by Judith Curry
Kevin Trenberth famously stated in the CRU emails:
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.
For additional background, refer to this previous Climate Etc. post Where’s the missing heat?
In a new paper, Trenberth and collaborators argue that the ‘missing’ heat is sequestered in the ocean, below 700 m.
Distinctive climate signals in reanalysis of global ocean heat content
Magdalena Balmaseda, Kevin Trenberth, Erland Kallen
Abstract. The elusive nature of the post-2004 upper ocean warming has exposed uncertainties in the ocean’s role in the Earth’s energy budget and transient climate sensitivity. Here we present the time evolution of the global ocean heat content for 1958 through 2009 from a new observational-based reanalysis of the ocean. Volcanic eruptions and El Niño events are identified as sharp cooling events punctuating a long-term ocean warming trend, while heating continues during the recent upper-ocean-warming hiatus, but the heat is absorbed in the deeper ocean. In the last decade, about 30% of the warming has occurred below 700 m, contributing significantly to an acceleration of the warming trend. The warming below 700 m remains even when the Argo observing system is withdrawn although the trends are reduced. Sensitivity experiments illustrate that surface wind variability is largely responsible for the changing ocean heat vertical distribution.
Accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, [link] to abstract.
The main figure under discussion is this one:
Figure 1: Ocean Heat Content from 0 to 300 meters (grey), 700 m (blue), and total depth (violet) from ORAS4, as represented by its 5 ensemble members. The time series show monthly anomalies smoothed with a 12-month running mean, with respect to the 1958–1965 base period. Hatching extends over the range of the ensemble members and hence the spread gives a measure of the uncertainty as represented by ORAS4 (which does not cover all sources of uncertainty). The vertical colored bars indicate a two year interval following the volcanic eruptions with a 6 month lead (owing to the 12-month running mean), and the 1997–98 El Niño event again with 6 months on either side. On lower right, the linear slope for a set of global heating rates (W/m2) is given.
SkepticalScience and WUWT (Bob Tisdale) have extensive posts on this paper.
So . . . has Trenberth found the ‘missing’ heat? To evaluate this, we need to dig into the ORAS4 ocean reanalysis. For background on reanalyses, see this previous Climate Etc. post reanalyses.org. Here is the paper describing the reanalyses.
Evaluation of the ECMWF Ocean Reanalysis ORAS4
Magdalena Balmaseda, Kristian Mogensen, Anthony Weaver
Abstract. A new operational ocean reanalysis (ORAS4) has been implemented at ECMWF. It spans the period 1958 to present. This paper describes its main components and evaluates its quality. The adequacy of ORAS4 for the initialization of seasonal forecasts is discussed, along with the robustness of some prominent climate signals.
ORAS4 has been evaluated using different metrics, including comparison with observed ocean currents, RAPID-derived transports, sea level gauges, and GRACE-derived bottom pressure. Compared to a control ocean model simulation, ORAS4 improves the fit to observations, interannual variability, and seasonal forecast skill. Some problems have been identified, such as the underestimation of meridional overturning at 26◦N, the magnitude of which is shown to be sensitive to the treatment of the coastal observations.
ORAS4 shows a clear and robust shallowing trend of the Pacific Equatorial thermocline. It also shows a clear and robust nonlinear trend in the 0-700m ocean heat content, consistent with other observational estimates. Some aspects of these climate signals are sensitive to the choice of SST product and the specification of the observation-error variances. The global sea level trend is consistent with the altimeter estimate, but the partition into volume and mass variations is more debatable, as inferred by discrepancies in the trend between ORAS4- and GRACE-derived bottom pressure.
Submitted to the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. [link] to full text.
JC comments: Ocean analysis (ocean models that assimilate observations ) is used to initialize ocean models are critical for making weather forecasts at timescales beyond 10 days using coupled atmosphere/ocean models. Ocean RE-analysis uses the same version of an ocean model to assimilate cleaned up historical ocean observations into a homogeneous analysis of historical ocean states. The second paper that describes the reanalysis process. It is a complex and sophisticated undertaking.
To what extend should we have confidence in the reanalysis results? Based upon verification statistics, there is clearly some advantages to the reanalysis relative to the raw observations. However the big issue is whether we can infer reliable global trends from the reanalysis, owing to changes in the observing system (not just for the ocean, but for the surface fluxes derived from atmospheric reanalyses), and uncertainties in the overall methodology. The surprising finding is the apparent sequestration of heat in the global ocean starting circa 2000, which has been accompanied by a flattening of the trend of upper ocean temperatures since 2003. Is this real, or an artifact of the reanalysis process? We don’t know, there is a debate underway in the oceanographic and climate communities on this topic.
Lets assume for the moment that the sequestration of heat in the deep ocean since 2000 is robust. What might be the cause of this, and what is the physical mechanism? Well, the only conceivable mechanism is associated with ocean circulations, driven internally by thermohaline processes or by the wind driven circulation. The reanalyses can be used in principle to diagnose what is going here in terms of which ocean basin/region is leading this effect, seasonality, etc. So what happened circa 2000? Well, there was climate shift associated with a massive reorganization of circulation patterns in the Pacific. Is this of relevance? Who knows, no one has done the analysis on this to my knowledge.
So has Trenberth found the ‘missing’ heat? His recent paper is inconclusive on this. The important point to me is that the new ocean reanalysis products support much more comprehensive diagnostics of heat transfer and storage in the ocean, including dynamical mechanisms in the context of overall climate dynamics. Focusing on a global trend from the reanalysis data isn’t how to extract the useful content from these data, IMO.
This is a technical thread and will be monitored for substantive comment.
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What are the physics of Trenberth’s lost heat finding it’s way down to 700m without leaving a trace on the way down?
Why didn’t Trenberth lost calories/joules stop at say 150m?
It is very easy when you consider that the ocean is understood to have overturning circulations, upwelling zones, surface currents, and all that.
There is no missing heat. It’s because Trenberth’s ‘back radiation’ contradicts Maxwell’s Equations. A pyrgeometer measure the net radiative field over all wavelengths. An FTIR measures the Planck Irradiation Function. These elements of electromagnetic energy transfer are standard physics. Climate Alchemy pretends to invent new physics, a perpetual motion machine.
That’s why the climate models exaggerate surface IR absorbed by GHGs by a factor of ~6.85. Then in hind casting they offset the extra warming by claiming 2x low level cloud optical depth.
There is little net ~15 µm surface IR so little CO2-AGW.or positive feedback, an artefact of the models exaggerating sunlit ocean temperature and evaporation is proportional to its exponent at constant RH.
Start again folks with proper physics.
Jim D
If that were the explanation, the spatially well deployed Argos system with its sensors are various depths would have picked up this purported down welling.
I think there is no evidence of missing heat and Trenberth is desperately chasing the ghosts of his observation “There is an absence of warming.and it’s a travesty we can’t explain it.”
Cognitive dissonance is a very powerful state of mind.
the heat had to go somewhere and since dr T couldn’t find it anywhere else, it has to be in the deep oceans. qed.
I just looked at Tisdale’s post on this and it appears to me that the temperature changes associated with these seemingly huge energy numbers are very small, on the order of 0.1C. Below 2000 meters it appears things are measured in 0.01C. Judging accelerations in such data seems to me rather suspect. Are we sure the signal is larger than the noise?
This is kind of like when climate scientists say the modern period is .2 degrees warmer than the Medieval warm period. How do they know the temp of the MWP to that degree of precision.
Look at seal levels from Colorado
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/2013rel2-global-mean-sea-level-time-series-seasonal-signals-removed
Now the notch at 2010-2011 is real, it is present in the Gulf of Mexico for instance. However, the lineshape of of our time travelers is quite different from satellite measurements of ocean height.
This is a case study in wishful thinking and wish fulfillment. People wanted to find hidden heat and worked the numbers until they did. This is exactly the type of work which shows that there is no science in climate science.
Intuitively it’s very difficult for me to consider it likely that the warming of the Earth system has reached the point where a major part of additional heat goes to ocean below 700 m based on the overall picture that
– sun heats the upper ocean,
– more CO2 reduces the heat loss from the surface to the atmosphere and trough that to space, and
– that leads to more heat finding its way to depths greater than 700 m.
The upper ocean has warmed too little to make that plausible in my view.
That doesn’t, however, mean that it were as difficult to accept the results of that reanalysis as credible as long as the mechanisms are different. The most likely being that the effect is due to natural variability in the ocean heat fluxes. If this is the correct explanation we wold have seen significant cooling of the uppermost ocean without the effect of additional CO2.
A third possibility is that the ocean currents lead to bypassing the upper ocean and link the deeper layers directly to the surface. That would allow for warming of the deep sea as a consequence of the higher surface temperatures.
All this is based only on intuition having as mental background a compartment model of heat content.
Pekka, the reason the bottom of the oceans is colder than the top is due to the sinking and horizontal transport of cold, dense, brines from the polar regions.
We have been told time and again that there has been an increase in the conversion of ice to cold water at the poles. Therefore, would we not expect shrinking ice to cause cooler ocean bottoms?
The net energy flux is the difference in heat carried down by downwelling and up by the upwelling part of the circulation. Many things affect that balance. The dynamics of oceans has also many other complications making it impossible to draw conclusions as simply as you wrote.
Pekka I had assumed that adding more cold water into the oceans, increasing the total mass of water, would lower the average temperature. The paper claims to measure TOTAL temperature.
If I have a bath of water at any temperature greater than four degrees and add any sized volume of water which is less than four degrees the AVERAGE temperature will drop.
Now it could be true that there has been no increase in melt water going into the oceans. Magic atmospheric IR could bypass the first 300 m of the ocean surface and only heat the lower layers, the person who has based his last 15 years on finding missing heat in the oceans could have found the ‘missing’ heat and pixies could live at the bottom of my garden.
DocMartyn,
Adding heat to the ocean is not likely to lower the average temperature. That’s so also when part of that extra heat is used to melt ice.
Doc,
Cold fresh water is more buoyant than warmer brine.
But the total ice melt from Greenland etc has only been enough to raise sea levels by maybe a few mm so far. Even if that few mm of cold water went straight to the deep ocean, it wouldn’t measurably affect the temperature.
Nick many people have made the argument that the rise in sea levels is due to melting ice. Time and time again we have been warned that global warming is raising the sea-level. Now you are saying that the total sea level to a couple of mm?
Fan has been posting Hansens terror of a flooded New York by Christmas. However, you now all say that the amount of melt water is trivial in terms of cooling the oceans, even though it is polar waters that have kept the bottom of the oceans cool throughout the past few million years.
Is this one of those bait and switch things again Nick? You say one thing one month in support of an argument and the opposite later?
Either less than 300 meters of the oceans, the majority of the oceans mass, is cooled by polar waters allowing it to have a >10 degrees gradient with respect to the top meter or something else is happening.
If the poles are melting at an unprecedented rate, then the oceans MUST be cooled at an unprecedented rate.
Doc,
“You say one thing one month in support of an argument and the opposite later?”
No. I said
“But the total ice melt from Greenland etc has only been enough to raise sea levels by maybe a few mm so far. “
And that isn’t controversial. The AR4 says that sea level rose from 1993 to 2003 at 3 mm/yr, about half due to melting ice.
But it’s just a simple sanity check. Spread that melt over the ocean – OK maybe 20-30mm, say. Sink it to depth, where it is maybe 3°C colder. Mix with say 1 km seawater – so its say 30 ppm, 3°C, about 0.0001 °C cooling. That’s if it all gets there, no warming along the way.
It’s highly misleading to say the bottom of the ocean is cool. The vast majority of the ocean, 90% of its volume, is a bone chilling 3C. Only the topmost 10% is any warmer than that. The average temperature of the ocean, top to bottom, is 4C.
That our modestly warm world is dependent on a shallow layer of warm water floating on a vast basin of ice water should be the most alarming thing about our climate. Anything that accelerates the mix rate between the shallow warm layer and the frigid bulk of the ocean could be catastrophic and quickly so. Atypical cold is a lot more damaging to both civilization and the biosphere than is atypical warm.
In reading David Springer,s comment that an accelerated mixing of warm surface water with colder lower regions would be catastrophic, I had a flash thought of the asteroid striking the Gulf of Mexico, 65 million years ago. When it is said that this asteroid decimated dinosaurs and most other life forms, what if part of that devastation was due to the rapid mixing of the warm Gulf of Mexico with the Atlantic Ocean? Thus adding to the global winter effect of the debris thrown on high into the atmosphere
Pekka, The mixing at the Antarctic convergence zone can create quite a variety of impacts on ocean heat content.
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/jrt9502.pdf
Colder average mixing can actually raise the thermohaline while the deeper oceans are cooling. There can be some mighty long times scales that need to be considered.
Pekka,
This could be tested in a ‘climate science’ experiment (‘climate science’ experiments are the best an most reliable types of experiments).
The experiment I suggest is to put a bubble over Europe so no CO2 can enter or exit the bubble. Then stop all man made CO2 emissions inside the bubble (and no importing or exports of products containing embodied CO2 emissions).
That would test your hypothesis and also allow the rest of the world to live in peace and harmony and enjoy an ever improving standard of living without being held back by the European socialists and communists.
We could also put a border control wall around Europe so only rational people are allowed out.
Would that be a good idea? Would it kill meany birds with one stone (i.e. solve many world problems with one ‘climate science’ experiment)?
JimD, and the only “region” that indicates a “sensitivity” of 3 C is global land mainly in the northern hemisphere. That is about 20 percent of the surface of the Earth. You can’t base “global sensitivity” on a fraction of the globe. Since most of the warming is “regional” you also cannot dismissing “regional” warming and cooling in the past.
Climate science has developed into the art of cherry picking
OK, the world’s crops tend to grow in those areas, and you have no concern about continental areas drying out, I suppose. I am concerned about these things.
JimD, “OK, the world’s crops tend to grow in those areas, and you have no concern about continental areas drying out, I suppose. I am concerned about these things.”
Actually, I am quite concerned about that. Water shed preservation and restoration should be our number one priority closely followed by soil conservation. Much more bang for the buck.
With warming, growing zones will extend poleward, and you have no idea whether droughts will worsen or where.
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That’s a misleading half-truth . Land makes up 29% of the surface and the fact that you cherry-pick the northern hemisphere shows you to be a hypocrite.
Cappy Dick, you should just give it up.
Read CD again. Northern Hemisphere land is about 20% of the Earth’s surface. Is that your problem?
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kim, I am more concerned with the transient climate that comes first as the land warms much faster than the ocean leading to lower humidity all round.
Webby, that would be a half comprehension on your part. As I said, the land mass area that is actually warming is about 20% of the surface of the Earth. The Antarctic and large swaths of the tropics are not warming at that rate. In fact, with about 2000 meters of ice covering it, a significant portion of the land surface isn’t land surface at all.
Now if you would like to make a more accurate estimate of my “about, knock yourself out.
Jim D wrote: “…the land warms much faster than the ocean leading to lower humidity all round”
—————————————————————–
How exactly does that work?
Bearing in mind that, for example, one summer to the next gains, on average, less than 0.01C, which is very easily buried by myriad other factors – such as soil humidity
phatboy, it works kind of the way summer does when the humidity tends to be lower because the land is warmer than the ocean.
Jim D, Just because the land is warmer than the ocean doesn’t decrease the humidity.
I think you’re confusing this with the fact that colder oceans evaporate less – but, in this case, the ocean itself isn’t colder than it would have been
Do YOU have a reading problem? I mentioned that Cappy Dick was cherry-picking the Northern Hemisphere to come up with a smaller number. You fake skeptics are very devious.
Let’s get back to and celebrate how well climate scientists can model the evolution of the earth’s temperature.
If ~30% is land and ~70% is water, then a globally averaged temperature anomaly can be set up as follows:
T_avg = 0.7*T_aqua + 0.3*T_land
The heat entering the ocean will suppress T_aqua and thus suppress the average from what the T_land is showing. That which does not enter the ocean contributes to excess atmospheric heat.
So if say that 1/2 of the excess heat is being siphoned to the bulk ocean volume, then the actual ocean surface temperature would be 1/2 it would be on land.
So the T_avg will be
T_avg = 0.7*(1/2*T_land) + 0.3*T_land = 0.65*T_land
Easy enough to observe the differences between land-based averages such as BEST, and ocean&land averages such as GIStemp. BEST has gone up by about 1.2C while the global average about 0.8C.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1900/mean:60/compress:12/plot/best/from:1900/mean:60/compress:12
This ratio looks abut 0.65 just as one would predict from the ratio of land and ocean due to the ocean’s current heat uptake. According to the GHG models, starting with Hansen 1981, this will continue from now on. So whatever the global average is, the global land average will have an anomalous temperature that is about 50% higher.
So whenever you see a number like +3C mentioned for a global average increase for years from now, the land anomaly could likely be 4.5C.
We will have to deal with that outcome, but the subjective sense of whether that is good or bad has nothing to do with climate predictions as they stand.
Heh, Web, I’ll take the author’s interpretation of what he wrote over yours.
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phatboy, the relative humidity determines the clouds and rain, and the relative humidity over land depends on the vapor present (which depends on the ocean temperature) and the temperature (of the land), so for a given vapor amount, hotter land means lower humidity, less clouds, less rain, more drying sunshine, higher temperatures over dry land, a positive feedback towards more droughty conditions.
Jim D, so what you’re saying is that more evaporation from the oceans leads to less rainfall????
I thought you were responding to me. Well, it’s nice to see that you didn’t challenge my point that Captain is a cherry-picking hypocrite.
phatboy, yes if the land is warming faster, less rainfall over land. The relative humidity is what matters for rainfall and clouds. The oceans would have more rain if they are warmer, as we see in the tropics.
Gad, web, you make less sense than I do. Kudos.
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Webster, “Cherry picking hypocrite.”
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/ZonAnn.Ts.txt
That is GISS land only regional. Between 25N and 90N there is 48% of the total land surface area. Excluding the Arctic circle, the highest trends are 44N to 64N and 24N to 44N. The trends for the tropics and southern extent land regions are nearly identical while the northern extent trend shows the CO2 swoosh!.
Since the majority of the land use changes are in the NH extratropics, Occam would generally allow an alternate hypothesis.
Jim D, of course you’re right – which is why we have so much more rainfall over tropical rainforest than over temperate scrubland.
phatboy, the concept of summer is lost in the tropics, isn’t it? The temperature doesn’t stray far from the ocean temperature there.
You’re sure about that, are you?
And what about tropical deserts?
Jim,
That’s only one of the effects. Warmer land means also more uplift over land areas and more air from the seas at low altitudes. That adds to the rain. This is just one more example of what changes. Pick any single effect – or two – and you are likely to end up in wrong conclusions.
phatboy, the deserts I know about are subtropical.
Pekka, you are mentioning effects that are more coastal or related to monsoons. However, interior continents like Russia and the US central plains where a lot of crops are grown, and where there is susceptibility to droughts already, are the areas we need to be concerned about.
Jim D, subtropical or not, they’re still just as hot.
Besides which, I, amongst many, would argue that the increase in temperatures you’re going on about are more to down to an increase in minimum winter night-time temperatures than maximum summer daytime temperatures.
phatboy, this started with the idea that land areas may dry out. Some are already dry, but I was just pointing out how a positive feedback can lead to droughts, and there are credible reasons this could happen based on relative humidity. Perhaps it is no accident that the Dust Bowl occurred during a previous rapid-warming phase, while Europe had some bad winters too, coincidentally.
Or maybe the dust bowl conditions, or the factors which caused it, also caused the increase in measured temperatures
phatboy, it was a global temperature increase. Not sure the dust bowl caused that. It would be interesting to know if other droughts occurred at the same time.
@ WHT
Summary – “It’s NOT CO2!!! Na-na-na.”
Forever and ever, amen.
There’s an awful lot of maybes, the only certainty being that you’re certain of what you’re certain of.
Jim,
What I had also in mind is that your description fits well with regions of uplift, while the regions of subsiding flows are most suspect of being arid.
There is substantial variability at decadal scales and much longer globally in response primarily to patterns of sea surface temperature .
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/globalwarming/ar4-fig-3-14.gif
The patterns – negative PDO and positive AMO – are suggesting the most severe potential for drought conditions in the US for a decade or more hence. ‘The most severe droughts occur when the PDO is in a negative phase, and the AMO is in a positive phase.’ McCabe (2004).
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/USdrought_zps2629bb8c.jpg.html?sort=3&o=8#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/USdrought_zps2629bb8c.jpg.html?sort=3&o=8&_suid=136477440927307837581562843924
How does “natural variability” qualify as an explanation at all?
Most if not all climate variables oscillate naturally for reasons that are unknown. If chaotic the reasons may well be unknowable. If an observed change is due to one of these oscillations then that is the explanation. For example today’s colder temperature is due to a surge of arctic air. The surge is a natural variability explains the temperature change.
David Wojick | March 30, 2013 at 12:37 pm |
Close. Let’s see if we can simplify this a bit, as plain language ought be the goal of all writing:
Most if not all climate variables oscillate naturally for reasons that are unknown.
Past climates varied based on state and natural inputs; unnatural human inputs change climates too, now.
If chaotic the reasons may well be unknowable.
Even if all causes are known, Chaos can make it hard to link them to effects.
If an observed change is due to one of these oscillations then that is the explanation.
It is becoming increasingly hard to separate known human inputs from natural inputs because the prior state was partly due to human causes.
For example today’s colder temperature is due to a surge of arctic air. The surge is a natural variability explains the temperature change.
If you view all dominant inputs as natural, or the climate is very like past natural states, then natural variability explains part of the observation.
Bart I do not necessarily agree. Natural variability is not usually about inputs. It is about oscillations.
David Wojick | March 30, 2013 at 1:34 pm |
Volcanoes, though we likely agree they are natural, are not oscillations, except in a grand Quantum Mechanical sense.
If we mean all things are oscillations, it’s meaningfully to say some things specifically are oscillations for no other reason.
The occurence of volcanos, more or fewer, weaker or stronger, here or there, does oscillate due to the underlying tectonics plus gravitational forces etc. There is a lot of research on this. Volcanos are not random events. The crust is a thin film in constant motion and in pieces, floating on a molten ball. Note that this also affects sea level, as well as ocean circulation and heat content. Nature is nowhere constant.
But are they catastrophic – in the sense of Rene Thom?
If all things are oscillations, it’s meaningless to say some things specifically are oscillations for no other reason, in particular if by oscillation we simply mean tendency to revert toward some unknown mean or attractor from some extreme (which only hindsight can tell) at some unknown point.
You’ve just replaced “God”, “Nature”, “mystery”, or “magic” with “oscillation”.
Music of the Spheres.
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All things are not oscillations but we have learned that most if not all climate parameters oscillate naturally. This is very important because AGW was and to a great degree still is premised on the idea that climate is constant, at equilibrium, such that observed changes must be explained by external forgings. Very few of these natural oscillations are included in the climate models because very few are well understood. People still talk about equilibrium sensitivity as though that were a meaningful concept but it is not.
Indeed Kim, or even the harmonics of the spheres.
All things are not oscillations but we have learned that most if not all climate parameters oscillate naturally. This is very important because AGW was and to a great degree still is premised on the idea that climate is constant, at equilibrium, such that observed changes must be explained by external forgings. Very few of these natural oscillations are included in the climate models because very few are well understood.
Purer bafflegab was never uttered. If only we had an expert in simplifying overly complex verbiage around to take some shears to this waffle.
An oscillation without a period or amplitude is just a time series, a simple curve that might look like anything.
There is no ‘premise’ in AGW of a constant climate, and never was. You think Arrhenius was ignorant of the changing nature of the natural world?
No, that’s just a straw man. The premise of AGW is of an external forcing on a climate system that alters its state in ways that nature would not otherwise have done by the same path.
Observed changes can only be explained by external forcings not because there is some premise of changelessness, but because we know the path of changes without these forcings is not the same as the path with these forcings from pure mathematics of Chaos Theory. This mathematics applies to biological systems, reliably, and electronics, to neurons and computer networks and ants and hornets and fish and flows in rivers and streams and orbits of planets and to climate.
Where we can observe models — analog or digital — we always see this effect in things that work the way climate works.
How cold would the Earth be, Bart, without man’s influence?
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BartR, “Observed changes can only be explained by external forcings not because there is some premise of changelessness, but because we know the path of changes without these forcings is not the same as the path with these forcings from pure mathematics of Chaos Theory.”
That is not true. if it were true, there would not be as many theories of the ice ages. One of the common fallacies is that CO2 forcing during some period several million years ago is a good guide to the impact it will have now. Since there are internal variables, like ocean mixing efficiency, you can’t assume there will be the same impact with changes to the internal system dynamics.
“Ultimately, this study suggests that the growth of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets is a result of the global cooling of Earth’s climate since 4 Myr rather than its initial cause.” http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1324186/
You can confuse cause and effect.
The models currently do not reproduce the known internal pseudo oscillations, which can be any number of combinations of normal sine wave cycles with varying time scales. ENSO is a common known oscillation that is a result of solar forcing and internal energy transfer delays. Since the hemisphere oceans are asymmetrical, both N-S and E-W you shouldn’t expect natural variability not to be a factor on various time scales.
The PDO and AMO are both known but not replicated in models until recently. The GFDL is modeling longer term, 150 year internal oscillations.
“The dominant forcing factor appears to be precessional insolation; Northern Hemisphere summer insolation correlates to at least the early to middle Holocene climate trend. Spectral analysis reveals centennial-scale cyclic climate changes with periods of 1220, 1070, 400, and 150 yr.” ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/contributions_by_author/nielsen2004/nielsen2004.txt
Denying the complexity of a frigging planet scale thermodynamic problem is a tad insane.
Some people are less comfortable with turning up the thermostat by 4 C than kim apparently is.
Jim D, I’d take +4 C over -8 C any day, and so would you.
Besides, there seems to be a thermostat keeping us within a 10 C range, and we’re closer to the top than the bottom.
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JimD, 4 C where? That 4 C is based on increasing an average surface effective energy of 390 Wm-2 to 412 Wm-2. That is 22 Wm-2.
Trenberth before this missing heat had 20 Wm-2 of missing heat he recently had to make a “minor adjustment” on. Greame Stephens et al. along with another Stephan’s et al. noted that Trenberth missed quite a bit of energy in his budget, underestimating latent and sensible cooling while attempting to “close” his budget. Classic garbage in garbage out. Since then, the general “consensus” is that the 4 C is an over estimate. 4 C is likely an unrealistic upper limit in fact.
You though tend to throw out that 4 C like you have a strong position in carbon credit futures.
Jim D, same question for you as for Pekka and Bart R. Pick a number for sensitivity that frightens you, then calculate how much colder we’d be at present without man’s influence.
Whaddya get?
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4 C is based on the intermediate fossil fuel scenarios (700 ppm) with some mitigation, and the intermediate sensitivities (3 C per doubling). It may occur after 2100, but it will occur unless a significant proportion of the remaining fossil fuels are left in the ground.
kim, reading Marcott’s comment at Realclimate that Judith just pointed to, I think we would be in an extension of the LIA with temperatures 0.7 C cooler than now. So, 0.7 C may not sound much, but is actually a big deal. Imagine 5 times that change in the other direction. We have shot through the happy medium with no end in sight. Hansen says the ideal is 350 ppm, which is where we were two decades ago.
OK, Jim D, hold that sensitivity and calculate how much colder we’d be at 350 ppm. Wouldn’t that be fun?
Also, how do you account for the millenial scale optima and minima throughout the Holocene?
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kim, 350 ppm gives us about 1 C warmer than preindustrial. We are not there yet, but that is where the lagged warming would have stopped if we stopped at 350 ppm. Now, this is all approximate because we are not considering other GHGs or aerosols which roughly cancel each other.
Heh, I asked how much colder than now at 350 ppm. And if you think the warming lags, then we’d be even cooler than that.
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Part of the absurdity WRT Marcott is that the problems in calibrating old radioactive-dating data to more recent data results from contamination due to mankind’s use of radioactive material. And to try to correct for the issue by revising the age models, they get shredded for their efforts.
Face it, this is all about acknowledging man’s continuing ability to alter the environmental landscape. It is what it is, but that doesn’t mean we can’t afford to spend time and money pursuing the analysis.
Cappy Dick’s pointing to land-use changes is just so much more of that absurd hypocritical garbage that the skeptics try to rationalize as fake concern.
kim, not sure about your mathematics there. 350 ppm is 1 C warmer than 280 ppm at equilibrium. We are currently 0.7 C warmer than preindustrial, also below equilibrium. If we stopped at 350 ppm, eventually that 1 C would have been realized, so the temperature would be a little warmer than now, and this is what Hansen is comfortable with.
Now you’ve slipped the bounds of the argument. I asked what temperature it would be now without man’s influence. Pick any sensitivity you like and calculate how much colder we would be without man’s influence.
===============
From Marcott’s reply, we see he was focused on the big picture and other people emphasized things he wasn’t emphasizing. The big picture is that the early Holocene was 0.7 C warmer than the later period around 1900, and that the early 1900’s were colder than 95% of the Holocene. Now within a century we are warmer than 75% of the Holocene, and projections push us past any of the Holocene very quickly. He tried to de-emphasize recent proxies and his work was not on the thermometer temperature record, only the big-picture trend from proxies. He was trying to use good practice for a scientist not to drift from the topic of his paper, tempting though it might be.
kim, that was my 1:51 pm reply.
Jim D, go back to your 1:51. Take that 0.7 deg C, drop the PPM by 40 and add your lag. We would no longer be in an extension of the LIA, but in a collapse from it.
So it’s either that or we can hope the sensitivity is lower than you estimate.
=======================
Without AGW, how much ‘colder’ would ‘we’ be?
All other things being equal, the likeliest path from 1750 to now would put us about 1C to 1.2C lower GMT than currently, arguably in the most likely state.
Which would tend to reinforce the jetstream rather than decrease it; as we see decreasing the jetstream leads to slower moving larger weather systems, tending to reinforce among other things drought, flood, and in the case of poor Tonyb, winter snow.. even though the GMT is warmer.
What increasing the jetstream would do, I can’t say.
Jim D, your 1:51 was for 390 ppm.
Your ‘not to drift from the topic of his paper’ is enough to make me howl. Try to be serious.
=============
Yes, Bart R, and we would not be recovering from the LIA as we have from every other climate minima during the Holocene.
And the higher you estimate the sensitivity, the colder we would be without man.
You pick a high sensitivity and we are avoiding glaciation. You pick a low sensitivity and we aren’t yet.
==============
Bart R, this argument is contradictory: “Observed changes can only be explained by external forcings not because there is some premise of changelessness, but because we know the path of changes without these forcings is not the same as the path with these forcings from pure mathematics of Chaos Theory.”
If the change is chaotic then the butterfly effect makes it not explainable by a given forcing. The effect of a forcing is intrinsically unpredictable in such cases.
Most if not all climate variables oscillate naturally for reasons that are unknown.
1. Since you offer no definition of what constitutes a “climate variable”
this claim is technically untestable.
2. The most important climate variable ( balance at the TOA) does not
oscillate and we know that over long periods outgoing energy
must equal incoming energy.
3. I can think of few “climate variables” that actually oscillate if one is
prcise an scientific about the meaning of the word oscillate.
4. “naturally” is a meaningless term since there is nothing “unnatural’ in nature.
” If chaotic the reasons may well be unknowable. ”
1. Its an open question whether the climate is chaotic. From a global standpoint, energy out = energy in, it is not.
2. A rigourous proof of unknowability might make your position more interesting. As it stands this is bafflegab.
“If an observed change is due to one of these oscillations then that is the explanation. For example today’s colder temperature is due to a surge of arctic air. The surge is a natural variability explains the temperature change.”
1. You have not explained the change you have merely renamed it, which is no explanation.
here is what an explanation “looks like”. Note the shifts in ontology.
Consider this an “example” of how explanation “works”
2. The surge of arctic air is explained by changes in circulation patterns, which is explained by changes in ice cover which is explained by a warming planet which is explained by increased GHGs. Whether this is true or not is an open question, but it at least has the “form” of an explanation. Again, note the ontology. If you are not explaining X in terms of Y, where X and Y are different entities, then you have no explanation.
Your explanation explains the increase in cold air as coming from an increase in cold air. That is, it explains nothing. “natural variation” is
not an explanation for anything. It points toward quasi peroidic, irregular changes that have not been explained as of yet, but which may be explainable in other terms.
Jim D, let’s take your 2:30. If 1900 was lower than 95% of the Holocene, and 1750 was even colder, then if man caused the subsequent rise we’d be at the low end of the Holocene now sans man, and hovering there or dropping. If nature caused the subsequent rise, then sans man we’d still be cooler than 25% of the Holocene, and obviously Nature is capable of that.
Most of us believe the rise has been a combination of both, and the most auspicious for the future is minimal contribution by man in the rise, a low sensitivity.
============
Hey moshe, join the fun. Pick a sensitivity that frightens you and calculate how cold we’d be without man’s input.
======================
kim, the press headline was an eye-catcher for the Marcott paper, but the paper had a completely different emphasis on the whole Holocene, and the “skeptics” have not argued against that part.
As for the effect of CO2, what temperature do you think 280 ppm corresponds to, if not the preindustrial one? Or are you taking the long view of thousands of more years as the Milankovitch cycle cools us more, or the millions of years that nature takes to reduce the CO2 in the climate system? Without man’s effect we would be at 280 ppm, which combined with weak solar cycles can lead to LIA’s.
Jimd
What do you believe the temperature to be preindustrial? What years do you call pre industrial?
Tonyb
You amuse me, Jim D, when you speak of a pre-industrial temperature. You’ve been gazing into Marcott overly long.
But if you want to be smooth, pre this industrialization we were at the lowest point of the Holocene. Let us pray that Nature brought us out of that, for anthro CO2 is in short supply.
================
kim, I would not disagree that a repeat of the LIA would have been possible without man, especially if the present solar slump gets worse. This may be why Hansen preferred 350 ppm (1 C warmer).
Tonyb, I would regard preindustrial temperatures to be cooler by 0.7-0.8 C than now, but there would be a half degree total variation due to solar and volcanic effects, as seems to apply to most of the millennium. Some local changes could be larger due to ocean circulation changes.
Well, Jim D, I’d agree it is a hanging sword of intuitive curves, and I’m afraid to look up. Let the twine be tough.
=========================
You miss or dodge the point though. With a sensitivity high enough to be dangerous, we would be plunging lower out of the LIA without anthroCO2.
=====================
Mosher you have thrown out too many arguments for me to reply to all. Let’s try three simple ones. You say:
“2. The most important climate variable ( balance at the TOA) does not
oscillate and we know that over long periods outgoing energy
must equal incoming energy.
3. I can think of few “climate variables” that actually oscillate if one is
prcise an scientific about the meaning of the word oscillate.
4. “naturally” is a meaningless term since there is nothing “unnatural’ in nature.”
Re 2, Balance is not a variable. I doubt there is a balance as both input and output oscillate independently. Nor do we know that outgoing and incoming energy (per second, month, decade?) must ever be equal, except in passing from time to time. Why should they? Perhaps you are referring to accumulated energy but that too need never be constant. It can rise and fall endlessly.
Re 3, Oscillate means goes up then down then up then down endlessly. Can you name a climate variable that does not do this, on various time scales?
Re 4. Naturally means not due to humans.
I am talking about dynamics but you seem to be talking about something else.
kim, no, according to the idea, the CO2 level is the thermostat, or control knob if you prefer. One CO2 level corresponds to one temperature, at least until albedo feedbacks start to matter. 280 ppm corresponds to the preindustrial temperature and that CO2 value applied through the last few millennia. The Holocene cooling was mostly the Milankovitch effect favoring Arctic sea ice in my understanding.
kim | March 31, 2013 at 1:40 pm |
I’m fairly convinced there is no single figure for Climate Sensitivity.. though there may be a function for Climate Sensitivity.
And while I generally distrust and even mock the terminology “recover from the LIA”, there is some plausible mechanism for recovering from volcanic aerosols (though that is generally subdecadal), so if you can present a plausible mechanism for an LIA-causing event that would take centuries to ‘recover’ from (say by the ‘purging’ of some unknown aerosol from the stratosphere), I’d be all ears.
Until then, “recover from the LIA” is as meaningless as “escape from goblins”.
Skippy,
Catastrophe in the sense of Rene Thom is very real for earthquakes. At some stage a tipping point is reached when a very a small further impetus – metaphorically the flap of a butterflies wings – and vast energies are released.
Climate is similarly a coupled nonlinear, chaotical, dynamical system. This is expressed through climate shifts seen in patterns of ocean and atmospheric conditions. The most important of these climate nodes – defined as nodes in a complex network system – is ENSO. ENSO has significant implication for global drought and rainfall and temperature. A small change – perhaps in solar UV/ozone interactions – initiates a cascade of tremendous energies through powerful systems globally It is a system that varies on decadal to centennial and millennial scales.
‘ENSO causes climate extremes across and beyond the Pacific basin; however, evidence of ENSO at high southern latitudes is generally restricted to the South Pacific and West Antarctica. Here, the authors report a statistically significant link between ENSO and sea salt deposition during summer from the Law Dome (LD) ice core in East Antarctica. ENSO-related atmospheric anomalies from the central-western equatorial Pacific (CWEP) propagate to the South Pacific and the circumpolar high latitudes. These anomalies modulate high-latitude zonal winds, with El Niño (La Niña) conditions causing reduced (enhanced) zonal wind speeds and subsequent reduced (enhanced) summer sea salt deposition at LD. Over the last 1010 yr, the LD summer sea salt (LDSSS) record has exhibited two below-average (El Niño–like) epochs, 1000–1260 ad and 1920–2009 ad, and a longer above-average (La Niña–like) epoch from 1260 to 1860 ad. Spectral analysis shows the below-average epochs are associated with enhanced ENSO-like variability around 2–5 yr, while the above-average epoch is associated more with variability around 6–7 yr. The LDSSS record is also significantly correlated with annual rainfall in eastern mainland Australia. While the correlation displays decadal-scale variability similar to changes in the interdecadal Pacific oscillation (IPO), the LDSSS record suggests rainfall in the modern instrumental era (1910–2009 ad) is below the long-term average. In addition, recent rainfall declines in some regions of eastern and southeastern Australia appear to be mirrored by a downward trend in the LDSSS record, suggesting current rainfall regimes are unusual though not unknown over the last millennium.’ http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00003.1?journalCode=clim
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Vance2012-AntarticaLawDomeicecoresaltcontent.jpg.html?sort=3&o=37
We wonder what small changes might trigger coupled nonlinear system responses.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Historicaltsi-SORCEplots_zps323ffc48.jpg.html#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Historicaltsi-SORCEplots_zps323ffc48.jpg.html?&_suid=136477986038403377944625437762
David Wojick | March 31, 2013 at 3:31 pm |
If the change is chaotic then the butterfly effect makes it not explainable by a given forcing. The effect of a forcing is intrinsically unpredictable in such cases.
Which does not contradict what I said. Unpredictable does not in all cases mean unbound. The motion of a planet in a three body system may be unpredictable, yet we can say it will never exceed the speed of light. It’s location may be unpredictable, yet we can say it will never occupy two entirely distinct locations at exactly the same time (in a classical system).
Further, all paths from one state to another that involve exceeding the speed of light or occupying to places at once (except in special cases), can be excluded from contemplation.
In climate, we can never exclude the possibility that every path we haven’t contemplated individually isn’t real, except in trivial cases, but we can exclude paths including impossible intermediate states, such as those violating Conservation.
So we can say, “we know the path of changes without these forcings is not the same as the path with these forcings,” without contradiction.
I would have expected this to be trivially obvious.
Dr. Curry,
Do you think you could take another whack at this sentence?
I think I can see what you are getting at, but it would be nice to be certain.
s/models are/models that are/
Missing heat is to be found deep in the North Atlantic, apparently sunk by a cold blast from the Central Siberia.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AMF.htm
If we’re looking to solve a ‘problem’ we’d better first define the problem. If the temperature of the globe is a part of the problem it should be interesting to know what causes it and over the last 150 years the correlation between CO2 and temperature is 22% compared to the correlation with sunspots which is 79%. But, there’s nothing anyone can do about what the Sun does so who do we look to for help? “None of our ancestors were led to survival by high priests in green robes with computer models chanting anti-energy and anti-food slogans.
The proposal that the acceleration of summer ice melt results in a conveyor of the coldest but least saline meltwater to the upper oceans leading to a pumping of warmer but more saline waters beneath thermal inversion layers is one of the many mechanisms whereby global warming could lead to eventual global cooling.
Lowering the surface by eight degrees after lags and indirect effects might only warm the deepest ocean 0.1 degrees in such a scenario.. which I still think unlikely for obvious reasons.
Still, more feasible than the various proposed cloud iris effects; while I give low credibility to BTK2013 at this early stage — it’s no B.E.S.T. by far — it is an unsurprising outcome. And points to the shame that we do not monitor our climate as responsible stewards ought.
As water moves north it loses both mass and heat until the density is low enough for the water to sink. The mixing of fresh meltwater in the surface mixing zone reduces the salinity of the surface water decreasing density and reducing bottom water formation. This is the mechanism by which meridional overturning circulation is expected to diminish substantially this century – with little confidence that there won’t be an abrupt change.
It is presumed that when conditions are suitable – as a result of orbtal ecentricities – that this can lead to ice feedbacks in particular. Thus global warming can lead to abrupt global cooling.
You say water loses mass as it moves north.
Where does the lost mass go?
The hydrological cycle – where else do you imagine it might go?
It’s still water throughout the hydrologic cycle. What I think you must have meant is as it proceeds northward evaporation exceeds precipitation.
Increasing salinity because evaporation exceeds precipitation is mostly wrong of course. Salinity increases from the equator to the tropics of cancer and capricorn. From there on salinity decreases as you move towards the poles and precipitation exceeds evaporation.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter06/chapter06_03.htm
You ought to try cracking open a textbook once in a while. But I guess that would mean admitting to yourself you might not know everything already. LOL
Another thing to keep in mind (more textbook stuff) is that saltwater is denser than freshwater so the decreasing salinity going from tropics to poles helps keep the warm layer afloat.
Yet another thing to keep in mind is that below about 300 meters (which is kept mixed by surface turbulence) the ocean temperature is a fairly constant 3C. So in order for surface water to sink as it nears the poles it has to get substantially below 3C. It has to get below 3C because it is less saline.
