Richard Greene is now on his idiotic and dishonest rants against “ All Climate Change is Natural Nutter ” using name-calling without ever refuting the science I presented. Greene acts like a shameless unthinking alarmist troll attacking any and all explanations for crediting natural dynamics for some of the observed climate changes.
First, narratives are important because different narratives will link the evidence in different and opposing ways with tremendous affect on policies. Greene is always pushing is Natural Nutter narratives and avoids the evidence!
Second, I have always argued the perceived greenhouse warming effect is due to impeded cooling. This just another one of Greene’s many dishonest strawman arguments !
Greene launches into another dishonest strawman argument suggesting I believe “CO2 in the atmosphere over land behaves differently than CO2 in the atmosphere over the oceans?” How stupid! Can’t Green even read without being so blinded by his self-righteous agenda. The argument was NEVER CO2 affects the atmosphere differently! My honest argument that Greene avoids is that the Atmosphere Doesnt Warm the Ocean.
Greene again shows his stupidlty by his refusal to read honestly. I never blamed ocean warmng on El Nino as Greene outrageously and falsely states. I said as always that El Nino cools the ocean by ventilating stored heat. Greene clearly doesnt know the difference between El Nino and La Nina events vs longterm El Nino-like and La Nina-like ocean conditions like the PAcific Decadal Oscillatin that moderate the solar input where the greatest amount of solar flux enters the eastern Pacific via effects on cloud cover!
Finally as alarmists always do, they accuse me of doing what they themselves always indulge in. Namecalling! I only “blow my top” and gladly punch back at such dishonest trolls like Richard Greene who always avoid the real science choosnig to instead engage in more character assassinations. But that is all Greene ever has to offer.
If Greene truly wants a “cool and calm” debate” then he needs to honestly discuss the science, stop his name-calling, and stop pushing his gross strawman arguments!
Jim “blow his top” Steele
blows his top, as predicted.
Steele tries to minimize manmade causes of climate change while the IPCC tries to minimize natural causes of climate change.
The El Nino Nutters try to claim El Nino heat releases cause all global warming, while ignoring La Ninas. They often claim the ocean heat is from underseas volcanoes and vents with zero data on how much heat they release each year.
Those who claim a smaller percentage of cloudiness — own about 7% in the past two decades — may have a good proxy for solar energy reaching earth’s surface. But the likely margin of error in that percentage is at least +/- 10%. And percentage of cloudiness is just a proxy, not an actual measurement of how much solar energy clouds block
That measurement would require global annual average unavailable data on
Types of clouds
Height of clouds
Timing of clouds
We would also need to know the effect of reduced SO2 emissions — a manmade cause of warming that also affects sunlight.
The most important lack of accurate global annual average data would be absolute humidity. The coverage is weak between the surface and the elevation of satellites — the area with the most humidity. Such data would help understand the claimed water vapor positive feedback suggested by the Clausius–Clapeyron relation. Estimates of the water vapor feedback range from zero to 6x amplification of the small warming effect of CO2 alone. Which means no one knows.
When no one knows the climate in 100 years, it’s fun to take sides for a real argument”
CO2 Does Everything Nutters
vs.
CO2 Does Nothing Nutters.
Criticizing a Steele article is like walking past the monkey cage at the zoo while clanging your steel water cup against the bars. Not that I would ever do that again.
It’s obvious you have never studied science in depth. All you spew is the same recycled garbage, pretending to be knowledgable. Go back to creating fake sock puppet accounts to inflate your website’s views.
“while ignoring La Ninas.”
Show us the La Nina effect in the atmospheric data… The El Nino effect is evident for all to see.
Do you have any measured evidence at all that atmospheric CO2 causes warming?
Do you still heat your water for tea and coffee with CO2 gas from above, or do you use a kettle with the element at the bottom?
Your limited scientific understanding of anything and everything should be an embarrassment to you.
The energy that warms the ocean under an enhanced greenhouse effect is coming from the sun, the increased downward IR from adding CO2 merely inhibits the loss of this solar energy from the oceans. This seems to be a persistent conceptual misunderstanding by many WUWT contributors.
Except the increase in downward IR cools the surface due to increased evaporation. It cannot warm the surface due to conductive feedback driven by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
Any increase in the ocean temperature will produce more evaporation, this is not a phenomenon exclusive to greenhouse driven warming.
Did I type too fast? Here it is again.
“It cannot warm the surface”
“greenhouse driven warming” doesn’t exist.
I don’t know how quickly you typed out your incorrect reply, and reiterating it does not change the fundamental error. An increase in downward IR must necessarily cause the surface to warm.
Except there isn’t an increase in downward IR.
No change in temperature gradient by CO2…
… so the net radiative flux isn’t change.
Nope, that would violate the 2nd Law as I pointed out. The energy that might cause warming under different circumstances is conducted back into the atmosphere.
