Ocean Heat Storage: Implications for Climate Change Research

[joelupchurch]

This paper "Earth's energy imbalance: Confirmation and implications. Science, 308, 1431-1435 Hansen et al" pdf available http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2005/Hansen_etal_1.html" seems to have been very influential in research on climate change.

The basic argument is that very little of the Earth's heat is stored in the atmosphere and that the heat stored in the first 2.5 meters of the ocean is equivalent to the whole atmosphere. Therefore ocean heat storage is a more reliable tool to measure the radiative imbalances in our climate system than surface temperature changes.

I've noticed that even researchers at the far end of climate debate from Hansen are starting to use the ocean heat storage metric in their papers.

Part of this is probably driven by deployment of the Argo float system that has given us unprecedented capacity to measure changes in ocean temperatures down to 2000 meters.
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/" . There are currently 3325 active Argo floats providing real time information about ocean conditions.

 

[chriscolose]

The recent Levitus et al 2009 paper may be a good read
ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat08.pdf[/URL]

 

[sylas]

This paper "Earth's energy imbalance: Confirmation and implications. Science, 308, 1431-1435 Hansen et al" pdf available http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2005/Hansen_etal_1.html" seems to have been very influential in research on climate change.

The basic argument is that very little of the Earth's heat is stored in the atmosphere and that the heat stored in the first 2.5 meters of the ocean is equivalent to the whole atmosphere. Therefore ocean heat storage is a more reliable tool to measure the radiative imbalances in our climate system than surface temperature changes.

I've noticed that even researchers at the far end of climate debate from Hansen are starting to use the ocean heat storage metric in their papers.

Part of this is probably driven by deployment of the Argo float system that has given us unprecedented capacity to measure changes in ocean temperatures down to 2000 meters.
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/" . There are currently 3325 active Argo floats providing real time information about ocean conditions.

This is really interesting stuff… and with lots of unanswered questions which adds to the interest!

It's long been known that the ocean's heat capacity is important; the problem has always been the computation to take it into account.

The equivalence of heat storage for the atmosphere to about 2.5 meters of ocean is a back of the envelope calculation, using century old physics. Heat capacity of air is about 1000 kJ/kg; and for water is about 4000 kJ/kg. (Single digit accuracy) The atmosphere has a pressure of 1000 hPa, under gravity of 10 m/s^2; hence there is about 10,000 kg of atmosphere for each square meter of Earth's surface. That has the heat capacity of 2,500 kg of water. You get 2,500 kg of water per square meter with a depth of 2.5 m.

Strictly speaking, this isn't a comparison with the whole ocean, but with atmosphere and ocean over a single square meter. To consider the whole Earth, you'd have to note that about 30% of the surface isn't ocean. Taking this into account, the heat capacity of the entire atmosphere is about the same as the heat capacity of the top 3.4m of the world ocean.

That only tells you that the ocean is important, which has long been understood. The modeling of climate and weather has progressed steadily thanks to more detailed measurement of factors involved, better mathematical descriptions of the physics, and faster computers to actually handle the computations. A really helpful background historical summary of the progress in quantified understanding of weather and climate over the last century is at http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm, a chapter out of Spencer Weart's online book on the discovery of global warming.

The paper you have cited by Hansen et. al. has been influential, not so much for persuading people to consider the ocean, but for a quantified estimate of it's impact in terms of the net energy flow currently going into the ocean.

However, in my opinion the estimate given there is a substantial over estimate. They quote 0.85 W/m^2 +/- 0.15 net imbalance for the whole planet. But if you read the paper, it's clear this number is not a measurement, but based on the models. The actual measurements do indicate a positive imbalance, but substantially less. Climate models have been an enormous help in this whole field, but modeling of ocean circulation still has a ways to go before I'd put too much weight on this specific number.

The research Chris has cited is a better guide, I think. The Argo floats you mention are a key part of this – although much of the issue there is sorting out teething problems with systematic measurement errors.

Bottom line: the Leviticus et al paper estimate increasing heat content of the world ocean at roughly 4e21 J/year over recent decades, and this fits broadly with a range of empirical estimates.

Crunch the numbers: a year is 3.15e7 seconds, and the Earth's surface is 5.1e14 m^2, and this works out to about 0.25 W/m^2 as the energy imbalance.

I think this is a much more plausible value than the 0.85 used in Hansen et al (2005).