Sinking doesn’t occur much less than 60S or 70N latitude. Same sub chapter of Intro to Physical Oceanography textbook 6.3 Geographical Distribution of Surface Temperature and Salinity cited above has SST global distribution winter/summer in the opening. Evaporation, precipitation, and salinity are developed further on down.
No what is obviously meant is that the ocean loses mass. And we are talking about the Gulf Stream which I discuss below somewhere.
You make such idiotic and trivial points. All with your usual tedious and juvenile jibes. What happened to your pathetic whine about moderation?
David, you mean like this,
http://aquarius.nasa.gov/images/SSS_composites/2012/Nov/Q20123062012335.SSS.MO.Nov.moll.4096×2048.png
Generally, the regional ocean salinity increases when the precipitation isn’t returned to the regional ocean surface, a precipitation deficit.
In an ideal world, the salinity would be greatest in the tropics, land mass would be uniformly distributed, the thermal equator would be at the physical equator, but such is life.
Dallas,
That is fantastic. Loved the animation on the main page – thanks. I have added it to my favourites and have been plotting pofiles back to 1800 at various depths. I am so impressed.
Yes Dallas exactly like that. Repeating myself, salinity increases from the equator to the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn then decreases from there as it leaves the tropics and heads towards the poles. Ellison evidently wasn’t aware of that now he’s in a snit about being corrected. Well make that a bigger snit because I think he was born in a snit. I do like how he gushes over the Aquarius Mission web site and I’d remind him to thank America for it and for allowing his larrikin blue horse riding butt to view it for free over the internet on a personal computer which are both also American technologies.
‘As water moves north it loses both mass and heat until the density is low enough for the water to sink. The mixing of fresh meltwater in the surface mixing zone reduces the salinity of the surface water decreasing density and reducing bottom water formation. This is the mechanism by which meridional overturning circulation is expected to diminish substantially this century – with little confidence that there won’t be an abrupt change.’
Now I trust that the concept of mass balance as used in hydrology is simple enough. Hypersaline water moves north well past the Tropic of Cancer to the where it is one of the drivers of thermohaline circulation.
I really can’t help it if you pull it out of your arse, criticise it and then pat yourself on the back for some reason or other while casting uncouth aspersions on all and sundry This seems however to be a pattern in your behaviour – a symptom of wanting to be the smartest dipsh_t in the room without remotely having any depth in the Earth sciences at all. .
So sad – too bad.
No amount of actual data will convince you that are wrong, will it?
Salinity decreases as water moves from the tropics to the poles. This is simple, observed, and factual. The decreasing salinity helps keep it afloat. Sinking is accomplished by cooling. Below the mixed layer the water temperature is 3C. The mixed layer must be cooled below this before it will sink. These are the facts. You deny them like a petulant child that can’t stand being corrected then lash out in a flaming fit of schoolyard pique. And speaking of boorish you’re a self-admitted “larrikin” from the Great Western which by definition is a ill-bred fellow. You sure live up to it. Grow up.
Whoops – wrong place. You spend 10 minutes in the internet and 6 hours insisting on something eveyone knows. And has a correspondence with anything I said only in your fetid imagination.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/density_zps24f5bdd3.jpg.html#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/density_zps24f5bdd3.jpg.html?&_suid=13647212317780027759772625072565
Nice little site with interactive pages and a historical database. I am wondering if I can do anything useful with it.
These sorts of data are shared across the world – and data gathering is a global endevour from ARGO to the Global Terrestrial Network – Hydrology and much else.
And I don’t have a blue horse and don’t frequent the Great Western – you must be thinking of someone else.
You are sounding a lot like webby – a pompous twit with a humour bypass and a penchant for absurd self aggandisement.
Changes in the jet stream leading to slower moving, longer lasting weather systems will tend to increase salinity imbalance, or decrease?
Will the uptake due evaporation be balanced more in the same region by precipitation there rather than wind transport elsewhere, (likewise, will precipitation be balanced by evaporation that follows), or is it the opposite: precipitation-laden systems will just rain more in one spot for longer times while clear hot breezy systems will uptake more surface moisture concentrating salinity more?
And what effect on ocean circulation will result?
Chief Hydrologist | March 31, 2013 at 5:55 am |
“And I don’t have a blue horse and don’t frequent the Great Western – you must be thinking of someone else.”
Ah. I’d assumed that Chief Hydrologist was aware of his alter-ego Captain Kangaroo the larrikin who rides a blue horse named Shibboleth in the Great Western.
So my choices are that you have a real honest to god multiple personality or you are a liar. Or maybe only some of your multiple personalities are liars? Which is it, eh Sybil?
Perhaps I can answer – and please note that I have promoted myself since taking control of this blog and annexing the New Zealand cricket team.
I can neither confirm nor deny my true identity – it is a secret of the climate war known only to a cowgirl with a lasso.
But we know who you are Dave Springer – and are sending a crack team of drop bear commandos to deal with you as I speak.
Be very afraid Dave Springer.
Global warming has become an industry — an industry that even attacked a 15 year old girl (Kristen Byrnes, Ponder the Maunder) for having the temerity to question the merits of Al Gore ‘s science. It was climate change frauds like Mann, Bradley, Hughes, Briffa and Jones who hid behind filing cabinets full of purposefully biased junk science and refused to admit the truth of any fact that conflicted with the ‘hockey stick’ picture of the world they sought to paint. Their world is one where evil American capitalism is blight that is poisoning the planet with its human-produced CO2 that will cause runaway global warming if it is not stopped by a bigger secular, socialist EU-style Eurocommunist government and economy.
This particular comment seems unnecessary and rather crudely made,
More so than Trenberth’s climate porn? Could anything be more outrageous than painting a picture of heat hiding in the deepest ocean waiting to spring forth like a fiery Phoenix from hell, scorching the Earth, killing every living thing and raising the seas to cover the lands like a biblical flood?
If heat is accumulating in the deep ocean, what exactly is pornographic about a scientist saying so??
Are you trying to frighten children?
You used the word “porn,” not me. Please explain.
It has a lot to do with something that is both outrageous and unseemly buy the only sort of free speech that Leftists feel compelled to protect.
So you have absolutely no scientific views on the results, and are just mouthing off. Typical.
With that I I don’t expect to be impressed but feel free to surprise me:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/29/has-trenberth-found-the-missing-heat/#comment-306940
So, no thoughts of your own, huh?
Good night.
Typically, sharing thoughts with a True Believer of global warming alarmism is about like having a conversation with the 90 year old embalmed body of Lenin.
Maybe. But all you have offered here is drivel.
Talking in your sleep? Let me know when you wake up.
OMG I’d heard somewhere how global warming, the Man
made warming in particular, affected the polar bears, but
southern hemisphere! Koalas? Shocking news about drop
bears and I HAVE SOME IN ME BIT OF FOREST AND
ME BIT OF FOREST LOOKS VERY LIKE THAT BIT OF
FOREST but I must jest not panic and i must think what
ter do and be scientific…. say, correlation MUST mean
causation so maybe… land clearance?
According to the Left polar bears have been suffering from second-hand humanity for more than 15 years. It’s amazing so many have survived this long. The one in the San Diego Zoo had to switch his diet to Webbers bread and margaritas.
You spend 10 minutes in the internet and 6 hours insisting on something eveyone knows. And has a correspondence with anything I said only in your fetid imagination.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/density_zps24f5bdd3.jpg.html#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/density_zps24f5bdd3.jpg.html?&_suid=13647212317780027759772625072565
Nice little site with interactive pages and a historical database. I am wondering if I can do anything useful with it.
These sorts of data are shared across the world – and data gathering is a global endevour from ARGO to the Global Terrestrial Network – Hydrology and much else.
And I don’t have a blue horse and don’t frequent the Great Western – you must be thinking of someone else.
You are sounding a lot like webby – a pompous twit with a humour bypass and a penchant for absurd self aggandisement.
Portuguese Men of War.
===================
C’est magnifique mais ce n’est pas la gare.
Ooh, look a choo choo.
=============
Colour me somewhat skeptical about a complicated and complex “re-analysis” process that just happens to find the missing heat. What parameters were built in to the re-analysis? Did they include expected increased in ocean heat content? There have been too many circular arguments in climate models to date.
go read up on re analysis. If you dont like it go tell Anthony Watts, he used it in his paper on land records.
Why don’t you at least read the paper before you disparage it? That’s not too much to ask.
You could say that about the reanalysis demonstrating skydragon argument i+1. Not sayin theres a strong equivalence, just that reputations and biases do matter in first impressions when a custom methodological process finds results as significant for the field (and policy) as this paper does.
“Has Trenberth found the missing heat?”
Question begging at its finest. We can’t even say with any confidence that there’s any missing heat in the first place. WHy should we assume there is? Because the models tell us so? The same models that predicted less snow, rising seas, drought where there is flooding, and flooding where there are droughts? The same models that predicted more intense and more frequent hurricanes? The same models that predicted no 15-20 year pause?
Of course many alarmists around here won’t even concede there is any missing heat….
At least Dr. Curry used well placed quotation marks over the word “missing.” Good to see.
Dr. Curry rocks.
Sure. If you were taking one of her final exams, would you say the same thing if one of the TA’s assigned you a fat big “F” ?
In quotation marks. That’s what happens when you don’t do the math.
Tough nougies, PG. No points for responding to your own comment.
BTW, that’s what I always visualize when I read many commenters on this site — hunched over with beads of sweat while while poring over a blue exam book. It must be nice to comment w/o having a fear of failure.
WebHubTelescope | March 29, 2013 at 9:29 pm |
“It must be nice to comment w/o having a fear of failure.”
You would know that better than anyone, Mr. Fake Name.
What is the total volume of the deep ocean below 700 meters compared to that above 700 meters? Did the original models include no mixing of the two ocean layers as an assumption?
If there really is mixing of heat into the deep ocean on such short time scales, will this suggest that the rate of heating will not take place over 100 years but over say 300 years? (depending on relative volumes of two layers)
The average depth of the ocean is 4000 meters so 700 meters is about 18% of the total. Everything below about 300 meters is a relatively constant 3C in temperature. The average temperature of the entire ocean, top to bottom, is 4C.
Few people seem to realize that our modestly warm interglacial period is dependent on a shallow layer of warm water floating atop the frigid bulk of the ocean. If that warm layer were to accelerate its mixing with the bulk of the ocean we’d be a world of hurt most riki tik.
Off subject, but I haven’t heard “riki tik” since I left Vietnam :)….
I enlisted in the Marine Corps shortly before the end of the Vietnam war. It was in common use at the time on Marine bases. I attended Navy electronics schools the first year and didn’t hear it there. First time was at MCAS El Toro, CA which was my first and last permanent duty station. It’s also used in the movie “Full Metal Jacket” which, by the way, was spooky accurate in depicting USMC boot camp at Paris Island. Stanley Kubric didn’t miss any tiny detail about the recruit barracks there. It was eerie as hell watching it 13 years later. R. Lee Ermey is a dead ringer for my senior drill instructor Staff Sgt. Taffy too in both appearance, voice, and manner.
Well if he has found the recalcitrant heat at that depth, it didn’t get there by sunlight, IR, or diffusion, so the transported water should have taken a lot of missing CO2 with it. He should be looking for that signature. In fact I expect that’s what he’s doing right now… lol
‘•The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming:
•but the data are surely wrong.
• Our observing system is inadequate.
That said there is a LOT of nonsense about the PDO. People like
CPC are tracking PDO on a monthly basis but it is highly correlated with ENSO. Most of what they are seeing is the change in ENSO not real PDO. It surely isn’t decadal….’
Surely it isn’t decadal. Perhaps it is and don’t call me Shirley.
The other mixing mechanism is when currents move over obstructions on the seabed – setting up eddies and entraining the surface mixed layer. An increase in the velocity of deep currents could do it.
But it still isn’t what the graph shows about El Nino.
This is from Wong et al 2006 – it compares net ERBS to ocean heat content from Josh Willis. OHC increases to 1998 and then declines to the 1999 La Nina. One might think there is some connection here.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Wong2006figure7.gif.html?sort=3&o=91
Here’s one with steric sea level rise and Nino 3.4 sea suface temperature superimposed from rankexploits.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/SatelliteNino34a.jpg
Here’s one from Norman Loeb showing increased cloud in the tropics with La Nina and vice vera – and a bit of a mixed result in mid latitudes. There is an obvious and close correlation with ENSO in the tropics
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Loeb2011-LWCERES.png.html?sort=3&o=35#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Loeb2011-LWCERES.png.html?sort=3&o=35&_suid=13645919256110935105283118433
Although there are factors other than ENSO in global cloud – there is an obvious connection beween cloud and reflected SW.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_MODIS-1.gif.html?sort=3&o=49#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_MODIS-1.gif.html?sort=3&o=49&_suid=136459263745506076340994906129
But to get back to the missing energy – here’s the BAMS CERES chart with nice trend lines and pretty colours for diferent instruments.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES-BAMS-2008-with-trend-lines1.gif.html?sort=3&o=80#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES-BAMS-2008-with-trend-lines1.gif.html?sort=3&o=80&_suid=1364593225921003388930115545913
This is an example of where the cloud feedback is much greater than the LW forcing function. Ah – maybe not.
The heat was never missing. This is effective diffusion as outlined by Hansen in his 1981 paper.
J. Hansen, D. Johnson, A. Lacis, S. Lebedeff, P. Lee, D. Rind, and G. Russell, “Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide,” Science, vol. 213 (4511), pp. 957–966.
The following post is a definitive explanation for how heat diffuses from the surface through the various depths
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
A definitive explanation for how heat diffuses from the surface through the various depths – without once mentioning the word, ‘thermocline’
Hmmm….
Entropy reflects the notion that energy will try to uniformly spread itself out within a volume or state-space, given constraints. The specific process of diffusion describes this process of heat flowing from regions of initially higher concentrations to that of lower concentrations.
What we have in the ocean system is a volume with likely many different diffusive paths downward from the infrared-heated surface. The heat entering the surface is the thermal forcing function and it has been increasing over time according to the global temperature data. If we pick an average thermal diffusion coefficient such as what Hansen picked (1 cm^2/sec), then the general agreement is very good, both temporally and how the layers pick up the excess heat.
One can also use this reference to come up with a similar diffusivity:
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter08/chapter08_05.htm
= 1.3e-4 m^2/s = Average Vertical Eddy Diffusivity (8.32)
Whether the scientists are lying about the data and its pedigree, I can’t say. But what I can say is that the evolution of the heat downward from the surface is following a textbook diffusion process. Hansen also described this in his 1981 paper.
The only spin on the subject that I can add is that I know how to solve uncertainty quantified diffusion, which is a staple of the new and improved stochastic approaches that many scientists have applied across different disciplines. The physics behind it is not out-of-the-ordinary and the only thing surprising about the technique is that one can get an analytical closed-form result out of the solution.
Webster, Yes, the evolution of the heat downward is remarkably predictable. Average solar forcing at the surface is ~340 Wm-2 and the average energy of the oceans is roughly 334.5 Wm-2. That 334.5 Wm-2 is roughly the average energy of the Earth blackbody which produces the ~334.5 Wm-2 of DWLR and since the ocean surface area is only ~70% of the radiant shell of Earth, the average Eout is ~0.7*334.5 = 234.5 Wm-2. Since the oceans are not uniformly distributed, during the precessional cycle there is a variation of total solar energy felt at the average ocean surface that produces a range of “average” ocean temperature from ~2.6 C to 4.0 C degrees over a rather long time scale.
Since the rate of current ocean heat uptake is roughly 0.6×10^22 Joules per years, how many years would be required for the “average” temperature of the oceans to rise 1 C degree?
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-BFHNuJM8qm8/UVYZqjStgtI/AAAAAAAAHpU/6jphBeRewXw/s912/45N%2520to%2520pole%2520tdo%2520%2520bintanja%2520with%2520Kim%2520and%2520Ruehlmann.png
It is a shame that there are so many oscillations in the paleo data.
That is a completely separate question and has little to do with the question of diffusion of thermal energy.
As far as an spatially averaged surface global temperature, the final result will be something like :
T_avg = 0.7*T_aqua + 0.3*T_land
(this reflects the 70/30 split of ocean to land area)
The heat entering the ocean will suppress T_aqua and thus suppress the average from what the T_land is showing.
So if 1/3 to 1/2 of the excess heat is being siphoned to the bulk ocean volume, then the actual ocean surface temperature would be 2/3 to 1/2 it would be on land.
So the T_avg may be between
T_avg = 0.7*(1/2*T_land) + 0.3*T_land = 0.65*T_land
…
T_avg = 0.7*(2/3*T_land) + 0.3*T_land = 0.77*T_land
Easy enough to observe the differences between land-based averages such as BEST, and ocean&land averages such as GIStemp. BEST has gone up by about 1.2C while the global average about 0.8C.
This is the key figure from Hansen’s seminal 1981 paper which shows how this average temperature gets partitioned:
http://imageshack.us/a/img802/3918/hansen1981.gif
I suspect Trenberth and company are working out this partitioning more accurately. If there was missing heat at this point, it is becoming a second-order effect. This is still important but not the “Missing Heat!” in headlines that skeptics like to assert — for instance, whatever the Google Galileo known as Bob Tisdale says on the subject has to be filtered by the first order effects he is trying to obscure.
Bottomline, is that average temperature is still increasing. The bulk of the ocean will not show any appreciable change, but this was already known given the significant 1000:1 ration between the heat capacity of liquid water versus that of the atmosphere. Hansen had it largely figured out in 1981 and they are working out the details like any scientific analysis would demand.
Webster, timing is important. Even though its accuracy is not great, the paleo ocean data show the general oscillations and the impact of the mixing efficiency of the oceans, just like Manabe, Toggwieler and others have noted. Since the oceans appear to be on 150 to 400 year upturn, that would impact the sensitivity estimate and attribution. The problem is the macro-weather or micro-climate oscillations, your choice, add considerable uncertainty.
Those paleo ocean reconstructions are for the Atlantic BTW which has the highest correlation with land warming because of Eurasia and Africa. In the North Atlantic, salinity is a pretty fair temperature proxy.
Do you know what the thermocline is?
Isthmus be your lucky day, phatboy, since limnology is the only earth sciences course I took when I was in college. A thermocline in northern latitude freshwater lakes guarantees complete mixing of the volume of water every season. So, no, a thermocline does not scare me. Saltwater does not show the same turnover but mixing does occur. Any diffusive upwelling has to be countered by a diffusive downwelling. Flows going both ways is divergence, and that is modeled as a diffusion.
Did you realize that a 1 cm^2/sec thermal diffusion coefficient makes the vertical eddy diffusivity as good a thermal conductor as copper?
Isn’t that a neat factoid?
Web > Bottomline, is that average temperature is still increasing. The bulk of the ocean will not show any appreciable change, but this was already known given the significant 1000:1 ration between the heat capacity of liquid water versus that of the atmosphere.
We know the atmosphere isn’t warming, and you say the bulk of the ocean will not show not appreciable change.
So by what logic do you conclude your ‘bottomline’ that the average temperature is still increasing ? Or is this ‘bottomline’ an article of faith rather than a conclusion ?
We know the atmosphere isn’t warming,
No, we don’t know what?
(What time period are you talking about?)
As far as an spatially averaged surface global temperature, the final result will be something like :
T_avg = 0.7*T_aqua + 0.3*T_land
(this reflects the 70/30 split of ocean to land area)
The heat entering the ocean will suppress T_aqua and thus suppress the average from what the T_land is showing. That which does not enter the ocean contributes to excess atmospheric heat.
So if 1/3 to 1/2 of the excess heat is being siphoned to the bulk ocean volume, then the actual ocean surface temperature would be 2/3 to 1/2 it would be on land.
So the T_avg may be between
T_avg = 0.7*(1/2*T_land) + 0.3*T_land = 0.65*T_land
…
T_avg = 0.7*(2/3*T_land) + 0.3*T_land = 0.77*T_land
Easy enough to observe the differences between land-based averages such as BEST, and ocean&land averages such as GIStemp. BEST has gone up by about 1.2C while the global average about 0.8C.
Average temperature continues to clearly increase as long as relatively short-term fluctuation noise is filtered out.
WebHubTelescope | March 29, 2013 at 6:31 pm |
“What we have in the ocean system is a volume with likely many different diffusive paths downward from the infrared-heated surface.”
There is no infrared heating of the ocean. It’s heated by shortwave.
That’s quite a boner even for you.
“We assume that excess heat (mostly infrared) is injected through the ocean’s surface and works its way down through the depths by an effective diffusion coefficient. The kernel transient solution to the planar heat equation is this:”
Hot water rises, cold water sinks.
Why?
Because hot water is less dense than cold water and so spontaneously will rise.
Exactly as happens in the real gas atmosphere which is also a fluid volume, liquids and gases are fluids.
Hot air rises cold air sinks.
Hot air is less dense and lighter than cold air.
As hot air rises colder heavier denser air will flow beneath.
That’s how we get our winds.
Winds are volumes of the fluid gas Air on the move.
Winds are currents of the fluid gas Air on the move.
Liquid water and real gas air are fluids, the method of heat transfer in a fluid is convection.
Winds are convection currents, currents in the ocean are convection currents.
Hot water rises because it expands becoming less dense and lighter than cold water, cold water which is heavier and denser displaces the hotter rising water, sinking, flowing beneath.
If the ocean is getting hotter below 700 metres, then it will be because there is more heat being produced at depth.
Get rid of your “imaginary empty space ideal gas atmosphere” with the ridiculous idea of “weightless hard dots of massless molecules not subject to gravity zipping around at huge speeds under their own molecular momentum mixing by diffusion as they bounce off each other in elastic collisions” and –
Bring Back the heavy ocean of real gas Air atmosphere above us, which is gases with real volume which expand and become lighter and rise when hotter and contract and become heavier and sink when colder, than the volumes of real gas with volume weight around them.
If you don’t know how we get our winds and currents..
For a rational look at what could be causing heat at depths in the ocean, if there is such a thing, please see http://carbon-budget.geologist-1011.net/ and take on board the gross underestimations of underwater volcanic activity.
“In point of fact, the total worldwide estimate of roughly 55 MtCpa is by one researcher, rather than “scientists” in general. More importantly, this estimate by Gerlach (1991) is based on emission measurements taken from only seven subaerial volcanoes and three hydrothermal vent sites. Yet the USGS glibly claims that Gerlach’s estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes in roughly equal amounts. Given the more than 3 million volcanoes worldwide indicated by the work of Hillier & Watts (2007), one might be prone to wonder about the statistical significance of Gerlach’s seven subaerial volcanoes and three hydrothermal vent sites. If the statement of the USGS concerning volcanic CO2 is any indication of the reliability of expert consensus, it would seem that verifiable facts are eminently more trustworthy than professional opinion.
“This is not an isolated case.”
“We assume that excess heat (mostly infrared) is injected through the ocean’s surface and works its way down through the depths by an effective diffusion coefficient.”
Really?
Myrrh citing a crackpot psuedo-science site is…
well i’ll leave it at that.
This is just becoming too good…
David, salinity “generally” decreases as you move towards the poles. NH salinity is less “general” and more a function of the thermal equator (ITCZ) and THC. “Global” land temperature follows the Atlantic pretty well.
Springer sez:
Obviously, the balance is not strictly between between up and down infrared radiation, but rather the balance is between downward visible shorter wavelength radiation, versus upward net infrared and latent heat fluxes. The word NET is very important as infrared will back-reflect and re-emit as many times as the characteristics of the medium demand. If there is difference in the net, then the heat will diffuse downward, as nature abhors arbitrary order.
Is this argument so hard that you need an EE PhD to help you understand it?
Springer, we may need another treatise on your life history to help explain to us what you do or do not know.
phatboy | March 30, 2013 at 7:15 am |
WHT: “We assume that excess heat (mostly infrared) is injected through the ocean’s surface and works its way down through the depths by an effective diffusion coefficient.”
PHAT: Really?
Good one. You like how he prattles on about IR diffusing downward after that? It’s almost like he doesn’t realize that mid-IR doesn’t propagates through water as visible light propagates through stainless steel which is to say not at all.
Well it’s not almost like, it’s exactly like. :-)
WebHubTelescope | March 30, 2013 at 1:39 pm |
“Springer, we may need another treatise on your life history to help explain to us what you do or do not know.”
The life history is “colorful commentary” to spice up boring stuff like water’s almost complete opacity to mid-infrared radiation. You obviously didn’t learn much of anything in physical sciences in school, and haven’t picked up much about same since then. You seem like a bright enough guy so I’m not blaming you I’m blaming the pedagogical ineptitude of those who had the opportunity to instruct you. So I’m making up for that by being such a colorful character you hang on my every word and I must say at least that part is working out and simple osmosis should do the rest of the job. Do you know what osmosis is?
Springer is a liar. IR doesn’t diffuse downward, thermal energy (heat) is what diffuses downward. The IR gets converted to heat when the water absorbs it.
WebHubTelescope: Your categorization of me as a “Google Galileo” indicates you’ve either never read my work or you’ve failed comprehend it. In case it’s the latter, I’ll try to make it easier to understand in the future.
Second, I do not obscure. I present what’s obvious in global data when you break the global data down into logical subsets.
Have a nice day.
I referred to Bob Tisdale as a Google Galileo because that is what the commenters at Jeff Masters’ Weather Underground blog are calling him.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2374
The line-shape of the temperature gradient in the oceans is a hockey stick. from 4 km to about 700m the temperature is 4 degrees, it only warms significantly towards the top.
The bottom of the ocean isn’t in thermal equilibrium with the top. Cold water has to be pumped into the ocean to match the diffusion of heat. As the ocean is mostly cold we know that in the main more cold goes into the depths than warmth.
Global warming demands an increase in cold water going into the oceans.
Perhaps. Yet the amount of heat entering from the radiative imbalance is greater and more than compensates that effect. It has to be from the laws of thermodynamics.
So if nothing else what you describe is a mechanism which supports greater thermal mixing and is a factor in defining the effective thermal diffusivity of the ocean. A disordered mix of upwelling and downwelling flows mathematically looks no different than diffusion. And diffusion is the divergence part of the continuity equation, which gives any solution some mathematical rigor.
“Yet the amount of heat entering from the radiative imbalance is greater and more than compensates that effect. It has to be from the laws of thermodynamics”
I am all ears. How does the non-equilibrium temperature gradient of the oceans tell us anything about the Oceans Thermodynamics?
Well the only way we can have a disequilibrium is to have a steady state cooling process for the bottom of the ocean. this is provided by cold brines coming from the poles or from winter dowwelling currents.
I can tell you that NO down welling atmospheric IR gets below 30m of the water. NONE.
In higher latutudes the energy losses from surface waters exceed the inputs – so the water chills of course. In the NH – water evaporates on the way north leaving saltier and denser water. As it cools in the journey to the north – driven by THC, winds and Coriolis forces – it becomes more dense than the water beneath and sinks. Fresh meltwater inhibits this process.
Here’s an eddy mixing nutrient rich sub-surface water in the mixed layer. The reverse is happening as well.
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2012/02/plankton-fueled-ocean-eddy-is.html
The really interesting thing is how this changes and how it might change in the future.
It certainly is sloppy thinking we have come to expect from webby. The rediation from the atmosphere is all in that mid range IR that doesn’t penetrate more than 100 or so microns – it is typically outweighed by IR losses from the same thin slice of surface water producing a very thin cold layer on the surface. It is called a skin but is in reality simply a product of the net loss of IR which proceeds faster than the mixing that is constantly changing the water at the surface. All the heat going into the oceans is from the sun.
Chief Hydrologist has anyone ever shine light of different wavelength onto a thermally isolated bucket of seawater, on a balance, with a thermometer in it?
Absorbed heat can be manifest either a sensible or latent heat. I have a suspicion that IR is more likely to be transformed into latent heat and visible into sensible heat.
DocMartyn says:
If that was the lone final exam question, you just failed.
Thermal energy does not obey any external forces like a charge would in the vicinity of an electric field or a particle under the influence of gravity. Heat in the form of thermal energy can diffuse to wherever it wants and won’t obey if you tell it to stay above 30 meters below the surface of the ocean. Entropy is a formidable foe, just so you know.
Ok, so all the excess heat is not diffused downward, and no one ever said it all was. One-half or more may in fact return to the atmosphere, as this would be needed to explain why the “above surface” temperatures are elevated. If all the IR energy was absorbed into deeper layers at the rate it is now, the temperature rise would be minimal, reflecting the large specific heat capacity of water.
In heavy-duty engineering designs, we have two common cooling techniques, applying a contact heat sink or using evaporative, i.e.spray cooling. Where does the excess heat go in each of these cases? What if we used both? Plus how effective is spray cooling in a greenhouse? Why are swamp coolers (evaporative air conditioning) effective in desert regions but not in the deep south?
What do your “suspicions” say?
Since when is IR absorbed by the oceans? Water is opaque to IR.
“Thermal energy does not obey any external forces like a charge would in the vicinity of an electric field or a particle under the influence of gravity. Heat in the form of thermal energy can diffuse to wherever it wants”
Heat transport is a large ill posed problem( like the heat equation),transport is often ill-defined,and the use of analogy such as baths is often based on primitive assumptions and limited where there is an absence of rigorous mathematical physics such as far from equilibrium systems.
In systems which are bounded, such as harmonic oscillators problems are also constraints as Fourier’s law does not hold in a HO.A proble that is almost obvious as well night and day.
In (an)harmonic oscillators the problem is significant,you cannot guess the directions of the flows ie Kirchhoff circuit law does not hold Eg Eckmann.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/nlin/0305006.pdf
This is a completely misguided set of half-truths coming from the schools of FUD and FOO.
if you could find one reference that demonstrates how a mid-range IR photon can directly activate a water molecule to vaporize from the surface, I would be surprised. The photon first turns into thermal energy, as e,g. a vibrational mode, and from there can effectively diffuse to deeper water via eddy currents.
I don’t understand why the Chief always wants to disregard conventional physics. Could it be because the powers of FOO and FUD are too tempting?
Oh plump one, have you never heard of Kirchoff’s law that says that a good emitter makes a good absorber?
BTW, being opaque is not the same as being reflected. A flat-black film is opaque but a shiny silver thin is also opaque.
This is the Visible/IR spectra of Pure water
http://omlc.ogi.edu/spectra/water/data/irvine68.dat
here is Wiki’s diagram
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Absorption_spectrum_of_liquid_water.png
An extinction coefficient of 1 means 90% of light is absorbed within a 1 cm pathlength.
An extinction coefficient of 2 means 99% of light is absorbed within within a 1 cm pathlength.
An extinction coefficient of 3 means 99.9% of light is absorbed within within a 1 cm pathlength.
Black body radiation from a body at 300K peaks at 10 microns.
Sea water is filled with all sorts of IR absorbing goodies too
Tell me again how the Magic IR photons from CO2 get through water and transmit their heat to water lower than 300m.
I am all ears.
Your thirst for knowledge is commendable DocMartyn.
Answer Heat is transported by Turbulent mixing driven by mean-flow shear and internal gravity waves in oceans and atmospheres.
Short answer The ubiquitous (in the ocean) three-fold combination of stratification, shear, and waves is associated to anomalously great heat transport. This emerging dynamical insight is wholly consonant with Trenberth’s observational analysis.
Background A thorough introduction to internal gravity waves can be found in Flatte and Munk’s classic Sound Transmission through a Fluctuating Ocean
Encouragement Keep asking good, sincere, scientific questions, DocMartyn! Because that’s how one learns, eh?
DocMartyn said:
Well, how is this?
See the explanation here assuming a D of ~1 cm^2/sec
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
Within a few seconds the thermal energy is already diffused to a deeper layer. To get to 300 meters it will take on the order of years, but it will get there. That’s a property of diffusion.
DocMartyn
Re: “Global warming demands an increase in cold water going into the oceans.”
How are you distinguishing natural global warming from anthropogenic global warming?
How are you including from mining water for irrigation versus storing water in dams storage?
What if warming is faster than melting?
What if water mining is faster than melting?
Note: 18 trillion tons of water mined from aquifers, depleting groundwater and raising sea levels May 20, 2012 | DGR News Service
Web > the amount of heat entering from the radiative imbalance
Except we don’t actually know there is a radiative imbalance, since we don’t as yet have clever enough instruments to accurately measure this. All we have is models and some people’s faith in them.
So what is causing the 1.2 C warming increase on land?
Is that a model of a figment of someone’s imagination, Topcat?
Web, because the ocean surface is warmer than the atmosphere, it’s already emitting more IR than it’s absorbing from above, so no, it doesn’t actually absorb any in the net sense.
OTOH, it absorbs SW radiation from the sun to a depth of several hundred metres
Evaporation rate decreases as you move away from equator.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter05/Images/Fig5-9.htm
Salinity increases moving away from the equator only until the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone where precipitation is greater than evaporation. From ITCZ to the poles precipitation continues to outpace evaporation.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter06/Images/Fig6-5.htm
Chief Kangaroo Skippy Ellison has it exactly backwards. No surprise there of course.
WebHubTelescope | March 29, 2013 at 8:26 pm |
“Oh plump one, have you never heard of Kirchoff’s law that says that a good emitter makes a good absorber? ”
Oh anonymous one have you never heard of a swamp cooler?
Hundreds of Watts/m2 of downwelling mid-infrared is completely absorbed in the top 10 micrometers of ocean surface. Think about what happens when you jam that much energy into a few cubic centimeters of water. I’ll give you three chances to say “vaporization”.
What happens is that the topmost few microns of the ocean are constantly being peeled away by evaporation driven by infrared absorption. Actually more energy is removed than is absorbed and this results in what is called “the cool skin layer”. The cool skin layer is 1 millimeter deep and is about 1C cooler than the ocean below it.
The additional energy removed over and above the IR illumination comes from shortwave energy from the sun which is absorbed not at the surface like IR but rather by impurities in the water at depths up to about 30 meters. The solar heated water is mixed downward mostly by waves. The mixing action of waves is not intuitive. The mixing excludes the topmost water to the depth of the wave height. Mixing begins below that depth. So the cool skin layer is not mixed downward is it simply lost to evaporation exposing the warmer water beneath. In this fashion the great majority of ocean heating and cooling takes place – shortwave heating from the sun and evaporative cooling from downwelling mid-infrared. Increase the downwelling infrared and you simply increase the evaporative cooling rate.
Cool, huh?
The atmosphere is then warmed by rain. The majority of the shortwave energy from the sun leaves the ocean in latent heat of vaporization. The vaporized water, which begins life at the same temperature as the cool skin layer, rises until adiabatic cooling reduces its temperature to the dewpoint. When it condenses the energy from the sun re-emerges as sensible heat and the atmosphere is warmed.
“heat is only able to travel through the skin layer by way of conduction”
That is quite wrong. The skin layer is REMOVED by evaporation exposing warmer water beneath it. In the tropics the skin layer is removed about 40 times a day i.e. about 40 millimeters daily is lost to evaporation.
WebHubTelescope and Chief Hydrologist are dumb and dumber. I’m not sure which is which but neither has a clue and just make stuff up as they go along.
DocMartyn
On terrestrial sources of sea level rise see:
Citation: Wada, Y., L. P. H. van Beek,
F. C. Sperna Weiland, B. F. Chao, Y.-H. Wu, and M. F. P. Bierkens
(2012), Past and future contribution of global groundwater depletion
to sea-level rise, Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L09402, doi:10.1029/
2012GL051230.
Springer doesn’t realize that the Chief is applying largely the same argument that he is using — that infrared radiation doesn’t get absorbed by the ocean and instantaneously exits as latent evaporative heat.
Yet Springer calls the Chief dumb. I’m glad not to be in their clown club.
This is the general “non-clown” argument :
1. The ocean gains energy from the sun, as particles and impurities in the water absorb the mainly visible light radiating down.
2. As a gray-body, the ocean emits infrared radiation to create a steady-state energy balance with the incoming visible light. Evaporative cooling at the surface also plays a significant role in releasing heat to the atmosphere.
3. Due to extra GHGs in the atmosphere, not as much infrared is emitted to outer-space as would occur without GHGs. Some fraction of the infrared returns to the surface. pssst … it’s called the greenhouse effect.
4. The growing imbalance of infrared heat at the surface is propagated downwards due to the inexorable tug of entropy. Excess thermal energy in the form of heat tends to fill up the available state-space, and the ocean provides a rather large heat sink with all sorts of random motions of water to aid in the dispersion of the heat.
5.The fruits of Springer’s Intelligent Design committee can use simple diffusion equations with quantified uncertainty to approximate a solution to this thermal transient:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
6. This is absolutely no different an explanation than what James Hansen and others have offered over the years.
Point out exactly where this explanation fails, and why the simple diffusion model is wrong in accurately reflecting the warming trends at each subsurface layer that both Balmaseda and Levitus demonstrate, and that Hansen had predicted.
Springer, Just to remind you, for your answer, you will have to write it down, because the I.D. committee has yet to create a working version of telepathic communication.
@WHT
“2. As a gray-body, the ocean emits infrared radiation to create a steady-state energy balance with the incoming visible light. Evaporative cooling at the surface also plays a significant role in releasing heat to the atmosphere.”
Unfortunately for your thesis its properties as a water body dominate the heat budget not its properties as a gray body. Dry land may be treated as an approximate gray body. Wetted surfaces cannot. Write that down.
@WHT
“3. Due to extra GHGs in the atmosphere, not as much infrared is emitted to outer-space as would occur without GHGs. Some fraction of the infrared returns to the surface. pssst … it’s called the greenhouse effect.”
The greenhouse effect doesn’t work very well over the ocean because GHG is a radiant phenomenon and the ocean heat budget is primarily latent. You’ll continually be blindsided as you have been by the pause until you begin to understand that the greenhouse effect is primarily a land-based effect and the dryer the land the more the effect.
This misunderstanding is why climate scientists and uninformed sycophants like you were blindsided by the pause. There’s a lot less greenhouse warming than they thought. About two thirds less. So the 1.5C-4.5C sensitivity range is actually 0.5C – 1.5C. Ultimately this range will be revealed by observation and it won’t be much longer. I figure around the year 2020 it will have become evident from observation. Anthropogenic CO2 will keep on rising and no warming will go along with it. That”s already happened for over a decade and is now forcing a reevaluation of the climate hypothesis that failed to predict it.
Amazing that David errs again to present this argument as if he would not know that the same 10 micrometers emit more IR than they absorb. IR does not jam energy there, it takes energy off from that layer. The balancing heat comes from lower layers of ocean which get it from the solar SW that penetrates typically several meters and to lesser extent even hundreds of meters into the ocean. This energy brought to the skin by convective mixing and finally near surface also by conduction is the source that feeds both evaporation and other losses out from the skin.
And that is why only like 1/3 to 1/2 of the infrared out of the total forcing is actually going into the diffusive thermal impulse. It appears that 1/2 to 2/3 is not staying in the ocean and is instead returning as latent heat to the atmosphere.
This is easy enough to calculate from the OHC slopes. Why don’t you do this yourself, Springer?
And Springer finds himself in a devious trick-box that he can’t escape from. The heat sink properties of the ocean are what appear to be reducing the sensitivity range, as due to the large heat capacity it does not contribute to a temperature change. Yet he wants to have it both ways and claim that no heat enters the ocean and it is all the latent heat which returns to the atmosphere. However, that path will warm the atmosphere to some extent.
The balancing heat comes from lower layers of ocean which get it from the solar SW that penetrates typically several meters and to lesser extent even hundreds of meters into the ocean. This energy brought to the skin by convective mixing and finally near surface also by conduction is the source that feeds both evaporation and other losses out from the skin.
webby –
The heat in is in the shorter frequencies – and out through other means. How can you read this and still imagine stubbornly that the atmosphere warms the oceans directly by IR?
Chief, Have you ever considered that you should give up your pranking ways?
You misunderstand the simple the concepts Pekka put forward and continue on your astonshingly silly way. C’est la vie.
DocMartyn | March 29, 2013 at 7:15 pm |
“I can tell you that NO down welling atmospheric IR gets below 30m of the water. NONE.”
You left out a u. None gets below 30um (micrometers). NONE. Water is quite opaque to mid-infrared. It’s completely absorbed in the first few micrometers. Webby mentioned Kirchoff’s Law a while back saying a good absorber is a good emitter. Well sir, he’s right about the law but wrong about what happens. The ocean absorbs that IR in a surface film thinner than a human hair and immediately emits it because it emits as good as it absorbs! But it doesn’t emit downward because it can’t. Water is perfectly opaque to it. It emits it back upward from whence it came. Plus it emits a little bit more because the water is slightly warmer than the air. Most of the energy transferred from ocean to atmosphere, by close to 3:1 margin, is latent (insensible) heat of vaporization which doesn’t warm the air until it condenses.
The ONLY source of heating for the ocean is shortwave from the sun. Zero net energy is transferred from air to water and in the case of the ocean greenhouse gases do very little to slow down heat loss because greenhouse warming is a radiative phenomenon and ocean cooling is primarily NOT by radiation. In other words you can’t slow down radiative cooling unless there is radiative cooling TO slow down and the ocean simply doesn’t cool much by either radiation or conduction. Evaporation is the big cooling Kahuna.
Over dry land it’s a different story because rocks don’t evaporate in response to illumination by mid-infrared the primary way dry rocks cool is emission of radiation. Rocks are all about radiative heating and cooling. Rocks are effectively insulated to heat loss by greenhouse gases while heating of same by the sun isn’t impeded by greenhouse gases. Wet surfaces are not insulated in the same fashion so long as water is free to evaporate. That’s why humans have sweat glands not radiator fins, by the way. Evaporative cooling is far more efficient than radiative cooling.
What I find humorous about this discussion is how the clowns are beating each other over the head. In particular, Springer is going after the Chief for advocating exactly the same argument that he is proposing.
What clown schools did you all go to? Lots of teamwork involved and that requires study and practice.
Wait’ll they’re in harness together.
=====
kim | March 31, 2013 at 12:37 pm |
Wait’ll they’re in harness together.
Like a clown car?
You will find that springer indulges in climate trivialities while abusing everyone. He is an equal opportunty boor. Webby can’t even get the trivialities right. Bart ignores the trivialities and aims for the unintelligible. In harness in clown cars? Wtf.
Chief Springer, Both of you clowns refuse to admit that infrared radiation can enter the surface and diffuse downward.
Where has the excess OHC come from, if not through this path?
Evaporative cooling can’t raise the heat content of the oceans.
Again, where is the excess heat coming from?
Losing heat less slowly, as an explanation, doesn’t count, as this is just a mirror view.