This is really simple physics. Two bodies adjacent with a massive energy transport capability between them. You move energy from one body to the adjacent body. What happens next?
It would not violate the second law at all, the net flux is still from warmer to colder, the net flux is just reduced. If the net flux is reduced, the temperature must increase until equilibrium is regained. This really is “simple physics.”
I asked this before but I will repeat it here.
If the sub-skin water warms from the sun’s energy, does the evaporation at the skin level increase?
If heat from above reaches the skin level, does it absorb it and raise its temperature or does it increase evaporation thereby cooling?
You need a logical sequence of events explaining how increased heat from warmer water from below increases cooling at the skin layers due to increased evaporation versus increased heat from CO2 increasing the temperature of the skin layer because CO2 IR heat can’t be evaporated away.
I look forward to your explanation how one can cause increased evaporation while the other prevents increased evaporation!
The rate of evaporation is a function of the water temperature. Any processes which raises the water’s temperature will increase the rate of evaporation, whether the energy source is coming from below or above.
The increased evaporation and increased OLR are negative feedbacks to whatever heats Earth’s surface and/or inhibits cooling. They do not prevent warming — they merely slow warming and prevent runaway warming..
Not a feedback. CO2 downwelling IR promotes evaporation without any warming. I explained why in another comment. Do you understand the 2nd Law?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/07/09/a-tale-of-2-opposing-ocean-warming-narratives/#comment-3938048
Downwelling IR also cools the surface which results in energy being carried high into the atmosphere where step 2 of water vapor science promotes its radiation to space.
Another fact ignored by the ignorant..
Even if CO2 does get a chance to re-emit..
68% of the radiation has more horizontal component that it does up or down component. ie most of the radiation is sideways.
Alan J, Clearly you are the only one suffering the perpetual misunderstanding that CO2 inhibbits the loss of solar energy from the ocean. And you offer not evidence to support your fale narrative!
Again, the only published paper that all unthinking alarmists regurgitate to support that false narative, is the Wong and Minnett paper, whose own data contradicts their alarmist concluding narrative. Wong & Minnett, 2018 should be retracted!! To examine the effect of downward infrared into the skin layer W&M compared the increased infrared from cloudy skies to clear skies. Despite the extra infrared from the clouds, they measured the same amount of heat being ventilated from the ocean surface as there was when there was less infrared on clear days. So they jumped the shark and created the novel narrative that greenhouse warming must be trapping that extra heat. However, so dishonestly, they ignored their own data showing the clouds also caused LESS SOLAR HEATING that offset the increased infrared, and that was why there was no change in ventilating heat. Alarmists are such disgusting scam artists!
Wong and Minnett used nighttime data for their study.
AlanJ, like so many alarmist you uncritically embrace any doomsday nonsense and desperately cling to irrelevant factoids.
Yes they used nighttime data (factoid), but that doesn’t mean less heat in that day didnt reduce night time emissions from the diurnal layer
Examine the attached graphic [I added red rectangle to focus you] and try to understand that solar heating of the subsurface takes all night to ventilate MOST of the absorbed heat. Some remains trapped until winter cooling. Learn some science before blathering!
The authors explicitly acknowledge the possibility of residual warming from the previous day’s solar radiation. They address this by using data starting two hours after sunset, as this timeframe minimizes the effects of residual diurnal heating, particularly in conditions with low wind speeds. And they note that the isothermal mixed layer, which extends at least to a depth of 5 meters at night, acts as a buffer to any diurnal thermocline residual warming. This isothermal layer is well-mixed and is assumed to be a good representation of the subskin temperature, thereby reducing the impact of any leftover heat from the day.
The problem here is that you assume these scientists are stupid and that you are the true expert, a conceit which will not serve you very well in rational debate. You also do not appear to have actually read the paper you are trying to dismiss, an ignorance that would stay most folks from opening their mouths or loosing their keyboards, but which seems to merely amplify your hubris.
AlanJ I do not assume those scientists are stupid, just biased by the politics of climate change. However I do think you are a stupid troll. I dont pretend to be an expert beyond reproach, eve nthough I might appear to be relative to your trolling nonsense.
It is the isothermal mixed layer that absorbs the heat that supplies the night time heat. I hope you don’t believe solar heating only penetrates 5 meters. That would be really stupid. Warm diurnal layer acts as a buffer with thermocline water which would cause cooling.
Again they did not adequately control for diurnal heating. Clearly you lack the science understanding to grasp that. Simply look at how the mixed layer temperatures can increase throughout the summer from 5 C in March to 14C in August. Despite experiencing nightime cooling every day for 6 months. Paease AlanJ learn some science!
The study considers time averaged results from two different cruises, one in the tropical Pacific in June and July, and another in the tropical Atlantic in late May to early July, both places and timespans were seasonal variability in the mixed layer is minimal.