Cheers -- sylas

 

[joelupchurch]

The recent Levitus et al 2009 paper may be a good read
ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat08.pdf[/URL][/QUOTE]

I'm not comfortable with how they mix in the lower quality pre argo data. There seems to be a sharp change in the trendline around 2004. Is that real or just because they are mixing apples and oranges?

 

[sylas]

I'm not comfortable with how they mix in the lower quality pre argo data. There seems to be a sharp change in the trendline around 2004. Is that real or just because they are mixing apples and oranges?

I'm not sure what you refer to. I've got the paper; you can refer to a figure or a page. I've not read it in great detail. I know some of the issues involved in this, but only from comparatively superficial reading of the associated literature. I'm not an expert.

One of the problems has been systematic errors in Argo measurements. Most of that is probably ironed out, but it's an ongoing issue to sort out problems with Argo. In fact, I see that just yesterday there was a recall notice put out at the http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/seabird_notice.html wanting to stop float deployment and bring in floats for repair to pressure sensors. Pressure sensors seem to have been something of a problem all along.

This is a great experiment, but they are still sorting it all out as far as I can see. It's got great potential to help sort out ocean measurement.

A part of this paper (Levitus et al 2009) has been to consider the impact of corrected Argo data from earlier systematic errors. They also seem to be working on identifying systematic errors in older "bathythermograph" measurements that I don't know about, but which are a crucial part of the longer instrument record.

Argo is still new, so it can't tell you much about long term trend by itself. There certainly is real short term variation; there is also short term sampling errors. When you are dealing with incomplete data the short term variation is often hard to pin down. Furthermore, it's really the long term trend people are most interested in, at this point.

As a general rule in ANY measurement of a trend of anything, you can't draw conclusions from a short sample. So sure, there is likely to be some real changes from year to year. The idea of a trend is to get a longer term picture that is not distorted by short term natural oscillations and variations.

The other important recent reference is:

• Domingues, C.D., (2008) Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise, in Nature Vol 453, pp 1090-1093 (19 June 2008) doi:10.1038/nature07080

That is an analysis of the instrument record up to 2003, but it is by the Argo floats research group and does use this new source of information. They obtain a trend in ocean heat content involving 16 +/- 3 *10²² J from 1961 to 2003; and that corresponds to a planetary energy imbalance of 0.24 W/m² – very similar indeed to Levitus et al (2009).

Cheers -- sylas

 

[joelupchurch]

I'm not sure what you refer to. I've got the paper; you can refer to a figure or a page. I've not read it in great detail. I know some of the issues involved in this, but only from comparatively superficial reading of the associated literature. I'm not an expert.

I'm referring to figure 1 on page 2. From 2000 to 2004 it increases from 7x10²² to 13x10²² joules and it then flattens out.

I just did a back of the envelope calculation based on the ocean storing 1.5x10²² joules a year. I figure that the human race uses about 5x10²⁰ joules per year, so the ocean was storing 30 times as much energy as the human race was consuming.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/generalenergy_faqs.asp" . There are 1055 joules in a BTU.

 

[Xnn]

— The global mean concentration of CO2 in 2005 was 379
ppm, leading to an RF of +1.66 [±0.17] W m–2.

The combined anthropogenic RF is estimated to be +1.6
[–1.0, +0.8] W m–2, indicating that, since 1750, it is extremely
likely that humans have exerted a substantial warming
influence on climate.

Increasing concentrations of the long-lived greenhouse
gases (carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide
(N2O), halocarbons and sulphur hexafl uoride (SF6); hereinafter
LLGHGs) have led to a combined RF of +2.63 [±0.26] W m–2.

From page 131. RF = Radiative Forcing

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter2.pdf

 

[joelupchurch]

The other important recent reference is:

• Domingues, C.D., (2008) Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise, in Nature Vol 453, pp 1090-1093 (19 June 2008) doi:10.1038/nature07080

That is an analysis of the instrument record up to 2003, but it is by the Argo floats research group and does use this new source of information. They obtain a trend in ocean heat content involving 16 +/- 3 *10²² J from 1961 to 2003; and that corresponds to a planetary energy imbalance of 0.24 W/m² – very similar indeed to Levitus et al (2009).
[/QUOTE]

I found a free copy of the paper here http://www.astepback.com/GEP/Nature%20Higher%20Warming%20SLR%20rates.pdf".