Chief will say decrease in clouds, but what causes that?
Heh, Chief, that looks like of the three, you’d choose your ol’ pal Dave the Cowpoke.
==============================
web, I’d suggest you think very carefully about your assertions – before you make an even bigger fool of yourself
I already kicked you around the block when you made this assertion
It is opaque because it is absorbed.
That was two statements that you could not even make consistent.
I will make a silly assertion phatbot: that you are paid by someone to comment here. Doesn’t matter if what you write is right or wrong, as long as you contribute to the FUD. Prove me wrong. And I need direct evidence according to the Cripwell Criteria. Only directly measurable criteria that you aren’t being paid. Tax records will suffice.
You know, webbie, I find it quaintly amusing how you think that the ‘heat’ from IR is diffused through the ocean, when in fact the ocean surface is emitting far more IR than it absorbs.
ALL – every single tiny femtojoule of heat content in the ocean – excess or otherwise – enters the ocean by way of SW radiation.
Write that down.
And, btw, I haven’t received my cheque for this year yet, and I’m short of money – who do I speak to?
WebHubTelescope | March 31, 2013 at 4:58 pm |
“Chief Springer, Both of you clowns refuse to admit that infrared radiation can enter the surface and diffuse downward.”
The skin layer is colder than the water below it. Please explain how heat diffuses from colder to warmer. ROFLMAO And you call me the clown. That’s rich.
“Where has the excess OHC come from, if not through this path?”
One or more of sea ice loss, runoff from rivers, slowdown of trade winds, slowdown of oceanic conveyor belt, changes in clouds.
“Chief will say decrease in clouds, but what causes that?”
Chief might be right and he’d be in agreement with Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer. What causes it? I’ll quote Lindzen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_hypothesis
Thanks for asking.
‘Delay of CO2 warming by the ocean can be illustrated with a “box diffusion”
model (24), in which heat is stirred instantly through the mixed layer and diffused into the thermocline with diffusion coefficient k. Observed oceanic penetration by inert chemical tracers suggests that k is of order 1 square centimeter per second (2, 3, 24). The warming calculated with the onedimensional model for the CO2 increase from 1880 to 1980 (25) is 0.5°C if ocean heat capacity is neglected (Fig. 1). The heat capacity of just the mixed layer reduces this to O.4°C, a direct effect of the mixed layer’s 6-year thermal response time. Diffusion into the thermocline further reduces the warming to 0.25°C for k = 1 cm2 sec-‘, an indirect effect of the mixed layer’s 6-year efolding time, which permits substantial exchange with the thermocline.’ Jams Hansen 1981 paper
The ‘box diffussion’ model had a purpose back at the very beginning of satellite observation – that is in partitioning heat between the oceans and atmosphere. It is a black box model – you must realise that it isn’t physically realistic in any sense? 30 years later you are still messing about with this gossly simple model is a way that explains not even the partitioning of heat between the atmosphere and the ocean – and in a way ignores the information content of the original ocean heat data in ways that are grossly physically unrealistic. You derive a simplified ocean heat content function by fitting a curve to ocean heat content. Do you see the pointlessness in this? Obviously not.
As I show in the Trenberth quote elsewhere – the missing heat was seen in CERES but didn’t show up in the 0-700m ocean heat content. Assuming a constant rate of heat diffussion from the atmosphere to the oceans in a black box model changes nothing of this and means very litle indeed. .
Chief, Basic physics doesn’t change just because you want it to.
I am sure ot doesn’t don’t webby. But what you are talking about is a black box and not fundamental physics. That distinction needs to be made.
Ah…I am sure it doesn’t webby…
Chief Hydrologist, you too perhaps should familiarize yourself with the theoretical and observational references that were supplied in response to DocMartyn’s similar question.
Perhaps this video of internal waves may prove instructive too … these internal waves are ubiquitous in all oceans.
Best wishes, and keep learning, Chief!
Wow, I didn’t know continuum physics is a black box.
Isn’t it weirdly coincidental that I can create a model with a single parameter, the effective diffusion coefficient, which is already known BTW, and determine the scaling of the thermal forcing function while retaining the shape of the OHC thermal response? Isn’t it strange that it substantiates what James Hansen said in 1981?
Isn’t conventional physics a wonderful thing Chief?
This is how the physics of ocean warmng under an enhanced greenhouse effect works. – http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=939 –
The thermal gradient – or net IR up – at the ‘skin layer’ layer is less and the loss of thermal energy from the ocean declines. Despite downward IR flux – there is a net loss of energy in the IR band that occurs in the top microns of the ocean. The sun warms the oceans and the oceans warm the atmosphere by emitting energy from the skin layer – regardless of the quantum of ‘back radiation’ IR radiation is always net upward. These simple physics are essential to understanding ocean warming and cooling.
Webby’s so called fundamental physics are profoundly unphysical relying only on a concept of ‘effective diffusion’ from the atmosphere to the oceans. But heating proceeds from the sun to the oceans to the atmosphere and back out to space. Webby’s exercise is as I said a trivial black box exercise in fitting a curve to an approximation of data. It is black box because the energy dynamics do not involve direct warmng of the oceans by ‘back radiation’ – and so the model is not physcally realistc. It is trivial because – even in the remote chance that the math wasexemplary – it produces a simplified curve that loses much of the information in the data. It tells you less than you already know.
That heat is distribued around the oceans by turbulent eddies of one sort or another is a different question. One that I believe that I have addressed elsewhere and in the context of both ocean and radiant flux at toa data. And even included my own youtube video of a 150km wide real eddy. And suggested a third mechanism for deep ocean mixing – eddy formation over uneven seabeds. We are well aware that mixing below the ‘mixed layer’ occurs and that there is a balance between mixing and bouyancy of warmer water.
Let me reiterate – we will assume that the data from ARGO and CERES is correct and the ‘missing energy’ that Trenberth saw in CERES shows up in the ARGO data to 1500m or 2000m.. This is quite different to the old assumption that most heat would show up in the top 700m – it didn’t hence was missing. Simple enough?
Here again is CERES with trend lines and pretty colours. It shows that most change was in the SW.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES-BAMS-2008-with-trend-lines1.gif.html?sort=3&o=80
If you heat up a thermally isolated large volume of water on one side, eventually the entirety of the volume will heat up. The analysis I did here
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
works out the thermal transient for various layers, with a diffusion coefficient that agrees with Hansen’s value from 1981, and a value estimated by Munk from 1966. If there is a more recent value, it would be interesting to see that as well.
I suppose it is possible that the entirety of the data set is contrived, and contrived to match the diffusive transients that would result from a basic model with a forcing function that accurately matches the GHG forcing function.
I kind of doubt that it is contrived.
The oceans are warm enough to stay liquid for the most part – which is a great deal of heat.
I didn’t say it was contrived – not even that it can’t be done – just that it was black box and trivial. The physics don’t work like that and information that is quite interesting in the data is lost in the global diffusion constant.
Evidently, not to a civil engineer. That’s why they became civs. Look it up in the local codes, and all that.
‘Warming on sunshine
Sunlight penetrating the surface of the oceans is responsible for warming of the surface layers. Once heated, the ocean surface becomes warmer than the atmosphere above, and because of this heat flows from the warm ocean to the cool atmosphere above…
The ‘cool skin’ layer
The rate of flow of heat out of the ocean is determined by the temperature gradient in the ‘cool skin layer’, which resides within the thin viscous surface layer of ocean that is in contact with the atmosphere. It’s so named because it is the interface where ocean heat is lost to the atmosphere, and therefore becomes cooler than the water immediately below. Despite being only 0.1 to 1mm thick on average, this skin layer is the major player in the long-term warming of the oceans.
Curious behavior in the cool skin layer
The cool skin behaves quite differently to the water below, because it is the boundary where the ocean and air meet, and therefore turbulence (the transfer of energy/heat via large-scale motion) falls away as it approaches this boundary. No longer free to jiggle around and transfer heat via this large scale motion, water molecules in the layer are forced together and heat is only able to travel through the skin layer by way of conduction. With conduction the steepness of the temperature gradient is critical to the rate of heat transfer.
Greenhouse gas-induced warming of the ocean
Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, trap heat in the atmosphere and direct part of this back toward the surface. This heat cannot penetrate into the ocean itself, but it does warm the cool skin layer, and the level of this warming ultimately controls the temperature gradient in the layer.
Increased warming of the cool skin layer (via increased greenhouse gases) lowers its temperature gradient (that is the temperature difference between the top and bottom of the layer), and this reduces the rate at which heat flows out of the ocean to the atmosphere. One way to think about this is to compare the gradient (steepness) of a flowing river – water flows faster the steeper the river becomes, but slows as the steepness decreases.
The same concept applies to the cool skin layer – warm the top of the layer and the gradient across it decreases, therefore reducing heat flowing out of the ocean.
The ever-present effect of the cool skin layer
An important point not be be glossed over here, is that changing the temperature gradient in the cool skin layer by way of greenhouse gas warming is a worldwide phenomenon. Once the gradient has changed, all heat leaving the ocean thereafter has to negotiate its way through the layer. With the gradient lowered, the ocean is able to steal away a little bit more from heat headed for the atmosphere. It is in this ever-present mechanism that oceans are able to undergo long-term warming (or cooling).’ scepticalscience
It is not quite right – but much more right than you. The cool skin is not permanent because waves are caused by friction of the wind on water. This imparts momentum and causes the water to rotate – like a roller – and this transmits the energy of the wave forward. So the surface is constantly being turbulently mixed to depth. As warm water comes to the suface it again loses IR in the top 100 microns or so. It is a dynamic and ongoing process.
See this is what civil engineers study – waves, wind and water. Much more fun than being an electrician.
Oh – and energy – quite a lot – is lost by evaporation as well.
For a number of reasons, reanalysis of weather is so much easier by comparison. So far, the results of data-assimilative ocean modelling are not impressive.
Stupid question, probably, but how does the heat get down to the deep ocean without any warming in the atmosphere or the top layers of ocean?
Jurij
I’m keeping quiet and watching the tv whilst waiting for someone to ask that basic question. Beats me but no doubt Fan will be along shortly with a reference to a Hansen paper that fully explains this conundrum.
Tonyb
And oh – it is 9.00am here and my associate has gone away for the weekend. So I am still in bed warching Thunderbirds are Go and Scooby Doo. Shall I go out for breakfast and a paper? So many decisions.
No, go to a cafe that provides newspapers for its customers to read and buy just the breakfast not a paper. With the saved cash make a donation to the very worthy ‘help find the missing heat fund’
Tonyb
Kevin (shirley it ain’t decadal) Trenberth can look forward to a three dollar bill.
Assume the data is correct –
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/vonSchuckmann-OHC.gif.html?sort=3&o=74#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/vonSchuckmann-OHC.gif.html?sort=3&o=74&_suid=136459674501407309977586127981
– and try to explain it. CERES suggests an increase in SW in the period with less cloud. So the data agrees – the oceans should be warming in the period. So if the top 700m is not warming you have to assume changes in ocean circulation changing the partitioning of heat between the mixed layer and the deep ocean. Judith mentioned 2 possible mechanisms and I suggested a third.
If you assume that the data is right.
Jurij,
An excellent question.
In the words of the old Doris Day song – “It’s Magic”!
Or, in my own words – “It’s Preposterous!”
Missing heat? If it wasn’t there before, it can’t be missing now.
Reminds of a ditty I probably disremember. It goes as follows: –
“Yesterday upon the stair,
I saw a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today.
My God, I wish he’d go away!”
Missing man, missing heat, villages missing their idiots.
Live well and prosper.
Mike Flynn.
Sometimes in crime stories like Edgar Allan Poe’s
‘The Purloined Letter,’ that which is missing turns out
ter be a red herring event and not actually missing
at all but in the obvious place …like space..
elevators. filled with unicorns.
“Stupid question, probably, but how does the heat get down to the deep ocean without any warming in the atmosphere or the top layers of ocean?”
The premise is wrong. The atmosphere has warmed, and so have the upper layers. Just look at Fig 1. not only has a lot of heat been added to the top layers, but if you divide by depth (300m. 700m etc) as a rough volume estimate, the temperature rise of the upper layers is greater, diminishing as you go down.
Actually your assumption is incorrect,the observed subsurface warming in mid to high Lats in the SH and the SOi s a result of wind forced mixing ie well stirred not shaken.The signature the anti-correlation is a forced response to CFC eg chapter 4
“Since we can attribute much of the poleward shift in the surface wind stress to ozone forcing (Gillett and Thompson, 2003; Cai and Cowan, 2007; Son et al., 2009b; Fogt et al., 2009), we can infer that ozone forcing in the 1970–2000 period contributes to the observed subsurface
warming in the Southern Ocean. That is, the stratospheric ozone-induced change in the Southern Ocean opposes the effects of global warming of the Earth’s surface; greenhouse gas forcing warms the ocean surface and increases high latitude precipitation, which stratifies the ocean surface and thereby reduces oceanic mixing of heat”
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/ozone/2010/chapters/chapter4.pdf
Even though measurements clearly show the atmosphere and upper ocean have not warmed of late, Nick Stokes simply denies this … ??
(he was trying to avoid having to explain how the ‘missing’ heat leapfrogs undetected straight down to the deep ocean)
Tomcat,
Did you even look at the evidence I cited right here? Fig 1 of this post shows heat accumulating at all levels.
Like Nick Stokes said, Tomcat can’t even read a simple graph.
Alternatively, check this figure
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
Let Tomcat now explain what “upper ocean” means to him.
maksimovich
There is also this paper by Large and Yeager from 2012 that looked at ocean warming with respect to changes in heat flux and came to a similar conclusion as you.
If you can get passed the paywall it’ll tell you that it’s a slow down in the release of energy rather than an accumulation of extra energy that is leading to ocean warming. Their best guess is greater stratification.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00148.1?journalCode=clim
jurij | March 29, 2013 at 6:26 pm | Stupid question, probably, but how does the heat get down to the deep ocean without any warming in the atmosphere or the top layers of ocean?
Injected by a 700 metre long hypodermic syringe wielded by SupermoleculeCO2 pumping in his trapped heat.
Or, same way clouds stop “SW” reaching the surface by radiating it away thereby cooling the surface but “SW” reaching the ocean heats the water.
Sarc off.
Carbon Dioxide cannot trap heat. It releases heat practically instantly, see heat capacity.
Water is transparent to visible light, it cannot heat the ocean.
It’s remarkable how the major discrepancies between observations and theoretical models in climate science all seem to disappear down a rabbit-hole where reliable meaurements are well-nigh non-existent. In the case of “missing heat” it’s in deepest oceans; in the case of largely absent rural station records it’s in the deep “homogenizations.” It’s getting all too deep!
With the foi2009.pdf (CRUgate) disclosures we all saw behind the wizard’s green curtain. We all saw the wild machinations going on in academia to hide the decline and the truth and the manufacture lies that politicians on the Left like Al Gore would find useful to deceive the people.
Not real John, in Climate Science one starts from conclusion and works ones way back to the title. The data is manipulated until the ‘correct’ line-shape is arrived at and then the methodology is justified.
Many people do their income taxes that way
Doc,
Do you really think it is that fraudulent? Could it be overconfidence in the models and searching for justifications in complicated math?
Seems unlikely that all these scientists would support that.
I can accept a few like Hansen and Mann but most seem more likely to be searching for esoteric ways to support the consensus and thus funding.
Scott
Scott, when you get to the stage of changing the past because the present isn’t warming up quickly enough, then the jig is pretty much up.
The first people who break from the pack will survive and the others will get RICO’ed.
So how do you explain how I took one parameter, an effective diffusivity that Hansen used, and a scaling factor to reproduce the OHC increase?
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
This is an ideal way for physics to work. You take what you learned in undergraduate physics and use that knowledge to characterize and understand what you are looking at.
Wag, your whole premise is false. Before you start any analysis, you must formulate you question. Simple questions are the best, so before asking something along the lines of ‘What will an extra-natural level of X have on Y?” ask “What is the nature of X?”
The question I want to have answered is
“Why are the oceans not in a thermodynamic equilibrium?{
I don’t give a damn what the rate of heat transport is. I want to know what the magnitude of the various rates are.
Apply your rate and I find in less than a few hundred years the oceans are all at the same war temperature, except the very top which responds to the day/nigh cycle.
We all know that heat can get from the top to the bottom. Easy Peasy. However, we know ‘cold’ get to the bottom too, and in a race ‘cold’ beats warm. from 4km to about 500m there is only cold, so there is a hell of a lot more cold going in than warm going in.
We can all explain, with easy, how we can move heat, like I say, moving cold is much more tricky.
Maybe if we turn on all of the the incandescent light bulbs in America we will see where all of the missing heat went:
While such a “missing heat” explanation for a lack of recent warming [i.e., Trenberth’s argument that despite the lack of global warming we just cannot find the heat yet] is theoretically possible, I find it rather unsatisfying basing an unwavering belief in eventual catastrophic global warming on a deep-ocean mechanism so weak we can’t even measure it [i.e., keeping the AGW hoax alive depends solely now on the speculation that in the coldest deep oceans on the planet the waters there must actually be warmer than they should be by an unmeasurable thousandths of a degree]…
If, say, 50% of the warming in the last 50 to 100 years has been natural, then this profoundly impacts our projections of human-caused warming in the future, slashing them by about 50%.
~Dr. Roy Spencer, 14 December 2012 (http://www.drroyspencer.com/)
“Well, there was climate shift associated with a massive reorganization of circulation patterns in the Pacific. ”
Judith you make this comment. Do you know any references to describe this shift?
“Ocean RE-analysis uses the same version of an ocean model to assimilate cleaned up historical ocean observations into a homogeneous analysis of historical ocean states.”
Am I reading this wrong, or has the “missing heat” been “found” in model generated pseudo data? And am I wrong in thinking these models were all created and “adjusted” by “climate scientists” who just knew the missing heat had to be somewhere?
OK, next time I lose my keys, I’ll just call them to construct a nifty key model, and presto! they should be able to tell me where my keys are.
Data? We don’t need no stinkin’ data!
Gary, you are correct, the “missing heat” been “found” in model generated pseudo data. Found by the man who was embarrassed about losing the heat in the first place.
Jurij and TonyB, beats me to.
In theory, has to be vertical current circulation (convection). Radiation isn’t an explanation in water, and direct conduction is obviated by the definite ocean thermocline. The darn thermocline physics problem is that warmer water is less dense, so floats on top. Fish like that a lot.
Now, we might speculate about melting arctic ice. But fresh water is less dense than salt water, so it floats on top also. Fresh water wells in south Florida, and the Everglades, exist because of that useful ‘sandbar’ fact.
If there were more sea ice (which exudes salt and is mostly freshwater), then the seawater below would become saltier, so heavier, and might sink. Indeed this does happen to create the arctic halocline circulation. But…there has been less Arctic sea ice, so this should slow rather than increase that circulation since 2000, the opposite of what Trenberth asserts. Darn physics anyway.
Of course, the other explanation is that there is no ‘missing heat’ outside the uncertainty of admittedly flawed models. The principle of Occam’s Razor suggests this is the most likely explanation. Trenberth is probably just wrong. Both the transient and equilibrium sensitivities to CO2 are overstated, because the positive water vapor feedback is overstated (precipitation, adaptive iris, declining UTrH) and the cloud feedback is likely negative rather than positive. As posted here last year. And in the climate chapter of my ebook on Arts of Truth.
Now, that does not tie it all together. But as our host has posted, splicing limited data into computer models to produce a dubious baseline is not a proof. And, if you read the first paper on this reanalysis, it is stunning how bad the models were before corrected by data. Which hardly suggests they are good now.
I am working on an essay for the next book which might become a post if permitted by our gracious hostess, that lays all this out with pictures.
Regards
Rud, it is the formation of the sea ice the excludes the salt. Greater sea ice annual formation would increase the deepest water portion of the THC, but that would be at a nearly fixed temperature and density in the Antarctic with more variation in the Arctic. The time lags are incredibly long though, most of the deep ocean mixing is wind driven in the Antarctic convergence zone, which is cooling implying more heat uptake, but that is related to SO variations not CO2 forcing, at least not directly. Toggweiler and the GFDL have several good papers on the more realistic sources of natural variability.
There is also a neat fresh/salt water effect in the NH. Since there is more fresh water in general, wind mixing changes the salinity and drops the freezing point. That is supposed to be part of the SSW event impact like this year when high salinity North Atlantic water is mixed more completely with the melt water surface lens. More of the Arctic ice formed at a lower temperature this year.
Of course – one could always assume that the CERES and ARGO data are approximately correct and that mixing between the mixed layer and below occurs by turbulent eddies both from above and below.
Evaporation occurs as water moves northwards creating the bulk of the salt dense surface in the Arctic. This is the blk of the saline effect – and the water sinks as it becomes both saline and cold enough. The latter through loss of thermal energy in high latitudes.
Fresh water doesn’t exist as lens in open water – turbulence is far too great. It exists in groundwater precisely because of the lack of mixing.
And give it up FOMBS – learn to communicate reasonably or you will continue to be a marginal annoyance at best.
Chief, the CERES and ARGO data are great but ARGO coverage is 60N to 60S. There is still a bit of uncertainty at the poles that can contribute to missing things.
“Fresh water doesn’t exist as lens in open water – turbulence is far too great. It exists in groundwater precisely because of the lack of mixing.”
True, most of the fresh water lens effect is on and near the sea ice. When you have events like the major Arctic cyclones that break up the ice and mix the fresh with salt, it is like hitting a reset switch for colder temperatures.
Rud Istvan, you too perhaps should familiarize yourself with the references supplied to Chief Hydrologist and DocMartyn
It would be regrettable if you were to write another book in ignorance of this basic science, eh Rud Istvan? Please take appropriate measures to ensure this doesn’t happen!
Needless to say, Fan of More BS doesn’t actually discus the basic physics Rud is allegedly unaware of. Gullible nitwit that he remains, he instead religiously follows the go-away-and-read-xyz-until-you-agree-with-me school of BS. That’s the thing about gullible nitwits – they think others are as fickle and devout as they are.
You are a complete moron, not only do you not understand the answer, you don’t understand the question.
Smells like team spirit.
===========
I feel stupid, and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us
Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah
Some call me the gangster of love
Some people call me Maurice
‘Cause I speak of the pompitous of love
THE JOKER – 40 years young at midnight
If we assign a strict binary sense to Dr. Curry’s (undefined?) usage of the word “reliable” … such that “reliable” in effect means “utterly certain” … then her assertion makes no sense for any observational scientific discipline (much less climate change!). Therefore, let us assign a quantitative sense to that word.
A Better-Posed Question Does the global-trend reanalysis appreciably increase/decrease the value of
in the postulate: James Hansen’s 1981 climate-change worldview is substantially correct with probability 
.
A Reasonable Answer Regardless of one’s prior estimate of
, the evidence presented by Trenberth and collaborators substantially increases that value.
Corollary Although some people still assert
, this group no longer includes an appreciable proportion of rational scientists, in consequence of multiple, continuing, independent affirmations like the Trenbarth analysis.
Conclusion The mainly favorable appreciation of scientists for the Trenbarth analysis is well-merited, and conversely, the article’s vigorous condemnation by climate-change denialists also is predictable!
Trenberth’s Missing Heat
weltanshauung – ‘Au fond fait chaud.’
Science – ‘Il fait froid.’
Belinda et al.
Fan,
When I board an aircraft, I do so on the assumption that it will deliver me to my destination reliably. I am “utterly certain” that it will do so. So far, my assumption has been proven to be reliable. My assumption (or “scenario”, to use WarmSpeak), has utility for me.
The Warmist cult of the Edifice of Post Normal Scientism, on the other hand, has produced precisely nothing (that’s zilch, nada, zero, indistinguishable from nought), of utility to me. Their assumptions so far have demonstrated a complete disconnect from the reality that I experience.
As a Warmist, you will no doubt berate me with advanced mathematical models, to inform me how stupid I am. I’m still alive, and I will be flying halfway around the world again, soonish.
Whose advice should I follow? Yours, and torment myself endlessly about possibilities, or mine? How would following the Warmist philosophy benefit me? I prefer happiness to misery, as would any sane, rational, person.
Please continue to worry and be miserable on my behalf. I can’t be bothered. You obviously enjoy it.
Live well and prosper.
Mike Flynn.
Your login name “ostrich” is well-chosen, Ozzie-Ostrich!
Still, you might perhaps place greater weight on longer-term moral consequences … to yourself … and to others … and to future generations?
Why not reflect more seriously about these matters, Ozzie-Ostrich?
Fan,
I’m not sure what “long cancer” is, even less sure why you mention it.
I can see that you have adopted the Warmist practice of crossing out words you do not like, and substituting your own. Does this make you happy? I can’t think off any other logical reason for denying reality.
In any case, please excuse me if I choose to disregard your admonitions in regard to how I should think, and what weight I should assign to possible outcomes.
As I stated before, I am grateful that I have you to worry and fulminate on my behalf. Keep it up! If you can manage to worry twice as hard, for example, you will have lifted the burden from another such as myself.
Let me know how hard you can worry about climate, and I will advise others. In the meantime,
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn – (I don’t know why Ozzieostrich appears. WordPress or something. No matter, it’s still me.).
eh Fan, in that video of internal waves you should check their amplitude. Answer- no more than 100m. Stop posting nonsense toomler.
Fan, what percentage of smokers do you think get lung cancer? Hint: it’s less than 25 percent. So while smokers may have a higher risk, there isn’t a 1:1 correlation. Probably because the human body is a tad more complex than inhale and you’ll get lung cancer.
Yet you quote this, just like you do that CO2 will cause CAGW, as if it were a direct, 1:1 correlation. Perhaps complex systems aren’t easily explained with simple correlations.
FOMBS > The mainly favorable appreciation of scientists for the Trenbarth analysis
Institutionally wedded as they are a pre-conclusion that favors their paymaster – ie CAGW- this is hardly a surprise. These are the same “scientists” that to this day find no fault with bolstering their “conclusion” with tricks like hiding data etc etc.
This may be a rather ignorant question. If a certain amount of heat has been sequestered in to ocean depths, would not that transfer of heat been somehow identified by the Argo system as it made its way downward regardless of the method of transfer?
Anyone?
DarrylB,
Not if it is Special Invisible Hidden Magical Warmist Fudge Factor Heat.
I understand the initial Argo data had to be subjected to remedial massage, as it insisted on cooling rather than warming.
On a practical note, depending on the spells cast by the Chief Warmist to banish the Heat to the depths of the ocean, it may have wound up away from the Argo buoys.
So, my answer is “not necessarily”.
Live ell and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Nope, DarrylB, not ignorant at all. Several years ago, at Pielke Pere’s blog, he and Josh Willis tried to explain that to an incredulous Kevin Trenberth. It was a very instructive dialogue.
===================
Don’t mistake me. It was Kevin not believing that the Argo data precluded the transport of heat to the depths. This is why last year’s paper proposing heat descending in mysterious places was necessary. That didn’t fly very well, so Kevin’s got a little more imaginative with this.
About time to feel sorry for him, obsessed as he is.
======================
Your interpretations of the Trenberth-Willis-Pielke Sr exchange are just plain weird.
The missing heat is by now some way past Alpha Centauri…
I have always suspected that some of the missing heat went into outer space. Trenberth, the team, whatever, have always said outer space is a place it might have gone. It is either in the earth system or in outer space. Looking for it in outer space is problematic, but I would be glad to build a rocket and send Kim into outer space to look for it.
So to figure out where it is, it is logical to look in the most likely place, which is the oceans.
So like any scientist would, Trenberth looks in the oceans. If it’s not there, then he will know the vast majority of it went to outer space.
Captain Stormfield I might find, but the missing heat outraces my rockets.
==============
I think it is more cold water coming up rather than warm water going down. The upwelling is in narrow coastal areas and harder to detect, but its strengthening would have the effect of a seeming loss of surface heat.
The biggest areas of upwelling occur over an immense area of the Pacific. However, this still doesn’t change the heat content of the surface 300m even. The warm water is still at the surface simply – in the case of ENSO – piled up against Australia and Indonesia.
Cooler surface water loses less heat to the atmosphere or radiation, so just having a thin large area of cooler surface water makes a big difference to the ocean heat content by restricting its loss of energy. We see the opposite with El Ninos where the increased loss of energy from the warm surface causes the heat content to decrease as in 1998.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Wong2006figure7.gif.html?sort=3&o=93
Exactly, a warm El Nino surface leads both to observed radiative loss and observed ocean heat content reduction. The diagram proves the point.
I think you are imagining things. The graph shows an increase in net ERBS – more energy entering the system all as a result of cloud radiative forcing and ocean temp increasing in the 1998 El Nino.
‘The drop in the global ocean heat storage in the later part of 1998 is associated with cooling of the global ocean after the rapid warming of the ocean during the 1997–98 El Niño event (Willis et al. 2004).’
http://www.image.ucar.edu/idag/Papers/Wong_ERBEreanalysis.pdf
Net you need to remember is always warming up convention.
The net radiative forcing decreased a lot as El Nino cooled off, consistent with a tendency towards more cooling to space. Interestingly it never went net negative, which is net radiative cooling. It seems there is another background radiative forcing that offsets the zero point. Wonder what that could be?
The heat peaked in the El Nino and then cooled in the subsequent La Nina. The interesting thing is that the ERBS net change drives changes in OHC very quickly.
The zero point is arbitrary – it is not a transition between warming and cooling which depends in fact on the incoming radiation. It is not even close to the idea of radiatiive balance.
DarylB, you have asked a very good question. Vertical heat transport in the ocean is dominated by microstructure in temperature and salinity, which (regrettably) the ARGO sensors are not optimized to resolve.
LOL … apparently the scientific understanding of this forum’s denialists isn’t optimized to resolve microstructure transport phenomena either!
Anyway, this microstructure is continuously created by the transformation of internal waves by shear, and continuously destroyed by molecular diffusion, and the balance between these two processes (which AFAICT are not well-resolved by ARGO) very largely determines the rate vertical transport of salt and heat in the ocean.
Conclusion ARGO’s sensors directly and accurately measure the amount of heat in ocean, but do not (directly) measure how fast that heat is vertically transported.
Fan, I feel as if you have thrown a red herring. The SPURS study you referred to has as its objective- determining how salinity effects the oceanic water cycle and ocean circulation. The study will, I believe, prove to be valuable; however, it is regional and very recent.
In the end the ‘big picture’ may be a composite of microstructures.
The goal, of course, is to achieve a very accurate look at the big picture, which you have stated (in terms of vertical heat transfer) the argo sensors are ill equipped to measure.
You stated that the argo system (there about 3,000 floats worldwide) accurately measures heat content and I am sure you would agree that is the result of numerous, precise temperature measurements, at various depths.
You also stated that they do not (directly) measure how fast that heat is vertically transported.
My question then is, Why can’t the elementary step of measuring temperatures at various depths over extended periods of time not be used to measure rate of vertical heat movement??
Yep, red herring. Find the Pielke, Willis, Trenberth exchange.
=====================
DarrylB, you have asked a question that some rather subtle physics associated to it … physics that (at least some) skeptics here on Climate Etc perhaps need to appreciate more fully.
It commonly happens in transport phenomena that the effective diffusive transport (of heat, salt, momentum, charge, etc) is very much larger than molecular-scale statistical dynamical considerations would indicate. As a concrete example, the observed transport of heat in the ocean is characterized by a effective transport coefficient of order 1 cm^2/s, which is many orders of magnitude larger than purely molecular physics can explain!
Commonly such anomalous transport is associated to microscale turbulent mixing processes, which in the ocean originates naturally, via the nonlinear interaction of (ubiquitous) shear flows with (ubiquitous) internal gravity waves. Mixing turbulence is both space-limited and time-limited within the oceanic water column … hence these turbulent mixing processes are very challenging to sample by sensors that (like the ARGO floats) are just “passing through.”
In effect, there is an engineering constraint: (a) high accuracy, (b) large spatial span, (c) fine space-resolution, (d) fine time-resolution … pick any two. The ARGO floats optimize (a) and (b), thus perform poorly at (c) and (d)
For further discussion of this (exceedingly rich!) aspect of heat-transport dynamics, please allow me to commend to you the (many!) references in the above-mentioned Baumert survey Turbulent mixing driven by mean-flow shear and internal gravity waves in oceans and atmospheres
Thank you for this perspicacious followup-question, DarrylB!
Fan, in your followup to my followup you thanked me for my
perspicacious question. Now I have to admit I had to look up the definition of per—, but thanks anyway.
In reading through your response, I am still somewhat incredulous to the core concept of it. I am going to read the Pielke Sr. exchange and get back with a question on a later day.
True, that number is about the same as the thermal conductivity of copper, which everyone will realize is a terrible insulator.
So all the skeptics that think that incoming infrared radiation which gets absorbed by a thin surface skin layer can’t flow downward as heat are so terribly misinformed. Or more likely, they are intentional purveyors of FUD to maintain a fiction (i.e. lies) or extend the prank on the gullible types.
Webster, “So all the skeptics that think that incoming infrared radiation which gets absorbed by a thin surface skin layer can’t flow downward as heat are so terribly misinformed. Or more likely, they are intentional purveyors of FUD to maintain a fiction (i.e. lies) or extend the prank on the gullible types.”
Which would flow more easily, the SW that penetrates to some depth or the LW that has to battle with convection? In the Tropics, the thermocline has a temperature of about 20C degrees. That is roughly 418 Wm-2 or about 80 Wm-2 greater than the estimated average DWLR.
The rate of internal heat transfer in the oceans though does let them more closely mimic a true black body though, allowing the oceans to provide that DWLR. Since the oceans are providing the energy that they are supposed to be absorbing, your diffusion estimates seems to be like a circle jerk.
If climate scientists were credit-rating agencies, climate sensitivity would be on negative watch. But it would not yet be downgraded.
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions?fsrc=rss|sct
It seems to me that the Pacific cooling is due to a circulation change that caused more east Pacific upwelling. This gives the appearance of a lack of warming at the surface, when it is really just a spreading of colder water westwards in this circulation change. Skeptics used to promote the PDO and ocean circulation changes as important, but have abandoned that possibility for now. To me, this abandonment is a dramatic shift of emphasis away from circulations and towards not trusting data, which is the other oft-heard fall-back. Is there even a skeptic left who now believes that the surface cooling is an ocean circulation phenomenon like the PDO? Apparently not from their comments so far.
It must be ocean circulation cycles => http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/TransientGmst.png
Natural, large-scale climate patterns like the PDO and El Niño-La Niña are superimposed on global warming caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and landscape changes like deforestation. According to Josh Willis, JPL oceanographer and climate scientist, “These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it.”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703
This is absolutely main steam – although it is better to see PDO+ENSO as nodes on a comple network.
‘It is hypothesized that persistent and consistent trends among several climate modes act to ‘kick’ the climate state, altering the pattern and magnitude of air-sea interaction between the atmosphere and the underlying ocean. Figure 1 (middle) shows that these climate mode trend phases indeed behaved anomalously three times during the 20th century, immediately following the synchronization events of the 1910s, 1940s, and 1970s. This combination of the synchronization of these dynamical modes in the climate, followed immediately afterward by significant increase in the fraction of strong trends (coupling) without exception marked shifts in the 20th century climate state. These shifts were accompanied by breaks in the global mean temperature trend with respect to time, presumably associated with either discontinuities in the global radiative budget due to the global reorganization of clouds and water vapor or dramatic changes in the uptake of heat by the deep ocean.’
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/ReflectedSW-1998to2001climateshift_zps263e8ae9.jpg.html?sort=3&o=1
You can see if the NASA image the dramatic cool V of the cool mode PDO+ENSO – which is associated with more low level marine cloud in the central and north-east Pacific.
See for instance -http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Clementetal2009.png.html?sort=3&o=24
‘In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system.’ IPCC 3.4.4.1
The latter Clement et al study showed they were looking in the wrong – the continental US – for cloud change. There is indeed low fequency climate variability and the satellite data from both ERBS and ISCCP-FD show all of the recent warming as caused by cloud radiative forcing.
Both the data and the core notion of climate as a coupled nonlinear chaotic system as what they are. It suggests that the world is not warming for a decade or 3 hence. Beyond that?
‘In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions. This reduces climate change to the discernment of significant differences in the statistics of such ensembles. The generation of such model ensembles will require the dedication of greatly increased computer resources and the application of new methods of model diagnosis. Addressing adequately the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive, but such statistical information is essential.’ TAR s14.2
Each model that is having a family of solutions within a probabilistic framework.
I quote NASA, the TAR and AR4 as well as other bits of peer reviewed science from eminent scientists and respectable journals. Do you understand what this means? It means that mainstream science is quite different to what you imagine it is. Or at least that there is a conflict between new paradigms – that are at least a decade old – and old verities.
Trend in climate sensitivity estimate => http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/290-width/images/print-edition/20130330_STD002_1.jpg
Relationship between CO2 concentration and Global Mean Temperature=>
http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/290-width/images/print-edition/20130330_STD003_1.jpg
Who ever taught you that global mean surface temperature is a function of just one variable?
That’s Girm, stuck on stupid. dont try to move him
From my reading, the deep ocean temps average between 0-3C. Assuming the “missing heat” has been somehow transferred to the deep ocean, given the difference in density and salinity, how would we detect the miniscule increase in average temps that would result? Particularly without…you know…actually measuring it. And how precisely is that heat then supposed to contribute to future massive increases in global surface temperatures?
“rocks”
Mr. webhubtelescope mockingly writes of my post in which I wrote that Judith rocks
Mr wht mockingly writes of my post
“rocks”
Sure. If you were taking one of her final exams, would you say the same thing if one of the TA’s assigned you a fat big “F” ?
In quotation marks. That’s what happens when you don’t do the math.
Tough nougies, PG. No points for responding to your own comment.
BTW, that’s what I always visualize when I read many commenters on this site — hunched over with beads of sweat while while poring over a blue exam book. It must be nice to comment w/o having a fear of failure.”
Dear Mr. Telescope:
It’s true I’m no stranger to big, fat F’s as you call them. I like em that way. Big and fat as opposed to skinny and anemic. Even back in high school I was a poker player, and something of a dummy as well, and in my junior year my home room teacher old Mr. Coviello tossed my report card on my desk as he walked by and said, “Congratulations pokerguy, full house.”
I opened her up to find 3 f’s and 2 d’s. True story.
Nice, eh? MIkey Mann doubtlessly had all A’s all through high school and college. Of course, they don’t grade character, or integrity, do they? Too bad…
I refused to be intellectually intimidated Mr Telescope. I know a fraud when i see one. Are you arguing that I’m not entitled to an opinion because I don’t have a ph.d. in physics? If so, it’s actually “tough noogies” for you, sir. (A phrase every bit as cornball as my “Judith rocks” by the way). So go ahead and take the time Mr. Telescope. Tell me how wrong I am wrt to the failed predictions of Dr. Hansen, for example. Explain how he’s actually done a good job and hence should be trusted.
My mind, what there is of it anyway, is wide open.
See? I can’t even organize a post properly as above. I flunked cutting and pasting as well.
Interesting how the energy balance works out in the last decade. It says that if there is no surface warming, all the excess forcing goes into the ocean heat content’s rate of change. This rate of change is 1.5 W/m2 which is not far from the estimated current value of the climate forcing by GHGs minus aerosols, so this gradient is a direct measure of forcing when there is no surface warming to offset it. I think it is neat, anyway.
The surface is 2-dimensional. It can’t hold any heat anyway.
Yes, the surface radiation is proportional to its temperature, which is why the surface temperature is important in the net energy balance. The forcing can be canceled by an appropriate surface warming so that the upward radiation change cancels it.
dF=dH/dt + lambda.dT
When dT is zero, the dH/dt has to do the whole job for the dF forcing.
Jim D,
In the form you have the linear feedback equation, dT is equal to the total change in temperature at some time t after applying a step-forcing of dF at time t=0 to a system in steady state. The fact that dT is not changing is not the same as saying it is zero.
Paul_K, yes, we have to interpret dF as the part of the forcing that has not yet been canceled by surface warming, and dT as the amount that would cancel it. If I am taking dF as the full forcing, I need to consider that dT includes the response so far. This, perhaps, makes it even more worrying that the dH/dt is that high in the last decade, as it represents the difference between the total forcing and the surface temperature response so far. If we take dT as 0.7 C and lambda as ~1.2 W/m2/K (about a 3C sensitivity) we get 0.8 W/m2 from that term too. I can even get another few tenths from the net Arctic ice volume melt (nearly 10000 cubic km) in this period, which makes it worse. However, now I see that dH/dt is more like 1 W/m2 averaged over the earth’s surface, so we have something in the ballpark with dF=1.0+0.8 W/m2 and the amount from CO2 alone should be about 1.8 W/m2.
The AGW hypothesis says there must be a lot of heat in the system—even if it cannot be detected. But, the oceans have been in a cooling trend for a decade. And, as we all know by now, when the oceans are cooling there is no global warming.
So, who lost the heat? Kevin Trenberth says it’s a travesty we that we cannot explain this (“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t”). Maybe, it just is not there, right?
And, if the lost heat simply does not exist, then the AGW hypothesis is wrong. Sure. But, what does that mean for climate change and temperature predictions?
Perhaps the present cooling trend will continue for another 3 to 7 decades. Some scientists believe that is possible. Perhaps the Earth is heading into the redux of an already overdue ice age.
And, what can we expect if solar activity is the nominal driver of all climate change? We have a lot of research that has shed light on the multi-decadal time scale of solar cycles over the last millennium with, for example, periodicities of 200, 100, and 60 years. And currently we have incontrovertible observational evidence of an anomalously quiet Sun.
Does humanity have a rendezvous with a date made in heaven? Is Nature knocking on the door? Is Nature bringing global warming or cooling? Will Nature give us a taste of what life will be like on snowball Earth during the 90,000 years of the next ice age? Nobody knows the answers to these questions.
The AGW hypothesis says there must be a lot of heat in the system—even if it cannot be detected.
It says no such thing.
It says detecting it might be beyond our current means. Trenberth’s latest paper tries to deal with that.
If the AGW hypothesis says detecting the heat might be beyond our current means does it also say polar bears are dying from the heat but we just can’t find all of the dead bears?
David
You say
“… detecting it might be beyond our current means. Trenberth’s latest paper tries to deal with that.’
So is it reasoable to say that it might be beyond our current means to detect extra heat being added in some manner by the sun or indeed by a number of other mechaosms?
tonyb
Doesn’t that mean the hypothesis is not currently testable?