At some point you’ve got to stop your persistent moving of the goalposts. It would probably do you good to simply sit down and read the paper a few times top to bottom before trying to comment on it further.
LOL I am the only one here who read the paper critically! Again you show your total ignorance regards the heat gain of the mixed layer that gains 5 C from May to July, a time during their research! You really are idiotically desperate to support a clearly bogus alarmist narrative by Wong & Minnett, 2018
I’m not ignoring that at all, as noted, the study uses time averaged values from two cruises in tropical waters. I’m sure you realize that the seasonal variability in the mixed layer in the tropics is less than the variability for the averaged global ocean.
I am not desperate to do anything, you are the one who brought up the paper, I’m just pointing out your misunderstanding of it.
LOL First I didn’t bring up Wong and Minnett it was TheSpinalFail. I just clarified why it should be retracted because its own data shows the subsurface water had gained less solar heat that exactly balanced the increased cloud cover, yet they concluded CO2 caused less IR emissions. But stupid alarmists gobbled up their narrative as truth.
Regards the seasonal variability in the mixed layer, the point is not how much it differs latitudinally, but that increased solar increase mixe layers temperature and when solar declines the temperature declined. CO2 has never not prevented seasonal cooling, only in the minds of alarmist idiots.
Here’s a clearer graphic of their data. Notice how 40 W/m2 gain in cloud LW is balanced 40 W/m2 decrease in solar heating of subsurface
You’ve misunderstood the graphic you’re sharing. The graphic is showing reduced heat flux from the mixed layer into the subskin layer as a result of the reduced thermal gradient, it isn’t indicating that solar input has been reduced.
Based on your screenshot, it seems that rather than sharing unique personal critiques of the paper, you are regurgitating a video you found online, so it might be helpful for you to link that video so we can assess where its author has managed to go so wrong. Do you have the link available?
LOL You really are an extremely stupid troll. First the first graph is from my presentation using snapshots directly from the Wong & Minnett paper that I had read many times. Are you saying W&M went wrong? LOL If ypu carefully read the paper How come you don’t recognize their graph. LOL
Second you reveal just what a uncritically thinking stupid troll you are by blindly accepting Minnett’s narrative as an authority. As Einstein warns unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth!
Just consider basic physics. The cool skin layer is virtually a permanent feature, but when disrupted is re-established in seconds. So there is always a gradient from warm subsurface to the atmosphere.
Now consider, if W&M’s narrative is true that a warmer skin surface reduces the thermal gradient and prevents heat ventilations, then how does the diurnal layer cool when the the warmer upper diurnal layer creates a much greater thermal gradient preventing the lower/cooler diurnal layer’s from rising to the cool skin surface. Nevertheless such a gradient does not stop diurnal layer cooling.
W&M refer to reduced conduction as the main main heat transport to the skin layer but that is ONLY TRUE for a few micrometers were the skin surface tension is in play. Convection still brings heat right up to the cool skin surface.
Second, you ridiculously assume that by simply characterizing the decreased solar heat reaching the skin surface is not a function of solar input but suppressed conduction. So stupid.
And exactly how did they measure the temperature gradient within just the upper millimeter layer. The detected emission of LW only tells how much heat is being emitted from the cool skin surface, NOT the gradient. The measured skin SST temperature ranged from 295 to 305 K.
From their methods section: The highly nonlinear T(–z), the vertical temperature profile, poses a problem in solving equation (3) as the equation becomes highly ill conditioned. To overcome this issue, Wong and Minnett (2016a, 2016b) used the Truncated Singular Value Decomposition (TSVD) regularization technique combined with an iterative method to obtain physically reasonable boundary values for the first-guess profile required in the regularization technique.
W&M observed that increased cloud LW did NOT increase the skin temperature, but side-stepped that by claiming “LWout therefore does not respond immediately to increase in the incident IR radiation.” And then go to to claim it decreased the temperature gradient. Blah blah Blah!
W&M reported: With respect to LWout, a simple analysis shows that the absorption of increased LWin does not increase the
SSTskin temperature such that LWout compensates the release of heat back into the atmosphere. For example, assuming an initial SSTskin of 300 K which corresponds to LWout of 459 W m22 from Stefan Boltzmann’s law, if the LWin increases by 20 W m22 and assuming all this energy is to be released back into the atmosphere through LWout, this implies that SSTskin would increase by 3 K, which is not observed. LWout therefore does not respond immediately to increase in the incident IR radiation.
W&M cannot prove there was a reduced temperature gradient from increased LW that prevented solar heat from reaching the cool skin surface. It is just a narrative to feed the useful climate crisis idiots.
Yes, but to move across the skin layer to reach the atmosphere/ocean interface, conduction is the mode of heat transport, and this conduction is modulated by the thermal gradient across the skin layer.