I'm not sure how much to read into their agreement with Levitus. It looks like they are working from the same datasets and may be using the same corrections.

I don't know why they used the pre 1970 data. The 1 standard deviation band is so wide, that they might as well insert random numbers. I'm also a little concerned that they cut off their graph at 2003 when Leviticus includes data through 2008.

 

[joelupchurch]

The other important recent reference is:

• Domingues, C.D., (2008) Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise, in Nature Vol 453, pp 1090-1093 (19 June 2008) doi:10.1038/nature07080

That is an analysis of the instrument record up to 2003, but it is by the Argo floats research group and does use this new source of information. They obtain a trend in ocean heat content involving 16 +/- 3 *10²² J from 1961 to 2003; and that corresponds to a planetary energy imbalance of 0.24 W/m² – very similar indeed to Levitus et al (2009).

Sorry I messed up. The part above was from a post by sylas not me.

 

[sylas]

I'm referring to figure 1 on page 2. From 2000 to 2004 it increases from 7x10²² to 13x10²² joules and it then flattens out.

OK. I see what you mean. Here's the same data as presented at the NOAA page for this research: Global Ocean Heat Content:

The data being plotted here and in figure 1 of Levitus et al (2009) is in the "World Ocean" column of the file: ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/DATA_ANALYSIS/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/DATA/basin/3month/h22-w0-700m1-3.dat[/URL] (ftp, NOAA site). The rise you mean is from the data point for 2001 (5.073e22 J) to 2004 (12.154e22 J). You can also get at slightly more detailed 3-monthly data from the same pages.

This rise around 2003 is a part of the Argo data; it is not something that comes from trying to merge older data with new "better" data. I don't think you can draw any definite conclusions about a short term effect like this; it could be almost anything, from a calibration error to a real heat content jump to a measurement artifact of how floats are distributed with changing currents. The overall picture of increasing heat content, however, is pretty unambiguous. There are various short term oscillations in ocean currents and temperature distributions, like the ENSO oscillations with El Nino and La Nina. That's a real effect – not simply as a change in total heat content, but signal that can confound short term measures of heat content.

In this data the whole trend is a strong positive, and there's shorter noise and up and down all along the timeseries. In the Domingues et al paper (2008) that I cited, you can see their figure 1 also showing a similar up surge. Since it is the same data being analysed, this isn't enough to tell how much is an artifact of measurement, and how much is a real difference in shift. The data files allow you to look at North and South Hemisphere separately, and at a 3-month series rather than annual data, and it looks a bit like there was at least some role for a fortuitous case of simultaneous upswings in both NH and SH throughout the year 2003 and a bit each side… but either NH or SH in isolation looks more like ongoing noisy variation and an increasing trend.


[QUOTE]I just did a back of the envelope calculation based on the ocean storing 1.5x10[SUP]22[/SUP] joules a year. I figure that the human race uses about 5x10[SUP]20[/SUP] joules per year, so the ocean was storing 30 times as much energy as the human race was consuming.

[PLAIN]http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/generalenergy_faqs.asp" . There are 1055 joules in a BTU.[/QUOTE]

That sounds about right. The contribution of human activity by direct energy production is just about negligible. As far as the Earth is concerned, the only source of energy that matters is the Sun. That's why the greenhouse effect is so important. This isn't a source of energy – our actual energy input is tiny by comparison. The greenhouse effect has such a big impact because it alters how the Earth responds to the solar energy input.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[sylas]

I'm not sure how much to read into their agreement with Levitus. It looks like they are working from the same datasets and may be using the same corrections.

Of course. The thing is that this IS Argo data being used.

I don't know why they used the pre 1970 data. The 1 standard deviation band is so wide, that they might as well insert random numbers. I'm also a little concerned that they cut off their graph at 2003 when Leviticus includes data through 2008.

It takes a lot of time and work to do these analyses. You can't just read off a value from Argo data. A global heat content figure is obtained by a lot of analysis of thousands of individual floats, along with all the issues of calibration and instrument drift and known errors with pressure sensors. Hence a paper submitted in 2007 is using data from some time prior to that.

There's a slightly different focus in the two papers Levitus (2009) is particularly concerned with correcting errors in XBTs, whereas Domingues (2008) is particularly concerned with fixing problems with recently discovered problems with the Argo floats. The Levitus paper is a repeat of an older analysis, and has been updated to take into account the new Argo corrections amongst other things; and I guess they rely upon the Argo team for the corrections to systematic Argo errors. It appears so from the acknowledgments of the papers.