By proposing a method of detecting the currently undetectable heat?
Perhaps the present cooling trend will continue for another 3 to 7 decades. Some scientists believe that is possible.
Who says this is possible? Name even one scientist who thinks this.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It warms the planet. This is a cornerstone of climatology, and has been for > 100 yrs.
Name one person who doubts it.
Nikola Scafetta believes that, “The partial forecast indicates that climate may stabilize or cool until 2030-2040.” Scafetta’s forecast is based upon, ‘physical mechanisms’ and ‘the phenomenon of collective synchronization of coupled oscillators,’ such as for examples, ENSO effects and solar activity. Qing-Bin Lu believes that, “a long-term global cooling starting around 2002 is expected to continue for next five to seven decades.”
Wow! His theory is based on “physical mechanisms!”
That’s amazing, because everyone else’s theories are based on the properties of chocolate chip cookies, or something.
Is there any reason at all to accept Scaffeta’s ideas? Has he, for example, made any prediction that agrees with experiment, that no one else has made?
David, you are so “yesterday”. Get with it, you game is up. What a Mann.
Bob: Do you have any substance?
The only “physical mechanisms” are planetary alignments. Need I say more?
David Appell, substance? Yes, but not for the journalist to the climate mafia.
Can’t deliver, huh Bob?
I thought so.
The only “physical mechanisms” are planetary alignments.
Yes. Because you’re wrong, especially when independent actors dig up carbon and put it into the atmosphere.
Bob: As a journalist, I must balance a wide spectrum of opinions in a contentious field.
I have studied climate science in depth. I try to follow the literature as best I can, and I talk to a lot of scientists as I report on its happenings. I have a PhD in theoretical physics, so I think I know a little bit about science and how it’s done.
I’ve been following this field, and writing about it, for almost 15 years. I judge it as best I can, as unbiased as I can, to the degree than I can. I stand by my reporting, but if you have comments, please write me via http://www.davidappell.com
‘Unlike El Niño and La Niña, which may occur every 3 to 7 years and last from 6 to 18 months, the PDO can remain in the same phase for 20 to 30 years. The shift in the PDO can have significant implications for global climate, affecting Pacific and Atlantic hurricane activity, droughts and flooding around the Pacific basin, the productivity of marine ecosystems, and global land temperature patterns. This multi-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation ‘cool’ trend can intensify La Niña or diminish El Niño impacts around the Pacific basin,” said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “The persistence of this large-scale pattern [in 2008] tells us there is much more than an isolated La Niña occurring in the Pacific Ocean.”
Natural, large-scale climate patterns like the PDO and El Niño-La Niña are superimposed on global warming caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and landscape changes like deforestation. According to Josh Willis, JPL oceanographer and climate scientist, “These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it.”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703
‘Using a new measure of coupling strength, this update shows that these climate modes have recently synchronized, with synchronization peaking in the year 2001/02. This synchronization has been followed by an increase in coupling. This suggests that the climate system may well have shifted again, with a consequent break in the global mean temperature trend from the post 1976/77 warming to a new period (indeterminate length) of roughly constant global mean temperature.’ Swanson and Tsonis 2009 – Has the climate recently shifted?
There are any number of scientists who understand that we are in a cool mode – and these last 20 to 40 years in the proxies. The sun is cooling from a 1000 year grand maxima. The MOC seems likely to decline this century with little confidence that it won’t change abruptly. A shift to La Nina dominance over hundreds of years seems likely. Finally – top down forcing from solar UV/ozone interactions seem likely to result in coolness from both the Southern and Northern Annular Modes peetrating into lower latitudes – this may be connected to changes in the solar magneto modulated by the orbits of the big outer planets in especially.
Who did you say you were? Someone with little understanding and a big mouth apparently. My especial bête noire.
Who are you Chief? Yes, the Chief Proctologist, the guy that can measure a temperature in exactly one place. bada bing
So webby – you return to the form we are all familiar with. Juvenile insults, incompetent maths and fantasy physics. Someone who definitely qualifies as a mouth sans brain.
Chief, spotted your game on day 1.
An impediment to progress.
My especial interest is to understand climate in the context of coupled, non-linear, chaotic systems. This something that is accpted by the IPCC, The Royal Society, the National Academy of Sciences and indeed at such bastions of scepticism as realclimate and skepticalscience. This evolved out of looking at data. First for Australian rainfall regimes and then at global ocean and atmospheric indices from which we can deduce global – and especially regional – rainfall patterns for seasons to decades ahead. This naturally engendered an interest in control variables for these things in solar TSI and UV – and in feedbacks on cloud, ice, THC, snow, dust, biology and atmosphere. This seems to me to be a very humble occupation – a worker in the vineyards of science much as very many have been in the long history of science.
I am a natural philosopher with an interest in big picures. What was Beth’s poem about Chinese scholars gathering in the woods to discuss the meaning of life – which woods were soon filled with drinking, carousing and obscene songs? That about covers it.
My essential position on emissions I have described many times. Wally Broeker defined it as poking a stick at an angry beast. I have said that chaos creates uncertain risks. That arguing that there is no risk is an argument from extreme ignorance. I have called myself a climate catastrophist in the sense of René Thom. I have railed about extremes of ‘dragon-kings’ until I am blue in the face.
But the fact remains that it is very likely the the world will not warm for some decades yet – something that is seen in these indices I have been staring down for decades. The question I keep asking is what that will do to the politics of carbon mitigation. It seems likely lost for another generation.
I have suggested approaches – as have many others – involving black carbon and tropospheric ozone, building the productivity of agriculural soils by incorporating carbon – something that is low cost, saves water adn conserves soil – environmental restoration, development, education, health, safe water and sanitation. There are direct measures and indirect measures aimed at managing population and development.
You have confronted nothing but your own ignorance, egotism and incompetence. It is you who are the enemy of progress.
David Appell, Ok, let’s play. Would you like to discuss:
1. Crazy Hansen and his wildly wrong predictions
2. Stats and data challenged Mann
3. Steig and the southern continent
4. The psychological profile of Mann
5. Shakin and Marcott’s mendacity
6. The corrupt climate funding machine
7. Criminality of Gleick
8. The corrupt IPCC
9. Peer review corruption
10. Trenbirth’s “magical” missing heat
11. Or how about we discuss you role in promoting one of the greatest scandals in scientific history
Bob, this has all been inside baseball, confined to the box scores, and wept over only by a few fans. Now it’s beginning to creep to the front page. David, you could be famous, someday.
================
David Appell, you are a journalist are you not?
Are you here to be informed or are your trying to take the piss?
Do you understand the questions that get one labeled a denier, and compared to Creationists?
Do you understand why people with do not for instance buy the story that the paper under discussion us selling?
Do you know you come across as yet another slimy jerk?
Davis Appell, ” I’ve been following this field, and writing about it, for almost 15 years. I judge it as best I can, as unbiased as I can, to the degree than I can. I stand by my reporting, but if you have comments, please write me via http://www.davidappell.com”
David, most of us have read your writings. The problem is either your inability to understand the truth about the nefarious Mann or you are incapable of unbiased writing because of deep ideology. Credibility, once lost, is difficult to regain.
Let’s all pick on David. I have problems with Lord of the Flies moments.
Scafetta’s forecast is based upon …’physical mechanisms’ and ‘the phenomenon of collective synchronization of coupled oscillators’…
Lockwood has for instance suggested a solar UV/climate link – which may indeed be related to the outer planets http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/138/paper/AS06018.htm –
Collective sychonisation of coupled oscillators a la Tsonis is quite obvious.
David Appell | March 30, 2013 at 12:25 am |
CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
So are oxygen and nitrogen greenhouse gases. The “AGW The Greenhouse Effect” is an illusion, created by magic tricks, sleights of hand.
It warms the planet. This is a cornerstone of climatology, and has been for > 100 yrs. Name one person who doubts it.
Well, anyone who has checked out the history of this and found Arrhenius based his reasoning on zilch understanding of the atmosphere and heat transport and so couldn’t understand what Fourier was saying, so he began by premising what Fourier said didn’t exist.
A look at how Arrhenius got Fourier completely wrong by Timothy Casey : http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/
Besides, as Angstrom pointed out to him, Arrhenius was using carbonic acid not carbon dioxide, he hadn’t taken out the water content. Arrhenius was a chemist, he knew the difference..
What he was getting was the great heat capacity of water which carbon dioxide doesn’t have; carbon dioxide has even less ability to “trap” heat than oxygen and nitrogen, it releases any heat instantly. It is of no significance against water as Angstrom pointed out, and, as I’ve just posted elsewhere, that is the exact conclusion from those running the AIRS project. Carbon dioxide is a trace gas that can be ignored here..
I sometimes think the arguments for AGW/CAGW come from disembodied spirits because none seem to be able to appreciate the physical properties of the world around us. They can’t appreciate the power of heat because they’ve never cooked..
Anyway, you asked for one name, here’s another:
“Carbon cycle modelling and the residence time of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric CO2:
on the construction of the “Greenhouse Effect Global Warming” dogma.
Tom V. Segalstad
Mineralogical-Geological Museum
University of Oslo
Sars’ Gate 1, N-0562 Oslo
Norway
“Abstract
“The three evidences of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that the apparent contemporary atmospheric CO2 increase is anthropogenic, is discussed and rejected: CO2 measurements from ice cores; CO2 measurements in air; and carbon isotope data in conjunction with carbon cycle modelling.”
Continued on: http://www.co2web.info/ESEF3VO2.htm
“The time series show monthly anomalies smoothed with a 12-month running mean, with respect to the 1958–1965 base period. ” (Above)
“Key Weaknesses
First 2 decades should be used with caution (large uncertainties)
Atlantic Meridional Circulation (AMOC) at 26N is underestimated
Large surface salinity errors”
Q: How can one infer a trend from data based on anomaly with reference to the starting period, when the starting period contains the data with the highest uncertainty?
A: By reanalysing the data until you get the answer you were looking for.
The abstract says: “The warming below 700 m remains even when the Argo observing system is withdrawn although the trends are reduced.” Translation, when the reanalysis is based on fewer observations in recent years, the biases of the model used to perform the reanalysis make the deep ocean colder. Therefore, reanalysis of the years without Argo data is probably biased colder by the same model. If you place great faith in long-term trends from the ORAS4 reanalysis, I’d like to sell you a bridge in Brooklyn and the reanalysis cited by Paltridge showing a long-term decrease in the humidity of the upper troposphere. At least Paltridge was candid about the problems inherent in extracting long-term trends from reanalyses.
Something strange occurs during the 1997-8 El Nino. The shallow ocean (0-300 and 0-700 m) cools, while the whole ocean remains the same temperature. This implies that the deeper ocean warmed while the shallow ocean cooled.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Wong2006figure7.gif.html?sort=3&o=91
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Wongetal2006fig8_zps88e7615f.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0
‘Figure 7 gives a direct interannual comparison of these new ocean heat storage data from 1993 to 2003 against those from the 12-month running mean ERBE/ERBS Nonscanner WFOV Edition3_Rev1 and CERES/Terra Scanner ES4 Edition2_Rev1 net flux anomalies. The CERES/Terra Scanner results are global and the ERBE/ERBS Nonscanner WFOV results cover 60°N to 60°S (or 87% of the earth’s surface).
‘The net flux anomalies are calculated with respect to the 1985–89 period. They are basically deseasonalized anomalies similar to those shown in previous figures. A 12-month running mean filter has been applied to the
TOA radiation data to reduce the temporal sampling noise and to match up directly with the corresponding time scale of the ocean storage data. The ocean heat storage data (Willis et al. 2004) is available only in annually smoothed seasonal data. The drop in the global ocean heat storage in the later part of 1998 is associated with cooling of the global ocean after the rapid warming of the ocean during the 1997–98 El Niño event (Willis t al. 2004).’ http://www.image.ucar.edu/idag/Papers/Wong_ERBEreanalysis.pdf
Not sure how anyone can get El Nino cooling of the oceans even from the graph in the post at any level.
Meanwhile Hansen just published “Climate forcing growth rates: doubling
down on our Faustian bargain”
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/1/011006/pdf/1748-9326_8_1_011006.pdf
where he says fossil fuel burning has accelerated a lot in the last decade. So the forcing driving this ocean warming is getting stronger at an accelerating rate. This would mostly be China, I believe.
If you look at the details, it is quite clear this current OHC history reconstruction is inconsistent with the one found at the NOAA NODC OCL site, based on Levitus 2012.
It is never enough to say “Look, they’re basically telling the same story, it is increasing“. The thing meant to show you vaguely similar pretty images and tell you stories is called journalism, which is an entirely different realm.
Science, on the other hand, is not about pictures & tales, but datasets and true propositions describing their properties. One can’t compare images to theories, so pictures are utterly useless in either confirming or refuting them. I don’t even see why they are allowed to appear in scientific journals.
For what one can do, is compare a set of propositions describing a dataset derived from measurements to another set of propositions arrived at by theoretical means to see if the two sets are logically consistent or not. One can and should do the same with propositions describing two different datasets purported to measure the same variable.
The propositions I am talking about here are long & boring ones, like “average value of x between t1 and t2 is greater than u1 but less than v1 AND average value of x between t2 and t3 is greater than u2 but less than v2 AND average value of x between t3 and t4 is greater than u3 but less than v3 AND etc., etc. ad nauseam”
One can’t reliably reconstruct such propositions by looking at images. This is why it would be obligatory to publish genuine datasets along with papers. In that case anyone could redo the formal description and look for logical inconsistencies (should they exists) by programmatical means, outsourcing the boring part this way but still retaining full logical rigor.
That’s how science is done, not by press releases.
So. Levitus & Balmaseda are inconsistent. That leaves us with 3 possibilities. Either the first one is right and the second is wrong or it is the other way around. On top of that both of them can be in error, of course. Before proceeding to propositions like “Trenberth’s missing heat is found! (or not)”, we should settle this humble question first.
We should ask questions like “Is it possible that between 2000 and 2003 about 5×10^22 Joules were sequestered below 2000 m, but none after that date?”
Berényi, can you please be more specific?
I am writing about some of this right now, and I’d like to know why these calculations aren’t compatible.
But you haven’t given enough detail to show why.
Write me if you can’t post here:
david.appell@gmail.com
I would like to see demonstrated how they are inconsistent as well. The NOAA sets appear less noisy, but otherwise have the same trend. The NOAA data appear to be the same as the stacked bar chart that Nuccitelli et al published, which I have as Figure 3 on this blog post:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
The same model was used on Figure 2 and Figure 3 so they are largely consistent, apart from the noise.
How can you write about the topic if you haven’t done the necessary homework?
Peter Lang: I haven’t written yet. I am doing my homework right now. Care to contribute?
@David
I can’t be too specific, because
1. Balmaseda et al. is paywalled (that is, not really “published”)
2. We don’t have the supplementary data, just a pretty picture
Levitus et al. passes both conditions where Balmaseda fails miserably. For example they have Yearly global upper ocean (0-700 m) heat content data from 1955 to 2012 published, with proper error terms.
In that dataset we find this (in 10^22 J units):
2000.5: 5.587 ± 0.577
2006.5: 10.430 ± 0.199
If we assume their annual error terms are independent, it means upper ocean heat content has increased by 4.573 ± 0.591 × 10^22 J in that 6 years. Balmaseda 2013 is a more difficult case, because we only have this image you can see at the head of this post. However, the bunch of blue lines in that picture are supposed to represent the same quantity we have just seen in Levitus 2012. If we attempt to recover digital data from it, the case shown above looks like this:
2000.5: 2.612 ± 0.758
2006.5: 11.461 ± 0.337
Offsets are arbitrary here, so let’s compute the increase, which is directly comparable to the one derived from Levitus’s data. It comes out as 8.849 ± 0.830 × 10^22 J.
If we allow for 2 sigma differences, we have the following proposition:
“Upper ocean heat content has increased between mid 2000 and mid 2006 by no more than 5.756 × 10^22 J and not less than 7.190 × 10^22 J”
We are not better off with 3 sigma either.
“Upper ocean heat content has increased between mid 2000 and mid 2006 by no more than 4.347 × 10^22 J and not less than 6.360 × 10^22 J”
There are clearly no such numbers (error bars don’t overlap, not even by 3 sigma). If we accept both studies, their joint set of propositions allows for a false statement to be derived and from a single such proposition anything follows. Sorry, logic just works like that.
This era is the transition between XBTs to ARGO, so no wonder they have no idea what’s actually happened. There would be no problem with that, if it were clearly stated. But it is not, in either study.
(check my numbers please, I was in a hurry)
There is knowledge missing and it’s a travesty that we can’t find it.
=================
Second proposition correctly (for 3 sigma):
“Upper ocean heat content has increased between mid 2000 and mid 2006 by no more than 6.347 × 10^22 J and not less than 6.360 × 10^22 J”
Here is the Levitus picture of spatio-temporal diffusive warming of ocean layers.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BbuNFfz37Ag/UVbtbw5KhAI/AAAAAAAADYc/hZCTyOJnLck/s1600/noaa.GIF
To understand the model read the following post:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
I guess the point is, without having access to the Balmaseda paper, why does the amount of fluctuations differ so much than what Levitus reports and what is on the NOAA site.
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
Balmaseda is clearly showing the effects of volcanic perturbations more starkly than Levitus. Volcanic particulates and aerosols clearly effect the amount of visible light that enters the ocean.
Volcanic forcing also impacts the NH more than the SH. The oceans provide the energy for the DWLR. The smaller percentage of ocean area to land in the NH plus the higher average temperature of the NH ocean surfaces cause a larger response to all forcing.
To what extend should we have confidence in the reanalysis results? Based upon verification statistics, there is clearly some advantages to the reanalysis relative to the raw observations. However the big issue is whether we can infer reliable global trends from the reanalysis, owing to changes in the observing system (not just for the ocean, but for the surface fluxes derived from atmospheric reanalyses), and uncertainties in the overall methodology. The surprising finding is the apparent sequestration of heat in the global ocean starting circa 2000, which has been accompanied by a flattening of the trend of upper ocean temperatures since 2003. Is this real, or an artifact of the reanalysis process? We don’t know, there is a debate underway in the oceanographic and climate communities on this topic.
There are two questions being asked.
Whether the XBT data exists at depth in sufficient quantity to provide a reaonable estimate. A question of methodology.
The second concerns the odd jump at the splice of XBT and ARGO data, Where did the energy come from?
Trenberth said that the missing energy was seen in CERES – which seems much more consistent with purely ARGO data. .
http://www.ocean-sci-discuss.net/8/999/2011/osd-8-999-2011.pdf
At least now the narrative is getting narrowed down process-wise. It’s the La Nina window collecting the heat as it exposes deep-water to the atmosphere, E. Pacific regional and barely Argo discernible. Trade wind variability allegedly took part (how did it vary?), still that seems unnecessary if it’d be really the deep-water. And how does such deep-dispersed heat actually do when it returns to haunt us any time soon (decadal-centennial-scale)?
I just can’t shake certain images from my head while reading through this discussion on missing heat. I keep seeing Leonard Nimoy, and his voiceover drowns out all background noise. Dr. Trenberth may be of my generation, so I wonder if he has the same problem when he goes to work each day.
Stylistically, of course, “In Search of…” was more entertaining, but as far as policy impact the folks at NCAR win hands down. How long will these reruns just keep coming back to haunt us?
Live long and prosper – John DeFayette.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/03/global-warming-slows-down?bclid=0&bctid=2263656648001
Springer links to The Economist, a bunch of anonymous journalists that never attach their names to anything they write.
This was a video piece so I half-expected to see the interviewer with a bag over her head.
Sarcasm off.
WHT, you link to your website, The Oil conunDRUM, where I find a book and links to Climate Science, etc Blog, all packed with information and nary a reference to any author who wrote them. No About tab. No Who I am tab. Hmmmmm, and how is that different from The Economist?
That the best you can do to talk crap about The Economist?
Anonymity is a long-standing tradition of the newspaper since 1843.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist
Perhaps needless to say is that an anonymous author such as WebHubTelescope complaining about anonymity in The Economist broke my damn irony meter again. That’s another one you owe me.
I find it
P.S. I actually linked to the wrong thing at the Economist.
I wanted this:
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions
Which Michael Barone in the Washington Examiner calls “The Economist’s Emily Littela Moment”.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/michael-barone-the-economists-emily-litella-moment-on-global-warming/article/2525820
Funny stuff. The “pause” is making the catastropic global warming narrative into late night television talk show jokes. And the joke is on you.
Isn’t Barone the expert who predicted a big win for Romney, something like 315 electoral votes?
As if he knows anything about science.
Springer can’t see the sarcasm tag that I added. He thinks the anonymous nature of an Economist journalist ranks somehow higher than a blogger identified by a handle. I was pointing out your keen ability to play CalvinBall.
really clutching at straws now. To summarize whb – these straws take the missing heat down and ARGO fails to detect it [fail]. Hansen the heat magically appears in the lower layers [fail].
If the heat is not there then it did not get there. Mechanisms increased cloud cover reflecting it all back [Dr Spencer ???]. Increased reflectivity at sea surface [anyone ???- fail] less re-absorption by the atmosphere/co2 [more straws]. Errors in measurement of the actual incoming heat so less received [unlikely].
Nonetheless a reason for the missing heat must include one or more of the last 4 answers.
Any ideas!
We know Kevin has considered that the heat has been re-radiated, from his famous ’08 interview in NPR. This stuff is placing appeals on milk cartons.
=====================
This seems to remind me of Kimoto and the 20Wm-2 math error in the old Trenberth budgets.
“sure it has. we measure it all the time”
What device was it measured with and when? What was the value?
Andrew
Bad Andrew.
Speed = Distance/Time. So we measure speed indirectly by measuring distance and time.
Sensitivity = Change in Temperature/Change in Forcing.
You measure temperature with thermometers. There are many kinds.
You measure change in Forcing by measuring watts. Many ways to measure.
The value you get is a function of the measuring tool and time over which you take the measure. Depending on that you will get values between 0.3 and 2. ( one could derive .37 from first principles) Recall that the first measurements of the speed of light had a wide spread. It took centuries to resolve.
Steven, you write “Speed = Distance/Time. So we measure speed indirectly by measuring distance and time.
Sensitivity = Change in Temperature/Change in Forcing.
You measure temperature with thermometers. There are many kinds.
You measure change in Forcing by measuring watts. Many ways to measure.”
There is a huge non sequiter, which you have omitted. When you measure speed, then you observe directly that the object that covers the distance, does so in a certain time. “Measuring” climate sensitivity is different. There is no control over what is changing the global temperature. There are all sorts of variables, both knowns, and unknowns, that change global temperature. As I have noted many times, in order to actually measure climate change, you need to prove that it is the CO2, and only the CO2 that is causing the observed change in temperature. With current technology, this is impossible.
So, your claimed method for “measuring” climate sensitivity is simply just plain wrong.
“You measure temperature with thermometers.” ” You measure change in Forcing by measuring watts.”
Steven Mosher,
I’m sorry, I missed the part where you answered my question, which was:
What device was it (cs) measured with and when?
Andrew
Andrew. As I expected, Steven Mosher seems to have disappeared. Usually, when warmists make a mistake, they do not have the scientific integrity to admit it. Actually, for your question, if you read the definition of radiative forcing in the IPCC TAR to WG1, you will find it relates to a completely hypothetical situation, which makes radiative forcing impossible to measure. What the warmists do is to use validated radiative transfer models, which measure something entirely different, to arrive at an estimate of radiative forcing.
Jim,
You may have your interpretation. Mine is that it’s often seen that the other party rejects all reasonable arguments and that continuing the discussion serves no purpose, as all others reading the earlier comments have already understood the point. Only those hopeless cases who are too stuck to their misconceptions to learn anything remain.
If you think that you have won the argument when you don’t get replies anymore, think again.
So it’s been measured? Thank Heavens, at last. Quick, Pekka, tell me what it is.
==============
Pekka, you write “If you think that you have won the argument when you don’t get replies anymore, think again.”
Fair enough. Let me ask you directly. Has the climate sensitivity of CO2, however it is defined, been measured? I dont want any long explanations to why my question is irrelevant. A simple yes or no is all that is required.
Kim,
Repeating the same arguments for the tenth time is of no use. If you haven’t understood them so far, I can’t help you.
Jim,
I have answered that same question recently. So has Steven Mosher.
Well, whatever the estimate of the sensitivity is we know this: The higher the sensitivity, the colder it would presently be without man’s input.
Maybe we’d be better off hoping for a high sensitivity.
=================================
===========================
==========================
“Speed = Distance/Time”
This looks like a calculation to me. And what the hell it has to do with measuring cs, I guess only Warmers know. It must be a proxy for something.
HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE
“Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.”
Andrew
Pekka, you write “Jim,
I have answered that same question recently. So has Steven Mosher.”
Weasel words. Ok, you answered the question recently. I have lost your answer. What was it?
Actually, I do not recall that either you or Stecven have EVER given a straightforward yes or no to this question. You know that if you do, the whole house of cards that is CAGW comes crashing down.
So let me repeat the question, and I am sure it is no trouble for you to just type “yes” or “no”. It is a lot shorter than what you wrote above.
Has the climate sensitivity of CO2, however defined, been measured?
Coo, it’s not been measured and it hasn’t been very well estimated, either.
See my 9:37 above.
===========
The fun part is that the CO2 forcing has been measured very accurately but the “surface” it impacts never has been. Not that many people really care if the tropopause warms or cools by 1.44 C +/- a touch since most of us don’t live in that neighborhood. It is kinda like the temperature at the airport or the surface temperature of Venus, so?
JIm,
This is exactly, what I referred to when I wrote that it’s of no use to repeat the same argument for the tenth time. I have been arguing on the same point with you for much of the time Climate Etc. has existed.
It’s all about the meaning of the word “measure” and about the great variability of methods that can be used in making measurements. The semantic issues extend also to the concepts science and proper scientific methods..
I just don’t accept your definitions for any of these concepts, neither do any practicing scientists.
And the idea that an aspect of ‘climate’ can be reduced to a single magical holy grail numerical value is completely absurd. But let’s take one stupidity at a time, right?
Andrew
Whatever the estimate of sensitivity the higher it is the colder we would presently be without man’s input.
When we measure the sensitivity we will be able to calculate how much colder we would presently be without man’s input.
A distinction with a difference.
================
Pekka, you write “It’s all about the meaning of the word “measure” ”
Fair enough. What is your definition of what the word “measure” means?
Jim
This is the most recent thread where I discussed that
http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/24/american-physical-society/#comment-306606
There are many others in the past.
Pekka, pick a sensitivity high enough to frighten you. Calculate how cold we’d now be without man’s influence. Brrrr.
==================================
Pekka, you wrote “I used here the word “estimate” but making estimates in ways that involve empirical data is exactly the same thing as measuring.”
NOW I understand. The WAY in which the estimates are made is irrelevant. Even if the way the estimate is made is wrong, the result is the same as a measuement, providing there was empirical data on which to base the estimate.
Sorry, Pekka, you and I have a completely different idea of what “measurement” means, and you are never going to admit that I am correct.
Now you made an statement that I can agree on. That’s what I have been telling for much of the time Climate Etc. has existed.
angech, you write “Any ideas!”
Yes. the climate sensitiviy of CO2, however defined, has never been measured, so there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever, that there was any missing heat in the first place.
sure it has. we measure it all the time
Heh, and get a different figure each time.
============
OK People; Simple two box model.
We have in box 1) warm saline, fifteen degrees, sitting above 90% 2) very cold dense saline, four degrees.
The depth is 4 km.
Now so we are all on the same page. Heat, by what ever mechanism, will be transferred from the warm surface to the depths, therefore the surface will cool and the depths war. This will happen until the system come to thermal equilibrium. Simple, classical, physics.
HOWEVER this temperature gradients exists and has existed for a million years or more. The temperature gradient represents a steady state, No matter what the rate of heat transfer is from the warm surface to the cold bottom, there must be an equal and opposite rate of ‘cold’ replenishment. This ‘cold’ comes from the arrival of cold, polar brine’s.
Do we all agree? Steady state system, heat go down from warm top and is matched by addition of cold water to bottom.
Now, the rate at which heat is transferred between a war and cool body is dependent on the difference in temperature. The greater the difference in the temperatures of the two bodies, the greater the overall rate.
What can affect the steady state
There are therefore two ways we can war the depths; firstly alter the rate at which cold water enters the oceans
Decreasing the amount of cold brine going into the bottom of the ocean will cause warming, and a drop in sea level.
Increasing the amount of cold brine going into the bottom of the ocean will cause cooling, and a rise in sea level.
We are witnessing a rise in sea level.
Secondly, the temperature gradient between the surface and bottom could be increased, cause a greater rate of warming at the bottom.
However, we can never have a more rapid rate of warming at he bottom of the ocean than at the top, unless the rate constant of thermal conductivity is altered.
Thus, it is not possible for the bottom of the oceans to warm without either a slowing of the rate of polar water injection into the bottom, a rise in the surface temperature OR a change in the mechanism by which heat is transferred between the two layers.
Doc, with just a simple two box model, the surface diffusion is balanced by polar deep water sinking as sea ice is formed annually. The two box has issues though.
In the tropics the “thermocline” as defined by the largest temperature gradient is roughly 20 C degrees. In the mid latitudes the “thermocline” is roughly 12 C degrees. The surface mixing and cooling at the poles produces a range of colder denser water that can “slide” in between the different regional thermoclines.
Over the longest time frame, the coldest bottom water sinking at ~1.9C and ~37g/kg salinity produces the most stable state, an average ocean temperature range of ~2.6C to 4 C degrees. Over shorter time frames, changes in sea ice formation and surface winds produce larger fluctuations. Since the two hemispheres can get in or out of phase, surface temperatures between 50N and 50S can produce a larger range of fluctuation.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-BFHNuJM8qm8/UVYZqjStgtI/AAAAAAAAHpU/6jphBeRewXw/s912/45N%2520to%2520pole%2520tdo%2520%2520bintanja%2520with%2520Kim%2520and%2520Ruehlmann.png
That compares tropical Atlantic SST north and south of the equator with high north Atlantic (45N to pole) bottom water temperature, Tdo.
The “shift” in pacific ocean circulation may be linked to the Atlantic reaching a peak thermal capacity shifting the thermal equator to its northern most point, the near ice free summer Arctic mode which is the precursor of glaciation.
I think you and Trenberth are going to need more boxes.
If we had the mathematics for it might take every computer in the world to actually model the phenomenon of swirling vortices on a global basis but in your example I think it probably is more accurate to think of the cold water at the top and not cold water added to the bottom that charges the system.
The cold water HAS to go to the bottom, because that is where it is cold and the top has to be warm because that’s where the sunshine lands.
Why the ocean is mostly cold, rather than being in equilibrium with the surface is very important.
“However, we can never have a more rapid rate of warming at he bottom of the ocean than at the top”
What’s the evidence that we do? It’s warming at the top.
Nick, have you read the title of this thread?
Nick, have you looked at Figure, at the top, you know the Figure?
Nick, can you see that there is more heat/unit volume RISE in the 700-300m depth than in the 0-300m depth.
Now water below 300m is cold and is getting warmer than the water above 300m.
ITS IN FIGURE 1. AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE AND WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT
Nick:-
LOOK SQUIRREL,
Quantum,
Potatoe or potato,
Tomatoe or tomato
Thermodynamics.
Box model
Warmer?
DM is starting to flip out.
Perhaps you are misinterpreting the fact that it is equivalent to what is called a stacked line graph. The stacking is effective as it is used to show both a cumulative effect and the distinctions among the layers.
So heat content of 0-700m is greater than 0-300m by definition.
You can also use Levitus to help with the interpretation, scroll to the bootom of this post
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
A picture says a thousand words. The end of the Trenberth’s 2013 Figure 1. Please feel free to take out your rule’s and do your own measurement. The plot shows that 700-300m is warming faster than 300-0m.
The data starts at 2001/2.
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w318/DocMartyn/deepoceanJPEG_zpsc6585990.jpg
DM, I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill with your analysis. Disregarding any systemic measurement errors such as instrumentation noise, the thing you are missing is the idea of a cumulative time effect in the layering. The heat that accumulates in the layers is a gradual effect that occurs over many years, and dispersion&diffusion will tend to equalize the heat that enters each layer. So you show a 1/89 versus a 1/100 discrepancy in the accumulation of heat in a pair of layers. This is a 10% departure from perfect diffusive mixing.
Sure enough, the discrepancy shows up in the simple diffusive model as well, where the relative fractions can not be perfectly aligned:
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/7860/ohc.gif
The fact that you found perhaps a 10% error may or may not be relevant. It could be systemic noise. It could be a real error you uncovered in your role as an auditor.
The question is, does this noisy inconsistency blow their analysis completely apart?
Do the same thing with the Levitus characterization:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BbuNFfz37Ag/UVbtbw5KhAI/AAAAAAAADYc/hZCTyOJnLck/s1600/noaa.GIF
where they use 700 meters and 2000 meters
So Web, I show your assertion was wrong. I show that Figure 1 shows the 700-300m layer heating at a greater rate than the layer that is supposed to be the heat source for the heating.
Look Squirrel is your response.
This cannot be a diffusion of heat, diffused heat does not jump.
Doc,
I could query the calc details that you’ve given, or just note that even so it shows the top layers warming at almost the same rate as the lower. But you have to allow for the volume of the respective layers, and you can’t just say it’s proportional to depth – the ocean is not a cylinder.
Nuccitelli et al did do the proper calc from Levitus in their Phys Lett A paper, now published. From Table 1, for 2002-8, they found of the downward flux, 0.44 W/m2 stayed in the level 0-700 m; 0.26 W/m2 went into the 700-2000m level. That’s what you’d expect of a downward diffusive heat flux.
Nick, Nick, for the love of Dawkins, the thread is entitled
Has Trenberth found the ‘missing’ heat?
Now at the top we have figure 1, which you have pontificated about above.
Now, after I blew up the Figure, showing that Trenberth’s paper show MORE heating 700-300m compared with 300-0m you start throwing citations at me?
What is it Nick? Do you think the Oceans are in a ‘V’ shape and so there is a substantial difference in the volume at 700m compared with 250 m?
No Nick.
You are throwing references at me because Trenberth is full of crap and you cannot defend his finding; his finding that the deeper ocean is warming faster than the surface.
You know, and I know, that there is no mechanism that will transport heat from atmospheric CO2 to the 700-300m layer, without having a greater effect on the 300-0m layer.
SLAM DUNK.
You know the physics Nick. It’s bollocks and you know it.
So what you do Nick; confetti, I actually thought better of you Nick, I believed you had more integrity than the bunny. Alas no, instead of analyzing the point, within the remit of the paper, you post links to a whole bunch of citations, classical climate science physics:-
if you can dazzel them with diamonds, baffle them with 8ullsh1t.
DocMartyn, advancing scientific arguments via abuse, unsupported claims, and braggadocio is a puzzling policy … a rigorous mathematical argument would be infinitely more persuasive.
It appears, however, that no such mathematical arguments are possible … for reasons WebHubTelescope and Nick Stokes have already elucidated.
As a homely example, consider that the heat-energy increase of a (larger-mass) Thanksgiving-Day turkey is immensely greater than the heat-energy increase of the (lesser-mass) aluminum foil that wraps it — even though the turkey is heated entirely through the foil! Similarly, the heat-energy increase of a (larger-mass) deep ocean layer can be greater than the (lesser-mass) surface layer that wraps it — even though the deep layers are heated entirely through the surface layers!
Thus the main features of the Trenberth heat-energy analysis are not complicated to understand.
Conclusion Weak arguments buttressed by personal abuse, unsupported claims, and braggadocio are pathognomonic of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
It is impossible to have equal heat transfer rates across a thermal gradient, rate is proportional to delta Temperature. You know this to be the case Fan, which is why you deliberately insult me.
Trenberth shows that the rate of heating at 700-300 is a little fast than 300-0m; this is a physical impossibility, given the temperature gradient, I know it, Nick knows it, Web knows it and you know it Fan. Thats why you insult me yet again.
Speaking of pathognomonic.
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Folie a combien?
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Some people simply can’t tell the difference between heat content and temperature, it seems.
• Possibility A A cabal of scientists and Climate Etc posters is conspiring against DocMartyn.
• Possibility B DocMartyn’s understanding of heat-energy transport needs strengthening.
DocMartyn, with reference to the Thanksgiving turkey model of heat-energy transport, the thermal conductivity of the (thinner) aluminum foil is greater than the thermal conductivity of the (thicker) turkey itself. In consequence, the net heat-energy accumulating in the turkey can be greater than the net heat-energy accumulating in the foil.
Similarly, with reference to the state of the art of ocean internal wave research:, there is credible reason to expect that the effective thermal conductivity of the (relatively thin) upper layers of the ocean is greater than the effective thermal conductivity of the (relatively thick) deeper layers. In consequence, the net heat-energy accumulating in the lower layers can be greater than the net heat-energy accumulating in the upper layers — precisely as in the Thanksgiving Turkey Model!
Short Summary Yes, Trenberth et al have found (in Judith Curry’s phrase) “the missing heat”.
——————
Exemplars of Denialism With reference to Pascal Diethelm and Martin McKee’s Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond? (2012) recent Climate Etc posts amply illustrate the five traits of denialism:
Everyone is thanked for multiple instructive posts!
It is very important to consider that a thermal gradient, by itself, does not force heat to move. The gradient could simply be the result of a build-up of thermal energy in one region. Thermal energy does not respond to forces, like a charge to electric field or a mass particle to gravity. You just have to look at the heat equation, which is purely diffusive. Of course, a difference in thermal conductivities can set up gradients in the steady state, or the convective motion of the underlying medium can also move heat around. The latter is what can be describe an “effective diffusion” if the convection is sufficiently randomized via eddy currents and compensated buoyant flow.
Keep in mind that these diffusive models are additive. Whatever spatial thermal density profile that exists is irrelevant for an additional parcel of heat that is added to the system. It will diffuse within the containing region as if no other thermal energy exists. You can worry about that separately. That is the definition of additive. When I add heat to the system and look at the transient solution, I don’t have to consider the steady state heat distribution of the system, only the characteristics of the underlying medium.
Thermal gradients in this context are observations of the system under study. You really have to understand what is happening at a fundamental level.
These implicit response functions describing ocean heat content are interesting in that one can infer what is going on by inverting them with the help of transfer functions. That is what I am doing with my own simplified ocean heat content model:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
Much of the misinterpretation comes from incorrect interpretation of the second law, i.e. the direction of heat flow. Remember those laws describe a system and the NET flow is what is important in that context.
The quandary here is that DM is pointing out a partial inconsistency in the relative heat contents of the various layers. I agree there is a inter-layer deviation that can’t exist from purely diffusive flow. Yet, the overall picture supports top-down diffusive flow that can’t be denied.
What I want to see is DocMartyn try to trash the overall picture of surface-downward diffusive flow, based on the effective forcing function acting as a stimulus. The first-order picture rules and the second-order observations point to deviations from that picture.
I would recommend that interested people read this Hansen paper
This compares the results of sophisticated models against the impulse response formulations that I fit against. Many physicists call an impulse response a “Green’s function” so don’t let that scare you off.
Thanks again to David Springer for pointing out this paper as I was already going in this direction, and this is more than useful to creating a simplified picture of what is going on.
Fan, you are deliberately lying.
You are a disgrace to academia.
I think he’s been taken over by the pod people. Maybe the lizard people.
====================
Wag. Have you ever put a steel poker in a fire? The end of the poker is red hot and heat is transmitted along the length. However, the surface radiates and so there is a temperature along the length, so one end is red hot and the other is able to be held.
Now let us take Trenberth’s 2013 paper. He has a poker and measured the temperature along its length. Then he places the poker in a fire which is slightly hotter than the one it was sitting in.
Placing the iron in the second fire causes a uniform rise in temperature all the way along the length or even rises it slightly more away from the end in the fire.
This is nonsense.
For pointing out that this is nonsense I am called a liar
There is no point writing on this site anymore.
DocMartyn, wouldn’t your “poker” model more realistically represent the ocean — and in particular, more faithfully represent Trenberth/Hansen models — if the poker model were improved as follows:
• Increase the thermal conductivity of the heated end (shallow water), relative to the thermal conductivity of the bulk (deep water), and
• Analyse heat-energy density (not temperature), and
• Continuously exchange bits of hot iron (shallow/equatorial waters) for bits of cold iron (circulation-exchanging with deep/polar waters).
Aside DocMartyn, a word-search establishes that no Climate Etc comment on this thread has called you a “liar.” It is true — and surely is worthy of your reflection! — that numerous Climate Etc comments have pointed out that Trenberth/Hansen ocean models are physically more realistic (and mathematically better-posed) than DocMartyn “poker” models.
Conclusion Trenberth/Hansen oceanic heat-energy transport models are physically more realistic than DocMartyn “poker” models. Yes, Trenberth et al can reasonably claim to have (in Judith Curry’s phrase) “found the missing heat!”
OK, DM asserts that in the limit the ocean will warm uniformly over all layers. That is the asymptote of the paper’s figure which essentially shows dispersion of heat across various depths. Eventually the three curves will approach an asymptote where they each have proportional amounts of excess heat relative to the thickness of their layers.
Yet, up to that point,the curves will show some dispersion. DM is complaining that one level has transiently exceeded the asymptotic level in comparison to a supposedly warmer level by ~10%. Should we be concerned by this? Is it just noise? Is it errors in measurement? Or is it some sort of oceanic burp?
Or is this just some more of the famous nit-picking auditing that skeptics like to engage in?
Judy, you’ve got to figure out how to get rhoda over here. Here’s rhoda, from the Bish’s Palace 3/30/13:
‘EM, that paper proposes a previously unsuspected and currently unexplained buffer in the deep ocean which can last an indeterminate time, but based on sparse measurement and modelled ‘data’ it just happens to match the so-called missing heat which is claimed by one of the paper’s authors, but which is also a speculative number based on a series of guesses and further modelled ‘data’. Further, no convincing mechanism for how it works is proposed. Don’t lecture me on the scientific method again while you don’t see why this would give pause to suspect at the very least confirmation bias.’
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‘at the very least’. I’m reminded of Pekka’s desire that the pure atmospheric sciences must be free to follow curiosity.
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re Bob’s list, say, don’t overlook _
Lewandowsky and Cook.
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/28/lewandowsky-doubles-down/#more-17385
Does TSI modulate ocean-atmospheric meridional heat transport?