Because it’s nighttime data, there is no solar input at all to increase or decrease.
More stupidity revealed by a climate idiot & troll AlanJ claiming “Because it’s nighttime data, there is no solar input”
How many times must you be educated AlanJ. Learn some science so that your trolling at least creates a meaningful debate!
The oceans absorb daytime solar energy which requires all night to ventilate most of that heat. That nighttime ventilating heat is added during the day and requires many hours to ventilate. Summer solar heating takes months to be ventilated as reported by all scientific studies of the mixed layer temperatures!
To argue there is no daytime solar impacts when temperatures are measured at night is the height of climate stupidity, But then again climate intelligence has never been a prerequisite for trolls who understand climate intelligence!
All of the heat moving upward through the mixed layer came from the sun. You claimed that the diagram from the paper suggests a decrease in solar input into the mixed layer, I am pointing out that there is no solar input into the mixed layer because the observations were made at night.
NOPE NOPE NOPE. All that is required is for the cool skin surface to slightly warm when warm subsurface waters heat the skin layer which then radiates that heat away!!!
In order for the heat to radiate away it must move via conduction through the skin layer. Any process that reduces the thermal gradient across the skin layer will reduce the rate of conductive heat transport and reduce the ability of the layer layers to shed heat, causing them to warm. Downwelling IR from GHG forcing reduces the gradient, as shown empirically in W&M.
LOL Of course that is your narrative, but you and W&M provide absolutely no data that the few microns of the cool skin surface has its thermal gradient changed to inhibit cooling. It is only an alarmist’s narrative, not honest science!!!
The paper does nothing but provide observational data in support of this process. Again, I urge you to reread it, not with an intent on disproving it, but with a genuine and earnest mindset to learn something from it.
LOL Such a transparent irrelevant debate tactic. Your understanding has been shown to be just a blind unthinking embrace and regurgitation.
You, like so many alarmist are desperate to support the only paper that has tried to imagine a mechanism where GHGs heat the ocean. W&M made many great observations and did some fine work, then spoiled it all with imaginary mechanism that is contradicted by their own data
You cant refute the serious criticisms of the paper, (but, but bu they used nighttime data )
so all you are left with is telling me to re-read the paper.
LOL
CO2’s most important absorption wavelength is 15 um. It corresponds to a peak emission temperature of -80 °C. Since heat always flows from hot to cold, good luck warming liquid water at that temperature.
Your comment is not wholly coherent, but blackbody radiation principles apply to idealized objects emitting radiation based on their temperature. The fact that a blackbody at -80 °C peaks around 15 μm does not directly relate to the emission behavior of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere. CO2 re-emits absorbed radiation at wavelengths corresponding to the energy it absorbs and the local atmospheric temperature.
If what you say is true Alan then this statement from the makers of IR imagining equipment would not be necessary.
”Because OGI cameras visualize gas as a lack of infrared energy, they can only image gases that absorb infrared radiation…”
Talk about scientific gibberish !! CO2 doesn’t get a chance to re-emit in the lower atmosphere.
What a circular argument. CO2 emits and absorbs at 15 μm. That it emits at the atmospheric temperature is refuted by every radiation chart ever shown. The dip at 15 μm shows CO2 only radiating at ~-80°C.
“The dip at 15 μm shows CO2 only radiating at ~-80°C.”
There is emitted radiation at all temperatures.
At ~ 200K the max intensity of emission is indeed at a wavelength of 15 micron.
However at terrestrial temperatures emission is stronger though not at max intensity …..
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350533589/figure/fig2/AS:11431281211628870@1702465698188/Plancks-blackbody-radiation-curves-depicting-radiation-intensity-vs-wavelength-for.tif
I never said otherwise. However, any body, not just CO2, that emits a given intensity and frequency, is radiating at the temperature shown by the max temperature of a Planck curve.
Read here. 6.2: Blackbody Radiation – Physics LibreTexts
The Planck curves shown are what a black body would radiate. I hope you aren’t trying to implicate that CO2 is a black body.
It is not circular at all. CO2 absorbs and emits at the same frequency, and it absorbs and emits at any temperature, what changes is the intensity of emission, which is dependent on temperature. This is not the same thing as the blackbody emission peak, where a peak of 15um corresponds with a body at -80C.
CO2 can certainly absorb and radiate at any temperature and at a wavelength of 15 μm. However, CO2 can only radiate at an intensity of what is absorbed. The emissions chart shows CO2 radiating at an intensity associated with a maximum temperature on a Planck curve of -80°C. You’ll have to change that if you want to convince folks that CO2 is radiating at say 30°C.
Please cite the emissions chart you’re referring to.