I don't know how you conclude pre 1970 data is that bad. It certainly does not appear so to my analysis. The natural variation in measurement is very similar all along the series. You do have less trend prior to 1970, which is unsurprising. All the related data, on sea surface measures and sea level and so on, all indicate that the ocean has been warming substantially more since 1970 or so than prior. That's pretty definite.

We'd like to know how much... and so pre-1970 data is of considerable interest. But the figure does not show any greater "randomness" before 1970 than after, and it fits well with other related data, like the SST record. I also ran a quick check of my own using confidence bounds based on the data only and a simple regression analysis. There's a little bit of extra amplitude to the short term variations through the 1980s, but only very minor and probably not significant. There's no indication at all of additional randomness prior to 1970.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[joelupchurch]

Of course. The thing is that this IS Argo data being used.
I don't know how you conclude pre 1970 data is that bad. It certainly does not appear so to my analysis. The natural variation in measurement is very similar all along the series. You do have less trend prior to 1970, which is unsurprising. All the related data, on sea surface measures and sea level and so on, all indicate that the ocean has been warming substantially more since 1970 or so than prior. That's pretty definite.

Cheers -- sylas

Ignore the data points in figure 1 and look at the gray band marking the 1 std dev. If they are using it the way I'm familiar with, then the line is the measured value and the band represents where the is a 75% chance that actual value is. The pre 1970 data band is almost 3 times wider than the post 1970. You can fit any trend you want inside that band.

This assumes the data actually following a Gaussian distribution.

 

[sylas]

Ignore the data points in figure 1 and look at the gray band marking the 1 std dev. If they are using it the way I'm familiar with, then the line is the measured value and the band represents where the is a 75% chance that actual value is. The pre 1970 data band is almost 3 times wider than the post 1970. You can fit any trend you want inside that band.

This assumes the data actually following a Gaussian distribution.

Ah! My apologies… I was still looking at figure 1 in Levitus et al (2009). In the Levitus analysis the error bars are not actually plotted, but they can be found at the download site.

We need to bear in mind that everything in these figures is a calculation; including the error bars. There is no such thing as a direct measurement of the ocean's total heat content – it has to be inferred on the basis of many thousands of measurements and a whole heap of analysis. Both Levitus (2009) and Domingues (2008) are papers that are clearing up systematic errors in earlier measurements.

Here is a copy of Figure 1 from Domingues (2008):

(image source: realclimate blog).
What this shows are two older calculations and the new revision that Domingues et. al. have obtained, in black. The error bars shown here represent the one standard deviation of the Domingues et. al. analysis, and this does indicate that the analysis used is degraded for trends prior to 1970.

One of the lines there in the Domingues paper, given in red, is from Levitus (2005).

The first paper we’ve been using in this thread is Levitus (2009), introduced by Chris Colose. This is mainly concerned with cleaning up errors in the XBT datasets, and updating their previous and erroneous 2005 analysis. The figure 1 in Levitus (2009) does not include the error bars, but it does give a side-by-side comparison with their 2005 analysis, as shown in red in Domingues (2008). There are error bars in the datasets that I linked to previously. Hence I can plot them for you. This plot shows the annual OHC for the Levitus (2009) analysis, along with hi and lo limits corresponding to one standard error. The baseline is a bit different to the published figure… this is simply a somewhat arbitrary choice for a reference zero point.

I've also plotted here the width of the standard error calculation independently above the main data plot, which gives a better idea of how the standard error develops over time.

There are different error bars here in Levitus (2009) because they are different datasets and different calculations. Levitus is working mainly with XBT data. This is reasonably seen as a reduction in errors associated with the older dataset; but it is also likely that the error bars represent something a bit different in this case… the method error without explicit additional measurement error. That's fair enough in a downloaded dataset; it's probably method error that's more useful for other analysis. However, it remains the case that the two analyses by Levitus and Domingues are different analyses with their own associated error estimates. The 2009 analysis from Levitus et al is mostly somewhere in between their 2005 analysis and the Domingues analysis.

I don't have direct access to the Domingues et al data -- it is available, but not as a direct download, and I haven't put in an order for it by email. But it looks like the big hump from the Levitus 2005 analysis is mostly gone in 2009. What's left of that hump still represents a difference between the two analyses.