David Springer cites Soon & Legates and notes:
More Evidence of a Sun-Climate Connection
there is empirical evidence of a simultaneous increase in poleward oceanic and atmospheric heat transport during the most recent warming period since the mid-1970s (aka the Great Pacific Climate Shift). This paper argues that TSI directly modulates ocean–atmospheric meridional heat transport.
Solar irradiance modulation of Equator-to-Pole (Arctic) temperature gradients: Empirical evidence for climate variation on multi-decadal timescales, Willie Soon and David R. Legates. PDF . . .
Another thought that has occurred to me is that climate models overestimate global warming but they underestimate Arctic melting. Could both failures be due to underestimating the response of meridional heat transfer from the equator to the poles?
correction: that citation was by David Stockwell at Niche Modeling (not David Springer)
David Hagen, That hits the nail right on the head. Changes in merdional transport can have impacts of 3.2 C on “global” average temperature and zonal changes about 0.6 C degrees.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009PA001809/abstract
Global Ocean 3D geostrophic circulation
Ocean thermal models would likely strongly benefit from the latest Global Ocean 3D geostrophic circulation model Surcouf3D.
A new estimate of the global 3D geostrophic ocean circulation based on satellite data and in-situ measurements Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography Volumes 77–80, 15 November 2012, Pages 70–81
Fred H. Haynie shows evidence for arctic ice pulsation modulating the polar temperatures, meridonal current temperatures and latitudinal CO2 fluctuations. Applying Surcouf3D and coupling with TSI, clouds/cosmic rays, global optical depth, and latitudinal anthropogenic CO2, could quantify and clarify the temperature/CO2 lead/lag and magnitude.
See: Fred H. Haynie The Future of Climate Change
Fred H. Haynie posted:Quantifying the Anthropogenic Contribution to the Global Background Level of Atmospheric CO2
He shows anthropogenic component of CO2 is about 6.5% in 2007.
The failure seems to be not understanding that northern sea ice is like a thermostat in an automotive water cooling system. Energy enters the system mostly in the tropics equivalent to the engine in a car. Juice up the energy in the tropics (like stepping on the gas pedal) and the tropics don’t get much warmer just as the engine doesn’t get much warmer. A small increase in water temperature opens up the thermostat so more warm water moves from heat source to heat sink and the temperature rise is limited.
The consequence of not knowing it works this way is thinking the engine will overheat.
It almost seems like it was designed to work that way, eh Hagen? But that would be a crazy thing to think because everything around us that wasn’t engineered by a human wasn’t engineered at all regardless of appearances. ;-)
Springer
Great comparison of opening/closing the valve.
Good insight into detecting design.
“However the big issue is whether we can infer reliable global trends from the reanalysis”
♫ Gon use my my imagination ♫
Andrew
BA, you are the biggest Pretender on this commenting area. You are a fake skeptic through and through, not able to lift a finger and provide one bit of pertinent technical analysis. So underpowered that you can’t even achieve a mention on the list of climate clowns. To get on there you actually have to volunteer something resembling science.
You are special, so special.
Gack, you belong to the Lush Rimbaugh hall of shame for misappropriation.
If you don’t like me comments, Wubby, don’t read them.
Andrew
I have to, just in case you say something that will elevate you to the status of a clown.
BREAKING SCIENTIFIC NEWS of sea-level observations that support Trenberth’s deep-ocean heat-balance analysis …
Conversely (of course!) a sustained fall in sea-level — from colder water and/or polar ice accumulation — would support skeptical claims that the observed planetary warming is transient and reversible, and (in particular) that the deep-ocean warming that Trenberth reports cannot be real, and in particular, cannot contribute to sea-level rise.
But that is not the sobering reality that Nature is showing us, eh? What Nature is showing us is simply this:
• James Hansen’s 1981 scientific world-view is broadly correct, and
• Michael Mann’s observational hockey-stick is soberingly real, and
• Pope Francis’ long-term ecological concerns are morally justified.
So it’s not complicated, eh Climate Etc skeptics?
Specific Conclusion In regard to the question that Judith Curry asked — Has Trenberth found the ‘missing’ heat? — the sustained (and now-accelerating) global sea-level rise-rate observed by satellite altimetry affirms the answer “yes”.
Broad Conclusion Climate-change denialists are willfully ignoring a vast forest of solid climate-change science — a forest that is ever-growing — while cherry-picking individual trees in service of smearing/scorning/astroturfing demagoguery!
Prediction In the long run, demagogic denialism falls to sustained scientific commitment.
Actually it is the other way around. I was looking at this earlier this week.
From mid-2010 until mid-2011 there was a dip in sea levels world wide. I had a look at the Gulf of Mexico, and the dip is there also, but a bit earlier. The Gulf didn’t have a big change in temperature during this period.
What caused this gravitational anomaly in sea levels is really interesting.
• Local and/or short-term sea-level changes see (for example) Determining the response of sea level to atmospheric pressure forcing using TOPEX/POSEIDON data
• Global long-term sea-level changes see (for example) Climate Sensitivity, Sea Level, and Atmospheric CO2
It’s easy to appreciate the steadily-strengthening, increasingly-unifying evidence that AGW is a scientific reality, DocMartyn!
Your physically mixed hot poker analogy is flawed Fan. The physical mixing mechanism is already operating on the poker in the 400 watt oven, turning this up to 401 or 401.6 watts cannot alter the existing mixing mechanism much.
He knows that. Whenever he cannot disprove a point he attacks the person as a denier, cherry-picker, conspiracy theorist, fool, ideologue or just a liar, and then gives links to non-standard mathematical descriptions of completely irrelevant systems.
Trenberth has CO2 driven added IR generating heat faster at 7-300m, than at 300-0m.
Physically impossible, hence mixing by quantum gravity waves.
Are climatists even telling us the truth? Whom shall we believe, numerologists drawing government paychecks who cannot even admit the effect of solar activity on the Earth? The Sun and ENSO activity explain all of the climate change that we have observed so far and volcanic activity has a stronger correlation with the Earth’s climate than CO2.
Rule of thumb, a trustworthy scientist who says things along the lines of:-
we don’t really know
we suspect
my view is
it is reasonable to conclude
generally speaking
it is consistent with
We should give points for scholarly linguistic gymnastics–e.g., what would you give this example of cerebral contortionism, as follows:
“Lastly, one can invert the title of this paper and ask ‘Does the occurrence of lower/higher solar activity make a cold/warm winter in Europe more likely (than the climatological mean)?’ Our results strongly suggest that it does, which has implications for seasonal predictions.”
I’d say bonus points for the difficulty factor of cutting through the systemic obfuscation and filleting the jumbo to get to the meat of the matter.
Judith Curry:
”I’m bowing to pressure to prepare a post on a current science topic that people seem to want to talk about. This topic refers to Kevin Trenberth’s infamous statement in the CRU emails:
‘The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.’”
The ‘travesty’ will be removed as one understand that there is no dominating warming caused by human CO2 emissions!
I regard as necessary to express a pragmatic synthesis of mine own on the cause of recent global warming: 1) the believed role of human CO2 emissions as dominating factor even on the recent global warming is indistinguishable, and 2) the only working solution of alternatives scrutinized by me is to learn to adapt ourselves to threats of natural climate changes and weather events.
It is really nonsense to express any climate sensivity based on human CO2 emissions and even not on any total increase of CO2 in atmosphere:
a) Only natural global warming has been observed in reality.
b) Even influence of any total increase of CO2 content in atmosphere can not have been observed to control the recent warming in reality; the increases of global CO2 content have proved to follow warming and not vice versa.
c)Any anthropogenic share in the recent increase of CO2 content in atmosphere can not be empirically found. That makes the polemics on climate sensitivity be even more useless.
The total solar irradiance maintains the global temperature. In addition to this, certain other natural issues have an effect on an oscillating or otherwise changing level of temperature. Further, UN politicians have determined IPCC to assess a scientific background of the recent warming believed to be caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions. On the basis of climate models adopted by IPCC there has only been assessed what kind of assumptions is needed so that the recent warming might be caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions. However, for now there is not any proper evidence available for the believed manmade warming: the increases of CO2 content in atmosphere follow natural warming of sea surface waters – especially on the areas of sea surface CO2 sinks – in which a share of anthropogenic CO2 emissions is only about 4 % at the most.
I agree with Nicola Scafetta; http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/10/new-perspectives-on-climate-sensitivity/#comment-302614 :
‘Just a short comment on Tung and Zhou’s paper where they say:
“For the first half of the 20th century, the solar contribution to the linear trend was less than 10%. It does not support the much larger role (>50%) for the Sun in the observed warming, obtained by Scafetta and West by attributing early 20th-century warming to solar forcing.”
This is non-sense.
– – –
In my recent publication that Tung and Zhou does not cite, I provide evidences that the natural oscillations of the climate system such as the quasi 60-year oscillation of the AMO index is a typical astronomical/solar oscillation. Thus, the origin itself of the AMO oscillation (as well as many other climatic oscillations) is very likely due to solar activity.’
As to an applicable solution to the recent climate problems, both politicians and scientists should at least understand that, according to findings in reality, the anthropogenic CO2 emissions do not dominate the global warming: even the recent increase of CO2 content has followed natural warming and not vice versa; e.g. comment http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/04/carbon-cycle-questions/#comment-198992 etc. Concerning the cutting of manmade CO2 emissions, any curtailment of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, in order to control global warming, does not work. The strategy based on the curtailment ought to be replaced by a really working strategy e.g by adaptations to natural climate changes and weather events which pragmatically will be learned to be regarded as threatening. Even, instead of manmade warming, all the investigation resources available should be focused on these threats duly enough. This concerns AR5, too. Though there the adaptation may be duly emphasized, scientists of IPCC still seem, without any proper evidence, to believe in anthropogenic warming as a kind of amplifier of natural climate and weather threats.
Willb’s comment ”- – – when the sun goes down in the evening, the temperature always seems to drop” http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/13/the-horsemeat-argument/#comment-296286 ” includes, in all the simplicity, an essential and easily understandable key for the influence of the solar irradiance on the Earth temperature, on both cooling and warming. It is easy to understand that this is valid on dayly and seasonal changes of local solar irradiance. Also this concerns the global temperature depending on changes in total solar irradiance to Earth, which can be caused by solar activity changes and orbital reasons. During eras longer than those, e.g. tens and hundreds of million years, plate tectonics, i.e. continuous movements of continents in relation to oceans, can even influence trends of the global temperature more permanently than the shorter ones above. For instance therefore during last 50 million years the trend of global temperature has been decreasing although the activity of Sun has had a mild increasing trend; ocean currents made the global temperature change. In addition to the decreasing trend of global temperature stated above, a striking example on that is the appearance of glaciers on the Antartic Continent and on nordern continents.
Although, in any case, the global temperature is dominated by the total solar irradiance, a variation of the temperature level is mainly dominated by different cloud cover changes.The mechanisms of those complicated processes are still being clarified. The main factors influencing seem to be relative humidity as driving force and cosmic rays as catalyzing factors for nucliation of cloud drops.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/11/17/week-in-review-111712/#comment-268811
http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/04/sensitivity-about-sensitivity/#comment-292640
http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/16/hansen-on-the-standstill/#comment-287036
Evaporation rate decreases as you move away from equator.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter05/Images/Fig5-9.htm
Salinity increases moving away from the equator only until the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone where precipitation is greater than evaporation. From ITCZ to the poles precipitation continues to outpace evaporation.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter06/Images/Fig6-5.htm
Chief Kangaroo Skippy Ellison has it exactly backwards. No surprise there of course.
‘Tropical water is generally saltier than that found further north, as it has evaporated more, and this is the water that is drawn northward by the Atlantic thermohaline circulation – in the present climate, this mechanism becomes a self sustaining pump – the more strongly deep water is formed, the more salty water is drawn to the north to replace it.’ http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/en/news/press/faq-frequently-asked-questions/what-is-the-gulf-stream.html
We are talking of course about the Gulf Stream and not global averages – water which because it is still warm continues to evaporate providing warmth and moisture to northern climes.
First, a summary of what climate feedbacks are, by definition: In response to a surface temperature change, other changes in the climate system (clouds, etc.) can either magnify (positive feedback) or reduce (negative feedback) the original temperature change. The single largest feedback is negative: the increase in infrared energy lost to space as temperature increases. This so-called “Planck effect” is what stabilizes the climate system against runaway change. ~Dr. Roy Spencer
So… reasonable people have made some headway. Surely, no hysterical AGW fearmonger other than Al Gore (in the real world outside the dropout factories we call the public education system) still maintains the delusion of runaway global warming.
“heat is only able to travel through the skin layer by way of conduction”
That is quite wrong. The skin layer is REMOVED by evaporation exposing warmer water beneath it. In the tropics the skin layer is removed about 40 times a day i.e. about 40 millimeters daily is lost to evaporation.
WebHubTelescope and Chief Hydrologist are dumb and dumber. I’m not sure which is which but neither has a clue and just make stuff up as they go along.
One wonders what happened to springers whines about a lack of moderation?
Evaporation at Darwin peaks on average in November at 250mm for the month. 40mm/day seems vey high.
Regardlesss the quote was from sceptical science – http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=939 – what I said was… ‘not quite right…but closer than webby… The cool skin is not permanent because waves are caused by friction of the wind on water. This imparts momentum and causes the water to rotate – like a roller – and this transmits the energy of the wave forward. So the surface is constantly being turbulently mixed to depth. As warm water comes to the suface it again loses IR in the top 100 microns or so. It is a dynamic and ongoing process.
Oh – and energy – quite a lot – is lost by evaporation as well.’
The bottom line is that diffusion of heat from the atmosphere to the oceans is not a physically realistic interpretation of ocean energy dynamics.
The cool skin is an artifact of net loss of energy in the IR from the top 100 microns or so of the surface. When the water in the turbulent mixing zone is exposed on the surface the skin cools at the rate of the quantum effects – effectively instantaneous. The skin is replaced at the rotational velocity of the particles in the waves – much slower. So this cool skin is always cool. Does evaporation play a part – in exposing warmer water – as molecules gain sufficient energy to leave the surface? Yes – as does the shaking loose from the surface of water micro droplets as opposed to water vapour.
Are springer and webby peas in a pod? Undoubtedly – simplistiic and bombastic with little knowledge of any relevant Earth science.
Chief said:
“The bottom line is that diffusion of heat from the atmosphere to the oceans is not a physically realistic interpretation of ocean energy dynamics.”
_______
Simply and well stated, but sad that it would need to be stated. The net flow of energy on Earth is from ocean to atmosphere, and not the other way around.
The NET flow of energy on this planet that is covered 70% with water is:
Sun to Ocean to Atmosphere to Space. This flow is important to keep in mind, for if the oceans are gaining energy over some longer (several decades) timeframe, than only two possibilities exist:
1) More solar energy is entering the oceans
2) Less energy is leaving the oceans
In regards to #1 above several factors could be at play, including increased solar output, reduced cloudiness at certain levels, and over the very long term of course Milankovitch cycles. There is no indication of a steadily increasing solar output over the past 40+ years, and certainly quite the opposite over the past 10 years as ocean heat content has continued to rise. There is some indication of reduced cloudiness (very slight) and not enough to account for the spike in ocean heat content over the past decade.
In regards to #2 above, several factors could also be at play. We have been in the cool phase of the PDO such that less energy is leaving the Pacific (i.e. cooler SST’s), but the second factor is an altered thermal gradient between ocean and space such that the flow of energy from ocean to space is reduced even though the amount of solar energy entering the ocean is roughly the same. This would be a indirect effect. Of course, the accumulation of GH gases in the atmosphere is exactly what it would take to reduce the thermal gradient between ocean and space, and a very nice piece of the approximately 1 w/m^2 TOA imbalance (Trenberth’s missing heat) can be found in the rising heat content of the ocean down to 2000 meters, with even more likely to be found at deeper levels as several studies showing that even deeper water is warming as well, such as the deep water off of Antarctica.
Finally, consistent with the rising ocean heat content is the reduction of the Arctic sea ice, especially the volume, with the bulk of the volume of that ice existing below the water line. As the oceans warm, the ice melts faster than climate models have been able to accurately model and my strong suspicion is that the advection of the increasingly warming ocean waters and the resultant effect on sea ice has not been accurately taken into account in GCM’s.
“Sun to Ocean to Atmosphere to Space. This flow is important to keep in mind, for if the oceans are gaining energy over some longer (several decades) timeframe, than only two possibilities exist:”
I would add atmosphere to land to space. Land amplification of ocean energy is a large part of the uncertainty. As long as the land masses can increases stored heat capacity through melting ice and soil moisture, average surface temperature can increase. That thermal mass, soil moisture mainly, appears to be under-estimated.
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/kirsten-findells-thesis-papers
Just like there is a deep convection SST region, soil moisture also provide a convective triggering potential. Yet another thermostat.
Captn. Dallas,
Pardon my dimness, but what exactly do you mean by “land amplification of ocean energy”. Not sure what would be meant by “amplification” of energy in general as far as that goes. Signals can be amplified and energy can be concentrated or diffused, but how do you amplify ocean energy?
Also, the transport (not amplification) of ocean energy from ocean to land via the atmosphere of course requires energy in the form of direct solar radiation or indirect solar radiation that has previously been absorbed by the atmosphere. Thus, one gram of ocean water that has been previously warmed via sunlight to a certain temperature, might then, through the addition of more energy via sunlight and evaporation, be transported via the atmosphere to fall as snow or rain on some distant mountain peak far from the ocean. This one gram of water might end up back in the ocean, be frozen for a longer period as glacial ice, etc.
I believe the CERES data is quite consistent with ARGO data.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES-BAMS-2008-with-trend-lines1.gif.html?sort=3&o=82
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/vonSchuckmannampLTroan2011-fig5PG_zpsee63b772.jpg.html?sort=3&o=4
Skeptical, Manabe had a fairly nice diagram of the hydrological cycle. Basically, the oceans produce the majority of the 88 Wm-2 latent energy from 70% of the surface which has a rough specific heat capacity of 4 J/kg. Dry soil has a rough specific heat capacity of 1.5 J/kg and wet it can approach 3 J/kg. That is roughly the land amplification, moist energy transferred from the oceans nearly doubles the specific heat capacity.
Captn. Dallas,
Certainly moist soil holds more energy than dry soil due to waters great heat capacity, but I’m not sure what this has to do with ocean energy “amplification”. There’s no energy being amplified, but only moved around in various forms in the Earth system, whether it be in the ocean, in the soil, in the atmosphere or in the biosphere. Increase GH gases, and less of that energy, in whatever form, can escape to space from the system, with the ocean being the primary source of stored solar energy on Earth.
Chief Hydro,
We need to look at the full picture. If you agree that the TOA imbalance is roughly 1 w/m^2, and if you agree that the oceans have likely stored some of that imbalance, then the full picture is simply asking how and where (at what depths?). I’m sure I differ from you in that I think that Trenberth and others who’ve been studying ocean warming trends are likely on to solving at least some of the “missing heat” issue. More interesting to me is how much of the ocean warming is due to natural variation (i.e. PDO, AMO, etc.) and how much is due to increasing GH gases.
Anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing increases by about 0.01 W/m^2/year. All things being equal it causes an increse in temperature and some feedbacks. One of these is the Planck feedback which increases emissions to approximately the fourth power of temperature – reestablishing a conditional equilibrium with incoming energy at a higher temperature. So this 1W/m^2 is not an actual radiant imbalance at any time but an estimate of the forcing increase over a long time that resulted in the temperature increase. Warning – real data follows.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/29/has-trenberth-found-the-missing-heat/#comment-306903
http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/29/has-trenberth-found-the-missing-heat/#comment-306904
Chief Hydro said:
“Anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing increases by about 0.01 W/m^2/year”
_____
Given that the rate of GHG concentration increases in the atmosphere has been growing, even if the 0.01 w/m^2 figure was once accurate (sources and how many years ago please?), it certainly is not a static number at all and I would doubt it being accurate as of today.
If the 1 w/m^2 TOA imbalance is accurate, and if the majority of the imbalance is not due to natural variations, but is anthropogenic in origin (i.e. by altering GHG concentrations), and if the majority of that increase has occurred since about 1960 or so, then that would mean that we’ve been averaging more around 0.02 w/m^2 per year of increase in that imbalance, with probably lower amounts in the 1960’s and 1970’s and higher amounts since the year 2000, and thus the sharp upward spike in ocean heat content since 2000.
The recent Hansen 2013 ERL paper I linked here somewhere puts the current value at 0.04 W/m2 per year, which is more like it.
Which forcings do you want – http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/RadF.gif
These are readily available and you do not need to rely on pious calc’s in the comment box of CE.
The increase in forcing has been roughly linear since at least the 1960s.
If the missing heat was seen in CERES – it seems a trifle disengenuous not to look at the source.
It seems also to be a ittle suspicioue that the big jump at the XBT and ARGO splice occured without an obvious source of energy.
Skeptical, ” There’s no energy being amplified, but only moved around in various forms in the Earth system, …”
If the moving results in a greater impact that expected, I consider that amplification. Part of that amplification over land is due to increases in GHGs, part due to changes in moisture/ice and part due to the longer term ocean oscillations shifting energy toward the northern hemisphere. The GHG portion actually makes a good reference to start figuring magnitude and attribution by comparing zonal “sensitivities”.
The amplification due to changes in meridional and zonal flux caused by ocean pseudo-cycles is the part I find most interesting.
A critical element missing from the sun->ocean->atmosphere->space energy flow is that ocean->atmosphere flows divide between latent and radiative and latent is the path of least resistance. The greenhouse effect is radiative. Additional greenhouse gases restrict the radiative flow of heat from surface to atmosphere. But this is less effective when latent is the path of least resistance and there is water free to evaporate on the surface.
This is analogous to a basin with two drainholes where one is twice the size of the other. Over the ocean the latent drain hole is twice the size of the radiative drain. If you put a restriction in the smaller hole it doesn’t decrease total flow as much as putting a restriction in the larger hole.
Over dry land the situation changes. There are two holes again but now they are radiative and conductive and radiative is the path of least resistance. So if you restrict the larger hole total flow is significantly reduced. The response is different. Where on the ocean evaporation simply increases with no increase in water temperature (insensible heat) over land the surface temperature rises which forces more energy through both radiative and conductive paths.
Failure to disciminate between land and water response to mid-infrared illumination is huge impediment to proper understanding of what’s actually happening and leads to predictions that 15+ year-long hiatuses in global warming won’t happen due to natural variation if CO2 concentration continues rising the whole time. Oopsie. We seem to have misplaced some heat and it’s a travesty we can’t find it. I can tell you where it can be found. It’s in sphere surrounding the earth with a radius of about 50 light years. :-)
This is something tragic/comic in davo’s courageous but simplistic narrative. Long ago and in a galaxy far, far away we all knew that the global average flows of energy from the surface was about 25% evaporation, 17% net IR up and 5% convection. IR up and IR down are quite substantial so this is a defining feature of the coupled atmosphere/surface system. If the temperature of the water increases then evaporation might increase – it is a complex function of wind speed, the relative humidity of the atmosphere, insolation and water temperature. IR up will increase by T to the 4th power. Convection will increase linearly (?). Latent heat becomes sensible heat at the lifted condensation point – some 2 to 14 km high but mostly at the lower levels. It depends on lapse rates and relative humidity.
Over land we have something called evaporatranspiration. Very few areas are vegetation free deserts. Evapotranspiration depends on the water deficit at locations – as well as these other factors of wind speed etc. In rainforest evapotranspiration can be twice the open water evaporation potential. In temperate grasslands it can be 0.6 in winter and 0.9 in summer of open water evaporation. On tundra it can be zero in winter and substantial in summer.
About 90% of the moisture in the air is from evaporation and 10% from evapotranspiration. This travels over land and ocean before dropping out as rain or snow after about 4 days on average.
Both water vapour and carbon dioxide – and both have increased in the troposphere – will decrease the mean free photon path in the atmosphere so that more energy is retained in a warmer atmosphere. A defining feature of the coupled climate system – energy moving in the IR between ocean and atmosphere will result in a warmer ocean.
The only real way that the planet cools or warms is from the energy imbalance at top of the atmosphere. If energy in exceeds energy out then the planet warms and vice versa. One way of moving the planet to a higher energy state is with greenhouse gases. Another is with increased TSI. A third – in the short term – is reduced cloud cover or increased cloud height.
It is very simple at TOA – one or more of these dominated the energy budget of the planet over the first decade of the 21st century. We can expect about 0.1 W/m^2 from greenhouse gases – and about -0.1 W/m^2 from sulphides. TSI changed by about -0.25W/m^2 (effective) in the relevant period. But the ocean seems to have warmed in ARGO – which is all I pay attention to – by 0.55 W/m^2. Hmm – wonder what else changed?
Chief Hydrologist | March 30, 2013 at 12:57 pm | Reply
“One wonders what happened to springers whines about a lack of moderation?”
Here’s what I just wrote:
Here’s what you wrote that was moderated:
Do you understand the difference? No, probably not.
Sure I understand the difference. Mine has style and flair – verbal dexterity and creativity in the context of a nice little flame. I maintain that truth is a defence.
Yours is a tedious and juvenile insult at about the standard of a six year old.
No. Yours is a flaming rant. Mine is a passing reference to a 1994 comedy “Dumb and Dumber” starring Jim Carry and Jeff Daniels. I knew you didn’t know the difference.
Sure I know the difference. Mine is a reference to the ‘smartest dipsh_t in the room syndrome’. A faith in ones ability to pedanticlly and trivially lecture and harangue and the willingness to shout down other voices using insults and bombast.
Yours is a cultural reference that we all understand – that is intended to insult and manages only to be a tired old cliche.
according to Pekka one cannot have IR absorbed by water and have that same water emitting IR at the same time
http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/29/has-trenberth-found-the-missing-heat/#comment-307227
That’s modern physics for you.
This is not what was said.
‘WebHubTelescope | March 29, 2013 at 8:19 pm |
“Chief Hydrologist | March 29, 2013 at 7:31 pm |
It certainly is sloppy thinking we have come to expect from webby. The rediation from the atmosphere is all in that mid range IR that doesn’t penetrate more than 100 or so microns – it is typically outweighed by IR losses from the same thin slice of surface water producing a very thin cold layer on the surface. It is called a skin but is in reality simply a product of the net loss of IR which proceeds faster than the mixing that is constantly changing the water at the surface. All the heat going into the oceans is from the sun.”
This is a completely misguided set of half-truths coming from the schools of FUD and FOO.
if you could find one reference that demonstrates how a mid-range IR photon can directly activate a water molecule to vaporize from the surface, I would be surprised. The photon first turns into thermal energy, as e,g. a vibrational mode, and from there can effectively diffuse to deeper water via eddy currents.
I don’t understand why the Chief always wants to disregard conventional physics. Could it be because the powers of FOO and FUD are too tempting?’
There are far more photons in the IR spectrum leaving the top 100 microns or so than entering it. So the ocean is on average cooling by net IR emissions up. This is understood even by sceptical science – http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=939 – but not it appears by webby who insists on his own physics.
Chief Hydrologist | March 30, 2013 at 1:15 pm | Reply
“There are far more photons in the IR spectrum leaving the top 100 microns or so than entering it.”
Technically true.
“So the ocean is on average cooling by net IR emissions up.”
Not on average. It is cooled to some small extent by IR emission everywhere.
The lion’s share of heat loss is latent.
Again, crack open a textbook on the subject.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter05/Images/Fig5-7.htm
Note QLW (Longwave heat loss) is negative for all latitudes.
Note QL (latent heat loss) is over twice QLW between 30S and 30N and approximately equal elsewhere but elsewhere the numbers for both become so small in comparison as to become negligible.
In fact everything in the global heat budget becomes trivial outside the area between 40S and 40N latitude.
I didn’t see where webby indicated that ocean is warmed by the atmosphere but QS (sensible heat loss) is trivial everywhere and it’s definitely negative everywhere meaning there is no net heating from atmosphere to surface at all and very little conductive heating of the atmosphere from the surface with what little there is generally being in desert areas which puts a couple barely noticeable bumps in the QS curve around 40N and 60N.
Fercrisakes familiarize yourself with this chit before writing about it.
While it is generally true that the oceans are warmer than the atmosphere and net IR up is about 17% of the incoming energy at toa – with evaporation at about 25% and convection at 5% – it remains true that certain atmospheric inversions can in theory locally change the picture. It is for this reason that I said average to account for exceptions to the rule. This is part and parcel of the sort of precision in language that is the natural mode of both poets and scientists. Dogmatic and inflexible statements of a global truth are unlikely to be ever correct – except perhaps in a trivial sense – in a system as far flung and complex as climate. Quoting averages as a proof of average conditions is in fact as trivial as it comes. But we are used to that from you.
The significance of the high latitudes is that energy out exceeds energy in – as energy is transported north and south from the equatorial region. There are far from trivial implications for climate in this most basic process. The numbers are far from trivial as well – which you have obviously not got from eyeballing a single graph of derived averages – which I have seen but not thought to post as some sort of fundamental insight. These are things that are known to anyone with any depth in these issues. They are starting points for neophytes and not any basis of startling conclusions. Your points are trivial and your ideas superficial.
Springer points to this:
The figure says essentially what I am saying, that there is both outgoing IR and latent flux. And this means that some of the excess resides in the top layers and diffuses its way to lower layers, just as everyone from Hansen to Balmaseda have demonstrated.
This is reflected by the simple uncertainty-quantified model of thermal diffusion that I show here:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
I have ‘cracked’ this textbook. As I say it is a place for beginners – and not anything we might see as new or startling.
But what does it mean to you? There are many things to read into it – including energy transport from the equator towards the poles if you understand what it means.
But essentially it just shows a global balance in energy in and energy out accounted for by latitude. If you integrate under the Qsw curve it is equal to the area under the negative curves. Qsw is the shortwave hitting the surface – about 50% of incoming energy. The negative curves are convection, evaporation and conduction – energy leaving the surface.
So all the energy entering the ocean is in the higher frequencies. Well – overwhelmingly so. This is where the heat comes form.
Hansen’s model was ‘box model’ – alternatively a black box model as it is sometimes called in Earth sciences. These do not represent real physical processes and are not intended to. It is done because the real processes are too complex. We might have data from which we can estimate a first order rate constant for pollutant removal for instance. This covers amulitude of sins but at least gives a number you can play with in a simple formula. I can for instance take a literature value and apply it in a different context – assuming that it has a wide error in the new context.
The government-education global warming industry has become a slave to its own calcified expectations of humanities’ inability to overcome adversity through the power of personal liberty and individual achievement. Our school teachers have become impoverished in mind and spirit and masters of nothing of any value to the society that pays their wages.
Springer sez:
“There is no infrared heating of the ocean. It’s heated by shortwave.”
Obviously, the balance is not strictly between between up and down infrared radiation, but rather the balance is between downward visible shorter wavelength radiation, versus upward net infrared and latent heat fluxes. The word NET is very important as infrared will back-reflect and re-emit as many times as the characteristics of the medium demand. If there is difference in the net, then the heat will diffuse downward, as nature abhors arbitrary order.
Is this argument so hard that you need an EE PhD to help you understand it?
Springer, we may need another treatise on your life history to help explain to us what you do or do not know. webby
No it is not an argument I can follow. Net IR is up – everywhere on land and sea. It has to be because SW is down – it heats the surface which cools to the atmosphere and space. I don’t know how this is even an argument. Baby physics for a site supposed to be a grown up site disccussing climate science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Diagram_showing_the_Earth%27s_energy_budget,_which_includes_the_greenhouse_effect_(NASA).png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Diagram_showing_the_Earth%27s_energy_budget,_which_includes_the_greenhouse_effect_(NASA).png
CHIEF
Sorry. Link did not open.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Diagram_showing_the_Earth%27s_energy_budget,_which_includes_the_greenhouse_effect_(NASA).png
Doesn’t like the .png for some reason. It can be copied and pasted into a browser – it is just a cartoon energy budget.
Chief, we all know that you are continuing with your pranking attempts to manipulate the entire discourse. It doesn’t work when you are up against the preponderance of physical arguments that are out there.
The premise is clear that a positive thermal forcing function is being applied to the surface region of the ocean, and we are watching the excess heat diffuse downward.
We have a nice formulation for the one-dimensional (downward) spatio-temporal response here:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
which incidentally is free from any need to invoke the math of chaotic systems which would cause the Chief to hyperventilate over.
So when is the auditing supposed to begin? We are waiting….
We all know nothing of the sort. What is known I am a somewhat serious person with a modicum of knowledge in the Earth sciences – and that you are a self agrandising maniac with delusions of relevance and imaginary physics.
Is this about the 20th time in this post you have linked to this nosensical formulation of heat flow from the atmosphere to the oceans?
Certainly it is free of non-linear coupled chaotic systems. This is just one more area where you diverge from mainstream science into a fantasy world of your own.
Your idea tells us less that we knew before – we lose information that is in the data on ocean heat content. The auditng is over – your idea is worthless, unphysical and trivial.
Sorry for being cranky. I have been following this issue for 3 years and with absolutely no scientific background I felt both sides have demonstrated some semblance of scientific understanding. However, this thread has crystalized for me the concept of the unknown unknowns and illustrated how little our pea sized brains really know. At last count the number of unknown unknowns must be at least 4,378. And as these kinds of debates are played out it, seems to be increasing exponentially. I feel like both sides are just flailing away in a black hole trying to reduce infinite variables into a blackboard exhibition of equations. The issue of climatology just got much more complex for me.
WHT,
I certainly agree that the oceans are gaining energy and certainly think that increasing GHG’s play a big role in that, I can’t quite get my mind around the notion that somehow the laws of thermodynamics would be changed such that heat would flow from atmosphere to ocean. While the result would be the same, it is far more logical IMO in thinking that increased GHG reduce of rate of flow of energy from ocean to atmosphere to space, much like wearing a jacket doesn’t put energy back into your body, but simply reduces how fast your body loses energy to the space outside your jacket.
dennis adams, this article has crystallized one of the main topics that is actually quite simple. The ocean has been gaining energy at a rate of 1 W/m2 over the last decade, and people are pondering where this extra energy came from. It looks a lot like the expected effect from adding CO2.
All of the debate and faux equations tell me otherwise. I think you and others are afraid to admit how little you truly understand and are trying to rationalize with these off the shelf explanations. I bet in 100 years all the scientists will laugh at your statement and its naivete.
Jim D.,
If the TOA imbalance is roughly 1 w/m^2 (and I think that’s a pretty good estimate), then I don’t think it’s been demonstrated that that full imbalance is going into the oceans. We know some has gone into the atmosphere, some has gone into the cryosphere, some into the biosphere, etc. I think the charts that compare ocean heat content versus atmospheric warming do a good job at giving us a pretty good feel for the relative ratios of how much has gone into the oceans versus the other areas:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=46
So yes, the bulk has gone into the oceans (with strong related effects to areas like Arctic sea ice), but not 100% of the 1 w/m^2 TOA imbalance.
TSW, the 1 W/m2 number I mentioned is only from calculating the increase in OHC in the last decade. Coincidentally it matches the imbalance, and the surface temperature hasn’t risen either, so in simple terms we can say the imbalance went into the ocean instead of being offset by any warming, just in this decade which is a special case. Some went into melting sea ice volume, in the tens of percent of the OHC amount by my reckoning. Some may also go into the land heating, but that has a much lower effective capacity on these time scale.
Dennis,
The only way to make sense of things is data. Which is the correct data?
Here is some ocean heat data from ARGO.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/vonSchuckmannampLTroan2011-fig5PG_zpsee63b772.jpg.html?sort=3&o=4
It shows a heat content increase equivalent to an increase in forcing of 0.55W/m^2.
Here is CERES – showing trends – from BAMS which originated the idea of missing warmth. That is CERES was showing a warming trend but the heat as not apparent in the 0-700m ocean heat content.
It shows outgoing infrared, reflected visible light and a net which is upward warming by convention. It suggests a cold bias in ARGO if anything but most of that was in less reflected shortwave = less cloud..
Jim D.,
I’d like to see how you calculated that, as other numbers would indicate something more like 0.5 w/m^2 of energy going into the oceans down to 2000 meters. But none the less, I don’t believe 100% of the TOA imbalance is going into the oceans as certainly temperatures in the atmosphere have been warmer over the past decade than any other decade on record and we’ve seen such a large loss of mass from Greenland, Antarctica, and of course, Arctic Sea ice, that some of the TOA imbalance must be going to effect these changes.
TSW, from the graph we see 15.e22 J added in the last decade. Divide this by 10 years (3.e8 s), and divide this by the surface area of the earth (4*pi*6370e3*6370e3) gives 1 W/m2.
JimD, If you picked 2000 to 2005 you could probably make that even bigger :)
Thanks Jim D. I’ll have to look at that more closely. Every study I’ve seen put the energy going into the top 2000m of the ocean far under 1 w/m^2, even over the past decade. Specifically, Levitus 2012 puts it at about 0.39 w/m^2 down to 2000m. We are talking somewhere around 0.5 x 10^22 joules per year being added to the top 2000 meters, which would be far less than 1 w/m^2 averaged over the planet by my and Levitus’ calculations.
von Schuckmann and Le Troan 2011 – put it at 0.55 +/- 0.10 W/m^2 over their ARGO period.
“The premise is clear that a positive thermal forcing function is being applied to the surface region of the ocean, and we are watching the excess heat diffuse downward”
Cool Web, so we would expect to have more heat the nearer we are to the source of the IR, so the top of the ocean will absorb heat before the water underneath, because that’s the way diffusion and causation are.
However, the oceans at 700 to 300m are warming faster than the top 300-0m; if we take Treberth at his word.
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w318/DocMartyn/deepoceanJPEG_zpsc6585990.jpg
So all Treberth has to explain is how heat, from damp atmospheric CO2,can get below 300m of sea water with interacting with this layer.
LOL … It’s mighty fun to notice that Wagathon and Wendell Berry agree entirely!
As for “ossified” climate-change science, Wagathon’s spirits will be brightened by the recent inhomogeneous scientific opinion relating to climate-change!
This is a healthy, diverse discourse, eh Wagathon?
Fan,
Back on the argo system, vertical heat transport exchange, I have a question for you.
It would help me if you could give your response.
Thank you.
Apparently IR radiation from damp CO2 bypasses the first 300m of seawater and warms up the oceans below this depth. It’s quantum or something.
REPLY POSTED!
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DarrylB!
Again you don’t understand the question – let alone the answer.
You are entirely correct to condemn me, Chief Hydrologist! Shame upon me for failing to recommend:
Wider appreciation of this literature definite will help Climate Etc readers to appreciate that climate-change science, in aggregate, has supplied a solidly affirmative answer to Judith Curry’s question-asked: Has Trenberth found the ‘missing’ heat?
———————-
Answer Yes!!!
———————-
Chief, your comments have been illuminating for everyone. Thank you, Chief Hydrologist!
Having worked as a coastal engineer – you will find that I understand something about waves. I find it more than a little tedious to be reminded again that turbulent eddies propagate both vertically and horizontally. Indeed from the seabed up as currents flow over an uneven seafloor.
But the question – and it is not much of a question – concerned the direction of energy flow in the system.
The Skeptical Warmist | March 30, 2013 at 2:24 pm |
What’s this Gates? Decided to completely ditch any mention of your real name in your handle?
Smart move! I would too if I were you.
I’ve no problem mentioning my “real” name. It simply depends on which computer/ipad I happen to be blogging from. The autofill from each have me as one or the other, and I’m frankly too lazy to worry about such trivial things. But glad you care!
Your friend,
R. Gates, Skeptical Warmist (and a rose by any other name)
Nice try but “Skeptical Warmist” all by itself is new.
This is what you used in the past:
The Skeptical Warmist (aka R. Gates) | November 30, 2012 at 1:27 am |
So you changed from using “R.Gates” to “The Skeptical Warmist (aka R. Gates)” to now just “The Skeptical Warmist”.
Whether this is accidental, on purpose, or even Freudian is a different question. There’s no question you ditched your real name with this latest handle.
David S,
Except of course for this post from just last weekend where I blogged as R. Gates from a different computer:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/22/open-thread-weekend-12/#comment-305561
But of course, you’ll make up whatever fiction you care too. I’ve got no reason to hide or to really care what name I blog under, as those who know me (as proven by your keen observation) know exactly who R. Gates or the Skeptical Warmist is and that they are one in the same.
Fine. Then put (a.k.a. R. Gates) back in your handle like before and I’ll believe you don’t care. Otherwise your actions belie your words. [shrugs]
Kind of a dumb question, but: Has the energy devoted to melting the ice been put into the equation? It would just disappear and not show up in the ocean.
Jim,
Energy going into causing a net change to the cryosphere has absolutely been “put into the equation” in terms of calculation of Earth energy balance. By net change meaning the net volume of ice that is melted each year and is not seasonal (i.e. it never comes back). The three main areas on the planet that show a net change in the cyrosphere are of course Greenland, Arctic sea ice, and Antarctica. Other land glaciers globally are declining (though some are gaining some mass). Overall though, the energy going into the changing the cryosphere is tiny compared to the massive energy going into the oceans each year.
The Skeptical Warmist | March 30, 2013 at 3:58 pm |
“If the TOA imbalance is roughly 1 w/m^2 (and I think that’s a pretty good estimate),”
It’s almost twice Hansen’s estimate.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/11/27031/2011/acpd-11-27031-2011.html
Others have made estimates as well and Hansen falls in the lower end of the range if you keep to his 0.59 number, but he’s getting closer if you accept his upper limit at around .74 w/m2. But if Hansen is correct, then Trenberth has found an even more significant part of that missing heat as did Levitus in his 2012 study which put about 0.39 w/m^2 going into the upper 2000 meters of the ocean.
Hansen/GISS appear to be the gold standard in TOA energy imbalance and I couldn’t find any other more recent estimates.
Indeed, even the SS (skeptica science) who reliably produces the most favorable warmist spin on things displays a graph derived from Murphy 2009 which is in agreement with Hansen.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Energy-Flow.gif
Perhaps you could link to similar charts from reputable sources (I don’t consider SS reputable) that were published in a big name journal like Hansen’s was? Or perhaps you cannot. I’d bet on the latter because you have a history of just making things up but feel free to prove me wrong by posting corroboration.
Hansen blames the Arabs, Pinatubo and the deep solar minimum for the imbalance (read model error) in the energy accounts.
The error in the PMOD data,suggest that the physics are broken ie surface magnetism,or the instrumental divergence in the minima sc22/23 was underestimated.