No you’d have to teach them what the Planck curve represents, it tells us what the peak frequency of the emission curve of a black body is at certain temperature. It has nothing to do with the emission frequency of a gas molecule. CO2 (at any temperature) will absorb energy associated with a ro-vibrational transition within the molecule, in the atmosphere that is a bending mode which centers at a frequency of ~15µm, it will lose that energy by either collisions of re-emission. Its emission has nothing to do with its temperature and certainly nothing to do with -80ºC!
A frequent misstatement, a blackbody at -80ºC has a maximum emission frequency of ~15μm, any warmer emitter will emit more radiation at that frequency.
At -80ºC a blackbody will emit 1.10107 W/m2/sr/µm at 15μm
At 0ºC a blackbody will emit 4.82 W/m2/sr/µm at 15μm
At 20ºC a blackbody will emit 8.87 W/m2/sr/µm at 15μm
At 25ºC a blackbody will emit 9.65 W/m2/sr/µm at 15μm (wavelength of peak 9.7µm)
Exactly.
Exactly complete garbage. !!
It is an anti-science AGW meme.
Never measured, only a scientific fiction.
You don’t understand things. Bless.
I understand you are talking anti-science gibberish, as always
Your scientific knowledge is not just zero.. it is vastly negative !!
To be pitied rather than scorned.
Nobody pities you.. we just laugh at your idiotic incompetence.
At least they admit it is only a concept.. 😉
Present measured evidence .. or just keep yapping mindlessly!
Explain how CO2 IR doesn’t cause increased evaporation, thereby removing that heat.
“the increased downward IR from adding CO2″
BS. !! CO2 does not re-emit below about 11km.. It doesn’t get a chance to.
Net radiative flux is set by the atmospheric temperature gradient.
CO2 does not change that gradient, only H2O can do that.
bnice,
While I appreciate most of the skeptical points you raise, I must disagree with this one. CO2 will absorb and emit at any temperature. The satellite detection of CO2 related wavelengths are indeed captured by satellites in accordance with cold tropopause heights! However that data only tells us at what altitudes CO2 greenhouse generated wavelengths mostly escapes to space. The amount of re-directed CO2 emissions towards the surface cannot be directly determined by satellites. Furthermore when CO2 wavelengths heat the surface, the warmer surface responds with the entire spectrum predicted by those temperatures. Thus much of the solar heat that is recycled via the wavelengths from greenhouse gases back to the surface, then the surface emits an entire wavelength spectrum, of which a large percentage now escapes via the atmospheric window.
Golden, lol!
You never will appreciate actual science, fungal.
You are devoid of it… you run from it.
Satellite detect ABSORPTION from above… they do not detect IR downward radiation.
In the lower atmosphere, CO2 loses all its tiny, tiny amount of absorbed energy very rapidly by other actions.
That energy is then part of the 99.96% of the rest of the atmosphere and is dealt with by normal atmospheric transfer.
Even if it does get a chance to re-emit. some 68% of that radiation has more sidewards component than up or down component. ie it is mostly sideways.
Measurements have shown that any tiny increase in atmospheric absorption by CO2 are more than balanced by an increase in the atmospheric window.
Indeed Satellites can measure IR downward radiation. That requires a ship cruise that measures the up and down IR at the surface
Over the oceans?
So they are essentially measuring Water Vapour feedback.
CO2 would barely be a flea in comparison to an elephant.
Should have said Satellites “cannot measure IR downward radiation”
The situation is even more complex.
The radiation from GHGs cannot warm the oceans due to conductive feedback. Both CO2 and water vapor are saturated by 4 orders of magnitude. This causes the radiation which reaches the oceans to have been emitted just a few meters above them. This creates an energy imbalance (air cooled/oceans warmed) which then is corrected by more conduction from the oceans to the air.
Hence, there isn’t even any need for energy to be “radiated back to space”.
Yes, the real result of the downwelling radiation is to cool the surface.
I believe the ocean conveyor mainly avoids the Arctic. While there is some effect at the boundary, the Arctic also acts independently with its own ~60 year cycle driven by sea ice dynamics.
Climate scientists have been careful to suggest the Ocean Conveyor Belt begins in the Norwegian Sea where warm water originating in the Gulf Stream loses enough heat to sink and begin its deep water flow southward. Suspiciously they avoid addressing the well known facts that some of that water also continues into the Arctic, where it typically has a residence time of 25-30 years!
So where does the extra heat come from in the global data?
Damn you are not only really stupid, but you are so dishonestly pushing your crap. The article clearly argues shifts to La Nina-like conditions that reduce cloud cover increase solar heating influx into the eastern Pacific where that influx is greatest!
What “extra” heat are you blethering about ?
Please don’t use urban manufactured data. !