The Domingues 2008 error bars most probably include a larger measurement error component, not explicitly addressed in Levitus 2009. That's how I read it, in any case.

A great summary of this ongoing work is available at the NASA Earth observatory: Correcting Ocean Cooling. It tells the story of how the errors in the Argo floats were found and fixed, and gives a good insight into how difficult it all is. Although the article focuses on the Argo team, the final word of the article goes to Syd Levitus:

"Models are not perfect," says Syd Levitus. "Data are not perfect. Theory isn't perfect. We shouldn't expect them to be. It's the combination of models, data, and theory that lead to improvements in our science, in our understanding of phenomena."​

Cheers -- sylas

 

[Saul]

It appears the oceans have stopped warming. I am not sure that is cause for celebration.


http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mscp/ene/2009/00000020/F0020001/art00008;jsessionid=1k9alnlpdhr7c.alice

Ocean heat content data from 2003 to 2008 (4.5 years) were evaluated for trend. A trend plus periodic (annual cycle) model fit with R2 = 0.85. The linear component of the model showed a trend of −0.35 (±0.2) × 1022 Joules per year. The result is consistent with other data showing a lack of warming over the past few years.

Author: Loehle, Craig

Source: Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2, January 2009 , pp. 101-104(4)

Cooling of the global ocean since 2003

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025

 

[joelupchurch]

It appears the oceans have stopped warming. I am not sure that is cause for celebration.


http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mscp/ene/2009/00000020/F0020001/art00008;jsessionid=1k9alnlpdhr7c.alice



Author: Loehle, Craig

Source: Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2, January 2009 , pp. 101-104(4)

Cooling of the global ocean since 2003

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025

I found a copy of the paper here:

http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3152"

As far as I can tell, there is no data in the paper that isn't in the Leviticus paper we have been discussing. Frankly, I think, my earlier characterization of the data as essentially flat is more accurate. The trend they refer to overwhelmed by seasonal variations.

I didn't think that was remarkable, since it was consistent with the surface temperature record with some lag.

 

[Saul]

I found a copy of the paper here:

http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3152"

As far as I can tell, there is no data in the paper that isn't in the Leviticus paper we have been discussing. Frankly, I think, my earlier characterization of the data as essentially flat is more accurate. The trend they refer to overwhelmed by seasonal variations.

I didn't think that was remarkable, since it was consistent with the surface temperature record with some lag.

A trend of minus -0.35 x 10^22 Joules/year for the period 2003 to 2008 is not essentially flat. A negative trend in the planet’s ocean temperature shows the planet is cooling. A clearer description than "a lack of warming of over the last few years" is the planet was been cooling from the period 2003 to present.

Ocean heat content data from 2003 to 2008 (4.5 years) were evaluated for trend. A trend plus periodic (annual cycle) model fit with R2 = 0.85. The linear component of the model showed a trend of -0.35 (±0.2) x 10^22 Joules per year. The result is consistent with other data showing a lack of warming over the past few years.

Both the atmosphere and the ocean appear to be cooling. (Which makes sense as sea ice is also increasing.)

What is causing a significant five year cooling of the planet?

Comment:
The upper stratospheric temperature paper that was published in 2008 only used data up until 2003.

 

[sylas]

Careful guys; this is descending into crackpottery and irrelevance. There's a reason the Earth Science forum requires peer-reviewed references for support of controvertial claims – there's a lot of flagrant nonsense out there.

This thread is about the topic of Ocean Heat content. This is an excellent topic, and there are some genuine scientific puzzles and open questions here. Unfortunately, the thread risks being derailed into consideration of low grade popular caricatures of genuine science investigation.

Specifically.

• Loehle 2009 is not a legitimate peer-reviewed science paper. The available data is much better examined using the legitimate scientific papers already cited rather than distracting into fringe oddities.
• Bizarre claims are being made with no reference. The claim that "sea ice is increasing", for example, is symptomatic of the extreme flight from reality that shows up so often in these debates.
• Irrelevant distractions are showing up. For example, we have large and badly produced graphs of tropospheric temperature. That's not the ocean. (Not to mention that the data actually shows more warming than in the ocean. More below.)
• There is no "significant five year cooling". Five years is a short variation, almost by definition a five year "trend" is not significant!

More detail on each point.