The obvious problem is that the instrumentation error is the causative mechanism and it does seem to be the case and the 22/23 minimum is the same as 23/24.This increases the amplitude of the solar cycle and the accompanying uncertainty to> 1wm^2 at the TOA.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.3077v1.pdf
Springer keeps on feeding us links that destroy his argument.
I could take Hansen’s Figure 1b of effective forcing and use it in my formulation for diffusive response and essentially recreate Balmaseda’s curves. All I have to do is replace the analytical convolution I have spelled out here, with a numerical one and out pops the result.
Pretty dang cool. Thanks mucho, Sarge Springer.
And all this stuff that Captain and Chief talk about with respect to regional and chaotic effects is smokescreen in comparison to the significant macro effects such as CO2 or volcanic disturbances that tend to blanket the earth. This allows some of the simple uncertainty-quantified formulations that I have devised to work so well.
Would a fake skeptic care? Probably not, as none of the skeptics want to think big picture science, but instead want to drive home the FOO and FUD.
I could take Hansen’s Figure 1b of effective forcing and use it in my formulation for diffusive response and essentially recreate Balmaseda’s curves.
Oh dear look at the forcing for the Krakatoa excursion, now find the signal in the instrumental record it aint there.
Indeed, as I have said before, Pinatubo is a subtle effect: we can detect it. The 11-year solar cycle is a subtle effect: we can detect it. The CO2 effect is larger than both these: we can obviously also detect it and measure it as being larger. Arguments saying it is too chaotic to see anything ignore what we can see already.
Webster, ” CO2 or volcanic disturbances that tend to blanket the earth.” More like should blanket the Earth. Volcanic impact in the northern hemisphere is disproportionately larger. Doing “global” fits is just part of the process. Since the Atlantic SST has a good correlation with “global” land only and OHC you can start focusing on the longer term oscillations using CO2 and volcanic forcing to narrow attribution ranges. That longer term, ~150 year trend is between 0.4 and 0.7 C. That may be all antropogenic, but that is rather unlikely.
That is why I am looking more into GFDL papers and Manabe’s estimates that appear to be much more accurate than Hansen’s. Using a moist air boundary layer, you have another frame of reference to use that doesn’t require the same assumptions.
Kaplan has a non-detrend AMO data set that is really just the North Atlantic from 20N to 70N. One of the regions with more and generally better long term data. Since it correlates well with “global” land surface temperature because most of the “global” land is influenced by the north Atlantic, you might think about expanding you analytically horizons at looking at the natural variability, like Manabe.
BTW Webster, since you figured out that entropy is 50%, if you consider the saturated abiabatic lapse rate is 5C per kilometer and that the average SST from 50S to 50N is ~20C, the moist atmospheric bounday layer is roughly 4.4 kilometers. That forms a roughly isothermal envelope with at temperature of about -1.9 C and an S-B equivalent energy of ~307Wm-2. What percentage of the environmental lapse rate is due to that moist air envelope?
See this is what I am saying – http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/7860/ohc.gif – you take a data series with a lot of intrinsic variability and create smooth curves. Less information than in the original – so a pointless exercise.
I have quoted Tsonis many times on the climate shifs around 1910, 1945, 1976 and 1998 resulting from climate being a coupled nonliear chaotical system. Like it or not this is mainstream science for everyone from the IPCC to realclimate. It is associated with changes in cloud and/or ocean heat dynamics. Here are the ‘subtle’ changes in Mt Pinatubo and the 1998/2001 shift seen in ISCCP-FD shortwave up. There is not a chance we can find a 0.01 W/m^2/year change from greenhouse gases in this chaotic ‘noise’.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/SWupnotes_zps3f1ab841.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0
CH, CO2’s effect is nearly 2 W/m2 and growing at 0.04 W/m2 per year. This is half canceled by the extra upward IR due to surface warming that has already taken place and the other half is going into the OHC at the moment. These magnitudes are measurable and getting more accurate with each new piece of data on emissions, radiation, and OHC.
I was being geneous.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/RadF.gif
The changes in the ISCCP-FD record was a 0.7W/m^2 cooling in the IR between the early 80’s and late 90’s and 2.1 W/m^2 warming in SW. The Mt Pinatubo change was several Watts in a couple of years.
Yes we are getting better at measuring – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/AdvancesinUnderstandingTop-of-AtmosphereRadiationVariability-Loebetal2011.png.html?sort=3&o=15#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/AdvancesinUnderstandingTop-of-AtmosphereRadiationVariability-Loebetal2011.png.html?sort=3&o=15&_suid=1364695186516049193700203623736
The big story is the ‘noise’ – and I don’t mean from the warministas.
Wow, this turned out pretty cool. Like JimD said, the effects of a subtle Pinatubo come out clearly in the OHC.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hHs8FuF7SWY/UVe39CUosSI/AAAAAAAADYs/i7RVxRx6wmE/s1600/hansen_forcing_diffusive_response.GIF
This links to a plot of OHC using the effective forcing described by Hansen 2011**. Instead of using a ramp forcing function which gives the analytical result I presented earlier, a realistic forcing (which takes into account perturbations due to volcanic events) is numerically convolved with the diffusive response function, I(t).
Note that the volcanic disturbances are clearly visible in the response, although they do not show as sharp a transient decrease after the events, perhaps half of what Balmaseda show. The suppression due to the 1997-1998 El Nino is also not observable, but that of course is not a effective forcing and so won’t appear.
** J. Hansen, M. Sato, P. Kharecha, and K. von Schuckmann, “Earth’s energy imbalance and implications,” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, vol. 11, no. 24, pp. 13421–13449, Dec. 2011.
So I add the effective forcing from Hansen, and all I hear from the prankster is crickets.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hHs8FuF7SWY/UVe39CUosSI/AAAAAAAADYs/i7RVxRx6wmE/s1600/hansen_forcing_diffusive_response.GIF
Chief is all talk and no action.
Here’s the forcing – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/AdvancesinUnderstandingTop-of-AtmosphereRadiationVariability-Loebetal2011.png.html?sort=3&o=16#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/AdvancesinUnderstandingTop-of-AtmosphereRadiationVariability-Loebetal2011.png.html?sort=3&o=16&_suid=1364771874678068099114058673
Here’s the ocean response – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/vonSchuckmannampLTroan2011-fig5PG_zpsee63b772.jpg.html?sort=3&o=6
Now you just have to figure out why. Here’s one clue for free –
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/HOU2011-cloudandENSO.png.html?sort=3&o=22#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/HOU2011-cloudandENSO.png.html?sort=3&o=22&_suid=1364773279452034723950358708455 –
A seasonal scale analysis correlating total cloud amount anomalies with ENSO over the tropical Pacific – Hou, Meiting; Yan, Xiaodong – 2011
Let me know when you do something that isn’t trivial and incorrect in principle and practice.
Chief’s recipe
1. Spew
2. Link to chart with no context
3. More spew
4. Link to more charts with no context
5. A parting gift of spew
6. Take a nap
The first chart is from Norman Loeb at al 2012 – the NASA CERES team – Advances in understanding… The chart speaks for itself and is the latest analysis I am aware off – and you can google the study from the title – which I try to keep in the file name.
The second is from Karina von Schuckmann and Le Traon 2011 – and is the latest methodology for ARGO interpretation. Again the chart is quite obvious – but here’s some guidance that you will fail to read or understand – http://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/guidance/ocean-heat-content-10-1500m-depth-based-argo
The third is from a recent paper on cloud in the tropics and ENSO – http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011ThApC.103..471H – TCA is total cloud amount. You just have to ask.
Again – you show that you are well out of your natural depth and spout inanities for some bizarre reason that I care not to know.
I hope Web’s napping.
=========
A seasonal scale analysis correlating total cloud amount anomalies with ENSO over the tropical Pacific
Hou, Meiting; Yan, Xiaodong
Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Volume 103, Issue 3-4, pp. 471-478
http://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/guidance/ocean-heat-content-10-1500m-depth-based-argo
OK, the number of 0.54 is a little bit lower than Lyman of 0.64, which is also about the value I get from my model. The ocean is picking up approximately 1/2 of the effective forcing over the last 20 years.
Good – now you have to realis that the series started in 2003 and that everything before that is questionable – especially the splice – and that the measured forcing was not even close to a constant 1 W/m^2 – and that modelling a data series is certifiable lunacy.
The missing heat. Gosh, it’s gone astray.
Where was the missing heat in 1953? Were was it in 1893?
Did they go searching for it in the depths of the ocean all those years ago? I mean, if it’s gone missing now, it must have gone missing before. Check out the graph:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1880
Did they go searching in the depths of the ocean? I don’t think so. They had actual problems to concentrate on in those days. As opposed to the insane boredom-induced twitterati-style paranoia of today.
A thing of beauty!
http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/03/17/dailymail_rose_tempgraph.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg
And the same thing now appears in The Economist.
http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/290-width/images/print-edition/20130330_STC334_1.png
This graph is from climate scientist Ed Hawkins at the University of Reading.
Thanks Ed! Such candor is rare in climate science and is much appreciated!
When the press scent blood they are merciless. When the number of dead old people in the UK, dead from fuel poverty induced chronic and acute hypothermia, starts to hit home the press will actually talk to people who aren’t in the team.
Anyone with an ounce of knowledge of epidemiology knows the whole fuel poverty malarky is mythical.
Chronic and acute hypothermia deaths in the UK?
They number perhaps a dozen a year in the published record, not even a rounding error and impossible to blame on ‘fuel poverty’.
Though this has never stopped the press from saying it is so.
More people die in winter, but not in the coldest winter months; more people die in winter in hot climates than in cold climates as a proportion of annual deaths.
What is the principle culprit in this seasonal shift?
Virus, which as we have known for far more than a century is not caused spontaneously by dropping temperature, but rather by tendency of people to remain close together and indoors in some seasons. And no amount of fuel is going to change that behavior.
Wash your hands. Cough into your sleeve. Don’t spread microbes.
Any competent medical practitioner or scientist could tell you that.
Whether true or not ultimately doesn’t matter. Those fake dying polar bears helped galvanize the world around CAGW, along with the fraudulent hockey stick. Once the press picks it up, it’s a good as real…
A few more cold european winters might just be the beginning of the end…
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/361382/20-000-pensioners-died-from-the-cold-last-winter
Hey, as long as they didn’t die expressly from hypothermia, who cares if they died? Ahh the warm fuzzy feelings of progressives.
One has to admire the Social Darwinism for Bart, food and warmth have no effect on human (patho)physiology.
http://endfuelpoverty.org.uk/
Bart R sneers at fuel poverty. That’s pretty cold carma.
===============
I despise having to go through this every year with people who should know better.
Acute and chronic hypothermia deaths in the UK, 2012:
Reported by The Express: 60,000.
Reported by the Daily Mail: 9 per hour.
Reported by the Telegraph: 260.
All of these statistics are grossly inflated.
Where do the first two statistics come from? Typically, ‘excess winter deaths’, the number of deaths from all causes that happen in the UK during the winter as an average, subtracting half the annual UK average, which is around 25,000-26,000.
There is zero correlation of this excess winter death with fuel price, general poverty levels, ratio of fuel price to general prices. Excess seasonal deaths happen everywhere in the world, and generally more in warmer regions than in colder. There is no qualified medical mechanism — even chronic hypothermia, which is less than ONE PERCENT of all excess winter death — associating the bump with fuel prices.
And let’s be clear, when people claim “fuel poverty” they mean only to justify fuel subsidy, which is the worst economic way to address even the tiny number of hypothermia deaths.
Why? Because to die of chronic hypothermia, you must generally be predisposed by malnutrition, weak condition, infirmity, and generally substance abuse figures into around 40% of such deaths. These are the deaths that happen when economic hardship squeezes the most deprived and forces them to the edges of the economy. Which we know is made worse when subsidies are given to special interests.
I’m arguing against hurling around the term “fuel poverty” not because I want to see people suffer and die, but because tossing around the term with such poor comprehension will cause _more_ to suffer and die.
Once upon a time, “fuel poverty” could and did kill many thousands in winter. This happened during the LIA and the MWP alike. But in Socialist Great Britain in the past century? Not even remotely close.
And in the USA? The figures are even better, around one third the hypothermia mortality, even in Minnesota or Michigan or Alaska.
BartR
If fuel price is more expensive people have less to spend on other things like food, clothes, shelter, and medicine. They also stress over not having enough money to pay bills and stress itself kills. It’s not complicated. Economic deprivation kills in a great many ways and artificially inflated fuel prices causes economic deprivation amongst the most economically vulnerable which, sadly, makes old people on fixed incomes a prime target.
Now far be it from me to say you’re a bad person because you don’t care about old people but… oh what the hell… you’re a bad person BartR!
Hypothermia is not the only way extremely cold temperatures cause death. Any more than heat exposure is the only way extreme heat causes death.
And it is simply dishonest to pretend otherwise.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/494582_2
“Cold-related deaths are far more numerous than heat-related deaths in the United States, Europe, and almost all countries outside the tropics, and almost all of them are due to common illnesses that are increased by cold. Coronary and cerebral thrombosis account for about half of the cold-related deaths and respiratory disease for about half the rest. Cold stress causes the increase in arterial thrombosis because the blood becomes more concentrated, and so more liable to clot, during exposure to cold.”
BartR,
When you challenge the hypothermia deaths in UK and US because the bogus statistics take a .0000x% multiplied by the Y xE10 population be consistent. Remember the EPA calculations of death reductions by increasing air regulations of .000x% multiplied by Y xE10 population. These are phony estimate statistics used by both sides.
Scott
David Springer | March 31, 2013 at 2:39 am |
Here, let me fix it for you so you don’t sound like a Socialist or alarmist:
If other things like food, clothes, shelter, and medicine are all more expensive due wasteful government subsidy on _some_ inefficient energy alternatives, people have less to spend on all things, especially if their right to be paid by those who use their resources has been squashed by an uncaring and corrupt government.
They also stress over having their freedom and choice in the Market diminished and their property stolen and stress itself injures. It’s not complicated. Government subsidy and failure to privatize kills in a great many ways and artificially protected select fuel prices coupled with failure to return dividends for Carbon Cycle use to all owners causes economic deprivation amongst the most economically vulnerable which, sadly, makes old people on fixed incomes a prime target.
Now far be it from me to say you’re a Socialist alarmist because you advocate more government meddling… oh what the hell… you’re a commie pinko, David Springer!
GaryM | March 31, 2013 at 2:40 am |
Hypothermia is not the only way extremely cold temperatures cause death. Any more than heat exposure is the only way extreme heat causes death.
NOT ONE OF WHICH ARTIFICIALLY LOWERED FUEL PRICE FIX.
We know this, because the tendency for excess seasonal death is most pronounced in warm places than cold, either within the USA or globally. We know this because there is zero correlation of fuel price to these trends in mortality. We know this because economists know that to artificially lower the price of any one commodity by subsidy costs any Market — and most especially those with least bargaining power — more overall, is contractionary, blocks innovation and cannot be a long term solution.
Heck, fuel subsidy doesn’t even reduce the cost of staying warm: the bulk of it goes to moving big vehicles vast differences at high speeds: how does this help the poor? The bulk of chronic cold comes from being deprived decent shelter: how does increasing tax on all things provide shelter to the most vulnerable? How does a subsidy on obsolete forms of energy help deliver better energy overall?
You want to help the vulnerable? Respect that the Carbon Cycle is a property, and respect the property rights of the vulnerable. Enforce a government standard for measuring Carbon Cycle use, enforce collection of the fee from lucrative users of the Carbon Cycle, and deliver dividends to the owners — including the vulnerable.
Scott | March 31, 2013 at 10:11 am |
Okay, clearly you’re a guy with an EPA hobby horse you like to take out and whip..
Statistics might put a hair up your nose, but unless you have something coherent to say about them, maybe best to say nothing. The probability of that approaches unity, based on statistics.
Bart R,
Now you should just stick to minimizing the importance of tens of thousands of deaths. Then you simply sounds as callous and arrogant as any other progressive. When you try to talk about economics, you just get all flustered and sound…well…silly, is the nicest way I can put it.
Happy Easter, including to all you atheistic heathens.
GaryM | March 31, 2013 at 11:15 am |
Says the guy exploiting the suffering his own plan causes others.
Show us the economic case for subsidy, in strict Economics terms.
Show us the numbers that support this case.
Prove this absurd claim you make.
Bart R,
You need to pick a term and stick with it instead of making them up as you go along. The absence of a tax is not a subsidy, to anyone who uses words as they are actually defined. I am aware that as a progressive, you embrace the Orwellian redefinition of the language. But make up your mind.
From “pricing” to “rent” to a “CO2 budget” to now “subsidies,” your various attempts to repackage the progressive, redistributive tax you are so desperate to be paid the proceeds of, are still a tax. Pick one nonsensical term for your desire to take other people’s money and keep it for yourself, and then I’ll be happy to tell you why your idea is in fact extremely regressive.
But not today. I’ve got to go hide Easter eggs. Sorry, “spring festival eggs” for the PC among you.
GaryM | March 31, 2013 at 1:41 pm |
If you have trouble keeping up with climate changes, play closer attention.
See, I get something from Climate Etc. It’s a breeding ground for ideas, and a natural environment for their swift evolution. All the profuse emissions by the anthropenic sources at CE are bound to perturb old equilibria and force new states of understanding.
If you can’t or won’t adapt, I have lately been wrongly accused of Social Darwinism, so I’m not shy of suggesting maybe it might be applicable in this instance.
Bart r says “Show us the economic case for subsidy, in strict Economics terms.”
The low hanging crop of energy subsidies, seems to have increased 693b-1.9 trillion a bumper crop in the realm of peak money
http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2013/032713.htm
Godless hordes I call them Gary. Barbarians inside the citadel of enlightenment.
‘There is light within a man of light, and he lights the whole world. If he does not shine, there is darkness.’
Obscurantism-r-bart.
maksimovich | April 1, 2013 at 3:36 am |
I’m always chagrined when a head of the IMF not only argues my position ably and clearly, supported with colored slides and competently accurate historical references and theory, but also sounds reasonable while doing it.
It means I have to go back over everything and redo it until I don’t agree with him in some token way.
David
We are almost there.
Now even they are acknowledging the plateau in the global warming.
Yes that was a beautiful chart that compares observation with IPCC’s predictions:
http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/290-width/images/print-edition/20130330_STC334_1.png
Two explanations spring to mind as to the precise mechanism by which heat can be transferred to sub 700m depths without affecting the waters above.
It is well recognised that anthropogenic CO2 is much deadlier than its naturally produced sibling. The reason for this is clear; ACO2 is actually graphene dioxide(TM) and nano-tubes of this substance act as highly effective EM radiation pipes.
The other explanation is that it would be a travesty if the ‘Lost Heat’ didn’t exist in the first place!
Jim Tour at Rice is the worlds foremost expert on carbon nanotubes and graphene oxides. However the vast majority of people here would reject his work, >400 paper and just under 40 patents, as Jim is not only born-again but is also a Creationist.
So make sure that you keep away from all the nanovectors based on buckeyballs and nanotubes.
I stood in line waiting to vote for Obama with three of his students.
Richard Smalley of Rice, Nobel laureate and inventor of the buckyball was a popular Peak Oil lecturer before he died.. Rice still has his pages up. Smalley would laugh at most of the ridiculous skeptic stuff going on.
‘“Energy is the single most important challenge facing humanity today.
As we peak in oil production and worry about how long natural gas will last, life must go on. Somehow we must find the basis for energy prosperity for ourselves and the rest of humanity for the 21st century. By the middle of this century we should assume we will need to at least double world energy production from its current level, with most of this coming from some clean, sustainable, CO2-free source.
For worldwide peace and prosperity it must be cheap.
We simply cannot do this with current technology. We will need revolutionary breakthroughs to even get close.
I am an American scientist brought up in the Midwest during the Sputnik era, and like so many of my colleagues in the US and worldwide, I am a technological optimist. I think we can do it. We can find “the New Oil”, the new technology that provides the massive clean, low cost energy necessary for advanced civilization of the 10 billion souls we expect to be living on this planet before this century is out.
Electricity will be the key.’
Yes we agree. We are technological optimists and we believe in ‘new oil’. The refusal to countenance growth, development and human progress is not ours.
Falling of the scale!
Global mean temperature:
http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/290-width/images/print-edition/20130330_STC334_1.png
Given we are talking about ocean warming I thought this paper from 2012 would be interesting to people.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00148.1?journalCode=clim
It looks at ocean warming with respect to heat flux and comes to an interesting conclusion. They see warming as a result of a slow down in the loss of heat from the ocean rather than an increase in energy entering it. Suggesting it’s ocean stratification rather than warming from GHG forcing that is dominating ocean warming.
HR,
The results of that study and others make it clear that the downwelling fluxes, both SW and LW, going into the ocean decreased by -3 w/m^2 while the net heat content (at the sea surface) increased by about 6 w/m^2. Thus, while less energy was going into the ocean (due to natural variation) far less still was going out of the ocean, allowing heat content to increase. What this destroys is any notion that somehow LW was warming the ocean and being transferred downward. What this study does not take into account is the even greater heat content increases down to 2000m and below. This is important.
As I’ve been pointing out, it is the alteration of the thermal gradient between ocean and space via greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere that is the only logical and thermodynamically supportable position. The Net flow of energy on this planet is always from ocean to atmosphere. Putting a jacket on does not transfer heat from the jacket to your body, but reduces the flow of heat from your warmer body to the colder air outside the jacket. Put on a thicker jacket and the flow decreases. Increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is no different in overall effect, even if the specifics are different.
Beautiful. Does putting on a jacket change the temperature of the human within?
=====
R. Gates, Yep. The resistance to heat loss to space is not the same from the equator north as it is from the equator south. A shift in the ocean thermal “equator” or ITCZ if you prefer, changes the rate of heat loss.
That is why Volcanic forcing has a larger impact on surface temperatures in the NH than in the SH. The difference in land/ocean surface area amplifies the impact of changes in forcing.
Brierley et al have a paper on the relative importance of meridional and zonal energy flux, http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1324186/ that estimates meridional changes due to the Drake Passage produced about 3.2 C of climate change. You can compare current merdional flux values from the Reynolds SST data and come up with about the same surface impact.
The deep oceans though have a much longer time constant.
Kim
Please send jacket you mention urgently. STOP. Coldest Easter Sunday on Record here in UK. STOP Record only 350 years old so no need to panic yet STOP. Will leave panicing to those who can’t afford our greatly increased energy costsSTOP Please stop our mad politicans increasing them further STOP Please send Fracking experts Urgently STOP When will cold weather stop. STOP.
your cold British friend
Tonyb
Tony, that only counts as anecdotal evidence. After a few years, after the data is ‘corrected’ the anomaly will be +0.45 degrees
Gates, You might find this interesting. When Dr. Curry mentions shifts in the Pacific circulation, you can just about pick any number. Considering the oceans as a whole, you can look to a shift by comparing latitude bands.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-iW-Em2W36Fk/UVg4w2ai_fI/AAAAAAAAHqI/yhxLPwGdInI/s797/40%252045%2520comparison%2520of%2520seasonal%2520cycles.png
That is the change is the seasonal cycle of 40 to 45 north and south from the first half of the satellite era to the last. The north has a warming trend with July/August the peak and the south has a February/March peak. That would tend to support a solar/cloud forcing change, pretty much like the other satellite data suggests.
The average change in the SH is 0.1 C going negative and the average change in the NH is 0.3C going positive, but with the increase in SSW event intensity, which appears to be cyclic, that trend is likely to reverse to some degree. At least Tonyb appears to be experiencing some reversal.
If you look at very long term differences in the Atlantic SST there is some indication that these pseudo-oscillations are not that uncommon.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-BFHNuJM8qm8/UVYZqjStgtI/AAAAAAAAHpU/6jphBeRewXw/s912/45N%2520to%2520pole%2520tdo%2520%2520bintanja%2520with%2520Kim%2520and%2520Ruehlmann.png
Tomas and Chief might even mention that recurrent patterns in chaotic systems tend to repeat on many time scales providing hints of the future but no guarantees of future performance.
Selvam also has some interesting thoughts on self-organizing criticality. Since all the temperature data is cyclic oscillations smoothed just to build a somewhat stable “average”, the shift in each of those oscillations tends to be ignored. That could lead to a tad of over confidence on a large variety of time scales :)
Doc
You’re right. I’m feeling warmer already.
tonyb
Now, that’s beautiful, D.
==============
Tony, I’ve almost finished knittin’ the sweater I promised yew
made from pure merino wool from the land down under. Jest
one sleeve ter go.
Beth of many names.
Tony,
Sorry for your nasty weather. Same dynamics that are freezing you are bringing warmer temperatures to Greenland. That darn high pressure over the pole that started with that darn SSW back in January. Pesky things!
R Gates
Your concern is noted but can you do something practical like finishing off the sleeve that Beth is knitting for me?
In the meantime, you can clarify why one third of the Globe is cooling. Britain is part of that third and our temperature has dropped like a stone for a decade.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
Of course with our 350 year old instrumental record (usefully extended to 1538) we surely know that this is nothing but yet another periodic downturn. Do you agree our downturn over the last decade is natural variabilty or perhaps we had a bubble of Co2 over us that drifted away a decade ago?
tonybbbbbb
Tony, if I knew how to knit, I’d send you an entire sweater myself.
You can blame the January SSW for your woes this year, but look out for Hekla:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/03/alert-status-raised-at-icelands-hekla/
If it goes off in a big way, very bad for you Brits! Your current cold March might seem to be a fond memory and there will be a few years of migration out of Britain. A minor eruption will just cause travel issues though.
climatereason | March 31, 2013 at 11:27 am |
Your concern is noted but can you do something practical like finishing off the sleeve that Beth is knitting for me..
I can do something practical, but for you to benefit I’d have to have done it four decade ago.
Most of the contribution to warmth is from shelter, not artificial heating. Four walls and a roof will get a person within a few degrees of comfortable living; the higher the quality of the domicile, the nearer to livable without any radiant source other than the occupant, even in the bitterest dark of winter’s full fury. The Inuit know this well.
In 1972, the UK passed into its building code some of the strongest standards in Europe for insulation and sealing drafts. From that point forward, building inspectors could fail a builder for not meeting this standard, requiring immediate repair.
The vast majority of housing for people in the UK has been built or so substantially renovated in the past four decades as to be regulated by this standard.
So there is no reason for most people in the UK to need much by way of home heating, in the vision of lawmakers in 1972.
What went wrong? What could I, or you, or they, have fixed 40 years ago?
Well, see, the building inspectors never enforced the freaking standard.
The UK would have 12% lower demand for home heating energy than today if they had. That translates to 6% drop in fossil fuel demand, which we know can lead to almost 20% drop in fuel price.
The best time to plant an oak tree is 40 years ago. The second best time is today. Go after your government to enforce, and strengthen, its building standards; you won’t get the same bang for the buck in 40 years from now that you would’ve if you’d started 40 years ago, but it still makes sense.
And until you do, complaining about the price of fuel is simply highlighting the irrationality of the British.
R gates
I am sure Beth could show you how to knit the sleeve on my sweater but before she does perhaps you can answer my question ? One years ssw might be fine, but this decine in temperstures stretches back a decade.
Thanks for the heads up on hekla , I will be in Iceland in ten days time and hoped to do some sea ice research
Tonyb
Bart
My house was built in 1972 to the correct standards and I have the certificates that show it. The standards were woefully inadequate and weren’t brought up to reasonable levels until five years ago.
When I saw the temperature downturn coming Five years ago i went with great difficulty into our under house and inserted rock wool- the type made from plastic bottles-between the joists. A task I repeated the following year when the temperatures declined further. I also tripled the insulation in our loft, put triple thickness curtains up, covered the wooden floors with carpets sitting on the thickest underlay on the market and changed our front door for a thick wood and double glazed version.We also have a new boiler and thermostatic valves on each radiator.
Why am I being irrational about being concerned that my fuel bills have doubled whilst temperatures plummet and we close down perfectly good power stations with nothing to replace them but idealistiic green dreams?
Tonyb
“That translates to 6% drop in fossil fuel demand, which we know can lead to almost 20% drop in fuel price.”
———————————————————————-
The recession has led to a much greater than 6% drop in fossil fuel demand, but the only way the fuel price has been going is UP!
Tony B, asks (related to the cool British temperatures of the past decade):
Do you agree our downturn over the last decade is natural variabilty or perhaps we had a bubble of Co2 over us that drifted away a decade ago?
——-
Volcanoes, sleepy sun, shifting jet stream…some combination thereof. Meanwhile, the Atlantic basin has seen some of the largest increases in ocean heat content of any basin, and no small part of that energy is slipping right past your wonderful British Isles, heading north to contibute to the decline in Arctic sea ice.
Tonyb | March 31, 2013 at 2:45 pm |
I applaud you for upgrading your home; I ought point out that certification in 1972 meant nothing, because building inspectors were allowed to certify domiciles so long as most categories met the code.
They had discretion, and their discretion was determined by the choices builders made; once a builder met enough other standards, they could thumb their noses at insulation and air leakage rules entirely.
Do you happen to know the U-value (generally an American would use R-value), of your home before you upgraded, compared to now?
gates,
Your explanation here is pretty bad. I doubt you can turn that verbiage into an equivalent analytical or computational model. That is the only way to pass the smell test.
The press is fickle, and of course like anything else is driven by self-interest. For a long time, the narrative has been broiling summers, killer droughts, super hurricanes, melting glaciers, inundated coastlines, and drowning polar bears…
But scary stories are like drugs… they have to get scarier and scarier to have the desired effect. Predictably the public seems increasingly bored as none of these things seem to be happening.
Prepare for a radical switch in coverage. Stories about climate scientists being wrong after all are spectacular in a different way. I don’t think it will be long before the MSM is all over that. One paper breaks ranks, then another, then another. We’re already beginning to see that, especially in europe..
Nobody wants to be left behind, except perhaps for the NYT’s who might well prefer to destroy itself than ever admit they might have been wrong..
Some sort of ‘Tipping point’ then, where the people have had enough and get angry instead of shrugging it off.
Great Britain and Australia neck and neck in the stretch, but Australia will win because their finish line is closer.
============================
At the get-go bias, mistake, surprise and regret is built in to every GCM.Even as the Left uses up more and more resources in a futile attempt to overcome ‘rational ignorance,’ their mono-causal belief about CO2 dooms them to natural ignorance:
“The multidimensionality of all but the simplest phenomena imply that ignorance is commonplace and also that ignorance does not automatically diminish as sample size or experience, per se, increases. Rational ignorance can be reduced by gathering information about variables known to exist, but about which one had previously gathered no information. Reducing natural ignorance requires the discovery of previously unknown variables. In sampling terms, reducing natural ignorance requires tabulating previously unknown characteristics of the potential sample at hand.”
Roger D. Congleton, Coping with Unpleasant Surprises in a Complex World: Is Rational Choice Possible in a World with Positive Information Costs? (June 2011)
We may be on the eve of being surprised. There will be regrets when Western civilization realizes it wasted so much on GCMs that are designed to fail because they simply ignore so many important variables. For example, over the last 1000 years there has been several periods of protracted global cooling –i.e., the Oort, Wolf, Sporer, Maunder and Dalton minima — all associated with long periods of low solar activity. We may well be at the beginning of just such a period today, in the current period of low solar activity.
“We may be on the eve of being surprised.”
Well, the warmed ocean may dump a lot of snow. Good news for people
who like to ski, bad news for those required to shovel the “global warming”
off their driveway.
Trenberth is still looking for the heat and says god-knows where it is… and, you apparently found it. Surprising.
Living on the eve of
being surprised, living
literally on the littoral.
Though we may not be aware
of it, its on the record,
Oorts and Maunders, rise
and fall of empires,
next year’s likelihood
of super epidemic. More
things in heaven and earth,
Horatio, or in the deep sea
depths..may be, though not
perhaps Trenberth’s missing heat.
Oorts and Maunders – merchants of doom by appointment to the White Queens of Oxford St – with a vision statement of – 10 impossible things before breakfast or I’ll bust darls.
I wanna feel the heat with somebody
Yeah I wanna dance with somebody
With somebody who loves me
Oh I wanna dance with somebody
I wanna feel the heat with somebody
Yeah I wanna dance with somebody
With somebody who loves me
Wag,
We haven’t wasted too much yet on GCMs since they are computer studies by a group of scientists. We wasted some funds but not as much as if we try to reduce the % carbon in the sky. Especially without China and India reducing coal power plants. I recall a paper that estimated a 500 MW power plant in those areas being built almost weekly for 50 a year. Lots of better ways to spend money but studying climate and GCMs may be useful someday when they can predict things that can be measured or estimated.
Scott
1200 coal plants planned worldwide, Germany plans 23, and Great Britain is decommissioning them because it’s gotten so tropical there.
=================
No regrets then about the sacrifice of individual liberty on the altar of liberal Utopia because you wnere mistake? No regrets about not appreciating the fact the Founders know a lot more than you ever imagined before it was too late, all because you thought school teachers would save the world and because you trusted politicians? None of our ancestors were led to survival by high priests in green robes with computer models chanting anti-energy and anti-food slogans.
Reading material for Wag: Childhood’s End’ by Arthur C. Clarke.
===============
Also invisibleserfscollar.com
====================
Wag,
Pretty much agree to fund science to study climate as long as we don’t spend much trying to implement carbon trading or other unproven technology. That is expensive. Trying to learn about the GCM climate projections vs climate measurements are useful if not accurate yet. You made a comment some time ago, I think it was you, that when they can predict a storm, drought or El Nino Southern Oscillation a year in advance it will be very useful. Just like Faraday figuring out electromagnetisum in the early 20th century. As he said when a lady asked him what good is this electro magnitism, he replied some thing like, Madam, what good is a young baby. So funding for science exploration can be ok but not for technology implementation. So somewhat agree with you but more flexible on spending for science.
Scott
‘The suppression due to the 1997-1998 El Nino is also not observable, but that of course is not a (sic) effective forcing and so won’t appear.’ webby
I have linked a couple of times to a graph that uses annual ocean heat values to show IHC increasin to the peak of the El Nino in early 1998. Wong et al 2006 uses this to show that changes ‘ in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data’ . (IPCC 3.4.4.1)
Let’s try some different data – http://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/guidance/ocean-heat-content-10-1500m-depth-based-argo
‘CERES data show that clouds have a net radiative warming influence during La Nina conditions and a net cooling influence during El Nino, but the magnitude of the anomalies varies greatly from one ENSO event to another.’ (Advances in Understanding Top-of-Atmosphere Radiation Variability from Satellite Observations – Norman G. Loeb et al 2012) The quantum of these changes are much more influential than energy transfer between ocean and atmosphere.
Although there are obvious cloud changes with ENSO that are hugely significant – and thus is cloud radiative forcing – it seems to be complicated.
We can see in ARGO a warm ocean in the 2008/09 La Nina – but there is a record long trend in cloud that seems significant – or at least the source of Kevin’s missing energy. I wonder if there is a reward?
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_MODIS-1.gif.html?sort=3&o=52#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES_MODIS-1.gif.html?sort=3&o=52&_suid=136471566786601256347041852955
Decadal variability of cloud that is highly significant was seen in the earlier ERBS and ISCCP-FD data.
When the jellyfish left they said ‘Thanks for all the jellyfish’.
========================
er, H/t SwiBo et QI.
==============
Trenberth’s focus on missing heat and radiative balance has to be seen in the light of the concluding comments in my new article because all radiative (and non-radiative) slowing of surface cooling, and even energy imbalance, missing heat etc are marginal effects. Some will think that what I am saying has been successfully rebutted, but that is not the case: you will find a section with counter arguments in the February 2013 paper which is linked in the article.
Congrats Doug,
We believe this is at least 12 impossible things before breakfast and a new climate war record.
You have won an all expenses paid one-way trip to UNtopia Minnesota where you will be re-educated – er – entertained – by webby. You are advised to pack warm.
Say, welcome ter the hotel Minnesota,
Such a lovely place,(such a lovely place)
At any time of the year, ( any time of year,)
Yer’ll be re-educated here at the hotel
Minnesota, yer’ll be entertained ‘n
have yer reactions retrained,
On a one way trip ter UNtopia.
Difficult to take anyone seriously as a scientist who thinks that visible light from the Sun heats land and water on Earth and that we get no direct heat radiation from the Sun, which is longwave infrared, aka thermal infrared, aka radiant heat.
This is where Trenberth should be looking for his missing heat.
His KT97 and ilk comic cartoon which has been introduced into the education system and into the general AGW meme pool has so corrupted the thinking here, as evidenced in comments above, that one has to be impressed by the efficiency of the ScienceFiction creators of the AGW’s Greenhouse Effect illusion to confuse and make ridiculous even those with superior thinking and education.
So, give me the physics, the physical detail of properties and process, to account for this missing heat.
There are two groups of you as Pekka informed me, one says that there is an invisible barrier at TOA preventing longwave infrared direct from the Sun from entering the atmosphere (CAGWs) and the other says the Sun produces negligible amounts of longwave infrared so neglibible amounts of negligible is all that reaches us and that’s for all practical purposes zilch (AGWs).
Traditional physics still teaches that the heat we receive and feel from the Sun is the Sun’s powerful heat energy transferred by direct thermal infrared radiation, direct heat, and it is this which heats up land and ocean and us.
Read that again so you’re quite clear on the point I’m making.
And the request I’m making: “So, give me the physics, the physical detail of properties and process, to account for this missing heat.”, which is not missing in traditional physics.
Both groups are saying that we do not get any heat from the Sun.
In traditional physics this is usually called radiant heat and also longwave infrared and thermal infrared, thermal infrared to distinguish it from non thermal infrared. As here:
We cannot feel near infrared, it is not thermal, it is not the radiant heat we feel from the Sun.
Ditto visible and uv, these are not thermal energies, they are not heat. These shortwaves are classed as Reflective not Thermal, as Light and not Heat..
Visible light from the Sun isn’t powerful enough to raise the temperature of land and water and us. But don’t let that distract you here, stick to the point and request I’m making – explain the missing heat.
You should be able to understand the power of heat if you do any cooking.
This used to be basic simple physics taught in schools, at a time when children were also taught that gases has different weight relative to each other and heavier gases sink in air and lighter gases rise. Those children still understand how we get our great winds and dramatic weather systems from differential heating of land and water and so differential heating of volumes of real gases, air..
..we know that the heat we feel radiating to us direct from the Sun cooking us is the invisible thermal infrared electromagnetic waves.
We know that this is what it takes to heat land and water and us.
Trenberth has himself take out the Radiant Heat direct from the Sun and is now looking for it, explain to him what this invisible barrier is which prevents it from getting into the atmosphere or explain how the Sun produces practical zilch of it, depending on whether you are CAGWs or AGWs, put him out of his misery…
Come back to traditional physics teaching for the missing heat because until you do –
you have no direct heat from the Sun at all in your worlds, nor in your models.
Strange thing is that Myrhhh sounds no more outlandish in his theories that Captain, Chief , or Springer. And since they defer from criticizing him, I have to assume that they all must agree with Myrhhh.
Myrrh is the opposite. He thinks light can’t heat water, but IR can. The skeptics hold every view under the sun.
Yes, the theory is one of FUD. That is the theory that they all share.
WHT,
if you believe the farrago put about by NASA, you have joined the large majority of sheeple, who have the capacity to absorb infinite amounts of nonsense without feeling in the least mentally challenged.
If you can supply a rigorous physical definition of heat which does not include absorption of energy from all wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, not just infrared, I will, of course, grovel in mortification before your august and intellectually superior self.
Please note that I am not asking for a majority opinion, but a rigorous physical definition which is supported by bodies of experimental work.
I am willing to bet you can’t do it – you pick the stakes.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Mike Flynn, I can infer that you have no scientific background. What you wrote as a challenge was comically inept.
WHT,
As I surmised, facts and scientific rigour are not foremost amongst things highly regarded by the Illiterati of the Cult of Latter Day Scientism.
Oh well. The facts don’t care what you think, or don’t.
Live well and prosper.
Mike Flynn.
Heat, schmeat: it cannot be missing A study of the Earth’s albedo (project “Earthshine”) shows that the amount of reflected sunlight does not vary with increases in greenhouse gases. The “Earthshine” data shows that the Earth’s albedo fell up to 1997 and rose after 2001.
What was learned is that climate change is related to albedo, as a result of the change in the amount of energy from the sun that is absorbed by the Earth. For example, fewer clouds means less reflectivity which results in a warmer Earth. And, this happened through about 1998. Conversely, more clouds means greater reflectivity which results in a cooler Earth. And this happened after 1998.
It is logical to presume that changes in Earth’s albedo are due to increases and decreases in low cloud cover, which in turn is related to the climate change that we have observed during the 20th Century, including the present global cooling. However, we see that climate variability over the same period is not related to changes in atmospheric greenhouse gases.
Obviously, the amount of `climate forcing’ that may be due to changes in atmospheric greenhouse gases is either overstated or countervailing forces are at work that GCMs simply ignore. GCMs fail to account for changes in the Earth’s albedo. Accordingly, GCMs do not account for the effect that the Earth’s albedo has on the amount of solar energy that is absorbed by the Earth.
Project Earthshine commenced in 1999 – but this is certainly is what the ERBS and ISCCP-FD data says. Decadal cooling in the IR and warming in SW from the 80’s to the 90’s. They captured as well the shift in clouds after 1998 seen in Project Earthshine.
The earlier satellite systems were dicontinued in favour of CERES commencing in 2000 – this is where the ‘missing energy’ was seen. It’s all in SW as well.
Mr. Entropic Man: I repost what a certain iansview wrote in The Economist comments:
I love the circular argument of the oceans put forward by the believers to explain away the lack of surface heating. When the global surface temperatures rose it was due to CO2 cos apparently the oceans didn’t absorb it then; but when it flat-lines it’s because it’s stored up in the oceans and will be released in the future, possibly, sometime, undefined. Well if that’s the case how do we know that the heating prior to 1998 wasn’t due to heat stored up in the oceans in the past and released in a similar delayed fashion and nothing to do with CO2 at all? (…) please let us all in on the secret of what the cycle is that’s controlling the storing process and when we can expect the heat to be released.
Its a religion; we have been wicked for placing CO2 in the sky and so must pay.