Fundamental issue, as the oceans heat, they evaporate, that adds molecules to the atmosphere. Since, our scientists in all their calculations assume pressure and volume of earth’s atmosphere are constant.(or at least always have same average) That would mean using the same formula as them pV=nRT that heating the oceans cools the atmosphere. If n rises and pV doesn’t change then T must drop to keep equation balanced. Anyone else see this as a fundamental flaw in the entire way we discuss climate change. Plus, everyone keeps talking like T equals energy. The two don’t even directly correlate.
Not sure about the rest of this but kinetic energy is directly related to air temperature: KE = (3/2)*R*T. Kinetic energy is 1/2 mv^2. In a way it is the definition of temperature. The faster molecules travel the hotter they are.
That is for individual molecules not air as a whole. I can add energy to ice water and temperature will stay the same(no correlation). Individual molecules are moving faster but the temperature of the ice water has not changed. So not relevant to the discussion.
Bond energy (melting ice) is not well described by kinetic energy. BTW wouldn’t that heat to evaporate water reduce the water temperature?
For a three degree-of-freedom molecule, its energy can be expressed as (3/2)*k*T,
where k is the Boltzmann constant (1.4 × 10^−23 joule/K). Standard physics nomenclature uses the symbol R is to designate the gas constant, a totally different parameter (as found in the equation P*V=n*R*T). k ≠ R.
Not a totally different parameter, implicitly k is per molecule, R is the equivalent per mole. Therefore R=k*Na where Na is Avagadro’s number.
The physical units of R are different from the physical units of k (by the factor of Avogadro’s number, which has its own physical units).
Therefore k and R are, indeed, two totally different parameters.
Avagadro’s number as I said has the unit mole^-1, they are the same parameter just a different scale.
Ummm . . . Avagrado’s number is NOT unit-less units per mole but instead constituent particles (molecules or atoms) per mole.
Had to bring my wife to a hospital today for a brain scan- she probably has Parkinson’s. The hospital is right next to a community college which has 2 wind turbines. There are few on land here in Wokeachusetts- where we probably have just a few wind “farms” and some small number of wind machines scattered around the state. So, I hardly ever see them. But where I parked was right across the street from the monsters which loomed over the hospital and part of the college. They really are hideous up close- looking like those Japanese horror films of dinosaurs attacking Tokyo, or whatever. Most previous times I saw them they were not spinning but today they were. The idea of having millions of them all over the planet is very disturbing.
Sorry to hear about your wife’s health issues.
When I drive to upstate NY to visit family, there are some worse-than-useless wind turbines visible from the highway. On my most recent trip, it was quite windy, and for the first time I ever saw, the stupid things were actually moving. On every other trip, stationary.
The operative question being, what was keeping the lights on all the other times?! A profound illustration of why there is not, and never will be, an “energy transition.”
Especially when all the energy inputs into making, and backing up, the worse-than-useless windmills and solar panels come from coal, oil, and gas.
Stated in the above article’s second paragraph:
“All scientists agree that any absorbed heat can only be ventilated away through the ocean’s cool skin surface which is just 2-10 microns thick.”
I have a LOT of respect for Jim Steele’s articles on WUWT, but in this case I think he blew it.
It is a well-known fact that deep underwater ocean currents that move from the tropics and temperate zones toward the northern and southern polar ice sheets (as indicated in the red arrows in graphic “C” in the article) exchange enthalpy (i.e., exchange absorbed heat energy) via either directly melting sea ice or via mixing with and warming cold underwater currents (shown in blue in graphic “C”) coming off the polar regions.
This exchange of thermal energy occurs INDEPENDENT of any heat transfer through the ocean’s skin surface.
TYS,
First , the warm currents that carry heat from the tropics to the poles are relatively shallow currents. Not “deep underwater ocean currents” you refer to
Second, no matter how water masses interact and mix, any absorbed heat flux only escape the ocean via the cool skin surface! For sea ice to melt the subsurface heat must rise to reach the ice. Melting of deeper ice only averages the local subsurface temperature, but doesnt change the enthalpy. Melting of ice on the surface results in latent heat cooling with evaporation from the skin surface.
So sub-surface melt isn’t a thing?
SpinalFail, Where was that ever suggested you alarmist scumbag!
Certainly not from CO2 or any other human causation.
Sorry, Jim, my reference to “deep underwater ocean currents” was made in comparison to your reference to “the ocean’s cool skin surface which is just 2-10 microns thick“. It is true that the predominate ocean-scale warm water currents are on the order of 50-100 meters deep, whereas the counter moving ocean-scale cold water currents are much lower down, generally below 300—and up to several thousand—meters depth. As you know, these are thermohaline circulations, driven by differences in both temperature and salinity (density).
Also, my understanding is that during each pole’s winter, the respective oceans are able to sustain/grow floating sea ice at temperatures much below the sub-surface water temperature specifically because the ice radiates more energy to the atmosphere and to space than it receives at those time. Consequently, heat from the warmer liquid water (say at -2 to 0 °C) underneath the floating ice which can be meters thick is conducted through the ice to “escape”. It is thermodynamically driven to do so by the temperature gradient and, actually, does not need to involve any ice melting, although I incorrectly stated otherwise in my previous post.