References from Energy and Environment

Energy and Environment is not a science journal. It was set up by an English climate skeptic with no profession background in the topic. It doesn't show up in the recognized ranking systems and impact factors for scientific publications, anymore than OMNI or Readers Digest. The founder and main editor is Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, an academic with background in geography, politics and policy – not science at all. The magazine has become a clearing house for easy publication of low grade material that can't get into a real science journal. Indeed, that was the aim. Boehmer-Christiansen apparently thinks there a bias against publishing work running counter to the mainstream science; but she's got it backwards. The mainstream is what it is because it has a bias against shoddy methodology and pseudoscience.

This "journal" has a lot of currency OUTSIDE science, where it is eagerly lapped up by people who don't accept the basic findings of conventional climatologists. It's cited in blogs, pundits, congressional submissions, etc, etc… but it has very little circulation in university libraries.

The paper by Craig Loehle (2009) would be okay as an undergraduate project, but the low level engaged is very obvious if you look at it side by side with a real science paper, such as Levitus (2009) or Domingues (2008) that has been used in the thread. Loehle's actual conclusions are rather weaker than his abstract suggests. The conclusion of the article is as follows:

While the current study takes advantage of a globally consistent data source, a 4.5-year period of ocean cooling is not unexpected in terms of natural fluctuations. The problem of instrumental drift and bias is quite complicated, however, (Domingues et al. 2008; Gouretski and Koltermann 2007; Wijffels et al. 2008; Willis et al. 2004, 2008a) and it remains possible that the result of the present analysis is an artifact.​

Exactly so. The result is "not unexpected" in terms of natural fluctuations, and even worse – it remains possible that the result is an "artifact".

The analysis in the paper is trite. It's nothing but an exercise in curve fitting, using a distinctly odd method for finding a trend. He fits a sine curve to the data as a way of handling the annual cycles, and then fits for an underlying linear slope, and also a linear change in amplitude. That pretty much ensures he's going to get results with limited meaning. It makes sense to have a linear trend over a long period of time, but a linear damping?!? Seriously, forget the Loehle paper. It's not going to be a part of the actual ongoing scientific work, and with good reason. Stick with the science journals. It's all the same data being used, and the science journals do it much better.

Tropospheric temperature.

We've got two huge graphs above, badly produced, talking about atmospheric trends.

This brings up a whole new topic. Fundamentally, the atmosphere shows MUCH more variation than the surface or the ocean, which puts bigger uncertainty on the trends. But in fact, the graphs Saul have provided do show an overall warming trend, along with a lot of up and down that is larger than at the surface.

The regression trend for his RSS data is 0.155 C/decade warming, with 95% confidence bounds of 0.135 to 0.175. The trend in the UAH data is 0.128 C/decade, with 95% confidence bounds of 0.107 to 0.149. There's a pretty good working relationship between the RSS and UAH research groups. The scientific disagreements are the name of the game. Each group continues to work with the other in helping to find problems. The RSS website has a really nice little tool that allows you to compare all the various datasets involved. See http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_validation.html. But take care to read the associated text; you get different trends when data is weighted by sampling to fit radiosonde data, probably because of the increased warming over the land.

For what it is worth, the sea surface temperature trend over this same period is about 0.133 C/decade, with 95% confidence limits of about 0.121 to 0.144, using the standard HadSST2 dataset: here. The deeper ocean warms more slowly than this.

This thread is about Ocean heat content.

The measurement of tropospheric temperature is an ongoing active research question. As matters stand, this is mostly about measurements. There are some theoretical issues here about refining dynamic models of the atmosphere generally, but as matters stand the models are consistent with the wide range of plausible measurement. Furthermore, this all stands distinct from questions of what is causing the rising temperatures we observe. The primary modeling issues here would be the same whether warming was driven by greenhouse, or insolation, or albedo. Theoretical predictions are within the range of the available measurements, and ongoing work to resolve discrepancies between different data sets makes for lots of interesting and contrasting work in the scientific literature. But it's almost all about trying to nail down difficult measurements.

The recent 5 year trend

Anyone who talks about a five year climate trend doesn't understand trends.

Over five years, the natural variation of climate and weather means you are necessarily looking at local variation. This is not a measure of "trend" at all, but of small scale local change. This is certainly interesting in its own right, but it isn't trend. A trend is something that extends over the time, and for climate and weather, the five year scale is dominated by natural oscillations. The long term trends show up only over longer periods.