We all are witness to one of the greatest social experiments of all time. Everyone on some level understands that as individuals we are capable of learning from our mistakes — perhaps more than from success — an changing our ways. Whether as a society we can do the same and learn from the self-defeating nihilism of Leftist ideology, and turn away from the dead end of Eurocommunism, before it is too late, is not a future that is written in stone. We are not a chosen people. The truth of Americanism is that we as individuals choose our own futures and are personally responsible for the choices we make. But, we’ve already made a lot of mistakes. Sometimes, when people say “no” to truth long enough a time may come when the truth just does not matter anymore.
An update on Earth’s energy balance in light of the latest global observations
Nature Geoscience 5,691–696(2012)doi:10.1038/ngeo1580Received 08 November 2011 Accepted 13 August 2012 Published online 23 September 2012
[my bold]
Abstract
Climate change is governed by changes to the global energy balance. At the top of the atmosphere, this balance is monitored globally by satellite sensors that provide measurements of energy flowing to and from Earth. By contrast, observations at the surface are limited mostly to land areas. As a result, the global balance of energy fluxes within the atmosphere or at Earth’s surface cannot be derived directly from measured fluxes, and is therefore uncertain. This lack of precise knowledge of surface energy fluxes profoundly affects our ability to understand how Earth’s climate responds to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases. In light of compilations of up-to-date surface and satellite data, the surface energy balance needs to be revised. Specifically, the longwave radiation received at the surface is estimated to be significantly larger, by between 10 and 17 Wm−2, than earlier model-based estimates. Moreover, the latest satellite observations of global precipitation indicate that more precipitation is generated than previously thought. This additional precipitation is sustained by more energy leaving the surface by evaporation — that is, in the form of latent heat flux — and thereby offsets much of the increase in longwave flux to the surface.
—————————————————————————————-
This is wonderful corroborative evidence of what I’ve been saying for some time now. Mid-infrared illuminating a wet surface drives evaporation higher which does not raise the surface temperature but rather results in more water vapor in the column, more precipitation, and (crucially) higher cloud tops which by virtue of being higher in the atmosphere radiate more efficiently to space.
Before this decade is out what I’ve been saying about greenhouse ineffectiveness over the ocean will be Earth Science 101 material. All I’m waiting for at this point is confirmation from improved instrumentation and confirmation is pouring in. Higher lapse rate feedback than expected, unexpected changes in global average cloud height, these were all expected by me.
This results in a re-estimation of the Trenberth energy cartoon budget thus – http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/stephens2.gif
Interesting but makes absolutley no difference to the radiative properties of greenhouse gases. More gases and the mean free IR frequency photon path decreases and the atmosphere warms – which warms the surface. Warming of the oceans wil continue until a new equilibrium is reached – with increases in IR up, and perhaps evaporation and convection. The atmosphere will continue to warm as the ocean equilibrium is reached and a new conditional radiative equilibrium at toa is achieved.
The atmosphere must warm and this must result in warming of the oceans – as energy from sunshine accumulates. The internal response of the system to this forcing is the question and this will be nonlinear rather than linear
Rainfall is very much another thing. It varies decadally -http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-9-18.html
But also over centuries – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Vance2012-AntarticaLawDomeicecoresaltcontent.jpg.html?sort=3&o=37
And millennia – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/ENSO11000.gif.html?sort=3&o=96#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/ENSO11000.gif.html?sort=3&o=96&_suid=136476703094905481343681790515
Over the 20th century a moderate increase that is not significant statistically –
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/globalwarming/ar4-fig-3-12.gif
Along with regional variations to be expected with long lived patterns of ocean and atmosohere circulation – http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/globalwarming/ar4-fig-3-14.gif
Evaporation in the simplest sense is a funcion of the energy states of the molecules – warmer water means that there are more molecules with sufficient energy to vapourise. This is obviously an energy flow from the water to the atmosphere. But evaporaton also depends on wind speed, relative humidity and insolation. Evaporation rates have been declining world wide.
‘Despite the observed increases in global average temperature, observations across the world show that the rate of pan evaporation at a regional scale has been steadily decreasing over the past 50 years. This is known as the pan evaporation paradox. This paper reviews current reported pan evaporation trends, examines available theoretical explanations about this “paradox”, and discusses current research gaps and priorities. It concludes that: (1) three major potential causes of pan evaporation, solar radiation, vapour pressure deficit (VPD) and wind speed, have been changing in the last 50 years. The magnitude of changes and importance of each of these three causes varies from region to region, as does the pan evaporation trend, although overall there is a decreasing trend. (2) Currently two existing theories explaining the pan evaporation trends have limits and are only valid in some specific regions and seasons. Neither of them provides a fundamental physical-based theory that could be applied everywhere. (3) Further investigations are needed before we can fully understand the global evapotranspiration trend in global warming scenarios.’ http://www.mendeley.com/catalog/critical-overview-pan-evaporation-trends-last-50-years-1/
Cloud heights have been declining over the past decade – http://www.livescience.com/18604-cloud-heights-declining.html – it may have more to do with sea surface temperature changes with the PDO+ENSO.
But cloud cover has moderately decreased – http://www.livescience.com/18604-cloud-heights-declining.html – in an amount consistent with ocean warming in the same period.
As have been saying for many years – f..ked if I know but the best hope of understanding is at toa where things are very simple.
Unfettered imagination drives this view. Springer has no analytical models. No numerical models. No first-principles derivation. No simplifying first-order calculations. No science classroom “show your work”. That will be a first, a paradigm shift driven solely by delusional thinking.
Listen Springer, we are all on to your schtick. You are a refugee from the Intelligent Design wars and are looking for a venue in which to get your rocks off with respect to pure argumentation. The magic of ID arguments is that they always leave open the possibility of the incredible explaining everything. You are so leaning on this aspect of the argument, but will find yourself stymied by pure physics. I really don’t understand why you are here; but then again, I do. Same reason as Chief.
Trish Roberts-Miller’s (free-as-in-freedom) Characteristics of Demagoguery lists “motivism” as a demagogic trait.
WebHubTelescope, your recent posts increasingly embrace demagogic motivism, and thereby diminish the scientific quality of Climate Etc discourse. Reflect upon this, please.
Fan,
Document the atrocities.
That’s what history reminds us to do,
I’m a bit surprised by this as I didn’t think anthropogenic waste heat amounted to a hill of beans but according to the numbers about 10% of OHC annual increase is anthropogenic waste heat and has nothing at all to do with greenhouse gas warming.
Annual human energy use from all sources: 0.04×10^22 Joules
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/environment-book/energyE.html
Annual ocean heat content increase per year: 0.4*10^22 Joules
http://www-argo.ucsd.edu/levitus_2009_figure.jpg
For convenience let’s keep in mind Hansen’s latest TOA energy imbalance number of 0.59W/m2. So roughly each 1W/m2 of TOA imbalance correlates with 10^22 Joules of OHC.
Per IPCC, Hansen, Jacobson, Ramanathan in separate studies all put black carbon forcing at an average of 0.5W/m2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_carbon#Radiative_forcing
Black carbon forcing is unlike greenhouse forcing in that it’s a direct change to surface albedo. Downwelling infrared is not involved in this type of forcing. It’s as reliable as the fact that the white stripe on the side of an asphalt road is cooler than the unpainted asphalt on a sunny day.
Thus the combination of albedo change from black carbon (soot) and anthropogenic waste heat is able to account for 100% of the measured rise in OHC.
What’s left for anthropogenic greenhouse warming? Precisely zero.
Yep, water is a pretty universal coolant and as Webster will attest, a pretty good thermal “diffuser”.
Interesting, isn’t it? Warmists like to throw around this huge number of Joules accumulating in the ocean but in reality it’s only about 0.5W/m2 in units commonly used to express forcing.
I knew anthropogenic waste heat (~0.05W/m2) was inconsequential compared to TOA insolation of 1361W/m2 but never stopped to think it was indeed consequential to such a small TOA energy imbalance.
Then that got me to thinking about magnitude of anthropogenic black carbon forcing was enough to account for the remainder of the imbalance accumulating in the ocean.
So that pretty much leaves energy accumulating in the continental crust to finish the accounting. We have ARGO measuring OHC. Anything like that for crust temperature? Precision borehole temperatures at various depths over time would do the trick. ARGO is the moral equivalent of 3000 boreholes scattered around the global ocean. Seems like a smaller number of boreholes into continental crust would do the trick.
David, along with black carbon you also have various snow removal methods used. Winter wheat farmers can spread peat dust, ash, manure, chemically dyed fertilizers and fungicides on millions of kilometers squared of farmland to prevent snow mold. The Russians have become quite good at keeping the northern sea ways open as well. There are a lot of “anthropogenic” forcings that impact climate that we really will not give up anytime soon to pacify the warmistas.
The amount of energy that has entered the ocean is about 1/2 that expected from a 3C sensitivity to CO2 doubling. However, because of the transient effects of volcanic disturbances, the ocean gets a chance to cool as the insolation is lowered temporarily. So, if the GHG forcing had been continuous all this time without Pinatubo and other factors interfering, it would have been significantly above that amount. I can verify this with my own model.
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
What you follow after this misconception makes it a completely irrelevant point.
The rate of change is signifiant –
greenhouse gases – 0.04 W/m^2
heat from combustion – 0.04 W/m^2
geothermal – 0.03 W/m^2
black carbon – plus ?
land use – minus ?
sulphides – 0.1 W/m^2
clouds – plus and minus lots
volcanoes – occasionally minus lots
etc
It means that there is sufficent heat to warm the atmosphere initially – which causes solar energy to accumulate in the oceans over time – which means that the total energy in the system increases over a period due to thermal inertia. The higher temperatures are maintained by solar energy and a decreased mean IR photon path.
The only way to actually know is to look at changes at toa – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/AdvancesinUnderstandingTop-of-AtmosphereRadiationVariability-Loebetal2011.png.html?sort=3&o=16#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/AdvancesinUnderstandingTop-of-AtmosphereRadiationVariability-Loebetal2011.png.html?sort=3&o=16&_suid=1364771874678068099114058673
Chief’s modus operandi:
1. Spew
2. Post to some chart with no context
3. More spew
cd
I thought about land use change but it’s such a tiny fraction of the earth’s surface and the change is typically just trees to some crop like corn that still covers the landscape with green and evapotranspiration remains pretty close to normal or increases due to irrigation. Then I thought about urban heat islands with impermeable cover and drastically decreased evapotranspiration but again the impermeable cover as total percentage of earth’s surface is miniscule. Black carbon on the other hand settles on everything solid and lowers albedo. I’m open to land use change I missed or mistook but I’ll need some numbers with sources that make sense.
There is a site called Woodfortrees. The name is informative, as I think some people are just looking at the trees, but not seeing the forest.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/see_the_forest_for_the_trees
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:120/from:1900/offset:0.1/plot/gistemp/mean:120/from:1900/plot/best/from:1900/mean:120
“I thought about land use change but it’s such a tiny fraction of the earth’s “surface and the change is typically just trees to some crop like corn that still covers the landscape with green and evapotranspiration remains pretty close to normal or increases due to irrigation.”
Land use changes such as cropland( forest) are a significant forcing as albedo outweighs ghg forcing ( an increase of 2% which is in essence a reduction of insolation of the same allows significant feedback to kick in.eg Lobell
http://caos.iisc.ernet.in/faculty/gbala/pdf_files/Lobell_etal_2006_GRL.pdf
David, “I thought about land use change but it’s such a tiny fraction of the earth’s surface and the change is typically just trees to some crop like corn that still covers the landscape with green and vapotranspiration remains pretty close to normal or increases due to irrigation.”
There are unfortunately a variety of impacts over different times scales. Initially, there is generally cooling because the soil moisture content is released and changes slowly with the soil quality. Where wheat is planted, there is a summer/winter wheat rotation plus cover crops, grazing etc. Soil degradation can take decades and modifications to the hydrological cycle depending on irrigation methods varies a great deal. In the US and in Russian Siberia, the dust bowls were a pretty good indication that there was an impact.
I saw a few studies on crop abledo that indicated a lighter colored crops could produce about 1 to 2 C local cooling. There are also studies that indicate soil temperature can change a few degrees. Also the soil carbon loss estimated is high plains is off by about 50 to 75% because of the depth used in the estimates. High plains native plants have extremely deep root systems to survive extended drought and multi-year snow cover.
The larger impacts at high latitudes appear to be wind blown erosion at high latitudes that mimics black carbon as far as albedo change, plus the ability to quickly remove snow earlier in spring with mechanized equipment. There is also some “suburban” warming that can impact surface stations causing confusion.
webby – the chart is from Advances in understanding top-of-atmosphere radiation variability from satellite observations – Loeb, N. G. et al. 2012 – and is result of the most advanced and important climate monitoring system off the planet. You too are off the plantet and not in a good way.
On an entirely different subject – the albedo of cropland is somewhat higer than forest especially when the crop has been harvested. Evapotranspiration of dryland cropping is substantially less than in forest.
That paper is about evaluating the accuracy and uncertainty of the instrumentation. Where in the paper do they make any statements of long term change?
‘This paper highlights how the emerging record of satellite observations from the Earth Observation System (EOS) and A-Train constellation are advancing our ability to more completely document and understand the underlying processes associated with variations in the Earth’s top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiation budget.’
Did you not read even the first line?
The first line is all you need to read. That is what is called a demonstration paper. The technology shows promise.
Does anyone know what’s going on here? I was looking for the pdf of this report, being particularly interested in ” The atmospheric science investigations will study the composition of the atmosphere in the stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere. The solar physics investigations will measure the total energy output of the sun.”
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-0AmGh39f-kJ:http://naca.larc.nasa.gov/search.jsp%3FR%3D19890020042%26qs%3DN%253D4294957355%252B4294768863%252B4294956025%2Bntrs.nasa.gov/19890020042.pdf&hl=en&gbv=1&filter=0&ct=clnk
“Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science, Mission 1
Online Source: Click to View PDF File [PDF Size: 20.7 MB]
Author: Craven, Paul D.; Torr, Marsha R.
Abstract: The first Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science (ATLAS 1) NASA mission, planned for late 1990, includes experiments in four areas: Atmospheric Science, Solar Physics, Space Plasma Physics, and Astronomy. The atmospheric science investigations will study the composition of the atmosphere in the stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere. The solar physics investigations will measure the total energy output of the sun. The space plasma physics investigations will study the charged particle and plasma environment of the earth. The astronomy investigation will study astronomical sources of radiation in the ultraviolet wavelengths that are inaccessible to observers on earth. Most of the experimental equipment has been flown before on one of the Spacelab missions. Brief descriptions of the experiments are given.”
and got instead:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19890020042
“The NASA technical reports server will be unavailable for public access
while the agency conducts a review of the site’s content to ensure that it
does not contain technical information that is subject to U.S. export control laws
and regulations and that the appropriate reviews were performed.
The site will return to service when the review is complete.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”
Heh, ‘appropriate reviews’. Hey, the Easter Bunny did it.
================
It’s a Bush administration regulation requiring government agencies to deny knowledge to Americans on flimsy pretexts.
You’ll find your government much less transparent and open than it was 15 years ago.
Bart R,
please take a breath. The government may be less transparent and open than it was 15 years ago but one can no longer blame Bush. In this case it is most likely some space or space instrumentation data was sensitive for use by the Chinese space program and NASA wants to carefully review the published data at the site prior to opening again. Relatively good thing.
Scott
Probably part of the reaction to the Chinese spy incident.
Scott | March 31, 2013 at 6:32 pm |
Granted, sometimes computer systems need security audits.
Doesn’t mean data transparency is yet what it should be, but I did abuse a fact of technology to beat a favorite hobby horse.
Scott – this is from 1988, I think the Chinese will have read it by now.
But, this is also back to the argument of late, that tax payer funded science data are the property of the taxpayer.
This is basic bog standard collection, well, not so bog standard since the technology would be mindblowing to the early scientists and even those of most of the last century.
I think it may be the sheep rather than the bunnies. It’s become very difficult to get any real data if connected with the AGW ScienceFiction agenda.
When are they going to release the rest of the AIRS data? The conclusion from all of it was that carbon dioxide was lumpy and not at all well mixed, but they’ve kept back top and bottom of troposphere so we’re in the dark as to why they concluded this. But here, one would think Herschel never existed by the effort put in to hide the radiant heat direct from the Sun; CERES is a joke, though few it seems can appreciate it..
Let me bring this out as a seperate part. Pekka states ” I used here the word “estimate” but making estimates in ways that involve empirical data is exactly the same thing as measuring.”
Now I can see the fundamental error that Pekka is making. The way the scientific method works, is that you acquire empirical data, form a hypothesis, make estimates, and then check those estimates against the measured data. Pekka is correct that IF, and it is a mighty big IF, but if you make the esimates correctly, then these estimates are the equivalent of a measurement.
However, the only way you can ensure whether the estimates have been made correctly, is to check the result against actual measurements. That is the scientific method, shown so eloquently by Richard Feynman. So Pekka seems not to understand the scientific method. It is not possible to know whether estimates are correct unless and until these estimates have been confirmed by actual measurements. Estimates based on empirical data are just that; estimates. They cannot be any more than estimates until they have been verified by actual measurements.
Jim,
Still you understand neither what I write nor what’s science.
I think Jim understands (and so do I) that you are a Warmer. There’s really nothing else relevant to understand about you.
Andrew
Pekka, you write “Still you understand neither what I write nor what’s science.”
For once we are in total and complete agreement; for the first part of what you wrote. I haven’t a clue what you are talking about. However, when it comes to the second part, I am absolutely certain that I understand the science. Whether you do, I have no idea.
Pekka Pirilä | March 31, 2013 at 6:09 pm |
Enough people have engaged Jim Cripwell in the past, and he has said enough, to convey that he does indeed understand more than he appears to, but chooses to continue as he does in some form of the Socratic Method.
Though I agree much of what he says demonstrates no competent grasp of the material.
(Some have said this of me, too, I should note. But then I don’t claim to be a scientist.)
Since Jim Cripwell can only measure global warming after it has happened, there is no hope of him accepting any prediction or extrapolation. He lives life for the moment, clearly, and the future will be a complete surprise to him.
I’m glad you brought this up Jim D. Measurments can only be taken in the present moment and then the results recorded. If you think you can measure something from the past, I’d love to hear an explanation of how you can do it. Same goes for measuring something from a future that hasn’t happened yet. Looking forward to your usual insightful comments on this.
Andrew
The point was that Jim Cripwell was expecting to measure something from the future before he is convinced of global warming. He can wait, but that is the only method I know. It’s like those people who want proof it will be 3 C warmer by 2100 beforehand. How do you prove a future?
“It’s like those people”
Those people are pretty crazy, aren’t they? ;)
Andrew
Yes, prove the future, prove AGW, it’s the same thing.
…and of course the context is: we aren’t going to do anything about even planning for that much warming unless you can first prove it will happen (prove the future).
Gad, Jim D, not so bitter. No need for proof, just credibility. And we get Elevator Shakun. And the rest of the whole sad saga now playing out on a stage near you.
=============
Jim Cripwell | April 1, 2013 at 9:03 am |
Read harder. Of course I’ve answered the question.
You simply ignore the answers every time it suits you to repeat your illegitimate claim.
Perhaps you’re equivocating on the meaning of the word “answer”.
Maybe, and this is just speculation based on what I know of the tricks of sophists and BA sophomores who prefer philosophy — which in the old British Commonwealth was laughingly called Natural Sciences — but need a ‘real job’ so take enough Physics for Non Science students to be able to pass themselves off and get clerk work in the technology sector, just maybe you mean “answer to my liking,” or some inane variation on that invisible unstated condition.
Well, that’s pure crap.
Question asked and answered. For the diversity of backgrounds and frameworks of those many answering, as there have been many now who have expressed the goodwill to engage your malicious sophistic trap honestly and honorably, the answers show remarkable consilience, tending to confirm if not absolute uniformity of definition of Climate Sensitivity, if not all adequate to fully explain all measurements of Climate Sensitivity, then certainly enough to exceed any reasonable condition, invisible or otherwise.
We’ve had variations on this conversation before. I know you intend to go on laying this particular trap over and over again, and will likely not stop so long as you have means to continue.
But your snare has failed. No one takes you or your deceptions seriously.
Jim Cripwell | March 31, 2013 at 2:19 pm |
If one has an hypothesis, in modern usage one is proposing a model. A model in the form of an equation or system of equations, while some call it an ‘estimate’ is not estimate in the common usage.
Your usage of “X +/- Y” is a simple ‘estimate’ in that it contains a dependent variable X and a range variable Y, suggesting that if the data fits the ‘estimate’ the experiment is considered successful.
Which Pekka is quite correct to say is exactly the same thing as measuring, ie matching an objective (the empirical data, or observations) to a standard (the ‘estimate’).
All the rest is sophistry or ambiguity or play on words.
In the one sense, the observations are measured against standards of weight or length or temperature (indirectly), or by counts, or whatnot. But the experiment is measured against the hypothesis.
Just as we reject a ruler if it does not match a true foot and true inches, we reject a hypothesis if it does not match true observations.
All of these things are models. All — except (some) counts — are estimates. Some estimates are also measurements, if they involve matching object observations to standard models.
And with due respect to Feynman.. show more respect to Feynman.
Bart R. You write “All the rest is sophistry or ambiguity or play on words.”
I agree. With all that Pekka, Steven, yourself, and other warmists have written in reply to my very simple question, NO-ONE has answered the question. NO-ONE. It is a perfectly simple, relevant question, but no-one has answered it. I wonder why.
You, specificly, have avoided answering the question. I am not looking for a discussion as to whether the question is relevant. I am not looking for any discussion at all. All I am looking for is a simple answer, yes or no.
So, Bart, has climate sensitivity, however defined, been measured? Yes or no.
“has climate sensitivity, however defined, been measured? Yes or no”
Steven Mosher claimed it has, but when asked for some follow up details, his computer stopped working and spit out some mumbo jumbo about solving equations for “speed.”
Geek Squad, Steven Mosher needs your help!
Andrew
Bad Andrew | April 1, 2013 at 11:06 am |
I stand corrected. No one takes Jim Cripwell’s ploy seriously except those who have not seen it before, or those who wish to exploit it.
Yes. Climate sensitivity has been defined. There are diverse definitions, as often happens with terms in science generally as the scientific method develops better understanding by progressive study. By Jim Cripwell’s apparent usage, the Laws of Thermodynamics — all four of them — which have several to dozens of definitions each, equally true depending on case — have never been defined or measured.
Yes. Climate sensitivity has been measured. Like body temperature, at some times and in some states, the measured climate sensitivity may vary.
A body with a fever may be warmer than the standard human body temperature, but it still has a human body temperature. A body immersed in ice water may have lower temperature in the extremities or even the core, but it still has a human body temperature. How is it surprising that the globe might have a climate sensitivity that changes too?
Understanding of this climate sensitivity may vary, as understanding of the equally valid Laws of Thermodynamics varies, depending on usage.
Where one can separate out influences such as aerosols or solar changes (aerosols being an order of magnitude or more the size of any solar influence on GMT this century so far as we know), then climate sensitivity tends toward higher values and narrower bands of variability. Where one includes all negative trends, one may obtain values between 1.2 and 2.3 with relatively wide bars of variability, unless one uses some other method to truncate these bars.
Which is how clever chartsmen make it appear in their studies that they have reanalyzed climate sensitivity to the absurdly low levels reported lately in MSM. You could argue that clever chartsmen also generate absurdly large values for climate sensitivity, however compared to the climate sensitivity it would take to explain a stable Pliocene tundra climate 20C warmer than today with the same CO2 concentration as today, as we know to a fairly reliable degree likely occured for part of the Pliocene, then we couldn’t call any single-digit climate sensitivity absurdly high.
I don’t particularly think of Climate Sensitivity as having a single value, though I suspect it may have a value that is a function of a few variables, and thus is not likely a chaotic component; alternatively, it appears at least to have a bounded attractor or set of attractors between 2.8 and 4.5 with some variability beyond that level.
Always pleased to provide full and forthright answers. Please let me know if you have further questions.
That’s BS Bart. You’re not even close to measure/estimate the net forcing at any point, so you cannot measure/estimate/calculate the ‘sensitivity’.
“Always pleased to provide full and forthright answers. Please let me know if you have further questions.”
Cool. Thanks Bart. I have a couple. What device measures cs? When was it measured? What was the value of the measurement that was recorded for posterity?
Andrew
Andrew, you write “What was the value of the measurement that was recorded for posterity?”
Bart is, of course, talking utter scientific nonsense. But you missed out the most important question. What was the accuracy of the measurement; the +/- value?
Edim | April 1, 2013 at 1:56 pm |
What definition do you use, that includes a ‘net forcing’ term anywhere in it?
All the definitions I’ve seen are purely dependent on CO2 level, GMT and (often implicit) time scale.
If you use a different definition, please by all means explicitly state yours.
Bart, as you know any change in global temperature is a result of some net forcing, not just the CO2 forcing. you have one equation, but two unknowns.
Bart
As I think you know, the individual forcings impacts on the climate system are not constant over time. The magnitudes of impact change in relation to each other over time.
Bad Andrew | April 1, 2013 at 2:09 pm |
As the various values of measured climate sensitivity come from ratios of logarithms of CO2 levels and temperatures, and time scales the answer to your questions vary.
But I suspect you lack the patience to have each question fully answered.
If you do have so much patience, I refer you to Mauna Loa for CO2 level, and Vostok and the various ice cores, and the reanalyses of their measures, as well as the various parties responsible for measuring, collating and determining GMT from weather stations or satellites or proxies.
It appears your question appeals to ab initio analysis, which would make any answer as long as a book. We can agree that is by no means practical, so either you mean mischief or will return having informed yourself by exploring all possible resources for CO2 concentration and temperature and calculating climate sensitivity yourself from these figures.
Bart, you write “If you do have so much patience, I refer you to Mauna Loa for CO2 level, and Vostok and the various ice cores, and the reanalyses of their measures, as well as the various parties responsible for measuring, collating and determining GMT from weather stations or satellites or proxies.”
Where is the proof that the changes in temperature recorded in the ice cores, or anything else for that matter, were, indeed, caused by the change in CO2 concentration? And I require a full, peer reviewed reference.
“the answer to your questions vary”
Is one of the variations “I’m just a Warmer who’s full of sh*t. I really don’t know what I’m talking about.”? ;)
If it is, we can agree on that one.
Andrew
Edim | April 1, 2013 at 2:12 pm |
So what?
Already covered, in part where I say: Where one can separate out influences such as aerosols or solar changes (aerosols being an order of magnitude or more the size of any solar influence on GMT this century so far as we know), then climate sensitivity tends toward higher values and narrower bands of variability. Where one includes all negative trends, one may obtain values between 1.2 and 2.3 with relatively wide bars of variability, unless one uses some other method to truncate these bars.
If you have true unknowns or inseparables, just include them and carry on. You do not always know all the net forcing on a human body when you take the temperature, either. Does that stop you from taking the temperature? No.
Your argument is invalid.
I get that you are after a functional number you can plug in to tell you how much CO2 there can be for the temperature to be safe, or you would prefer to be able to say it can never be known so there is on the basis of ignorance no reason to care how much CO2 there is emitted.. but those arguments are also invalid, too.
This figure you seek, if you seek it for purposes like that, rely on a politburo-knows-best worldview that any Capitalist utterly rejects. The right people to determine the right level of CO2 are all of us; the right mechanism to tally the voice of all people in resource allocation is the fair Market. The only way to do that is to fully and fairly privatize CO2 and pay people by the Law of Supply and Demand for the CO2 level rise they permit on the Market.
Well, if your answer is ‘so what’, I think you don’t understand the most basic science and mathematics. You seem to assume that you can estimate the other forcings reasonably, but that’s laughable.
Rob Starkey | April 1, 2013 at 2:20 pm |
HOW DID YOU MISS WHERE I WROTE: I don’t particularly think of Climate Sensitivity as having a single value, though I suspect it may have a value that is a function of a few variables, and thus is not likely a chaotic component; alternatively, it appears at least to have a bounded attractor or set of attractors between 2.8 and 4.5 with some variability beyond that level?
This completely addresses your objection with a bit of thought. Read harder.
Jim Cripwell | April 1, 2013 at 2:29 pm |
Who cares what you require? You cling to invalid definitions as it suits you, though you ought know better if you truly have the credentials you claim. You are a known malicious deceiver who prolongs discussion and wastes time on invalid premises. Look it up yourself in the IPCC reports.
But for what it may be worth, why do you assume climate sensitivity requires proof of cause and effect between CO2 level and GMT?
No one needs proof of cause and effect between a runny nose or shivers and body temperature to justify taking their temperature.
I don’t think you know why, Bart, but that is a strangely apt metaphor there at 2:38.
=================
Bart, you write “But for what it may be worth, why do you assume climate sensitivity requires proof of cause and effect between CO2 level and GMT?”
I dont assume this at all. It is a necessary requirement in order to make a measurement of climate sensitivity; or anything else for that matter. It is a basic requirement of the scientific method.. There are numerous known and unknown effects that cause global temperatures to change. So in order to make a measurement, you need to prove that an observed rise in temperature was actually caused by the additional CO2. Unless you have this proof, you have no measurement. It is like any experiemnt with an independent and dependent variable. You HAVE to ensure that any changes observed in the dependent variable were caused by changes in the independent variable. Res ipsa loquitur.
Edim | April 1, 2013 at 2:32 pm |
Read harder. I explicitly state otherwise to what you say I assume.
This is either carelessness on your part or a straw man, or both.
No, you think the other forcings can be estimated reasonably and I say that’s nonsense. Not even close.
kim | April 1, 2013 at 2:43 pm |
Heh.
You may be surprised in just how many ways it is ironic. :D
Edim | April 1, 2013 at 2:49 pm |
Again, your telepathy is in error. Your mind-reading is wrong. Try actual reading.
I know often many factors can neither be measured directly nor accurately estimated. And while it matters to expert panels of politburro-type groups who believe they have the right or power to decide such matters on behalf of others, I see no reason to surrender such power to such groups, given there are often circumstances where accurate estimation or good direct measurement either are not available or are avoided in particular by those with an agenda to manipulate the decisions of such groups.
Climate sensitivity does not require an explicit forcing term. Take a medical thermometer. Take your deep core temperature with it. I do not have to make explicit all the forcings involved to believe that for the most part the results of such measurements or reanalyses of compilations of such measurements are likely valid.
Go ahead. We can wait. What temperature did you get?
Climate sensitivity needs the forcing term (or equation, function). For example, all (or most) of the global temperature change since the postulated AGW got significant (roughly beginning of the second half of the 20th century) is solar/orbital or non-anthropogenic. What’s the CO2 forcing in this case? I say ZERO (if all) or basically ZERO (if most).
Your thermometer analogy is stupid. The right one is you measure the change in length with the mercury thermometer, but you don’t know how volume of mercury changes with the temperature. It’s unknown to you. Still, you think you can measure the temperature. You can of course calibrate it with melting ice and boiling water, but then you know the second unknown and that’s another story.
Edim | April 1, 2013 at 3:17 pm |
See, now you’re just arguing by assertion and begging the question.
These other terms you pretend to know with such certainty may play a role in GMT — or not — but are not explicit in the calculation of Climate sensitivity.
If what you’re after is a sure-fired, certain, absolute expression of exactly what will happen in the future based on burning whatever book or chunk of coal or lump of tar you like in the present, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
No one’s claiming that daft concoction you dream of in your straw man world.
And there is no use for such a figure, in the real world, unless everyone in it accepts the collar and yoke of some expert committee telling them how much air pollution to choke on and like it.
Huh? I’m not after a sure-fired expression, a mathematically and physically reasonable estimate would be enough. You have one equation and two unknowns:
1) a forcing that changes the temperature,
2) the sensitivity itself.
Show that you know the forcing that changes the temperature, that’s clearly laughable.
Edim | April 1, 2013 at 4:19 pm |
1) a forcing that changes the temperature,
Uh, what?!
You have a change in CO2 level. You have a change in temperature. Those would be the two independent variables — if indeed they were independent. These two independent variables are known from observation, to varying precision for varying time scales and conditions.
Take the logarithm of the change in relevant CO2 level over the change in relevant temperature. That is the climate sensitivity relative to a set of conditions.
Sure, there are complicating factors, yet the observed climate sensitivity calculated from CO2 level observations derived by whatever instrumental or proxy methods and GMT derived by whatever instrumental or proxy methods is a real thing.
You can do it yourself from published tables of observations.
Sure, many reanalyses are done to produce values that appear to all intents and purposes in some cases to have been manufactured to order by some proponents; this happens often when faulty paradigms are applied, such as insisting that a function or system of functions (also called a field) must be a single constant. Vaughn Pratt’s analyses appear fairly competent and less biased than most, but then Dr. Pratt has inserted some humor in his work in places, no doubt for his own amusement, so we may need take that into account.
Guesses of what ‘other forcings’ may be, inserted appropriately into the equation, might deliver some “other-forcing free” climate sensitivity value, but I seriously question the merits of this approach, given the opportunities form mischief, and how superfluous it is. Better by far to just use climate sensitivity as calculated from direct observations only of GMT and CO2 baseline level where availab.e
2) the sensitivity itself.
This begs the question.
Bart, do you read what I say? Climate sensitivity is a measure of how responsive the temperature of the climate system is to a change in all the forcings together, not just CO2 forcing. If “climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural fluctuation” (climategate), or it’s mostly solar or something else and NOT the CO2, what’s the CO2 forcing? I say ZERO.
Jim Cripwell | April 1, 2013 at 4:50 pm |
The logic and the Latin both in this comment are faulty.
For one, there is a well-known and well-documented, time-tested and experimentally tested and GCM tested and real data tested cause-and-effect relationship of CO2 level and global temperature.
We have nearby planets and our own planet. We have current instrumental measurements by the tens of thousands of (so far as practical) direct observations, and ten thousand years span of proxy Holocene records by the dozens of datasets and hundreds of thousands of years of multiple ice core proxies and millions of years of geological proxies, which, while there are excursions to a remarkable degree tend to affirm the GHE hypothesis.
You’re simply making stuff up. Or, in particular, you’re doggedly and irrationally denying things that are real and well-established.
We don’t need a cause and effect to observe ‘independent’ variables and seek a relationship. We might like data warehousers just collect and seek correspondences and remark on those pairs that have reliable correlations, if we are so minded. This is a valid method broadly accepted in business and government and health care and actuarial fields and used by orders of magnitude more people daily than there even are scientists, and it is a method proven for over a quarter century. However, given we have Arrhenius’ and others’ work to build on, we have everything you deny, and may carry on despite your denial, without having to teach any new tricks to those who still cling to methods mocked by Rutherford in his day.
And really, the fault in the Latin speaks for itself.
Bart, you write “The logic and the Latin both in this comment are faulty.
For one, there is a well-known and well-documented, time-tested and experimentally tested and GCM tested and real data tested cause-and-effect relationship of CO2 level and global temperature.”
To the second sentence first, I agree; I have always agreed that CAGW is a perfectly viable hypothesis. The question is, HOW MUCH do temperatures rise as a result of adding CO2 to the atmosphere from current levels. That is the question which you do not address. I am asking for empirical data that shows conclusively that when you add CO2 to the atmosphere from current levels, it causes global temperaturs to rise by some measured amount. That information you have not provided, and it does not exist.
As for the first sentence, my logic and my latin quotation are both immaculate. They are absolutely and completely scientificly correct. I defy you the show that I am wrong. Sayin I am wrong does not make me wrong. Provide me with your logic that proves that my logic is wrong
Parse what Jim Cripwell said:
Incredible how Cripwell agrees with Bart’s second sentence, specifically “real data tested cause-and-effect relationship of CO2 level and global temperature”.
Moreover he refers to that as being CAGW. Logically parsing what he has written, it can be no other way. Since Cripwell only plays in the rhetorical sphere, with no math or unambiguous models in sight, that’s all that we can conclude.
Has Cripwell now jumped the shark completely? Watch how he plays this little trick-box.
Edim | April 1, 2013 at 5:08 pm |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity
Climate sensitivity is a measure of how responsive the temperature of the climate system is to a change in the radiative forcing.
Although climate sensitivity is usually used in the context of radiative forcing by carbon dioxide (CO2), it is thought of as a general property of the climate system: the change in surface air temperature (ΔTs) following a unit change in radiative forcing (RF), and thus is expressed in units of °C/(W/m2).
(Emphasis mine.)
You can be concerned about all the other components of radiative forcing all you want, but you don’t need them to find a reliable relationship of CO2 baseline change to GMT change via radiative forcing; certainly this relationship is strengthened where you can know it by removing for other influences, but it is also reliable enough that changes in the CO2-based Climate Sensitivity can predict changes in these other influences reliably.
And while there’s substantial argument about what those other inputs to radiative forcing may be, it appears at this time volcano aerosol incursion into the stratosphere adequately explains the majority of the non-CO2 effect on sub-millennial timescales.
Volcanic perturbation of the stratosphere is not solely on aerosol incursion.Large eruptions also inject water vapour into the stratosphere causing surface warming.Additionally the volcanic s induce o3 polar depletion and enhanced polar vortices reducing transport and enhancing low latitude warming.
Bad Andrew | April 1, 2013 at 2:35 pm |
I’ve never heard anyone refer to you as a Warmer, so I can’t fully agree.
That’s because you’re The Warmer, genius.
Andrew
Your empire needs you!
Bad Andrew | April 1, 2013 at 6:07 pm |
That’s because you’re The Warmer, genius.
I’m temperature agnostic. Up, down, doesn’t matter to me.
I’m more accurately, if anything, a Forcer: there’s forcing due human activity, that’s all we need to know to give us good reason to curtail the part of the forcing shown to increase Risk and be adverse to key vulnerabilities.
It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out, that is no sh*t.
“there’s forcing due human activity, that’s all we need to know to give us good reason to curtail the part of the forcing shown to increase Risk and be adverse to key vulnerabilities”
just so story: An explanation of an admittedly speculative nature, tailored to give the results that need explaining, but currently lacking any independent rationale.
Andrew
“I’m more accurately, if anything, a Forcer”
That puts you right there with Luke, Darth and The Emperor.
Andrew
Again. http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/29/has-trenberth-found-the-missing-heat/#comment-308088
Bad Andrew | April 1, 2013 at 7:49 pm |
Speculative how? Chaos Theory tells us these outcomes are mathematical certainties. There’s no speculation in the mathematics of perturbation and forcing.
Which is not Luke, but Lorenz.
But quite uncertain. And then there is politics, economics and development. Oh will the chaos ever end.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/29/has-trenberth-found-the-missing-heat/#comment-308088
“There’s no speculation in the mathematics of perturbation and forcing.”
But there’s speculation in perturbation and forcing.
Andrew
Jim Cripwell | April 1, 2013 at 7:13 pm |
As for the first sentence, my logic and my latin quotation are both immaculate. They are absolutely and completely scientificly correct. I defy you the show that I am wrong. Sayin I am wrong does not make me wrong. Provide me with your logic that proves that my logic is wrong
Saying you are immaculate, absolute, complete, scientific, correct, logical or Latin no more makes you so than simply saying someone is wrong makes them wrong.
Which would be why the question of how the logic was faulty was so clearly and in such detail explained. (http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/29/has-trenberth-found-the-missing-heat/#comment-307985)
As this was fully enumerated in the comment Bart R | April 1, 2013 at 5:21 pm | and you are so vague and sweeping in the totality of your claims without shedding light on particulars of your objections, one wonders what part didn’t you understand?
You cite no source for your claims (though Newton would be a good one for it), and you ignore the developments in the world of decision-making of the past quarter century besides. You equivocate on the meaning of ‘measurement’; and you do nothing but assert without explaining the rationale for your claims.
The question is, HOW MUCH do temperatures rise as a result of adding CO2 to the atmosphere from current levels. That is the question which you do not address.
Which is not a question at all, as we have seen, but a slogan, when we look in detail at all the preconditions and obstacles you place in the way of answering this innocent-looking bait.
We know fairly reliably that maintaining current CO2 levels corresponded to a Pliocene with 19C warmer than current tundra conditions. As the poles tend to be several times warmer than the average of global warming, this doesn’t tell us precisely HOW MUCH temperatures will rise as a result of adding CO2 to the atmosphere from current levels, but it does tell us that if we maintain at least current levels then there is a precedent to expect once temperatures equalibrate you’ll be seeing double digit greater heat in Ottawa.. Doesn’t do much in winter except deliver more snow, but in summer, I recall Ottawa’s peak temperature is already uncomfortable.
I am asking for empirical data that shows conclusively that when you add CO2 to the atmosphere from current levels, it causes global temperaturs to rise by some measured amount. That information you have not provided, and it does not exist.
http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/about-the-department/people/academics/chris-brierley/dr-chris-brierley/files/CuriousCasePliocene.brierley.AOCD.16thOct08.pdf
Asked, and answered, repeatedly. The answer exists, you simply choose to deny it over and over again.
And the Latin? The Latin would require the thing to speak for itself, without explanation. You explained and I explained the faults in what you explained, ergo it did not speak for itself.
One word. GARBAGE. You, Steven Mosher, and Pekka try to make out that the climate is so complex that the normal ways in which physics is done, do not apply. I have news for you. The basic physics, which I understand completely, applies as to whether climate sensitivity has or has not been measured. It has not been measured, and no amouint of weasel wording will change the situation.
Jim Cripwell | April 2, 2013 at 10:54 am |
You understand basic Physics completely?
Care to tell me then, without looking it up (as your memory is good enough, as you have claimed repeatedly before), what the answers are to this standard freshman quiz question:
In a two-slit interference experiment the pair of slits are separated by 1.50mm. On a screen 2.00m away we see dark lines separated by 0.600mm.
What is the wavelength of the light being used?
At what angle is the first dark line seen?
This ought be trivial for someone with complete understanding of basic Physics.
Steven Mosher | March 31, 2013 at 3:41 pm |
Most if not all climate variables oscillate naturally for reasons that are unknown.
UNKNOWN ?
Hi Steven
Not if I can help it:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-NAP.htm
You have GOT to be kidding.
yguy,
They’re not kidding. They are serious – ly deranged.
They can’t define what they are talking about – heat, surface, warming.
They ascribe cultist meanings to English words – forcing, radiation.
Trenberth seems to have overlooked the most obvious reason for his “missing heat”. It isn’t there, and never has been.
Oh we’ll, I’m missing a million dollars. I wonder where it went?
Live well and prosper.
Mike Flynn.
More magical thinking from Trenberth.
How pitiful.