Thank you Jim Steele, very convincing. For the first time I was able to read a CO2 is not the climate control knob dialogue where I didn’t need to keep going back and forth with a bunch of “wait a minute” moments (except for my search for Graphic F).
Mr. Layman here.
I remember in grade school (maybe high school?) hearing about water cooling water sinking on one side of an ocean then rising on the other side. (Wind, rotation of the Earth) But it was also mentioned how long it would that “gallon of water” to sink and then resurface. it seems to have been along time but I don’t remember how long.
This is a fundamental flaw in appreciating what is actually happening. The present ocean warming is dominated by heat retention in the region of the Ferrel cells. The heating is not the result of surface heat flux into the ocean but a reduction in the rate of cooling in the ocean.
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Ocean heat retention over the CERES era peaks at 5ZJ/degree of latitude at 45S. The Northern Hemisphere heat retention peaks at 36N and only reaches 3.8ZJ/degree. Note that both these regions are in negative radiation balance.
There is an important distinction between reduced rate of cooling and increased rate of heating. The oceans are retaining more heat because the rate of evaporation in the region of the Ferrel Cells has slowed down. If there was such a thing as a ‘greenhouse effect” it would take a lot of imagination to come up with a plausible explanation of why its influence peaks at 45S.
The NH is warming up because the precession cycle is shifting the peak sunlight northward and the sun is near the peak of the modern climate optimum. The present cycle of the gravitation power transfer into the sun corresponds with the climate optimum at the peak of the Roman empire around 1700 years back.
RickWill, What are you arguing about. There is no difference in arguing “Wherever there is a greater flux of heat into the ocean than ventilates out, tthe oceans will warm to stating int a longer winded but clearer way of explaining heat retention.
As argued here, solar heating’s deeper penetration allows more heat retention than CO2 infrared can possibly effect!
Yeah, as it is well known that Solar penetration generally goes down 200 Meters versus the top 1/32″ of the ocean waters surface supposedly warmed by back radiation.
The tremendous inflow of energy from the Sun dominates the heat budget of the continental/atmosphere as a regional El-Nino outflow easily greatly influence weather systems of the world attests and drives up temperature in the atmosphere while the skin warming of open waters is practically irrelevant in comparison.
Not 1/32nd of an inch, but a few MICRONS (THOUSANTHS OF A MILLIMETER).
You’re giving infrared WAY too much credit.
It is clear that you do not understand the important distinction between heat “uptake” and heat “retention”.
You are talking about the oceans taking in more heat. They are not taking in more heat in the regions where heat is increasing most. They are just losing it at a slower rate. It is a vital distinction that you need to grasp to understand what is happening.
It is impossible to heat oceans at depth by increasing the surface heat input. More surface heat simply speeds up the upwelling of abyssal water so the ocean cools at depth. Increasing ocean heat content below 500m over a matter of decades, requires reducing the rate of evaporation so upwelling slows down.
So it is not a matter of more heat flux in than out causing heating. It is due to the loss of heat slowing down. Vastly different concepts and underlying processes.
LOL RICKWILL you are such a dishonest bullshitter! You say, “it is not a matter of more heat flux in than out causing heating. It is due to the loss of heat slowing down. ” No matter your jibberish, ocean heating is always a ” matter of more heat flux in than out causing heating.” Yes timing is an issue, so what are you arguig?
If the ocean loses heat more slowly but by dawn temperatures are back to THE PREVIOUS starting point the day before, it is irrelevant, Nonetheless, as I replied earlier, looking at the change in the mixed layer it gains more heat than it loses, causes that layer to heat over 6 months, then cools over the winter months due to LESS SOLAR HEATING RELATIVE TO COOLING. Clearly you are the only idiot that “doesnt not understand the important distinction between heat “uptake” and heat “retention”.”
This is indeed irrelevant to the point I am making. And not relevant to where ocean heat content is exhibiting the greatest increase.
I will repeat the chart here.
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The chart displays ocean heat content and net ToA radiation by latitude.
You will see that the peak in ocean heat content is at the latitude centred at 45S. This is over the CERES and ARGO era from 2005 to 2023. Over that same period this latitude has a net radiation loss. The increased heat content from surface down to 2000m is due to more heat being retained. So it is a reduction in the rate of heat loss rather than an increase in heat uptake.
Abyssal ocean heating over decades is caused by reduced evaporation or increased precipitation not surface heat flux working its way down to the abyss. To understand what it happening, you need to be looking at evaporation and precipitation not radiation fluxes.
Your chart hides so many dynamics it is worthless. Again here is the graph of ocean heat content. The transport of warm water around the globe affects local temperatures. It is well proven that transport of tropical water warms the earth outside the tropics.