Nor is it particularly surprising that a number of climate indices show lower values recently. The major contributing factor for this is the ENSO oscillations -- El Nino, La Nina -- which have just been through a cool point after a high point about five years ago or so. A good discussion of this is

• Fawcell, R (2007) http://www.amos.org.au/documents/item/82 , Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Vol. 20, pp. 141-148.

Sea ice

The sea ice trends are strongly downwards in the Arctic, and about level in the Antarctic. Saul says:

Both the atmosphere and the ocean appear to be cooling. (Which makes sense as sea ice is also increasing.)

The above statements just don't make any sense. The actual trend for ocean and for atmosphere shows warming. Saul has mixed up a short term swing with a trend. That's just wrong, and fails to understand what "trend" means in the context of data with natural up and down variation. The oscillations are not trend, and the whole idea of trend is to abstract away from the short term variations. Trend is, by definition, not something you can find within spans of time dominated by oscillations.

But the sea ice thing takes wrong to a whole new level.

The sea ice talking point is symptomatic of the low level to which popular debate has sunk. What we actually have with sea ice is no significant trend in the Antarctic, and a very strong and unambiguous drop in the Arctic. You get the same thing with any actual scientific source of data, this is not ambiguous at all. There are good diagnostic timeseries for HadISST at the Hadley Centre.

Recently, however, Washington Post columnist George Will produced an incredible piece of nonsense mentioning increasing sea ice. The fallout from this was interesting and IMO symptomatic of the low grade of popular debate. The Washington Post has since published a couple of much more sensible op-eds on this, specifically noting that George Will's conclusions contradict the actual scientific data. Some readers might think that this represents two sides of a scientific debate. It doesn't. It represents error and denial on one side and science on the other.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[Saul]

Careful guys; this is descending into crackpottery and irrelevance. There's a reason the Earth Science forum requires peer-reviewed references for support of controvertial claims – there's a lot of flagrant nonsense out there.

Cheers -- sylas

Sylas,

Name calling of the author, the publisher, and of others in the forum does not prove your point.

Data indicates the planet (both hemispheres) was been cooling for the last 5 years. Ignoring the data does not change the data.

I provided a paper that shows the planet's oceans (Total heat content.) have been cooling for the last 5 years.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mscp/ene/2009/00000020/F0020001/art00008;jsessionid=1k9alnlpdhr7c.alice

Ocean heat content data from 2003 to 2008 (4.5 years) were evaluated for trend. A trend plus periodic (annual cycle) model fit with R2 = 0.85. The linear component of the model showed a trend of −0.35 (±0.2) × 10^22 Joules per year. The result is consistent with other data showing a lack of warming over the past few years.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025

It is quite reasonable if the continents cool the oceans will also cool. Or alternatively if the oceans are cooling there will be an increase in sea ice and colder temperatures on land.

 

[Saul]

This seems to support the assertion the planet is cooling. i.e. A lack of warming.

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.jpg

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg

 

[Skyhunter]

Sylas,

Name calling of the author, the publisher, and of others in the forum does not prove your point.

Data indicates the planet (both hemispheres) was been cooling for the last 5 years. Ignoring the data does not change the data.

I provided a paper that shows the planet's oceans (Total heat content.) have been cooling for the last 5 years.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mscp/ene/2009/00000020/F0020001/art00008;jsessionid=1k9alnlpdhr7c.alice

Energy & Environment is not an acceptable peer reviewed journal on this forum.

This is the communique I received from Monique.

Can you provide me with a link where it says that an article submitted to the journal undergoes peer-review? I can not find it. The journal is also not listed in the ISI's Journal Citation Reports indexing service.

Monique

You are drawing a conclusion that is not supported by the NPR article.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025

It is quite reasonable if the continents cool the oceans will also cool. Or alternatively if the oceans are cooling there will be an increase in sea ice and colder temperatures on land.

That article states that the surface is not cooling.

This is puzzling in part because here on the surface of the Earth, the years since 2003 have been some of the hottest on record.

And ice is melting not growing. (With exceptions; Antarctic sea ice and high altitude glaciers experiencing increased precipitation patterns etc.)

Willis says some of this water is apparently coming from a recent increase in the melting rate of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica.

"But in fact there's a little bit of a mystery. We can't account for all of the sea level increase we've seen over the last three or four years," he says.