Salutatory ter remind ourselves this April Fools’ Day…
‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy’ …
Known unknowns …unknown unknowns,
take yer bold leap but proceed with hum-il-ity …
testing …testing …
H/t Hamlet.
Trenberth’s saying
” The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
is quite easy to understand. When you look at the global temperature curve of that point you notice that he writes it at the time when the global temperature is descending into the La Nina valley of 2008. They of course had no idea of what that was or how the ENSO oscillation works. Least of all did they expect ENSO oscillations to start up again after the temporary disturbance caused by the super El Nino of 1998. When the El Nino of 2010 appeared they finally caught on. And Hansen used that El Nino peak to prove that warming was still happening. That is cheating. You can’t use an El Nino peak as global temperature. To get global temperature you must use the half-way point between the El Nino peak and its adjacent La Nina valley. When you do that the half-way point between the bottom of the 2008 La Nina and the tip of the 2010 El Nino lines up neatly with the rest of the no-warming region of the twenty-first century. An even worse trick by Hansen is to invent an imaginary temperature high for the year 2005 which he claims is a temperature peak as high as the 2010 El Nino. It does nor exist, but in Hansen’s fevered imagination they both top over the super El Nino of 1998. This is a complete and total temperature falsification by the head of an important NASA institute and as far as I go it is scientific fraud.
What does Trenberths imaginary missing heat have to do with imaginary man made global warming. The missing heat is lost in the total heat signal to noise and the man made warming is lost in the natural climate variability noise. It’s all just imaginary cAGW.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_number
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ImaginaryNumber.html
No doubt congratulating himself on his cleverness, Mr Telescope writes:
“Chief’s modus operandi:
1. Spew
2. Post to some chart with no context
3. More spew”
joshua + advanced degree= wht
This deserves a new thread.
WebHubTelescope | March 31, 2013 at 4:58 pm |
“Chief Springer, Both of you clowns refuse to admit that infrared radiation can enter the surface and diffuse downward.”
It is well known the skin layer of the ocean, approximately 1mm deep, is colder by about 1C than the water below it. It is also well known that mid-infrared illuminating the surface of the ocean is completely absorbed inside the first 10 micrometers of ocean surface.
Therefore WebHubTelescope is asserting that heat diffuses from cold to warm thereby violating the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
Incredible. And he calls other people clowns.
Physician heal thyself.
Springer claims that all infrared photons hitting the surface of water will cause immediate vaporization of water molecules. He claims that none of the energy will get transmitted to the water.
Well here comes the hammer Springer:
Another acid test is to see if any technologists have devices that can photonically vaporize water molecules without raising its temperature. How about a state-of-the-art high-density femtosecond laser?
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/LASER-PRECISION-NO-HEAT-Petaluma-startup-2586106.php
The time is so short that the temperature is not raised.
So Springer believes that climate change is on the femtosecond level.
Good marketing trick:
Femtosecond climate change: Cold is the new hot
I do understand your game Springer. You always like to thank people for playing, so all I can say is you are welcome.
The funny thing is that the skin is losing nore photons than it gets and so cools. We still have the statistical truth of the 2nd law.
WebHubTelescope | April 1, 2013 at 1:51 am | Reply
“Springer claims that all infrared photons hitting the surface of water will cause immediate vaporization of water molecules. He claims that none of the energy will get transmitted to the water.”
Strawman. I made no such claim. I claimed that more energy leaves the skin layer than enters it which is trivally true due to the fact that the skin layer is colder than the water below it.
And Ellison makes the obvious point again, which I must also, that the skin layer is colder than the water below which means net energy will be moving from the water below to the skin layer because heat diffuses from warmer to colder not vice versa. Having thus been instructed as to the 2nd Law you must either agree or become a crank along with the Sky Dragon Slayers, Myrhh, Doug Cotton, etc. Physcian, heal thyself.
Just as a side note, water is a piss poor thermal conductor so not much energy moves by conduction from the ocean bulk into the skin layer. Rather, as I’ve pointed out before, the skin layer is mechanically removed by evaporation and convection. In the tropics evaporation amounts to some 40mm per day which of course means that 40 1mm-deep skin layers are mechanically removed each day. This is the primary means of heat leaving the ocean.
Oh don’t you just love how WebHubTelescope fails to give a link to what he quotes. Embarrassed no doubt. Here it is:
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2005-10/1128610141.Ph.r.html
Mad Scientist Network – home to 36,000 non-peer reviewed non-textbook answers to your questions! In this case a QM dissertation on evaporation by one Dr. Calvin Cole at Northwestern State University of Oklahoma, who no longer appears on the faculty there:
http://www.nsuok.edu/directory/AllUsers.aspx
In fact I can’t Dr. Cole anywhere but there’s a mention of him here and a picture
http://ryleh.7hunters.net/articles/siege/trebuchet01.htm
doing pioneering work at trebuchet reenactments at the local Renaissance Festival. Below is the good doctor on the right.
http://ryleh.7hunters.net/articles/siege/treb01.jpg
His qualification at building trebuchets I’m sure is top notch but he expertise in QM is something we may never know.
Now let’s move on to WebHubTelescope’s reference to fempto second lasers and evaporation without heating the substrate. This is called laser thermal ablation. The link webby gives us is company using it to ablate steel, not water, and the company produces laser-based milling machines.
http://www.raydiance.com/our-technology/r-100-technical-specifications/
Thermal conductance of steel is 43W/(m.K) while that of water is 0.5843W/(m.K).
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-d_429.html
So basically webby compares a 1.5 kilowatt fempto-second laser pulse with a beam diameter of ~4mm able to vaporize steel without heating the substrate to a few hundred watts of IR illumination delivered to a liquid water surface 100,000 times larger.
Can you spell ridiculous comparison, Webby?
Adding insult to injury there is nothing in any of this that says constant exposure of a liquid water surface to low power mid-infrared will result in anything other than evaporation.
That’s because it won’t. If a 15um laser were able to heat water we’d surely find an application for it somewhere and I’ve searched far and wide for such an application and found zippo.
Over to you, Webby. You’re back to needing to explain 1) how the skin layer is colder than the water below it and 2) how heat diffuses from cold to warm. Have at it, crankster.
Webby is not asserting an actual diffusion – but an ‘effective diffusion’ which includes turbulent mixing and convection as processes. There is so very little point to any of it.
Giddy-yap go!
=========
David Springer | April 1, 2013 at 4:20 am |
Strawman. I made no such claim. I claimed that more energy leaves the skin layer than enters it which is trivally true due to the fact that the skin layer is colder than the water below it.
Water has a very high heat capacity which means that it takes in very large amounts of heat energy before showing any change in temperature, so not necessarily as you have it.
It is also at this point losing heat by evaporation at the surface, which from the hotter it gets the quicker it evaporates and so the colder it appears. Same mechanism we can feel when we overheat and sweat to cool down, called evaporative cooling.
And Ellison makes the obvious point again, which I must also, that the skin layer is colder than the water below which means net energy will be moving from the water below to the skin layer because heat diffuses from warmer to colder not vice versa. Having thus been instructed as to the 2nd Law you must either agree or become a crank along with the Sky Dragon Slayers, Myrhh, Doug Cotton, etc. Physcian, heal thyself.
You’re misrepresenting me.
You’re not taking into account that water expands when heated, becoming less dense and therefore lighter than the colder water beneath so it will rise through/stay on the top of the heavier colder water. This mechanism is how we get our currents.
As in the fluid gas Air, we get our winds when molecules of oxygen and nitrogen get differentially heated at the surface. The rising volume (packet) of less dense hot air rises and colder volumes of air sink beneath which in turn get heated – inshore/offshore winds are a good example of this basic mechanism. Hot air rises cold air sinks, just as hot water rises cold water sinks.
Just as a side note, water is a piss poor thermal conductor so not much energy moves by conduction from the ocean bulk into the skin layer. Rather, as I’ve pointed out before, the skin layer is mechanically removed by evaporation and convection.
Right, which is why hotter water at the top will not spontaneously flow from hotter to colder when the colder is beneath. It takes work, (convection currents from differential heating, the hand stirring the bath water), to move the heat by moving the water, and a tight lid to stop the spontaneous evaportation.
AGWScienceFiction has replaced “spontaneously” in the 2nd Law, by “net” which is why some think that “diffusion” exists regardless of the physical properties of the matter under discussion or that heat can’t flow spontaneously from colder to hotter.
Cool skin layer is only broken by white water in waves which is a small percentage of the water in normal seas. It reforms within “a few seconds” of being broken. Ref. “Measuring the Oceans from Space: Principles and Methods of Satellite Oceangraphy” pp 275
Mixing action by waves is not intuitive. No mixing at all occurs at depths shallower than half the amplitude of the wave. This is called the “undisturbed” or “still” water level.
Ref Anatomy of a Wave
http://www.geo.hunter.cuny.edu/~fbuon/GEOL_180/Lecture_pdfs/chapt10gh.pdf
reposted to include link to pp 275 in Satellite Oceanography textbook
Cool skin layer is only broken by white water in waves which is a small percentage of the water in normal seas. It reforms within “a few seconds” of being broken. Ref. “Measuring the Oceans from Space: Principles and Methods of Satellite Oceangraphy” pp 275
http://books.google.com/books?id=jk1fIo51uwMC&pg=PA275&lpg=PA275
Mixing action by waves is not intuitive. No mixing at all occurs at depths shallower than half the amplitude of the wave. This is called the “undisturbed” or “still” water level.
Ref Anatomy of a Wave
http://www.geo.hunter.cuny.edu/~fbuon/GEOL_180/Lecture_pdfs/chapt10gh.pdf
And now that I think about it, how is mixing the skin layer downward in a breaking wave going to warm the ocean when the skin layer is COLDER than the water below it?
Webby now has the remarkable distinction of being doubly wrong in that
1) the skin layer is mixed downward only in white water which is a small fraction of ocean surface and
2) the skin layer is colder than the water below it so downward mixing only serves to cool the water beneath it not warm it
Incredible. The depth of webby’s thinking is the shallowest wave of all.
Springer,
Your “explanation” for heating-free photon interaction with water is so odd that it is hard to find anything to either back it up or to challenge it. Only a very naive person would ask the question, and the quote I provided was one answer that a physicist volunteered.
The other link was for an application of this effect, which requires very short bursts of a laser pulse so that the surrounding material won’t heat up. The implication is that it would heat up if the laser was held on longer.
Then Springer says this
Parse that. “More energy leaves the skin layer than enters it”
Yes, so the system conserves energy. Some of the excess heat from the photons goes downward and some of it goes into evaporative cooling.
You deny that heat diffuses away from the surface downward. You deny that and that is where you are wrong.
I won’t say any more and will wait for a response in the hope that I can force you deeper into that hole that you have dug for yourself.
“You deny that heat diffuses away from the surface downward. You deny that and that is where you are wrong.”
No, YOU are 100% wrong in asserting that HEAT diffuses into WARMER water from a COLDER surface!
Take off your blinkers and you just might see that.
And a little humility might not be amiss either – everybody makes mistakes, bud, and you’re not special.
Phatbot, solve the heat equation. Diffusion is a linear concept. Add heat to a system and the heat content rises.
Rookies like you don’t know where to draw the boundaries of the system.
Google Tangaroa and “skin effect”, this is an experiment which shows how it works.
Lots and lots of counterexamples-
Heating at night
Heating with 100% relative humidity
It is a really bad situation you are in phatbot. You can’t do the math and you are completely lacking in intuition. You grab phrases that are meaningless without a context and then drop ludicrous bits of innuendo.
web, are you suffering from a comprehension failure?
Or are you just stubbornly unwilling to concede?
Web, you’ve just been hoisted by your own petard.
From RealClimate:
(my bold)
Heat enters the ocean by way of SW, and exits the ocean by way of LW.
It does NOT, as you assert, enter the surface by way of LW!
Grow a pair, admit your mistake and move on
Phatbot, Negative logic does not work on me. The gradient reduces which means more of the excess heat is retained. Sunlight is not excess unless aerosols affect it.
I will only concede if I can debunk Hansen, and so far I can’t because my own model fits his projections.
Let me repeat that I cannot concede that Hansen was wrong.
web, I’ll just remind you of your original assertion:
Why don’t you post that gem on RealClimate and see how far you get?
Even lowlot dismissed it as crackpot pseudo-science: http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/29/has-trenberth-found-the-missing-heat/#comment-307092
Yes, I realize that I would have to post it as the skin effect gradient is reduced thus reducing the loss of heat to the atmosphere, etc.
But it is saying the same thing only in logic that doesn’t appear to violate the second law, in concession to kranky types like you.
Listen, in semiconductor physics, we have the concept of the hole, so I know all about the crazy abstractions one can use when modeling diffusion. This stuff is child’s play in comparison.
WebHubTelescope | April 1, 2013 at 8:53 am |
“You deny that heat diffuses away from the surface downward.”
Correct. The skin layer is cooler than the water below it.
Your challenge is to explain how heat conducts from colder to warmer or in the case of turbulent mixing in a breaking wave how cooler water mixing dowward heats warmer water? Do you expect your coffee to get warmer if you mix cooler water into it?
You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place I’m afraid. Even Real Climate disputes your claim. If you admit you were wrong you look like a fool for needing instruction and if you continue denying it you look like fool in denial. LOL
Springer would have us believe that eddy diffusional currents cannot exist. Ha ha. These would violate his strawman.
Can’t be violating no strawman according to Springer.
Just bear this in mind the next time you’re tempted to attack someone else over their choice of words, huh?
You know, I still have no response to my question about the size of the effects that are claimed to be accurately measured here. It’s less than 0.1C. Are thermometers and depth meters really that accurate?
ARGO temp sensors are accurate to the thousandths of degree C upon leaving the factory. Theoretically they are up to the task but there’s many a slip between factory calibration and many years of field operation in salt water cycling thousands of times from 1 to 200 atmospheres and 3C to 30C in temperature without re-calibration.
It should be noted that the first few years of deployment showed a tiny ocean cooling then the data was “adjusted” to correct some kind of “flaw” and presto chango the record became one tiny ocean warming instead. Numbers so close to zero that post hoc adjusting changes the polarity especially when confirmation bias in the researchers is a given doesn’t inspire a high level of confidence in me personally.
Yeah, but the change is so little it doesn’t say much about confirmation bias. I happen to believe in Josh Willis’s integrity, and suspect he may be one of the most conflicted men in climate science. I listened to him try to patiently explain to Kevin Trenberth why his data militates against the idea of missing heat. It was like talking to the wall.
=============
The ARGO sensor’s long-term stability and accuracy (as as assessed in both laboratory testing and from recovered ARGO floats) is of order ± 0.002C, per Accuracy and Stability of Argo SBE 41 and SBE 41CP CTD Conductivity and Temperature Sensors! (as confirmed by other references).
That was a reasonably well-posed skepticism-motivated question, that has a reasonably solid skepticism-reducing answer, David Young!
Conclusion Trenberth’s deep-ocean “missing heat” is physically real.
6 floats out of 3000 total were checked after being at sea for 4 years or less. Those were still within spec. If you were screening for diabetes in 3000 people and you spot checked 6 of them and found no disease would you conclude all 3000 people were disease free? LOL
‘Isn’t conventional physics a wonderful thing Chief?’ webby
Has anyone figured out how he knows this?
Pingback: Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup | Watts Up With That?
Widespread lack of warming of the surface layer during the last decade indicates that Trenberth has found nothing other than the workings of his own imagination. The only way the surface data matches the OHC changes proposed is if the warming of the surface takes place only in the areas where turbulent eddies can carry the warmed water down. This excludes the majority of the open ocean. Next.
Yet, the heat does move downward.
You pranking skeptics have now completed your April Fool’s Day joke,
Hansen didn’t allow for the full range of natural variability. Toggweiler is the one that estimated ACC surface wind variation can produce a roughly 10 Sv change in the THC with lags up to 150 years. So while the effective diffusion or mixing rate may be 1 cm^2/s, it may have a range of .5 to 1.5 roughly depending on north Atlantic salinity and ACC surface winds.
Since more of the land based warming is in the NH and correlates with North Atlantic “recovery” his “sensitivity estimate was twice as high as Manabe’s. Hansen’s estimates are basically an ideal worst case.
Cappy Dick, I am reassured that you have not comprehended what I have written. This allows me to state again that I have incorporated a fully uncertainty quantified value for a diffusion coefficient in my formulation.
The uncertainty quantification is such that the range of the value is uncertain by a standard deviation that is equal to the mean. This is Jaynes’ suggestion based on information theory and we get a damped exponential as a PDF.
Your powers of Foo are comically strong but my powers of analysis always triumph.
Webster, wouldn’t the uncertainty depend on where you are on the long term trend? The Toggweiler range is estimated just on surface winds in the ACC region and North Atlantic salinity. The long term “average” temperature of the oceans is ~4C degrees with the long term range from ~2.6 C to 4C. If you are at the top of the range, there would be more down potential than up. That would be approaching a limit. Since minimal summer Arctic ice is a physical limit that would maximize mixing efficiency, that does seem to be the case.
Hansen’s estimate for “average” surface temperature is now 14 C a decrease from 15C originally estimated. The “average” SST he uses is ~16 C where the more modern satellite data indicates it is closer to 20 C. His estimated range would have more up side potential. Since his estimates included atmospheric induced Arctic melt, not North Atlantic warmer water influx melt from beneath the ice, a good portion of his estimated CO2 forcing is just redistribution of ocean energy amplification.
Why don’t you just use hemisphere data as a check and try a little hindcasting?
Webster, Here,
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-HzUYajyVP84/UVnUCOev_II/AAAAAAAAHrE/UXwpXfD3H5c/s912/giss%2520land%2520with%2520north%2520atlantic.png
The North Atlantic is a major climate influence and the southern hemisphere ACC has a larger impact on the North Atlantic that was once thought. Science progresses. If you are going to “ESTIMATE” a dynamic mixing processes as simple diffusion, you need to consider more realistic limits.
Cappy Dick, you are beginning to sound like a realtor or financial advisor. Might consider putting a cap on it. “up side potential” blah blah.
I have the uncertainty covered, which you refuse to acknowledge.
Webster, since you have the uncertainty covered, you can estimate OHC by basin and hemisphere, right? Now that the North Atlantic has reached a peak, do you reckon volcanic forcing will have the same impact?
“After 6 months the tracer had spread laterally over hundreds of kilometers, but vertically only a few tens of meters…”
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/jrt9401.pdf
steven, aren’t you being a little hard on the Webster? He is after all illustrating how Hansen produced the unrealistically high sensitivity.
What are you talking about Cappy Dick?
Higher diffusivity reduces sensitivity because the path to sinking the heat is lessened.
Hansen is just doing the physics properly. Look up papers by Sokolov and Stone.
Also search for tritium-based mixing. Values of D around 1.7 cm^2/s.
Joos, Orr, Siegenthaler use values between 1.3 and 2.5 for their models, and I use 2.5.
You cannot use tritium to trace the movement of water as the rate of hydrogen exchange between water molecules is more than 5 orders of magnitude greater than for water molecule movements.
The maximum rate of proton movements along ‘Grotthuss’ water chains, though always faster than water molecule movement, is phenomenological and has to be measured with respect to temperature, salts concentration and pressure.
DocMartyn, bearing the Dunning-Kruger mechanism in mind … are you certain that your assertion is correct?
Reminder Electric charges transport rapidly along ‘Grotthuss’ water chains, but the hydrogenic atomic nuclei themselves (protons, deuteron nuclei, tritium nuclei) do not transport by the Grotthuss mechanism.
Otherwise diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) by magnetic resonance could scarcely work, eh DocMartyn?
Correct conclusion In consequence of the (slightly) greater molecular weight, deuterated/tritiated (heavy) H20 molecules are slightly less mobile/diffusive than native-proton (light) H20 molecules (indeed, this isotope-dependent molecular mobility decrease is the basis for heavy-water isotope separation technologies) and thus are valid tracers for mass transport.
Short summary The geophysics literature is broadly correct, whereas DocMartyn’s assertions in regard to mass transport in water are fundamentally mistaken.
The Grotthuss mechanism is not a mechanism that describes the diffusion of individual hydrogen nuclei, be they protons or tritons. It’s a mechanism for the diffusion of excess or deficiency of protons. Referring to it in this connections shows misunderstanding of the mechanism.
The speed of the Grotthus mechanism is kind of phase velocity of proton density rather than velocity of the protons themselves.
Assessment DocMartyn’s claim is scientifically mistaken … Pekka’s claim is scientifically correct.
‘You cannot use tritium to trace the movement of water as the rate of hydrogen exchange between water molecules is more than 5 orders of magnitude greater than for water molecule movements.
The maximum rate of proton movements along ‘Grotthuss’ water chains, though always faster than water molecule movement, is phenomenological and has to be measured with respect to temperature, salts concentration and pressure.’
This is correct – is what Pekka said – and FOMBS is as always madly off track.
But as always we are talikng advection and convection as by far the diminant proceses – and tritium is not equivalant to heat in the transport in the oceans.
And webby is still using heat data to derive a simplified heat function Pretty danged idiotic if you ask me.
“Direct measurements of open-ocean turbulence and the diffusion of SF6 yield an eddy diffusivity:
Kz ≈ 10-5m2/s Open-Ocean Vertical Eddy Diffusivity ”
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter08/chapter08_05.htm
What’s the next measurement down from a mm anyway?
Average vertical eddy diffusivity from same document is 1.3 cm^2/s, which is close to what Hansen assumes.
Diffusivity is also highly variable and that is why my formulation uses a stochastic uncertainty quantified solution.
It’s all documented so read it and weep. Model fits observations and nowhere do I buck accepted physical theory in devising a solution
It’s like solving a homework problem.
Web, if you keep reading you see where they explain why the Munk estimate fails to match the open ocean diffusion rate. The NOAA document I linked states the measured rate in open ocean as 0.11 cm^2/s. It is this difference between those areas that have considerable turbulence and open ocean with little turbulence that caused me to come to the conclusion I came to. If you can explain why an order of magnitude difference between the mixing rate doesn’t make a difference to the surface temperatures by all means please share.
I use an uncertainty quantified version of diffusivity. This has values for the range that you have indicated. The ocean is heterogeneous in these effects but there is a well established mean centered between 1.3 and 2.5 cm^2/s. That’s what I use and I can estimate the balance of thermal energy entering the ocean from fitting the OHC curves.
Pretty dang cool.
Web. focus. How do the surface areas of the ocean that have a low diffusion rate keep from warming from WMGGs if there is an overall increase in OHC? Some areas sure, there may be individual reasons but the lack of warming is widespread.
Focus, uncertainty quantification.
Some places are high, some are low.
So we can measure accurately the heat content of the oceans below 700 meters yet are unable to accurately measure the temperature at the surface? I’ll go with the easiest to measure being the closest to being correct.
Problem with measuring surface is a bunch of changes in how it was done over the years and surroundings changing over the years too. Readings are now automated and care is taken to keep surroundings constant but that doesn’t help the surface temperature network of a couple decades or more in the past which require a lot of post-processing of raw numbers in an effort to compare apples with apples for over a century of evolution in the network.
The Trenberthian magic in this is how the tiny remainder of the infrared not excluded by ocean surface skips down to the 700 meters to hide in waiting for the enlightened lords of climate doom to discover. Trenberth does for climate science what Lewandowsky does for psychology.
David Appell, I’ve replied to your post here: http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/29/has-trenberth-found-the-missing-heat/#comment-307728
I don’t know if you’ve read it, but here’s another name for you as I’ve just seen more about the Arrhenius error Angstrom pointed out re carbonic acid/carbon dioxide on the WUWT pingback link:
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=919&Itemid=1
“DR VINCENT GRAY HAS REVISITED HIS PAPER ON ‘THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT’
Posted 27 March 2013
IPCC expert reviewer Dr Vincent Gray, of Wellington, NZ, has revised his original paper of the greenhouse effect. “The origins of the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ which were reviewed in ‘The Greenhouse and its Effects’1 . have been further reassessed. The idea of the climate resembling the behaviour of a greenhouse originated from Fourier (1824). He considered that his belief that a greenhouse traps infra red rays could be applied to the climate, where infra radiation from the earth could be absorbed by water vapour This suggestion was supported by Pouillet and Tyndall. Arrhenius, who used Langley’s calculations to measure the effect, attributed it to carbon dioxide instead, but he was unaware that absorption by carbon dioxide was not measured by Langley, so he inadvertently measured water vapour instead…. In contrast to Fourier, a real greenhouse depends on convection and latent heat transfer and so does the climate, with the addition of the outside climate ehich it excludes together with its chaotic behaviour. Fluctuations in this system are much greater than the claimed effects of greenhouse gases, which would therefore be undetectable.” ”
This “well proven science” claim for AGW’s The Greenhouse Effect always waves in the general direction of Arrhenius for its ‘argument from authority’, but inspection shows that Arrhenius got everything wrong for a variety of reasons. There is no “well proven science” backing this claimed effect.
It looks like the skeptics are missing Manacker. The trollish arguments are being dispatched handedly and the one guy that can lie and misdirect with the best of them has gone on vacation.
This is like playing the Washington Generals B-squad.
Trenberth and company for the easy win.
Heck yeah, as long as you all think this is some sort of game, might as well keep score.
Speaking of trollish arguments I’m waiting for you to explain how the cool skin layer warms the water beneath it through either conduction when it’s intact or from mechanical mixing when its broken up.
1. If I place a cooler skin layer on top of warmer water, it wouldn’t warm it. In Chewbacca style, that would not make sense.
2. If we hit that water with infrared radiation, the water’s temperature will rise, and will continue to rise until it reaches a new steady state with the incoming radiation.
If you are like me, you would set up a set of equations to solve the dynamic evolution of system #2, including latent heat of evaporation, outward radiation, and diffusion to lower layers. Then you would record the solution in a lab notebook or a blog as I have done here:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
If you are like Springer, you devise purely rhetorical strategies to win arguments.
The cool skin forms because of losses of energy – including net IR up – at the surface of the water. The cool skin constantly mixes into the water below – that is not diffusion in the the strict sense.
‘A distinguishing feature of diffusion is that it results in mixing or mass transport, without requiring bulk motion. Thus, diffusion should not be confused with convection, or advection, which are other transport mechanisms that utilize bulk motion to move particles from one place to another. In Latin, “diffundere” means “to spread out”.’ wikipedia
The correct terminology is advection – where the mass of the water at the cool skin moves into the mixed layer. Mixing of cooler water into warmer water cannot heat the warmer water.
It’s an April Fool’s joke and Webby’s got the three-pointed hat on, as usual.
Max
Webby
You “on vacation”?
(or just “out to lunch”, as usual?)
Max
The motion of water molecules – although we typically think of them as particles – in a wave is orbital and is initiated by wind moving across the surface. Thus we get mixing to the depth of the wave influence – which is considerable as these orbitals set up successively deeper and smaller orbitals in the water column.
http://kingfish.coastal.edu/biology/sgilman/770Oceansinmotion.htm
Convection is a primary mixing process and consists of warmer water heated by the sun bouyantly rising. This is counteracted by downward vertical turbulent eddy mixing and the balance of these two processes determine the heat partitioning above and below the thermocline. Convection is of course dominant by a great deal as evidenced by the warm mixed layer that exists everywhere you have water bodies day and might – cloudy or clear.
In Autumm in lakes in relatively high latitudes the surface layer will cool enough that the water will sink – an overturnurning event that is quite common. Near the poles the water will cool enough to sink.
Has the rate of deep vertical mixing changed or is Trenberth’s deep warming an artifact of having only a relatively small number of data points below 700m prior to ARGO? This question and the XBT/ARGO splicing issue is still to be resolved.
The cool skin is continually mixed into the mixed layer primarily – and constantly reforms almost immediately with the quantum scale and speed of net IR up from a warm ocean to the cooler atmosphere. Although even here – a heat equilibrium between the oceans and near surface atmosphere is asumed in using surface water temperature as a proxy for near surface atmospheric temperature. It is said to be approximately true on a seasonal scale.
For the most part data quality issue dominates consideration for data that preceded purpose designed monitoring systems – prior that is to CERES, MODIS and ARGO.
Webb’y methodology at best consists of fitting a box model function to data that we already have. This is essentially a smoothing function that loses information in the data. The function is equivalent to a heat diffusion function used for heat sinks in computers for instance and that assumes diffusion from the atmosphere to the oceans – something that is profoundly unphysical – and ignores other critical processes that result in what we know of the physical structure of the oceans. It can be safely ignored as as a pointless and superficial exercise.
That not even scepticalscience or realclimate agree with him gives him no pause at all. He relies on a 30 year old paper from Hansen that uses a black box model in the same way – although for some purpose in partitioning heat gain between the oceans and atmosphere.
‘In science and engineering, a black box is a device, system or object which can be viewed solely in terms of its input, output and transfer characteristics without any knowledge of its internal workings, that is, its implementation is “opaque” (black). Almost anything might be referred to as a black box: a transistor, an algorithm, or the human mind.
The opposite of a black box is a system where the inner components or logic are available for inspection, which is sometimes known as a clear box, a glass box, or a white box.’ wikipedia
I doubt that even Hansen believes that his box model is white but webby does and provides endless argumentation without distinguishing between actual processes – real measured toa flux, the complex internal mechanisms of the oceans and in the coupling between oceans and atmosphere as opposed to a single global ‘effective diffusion’ which we should not be deluded is in any way representative of actual physical processes. It is nonsense of the highest order – and I am quite bored with the nonsensical arguments, him and his silly rhetoric.
Lake Travis @30N latitude overturns. Smells in the fall when it happens.
All I get in a serch for turnover at Lake Travis was when the tourists all ran to the same side of the boat at the nudist beach. That wasn’t you was it Springer?
Normally happens in temperate lakes. The 208m altitude might help a little – about 3 degrees.
The ‘missing heat’ is all in the SW as a result of cloud changes. It doesn’t help the warminista case at all.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES-BAMS-2008-with-trend-lines1.gif.html?sort=3&o=85#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES-BAMS-2008-with-trend-lines1.gif.html?sort=3&o=85&_suid=136485719915707962811837205697
Hah! Ya learn something new every day.
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a293096.pdf
Infrared observations of breaking waves that disrupt the skin layer (8-10 meters per second wind speed minimum) show warm area where the wave breaks that reforms in about 5 seconds. What I *didn’t* know was that the foam left behind is colder than the intact skin layer.
That makes sense. The foam has a greater surface area for evaporative cooling.
But Jessup didn’t find a foam effect.
Try this one. It’s got pictures and animations.
‘In reality the thermal properties of the surface of the ocean are very variable and are driven by turbulence. While the augments above are in terms of the mean skin layer, the embedded hyperlinks will take you to video clips of the water surface in a wind-wave tank taken with an infrared imager. The dimensions of the surface are about 30x40cm in each image and the colors indicate the skin temperatures. In each case the airflow is from the lower left to the upper right. The air-sea temperature difference is -15K (air cooler than water) which is large compared to most situations in nature, but was imposed here to ensure a clear signal in the infrared imagery. The loop with coherent structures is for a wind speed of 2 ms-1 (http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/personal/pminnett/Skin_layer_video/CS031.AVI) and the warm patches are the tops of the turbulent eddies bringing warmer subskin water into the skin layer. The colder filaments are where surface convergence is concentrating the water than has been in the skin layer longest and is therefore cooler. The other loop is for a wind speed of 9 ms-1 (http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/personal/pminnett/Skin_layer_video/CS037.AVI) and thus breaking waves are present. The structures are smaller and less coherent in space and time, but the range of skin temperatures is comparable to the lower wind speed case where there are no breaking waves.’
The Tempest:
‘….Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad and play’d
Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners,
Plunged into the foaming brine and quit the vessel,’
H/t Ariel.
+1
And I’m off to bed. Had a great Easter but the fishing was RS, must be something to do with climate change!
Seems to me that
a) if Trenberth is wrong and the “missing heat” is NOT in the deep ocean, there is no real “missing heat” and we have nothing to worry about
b) if Trenberth is right and the “missing heat” has really gone into the deep ocean, it will disappear there forever (maybe adding a few non-measurable thousandths of a degree C to the temperature there over the next century) and we also have nothing to worry about.
Good news either way!
Max
That’s 0.003C warming since 1958 or 0.0006C per decade.
IF the “warming” were to continue at that rate for the next 200 years, the ocean would warm by 0.01C over this entire period.
(If we could even measure it some way.)
Fuggidaboudit, Kevin.
Hansen and others predicted the ocean would be a tremendous heat sink years ago. He was right you know.
This is a simple model using uncertainty quantified diffusion
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/03/ocean-heat-content-model.html
Half of the heat is going onto the ocean. Ocean is 70% of the surface area. Thus
$$T_{avg} = 0.7*T_{aqua} + 0.3*T_{land} = 0.7*0.5*T_{land} + 0.3*T_{land} = 0.65*T_{land}$$
So the land temperature anomaly (BEST) will be ~50% greater than the average temperature (GIStemp, HADCRUT) for as long as the ocean continues sinking the heat. Land has increased about 1.2C while the average has increased 0.8C.
No one has challenged this.
Webby
Sure, Hansen “predicted the ocean would be a tremendous heat sink years ago”.
Duh!
It was an integral part of the “hidden in the pipeline” ploy.
But we’ve now got it so well “hidden” that no one can find it.
And, even if it were real, it would amount to a few thousandths of a degree C over the next century.
So I’m not too terribly worried about it miraculously jumping out of the “pipeline” and frying us all.
Seriously, Webby, are you?
Max
WHT,
Your formula is based on the assumption that there’s no transfer of heat between oceans and land areas. That’s not a well justified assumption for long term changes.
The role of warming of the water mass of oceans is also a complex issue. Your approach of non-uniform statistically varying diffusion coefficient is one possible approach for building a simple model for that. It has a better change of giving good results than the simplest model of uniform diffusion.
Another approach that I like perhaps more is building a multicompartment model. With a rather small number of compartments enough flexibility is reached to allow for a rather good description of heat flows. Unfortunately we don’t know well, how the details and parameters of such a model should be fixed, but neither do we know how to set the parameters in your approach. A multicompartment model has the advantage that the compartments can be chosen to describe in approximate terms parts of the real ocean. It’s possible to include in it both large scale convective flows and the greatly variable turbulent mixing.
Your approach is much more sensible than most people here are ready to admit, but even so I’m not sure on the quantitative value of your results. The MaxEnt principle may be deceptive as it leads often to plausible results without any guarantee that what’s plausible is also a good enough approximation. In many applications that turns out to be true, but that’s not a sufficient proof on the validity in other situations.
Come now Pekka
We have a box model of diffusion of heat from the atmosphere to the ocean – that just yesterday paid lip service to Mt Pinatubo.
With such relatively small forcings in a nonequilibrium system – maxent is absolute nonsense.
What he effectively does is take a data series and smooths it – thus losing information and not gaining insight into realistic processes either.
As for the 07 and 0.3 nonsense above – do you have a problem in actually looking at data because that is where understanding starts and not with grossly simplified expressions. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/crutem4vgl/plot/hadcrut4gl
We have variability over land – but why do you think the sea surface temperature has declined in the past decade or so?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl
The only sensible data is the satellite instruments – http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/plot/uah
Or the ARGO data – http://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/guidance/ocean-heat-content-10-1500m-depth-based-argo
And CERES of course. Without observations and understanding the obvervations we talking with no science at all – merely misleading fantasy physics clothed in mathematical sysmbols – that he frequently poorly applies.
The whole thing is a rather pointless and silly mess from a crazed and self aggrandising fool.
Chief Hydrologist | April 3, 2013 at 4:29 am |
Come now Pekka
…
The only sensible data is the satellite instruments –
…
And CERES of course. Without observations and understanding the obvervations we talking with no science at all – merely misleading fantasy physics clothed in mathematical sysmbols – that he frequently poorly applies.
How can we understand the observations when they are being hidden from us?
Please, take the time to appreciate what I am saying here.
The ethics breakdown in climate science begins and ends with hiding data, this is science fraud like Brighton Rock written all the way through.
The CERES data is science fraud, it has taken out all the longwave infrared, aka thermal infrared aka the invisible radiant heat direct from the Sun; one of the three methods of heat transfer of conduction, convection and radiation as well understood in thermodynamics.
Herschel never happened.
Traditional physics is no longer taught to the oik pleb masses who now believe the impossible physics that visible light from the Sun has the power to heat matter.
As I posted earlier, a reminder that NASA used to teach traditional physics:
We cannot feel near infrared, it is not thermal, it is not the radiant heat we feel from the Sun.
Ditto visible and uv, these are not thermal energies, they are not heat. These shortwaves are classed as Reflective not Thermal, as Light and not Heat..
Visible light from the Sun isn’t powerful enough to raise the temperature of land and water and us.
CERES has taken out the invisible radiant heat direct from the Sun, the longwave thermal infrared, the actual heat energy wavelengths, not by excluding it in the numbers, but by renaming it “shortwave”.
Why has it done this?
Because the AGW global warming fake Greenhouse Effect can now pretend that any actual measurements of thermal infrared downwelling from the atmosphere are the result of their bogus backradiation.
To this end they have corrupted science teaching in the general education system. Please re-read the NASA quote I have given, this is still traditional physics teaching for those outside of the general corrupted education system.
The heat we actually feel direct from the Sun has been hidden in this clever and wide reaching science fraud.
CH,
The issue where a more complex multicompartment model or a model of variable diffusivity enters is the heat transfer from near surface to deeper ocean. A fixed average (or effective) diffusivity cannot describe that process well as there are some pathways for relatively fast heat transfer while the diffusion is very weak over wide areas. The process is not a uniform diffusion and cannot be modeled well as uniform diffusion.
One possibility is to use a full model of ocean circulation, but that’s overkill for many questions.
Pekka said:
I am making the assertion that the land temperature will always be near but never greater than the estimated equilibrium climate sensitivity value. This is a conservative estimate and will likely be modified by mixing of heat between land and ocean as you suggest.
It has a dual benefit as ET Jaynes suggests. It may reflect the natural aleatory uncertainty as it roughly describes the multiple diffusive pathways, but it also works as a prior to reflect the systemic uncertainty or “ignorance” of the modeler. In other words, since we have no idea of what the variance is of the thermal diffusivity, assuming a Maximum Entropy prior for the variance fits the bill. That’s why it is plausible, but is never sufficient proof.
As Leonard Susskind has stated, entropy can describe the hidden information contained within a system, i.e. the hidden degrees of freedom. We may never know what these are but that doesn’t mean we can’t attempt to estimate it.
Good comments.
Max said:
I am also not afraid that doing the math right will kill us.
Are you “terribly worried” of scientists doing applied physics modeling?
Pekka,
There are indeed fast pathways for heat to enter oceans. It is called sunshine – something which seems to change all the time and over decades at least. Certainly the ocean temperature does. But whether mulit-compartment or not there is no diffusion from the atmosphere to the oceans.
If only Trenberth and the rest of the climate hypesters spent as much time and effort finding their missing ethics………
The oceans are a relatively simple system. Heat goes in and over time one would expect that an energy equilibrium would be reached with the same energy going out – this is maximum entropy in principle. In the oceans there are internal processes that distribute heat – mixing and convection primarily – that are properties of a non-equilibrium system. Heat distribution across the planet is chaotic with weather and winds driven partly by the rotation of the planet. The oceans cannot be said to be in equilibrium as a result of this.
The other variability is in changes to the heat flow into the ocean as SW changes with cloud, TSI and other factors and as heat losses change with IR changes from clouds and atmospheric gases.
Maximum entropy is not usefully applicable to the system but Webby does not use maximum entropy at all. He simply derives an ‘effective diffusion’ rate from linearised ocean heat content data. In principle it is useable as a black box equation – but does not reflect actual physics and is ultimately totally pointless as all he is doing is smoothing the data and losing information.
He wiggles and squirms and refuses to deal squarely with reality. He has little idea of the breadth of processes he is botching. He is just another internet wack job with a monomania.
The Maximum Entropy Principle is mainly concerned with information theory but it dovetails into statistical mechanics as well.
Entropy in one sense can be described as the dispersion of energy. There has been a recent push in academia to teach it this way. See http://entropysite.oxy.edu
I am on this bandwagon and it is paying off in terms of understanding and simplifying solutions.
‘Entropy measures the spontaneous dispersal of energy: how much energy is spread out in a process, or how widely spread out it becomes — at a specific temperature.’
Entropy is a measure of the second law at work – maximum entropy is a principle that assumes that the most probable state of a thermodynamic system is where all of the energy entering the system is dispersed. This is trivially true for a system that is in equilibrium – but not obvious for a system that is not in equilibrium. There have been some attempts to apply the idea to climate – without notable success thus far.
It assumes that:
Energy in = Energy whereas in reality
Δ work and heat in the Earth system = Energy in – Energy out
It is the change in work and heat that is important in the unsteady state of the Earth’s climate.
The heat diffusion from the atmosphere to the oceans of webby’s is still not a maximum entropy approach, physically realistic or something that is informative. It is as I keep saying pointless and silly – and no amount of armwaving about inapplicable bandwagons will change that.
His over simplifications are just that – and his misunderstandings of maths, physics and the Earth sciences of climate are monumental.
This comment by Chief was moderated out apparently:
The editorial team may be on my side. Neat stuff, eh?
I don’t remember the comment but I agree with the sentiment.
It is obvious that webby maps ocean heat data with an ocean heat function that assumes that heat is transferred from the atmosphere in a way that is unphysical and produces an unbelievably gross smoothing of the data. That he persists in thinking this is a fundamental climate breakthough is an astonishing delusion. Ah – it’s coming back.
To talk to the adults – Pekka
‘The issue where a more complex multicompartment model or a model of variable diffusivity enters is the heat transfer from near surface to deeper ocean. A fixed average (or effective) diffusivity cannot describe that process well as there are some pathways for relatively fast heat transfer while the diffusion is very weak over wide areas. The process is not a uniform diffusion and cannot be modeled well as uniform diffusion.
One possibility is to use a full model of ocean circulation, but that’s overkill for many questions.’
And I presume you are talking about the transfer of heat from the mixed layer to the deep oceans – and certainly this was a surprise to everyone when Karina von Schuckmann first integrated ARGO data to depth. The processes of heat movement we are talking about are advection and convection which are certainly fast processes – and acting in different directions. Advection carries suface water deep into the ocean in turbulent eddies in many locations. Convection carries warm water upward to the warmer mixed layer.
The process is turbulent and chaotical and certainly changes with changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation. I am being very certain this afternoon. At this stage data and observation is a much better option than modelling of any kind.
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