I think you are nuts to suggest that increased precipitation warms the ocean but an in crease in solar heat flux does not. You just show there are many bad narratives
Rick after much of your misleading nonsense calling the statement that ocean warming is caused “greater flux of heat into the ocean than ventilates out” , by calling it “fundamentally flawed”, it is clear that you are simply playing word games to argue the ocean is only retaining more heat but not gaining any. Furthermore foolishly using TSI and Precession to dismiss solar radiation fluxes while ignoring insolation changes from cloud cover, reveals just how much you need to be educated on the science.
It also appears you didnt read or didn’t comprehend the article but have been blindly pushing your own narrative, as evidenced by your statement “you need to be looking at evaporation and precipitation not radiation fluxes”. But I looked at both!
In regards to Graphic B, I discussed how barrier layers are formed creating salinity gradients that retain solar heat. I stated where evaporation dominates it can cause greater salinity, and in tropical waters where they get overlaid by freshwater largely due to the ITCZ rainfall (rivers play a role as well), barrier layers form that trap/retain heat.
If you want to make your argument that gains in ocean heat content is all about retention, then you need to show the mechanism that does so, that goes beyond your narrative. If you believe retention is largely driven by salt gradients as I stated, then you would need to show that evaporation and precipitation have increased. But you never supply any data that upports your narrative.
The attached graphic from Kazemzadeh (2021) Linear and Nonlinear Trend Analyzes in Global Satellite-Based Precipitation, 1998–2017 . Heat increases around 45N shows increased precipitation around the Kuroshio Current but not the Gulf Stream.
They found only “12.3% of pixel-based precipitation time series across the globe have significant trend at 0.05 significance level (50% positive and 50% negative trends).
The lack of any significant trend for nearly 90% of the globe suggests your narrative is simply not supported.
“The NH is warming up because the precession cycle is shifting the peak sunlight northward and the sun is near the peak of the modern climate optimum.”
The cycle of axial precession spans about 25,771.5 years. It has no measurable effect on a 50 year climate trend.
TOA TSI has slightly declined since the 1970s per satellite data. A peak of sunlight at the TOA is a fig newton of your imagination.
The globe has been warming since the LIA. That goes back a few centuries and aligns with the lowest peak sunlight over the NH land mass. Long temperature records like the central England data verify this fact.
TSI has been increasing since the LIA. The 2023 peak of 1362W/m^2 was 1.9W/m^2 up from the low around 1700 based on reconstructions from solar cycles. And that aligns with the 1683 year cycle of the gravitation power transfer to/from the sun.
These effects are cumulative as evidenced by the gradual loss of permafrost to expose more land with its lower albedo and higher temperature response to solar forcing. The only locations in the NH currently gaining permanent ice extent are Greenland and few northern slopes near the Arctic ocean.
I am reluctant to agree with my incessant crazed assasin Richard Greene, but still I agree with him, that your argument about precession simply reveals your stupidity!
I expect I am wasting my time but I never shy away from trying to educate anyone.
The solar intensity over the NH land mass bottomed around 1535. The accumulated June anomaly now totals 41ZJ.
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That increase in peak intensity has contributed to substantial ice/snow melt in the higher northern latitudes that exposed a lot more land with much lower albedo than the snow covered ice that was over it. Hence the response to solar forcing has increased significantly
The most warming is occurring on land that has seasonal or permanent ice cover.
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Precession and TSI June solar have a combined increase of almost 2W/m^2 since they bottomed 500 and 300 years ago respectively but the reduction in albedo due to the increasing intensity is cumulative. Only a fool would discount the significance of these changes over time.
Only a fool would push land warming in a debate on ocean warming
Very nice Jim. Easy to understand and makes sense.
Fundamentally the surface net LW radiation is negative in the surface budget
Rnet = SW down – SW up + LW down – LW up
The SW terms sum to a positive value, while the LW terms sum to a negative value.
Evaporation depends on surface available energy, which comes only in the form of the solar beam. The upward LW beam exceeds the power of the downward beam resulting in a continuous LW deficit.
While in land surface regions daily solar variation is buffered in the boundary layer (above the surface), for ocean, solar variation is buffered in the mixed layer (below the surface).
For this reason, land region evaporation shuts down overnight, no matter the temperature, as surface available energy drops to zero.
The buffering or storage change associated with daytime SW surplus occurs by the expansion and contraction of the turbulent boundary layer. Latent flux may even be directed downwards, towards the surface, as a highly stable atmosphere develops overnight while surface net radiation goes negative.
For ocean, as excess available energy is stored in the sub-surface mixed layer, this sustains atmospheric instability and evaporation 24 hrs. This results also in oceanic surface temperature variation about 1/2 of that of the landscape daily, seasonally, and interannually.