It would think that when the surface temperatures of the oceans oscillate from warm to cold, that warmer water displaces the cooler water that wells up from the bottom. I suspect that with PDO and ENSO being predominately negative, that some of the sea level rise is deep warming that is not being measured.

 

[Saul]

It is asserted the planet's oceans have cooled 2003-2008.

Ocean surface temperatures support that assertion.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/Fig2b.gif

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/Fig2b.gif

 

[sylas]

Responding to two posts in one.

Name calling of the author, the publisher, and of others in the forum does not prove your point.

There was no name calling.

Looking over my article, I am satisfied it was entirely fair. The critical remarks were properly focused on ideas and writings, without name calling applied to persons. I stand by them without hesitation, and will repeat them as appropriate. I am not attacking you personally when I refute your claims. Some of what you say is absurd and completely counter factual, well beyond legitimate scientific disagreement. I back up all such assertions. There's nothing personal intended with it; don't take this as animosity.

When I want to make points of my own, I will use positive argument and direct reference to relevant sources from the mainstream of scientific literature and research. My previous post was cautioning against going off topic, and using unreliable material.

I don't even need to make any case on what is and is not reliable as a reference. We already have guidelines here, which require you to use the peer-reviewed scientific literature. If you can't defend a particular hypothesis by showing that it is being argued within the mainstream of science this ought to be a red flag to you, frankly. In any case, that's the rules of the game.

Data indicates the planet (both hemispheres) was been cooling for the last 5 years. Ignoring the data does not change the data.

There is a fall in many climate indices over the last five years, and I have not ignored that at all. I have discussed it explicitly, just above and also in other threads. Short term temperature falls are a consequence largely of the ENSO oscillation, and I backed this up from the mainstream literature. In any case, it is an entirely unexceptional instance of natural variation similar to other rises and falls all along the last 40 years.

The paper I cited for you above, Fawcett (2008) describes the measurement and impact of the southern oscillation (ENSO). There's a lot of work going into understanding and modeling this important source of interannual change. That it exists, and has a strong influence on short term trend, is basic data.

The data shows a definite warming trend on scales where trend is meaningful, and it shows lots of short term variation above and below the underlying trend. A five year span is much too short to show "trend", but the variation is there and actively investigated in the literature. The last five years shows nothing exceptional by comparison with the previous thirty. Short term variations like this are actively studied in the literature.

It is quite reasonable if the continents cool the oceans will also cool. Or alternatively if the oceans are cooling there will be an increase in sea ice and colder temperatures on land.

This sidetrack into sea ice is just silly. The diagrams you linked show precisely what I mentioned before – a strong trend of decreasing ice cover in the Arctic, and no significant trend in the Antarctic. That you see increasing ice cover is surreal. You must be looking at "winter" in isolation, I think. There is an increase in sea ice in winter.

The data shows a strong and unambiguous down trend in sea ice cover, in the Arctic. The Arctic also shows an exceptionally high rate of warming, including the last five years. There is natural variation, just like anywhere else, and individual years can be either up or down, but the Arctic warming is several times stronger than at lower latitudes, and the five year trend is upwards as well.

Note that the extent of ice cover is not defined only by temperature. For example, the immediate cause of exceptionally low levels of ice in the summer of 2007 is wind pushing back the boundary. This made 2007 an outlier, with a minimum in sea ice well below the main trend of reducing cover. 2008 bounced back a bit – though it was still the second smallest summer ice extent on record. Actual scientists measure temperature. They don't make clueless inferences from sea ice cover in isolation of any thought for effects of precipitation, wind and currents. Ref: NASA press release: NASA Examines Arctic Sea Ice Changes Leading to Record Low in 2007.

Sea ice cover says very little about total ocean heat content. There's a small contribution, but ocean heat content is overwhelming driven by the the major oceans where sea ice is not a factor. There are genuine and unresolved open questions about heat content of the ocean. Stay tuned. Josh Willis -- one of the main Argo researchers -- will have some new papers coming out pretty soon, that will be much more relevant.

And the next post:

It is asserted the planet's oceans have cooled 2003-2008.

Ocean surface temperatures support that assertion.

You should read the text, as well as look at the diagram. The diagram you've reproduced shows both the longer warming trend, and the shorter up and down variations, with a fall in temperature in recent years.

You are using the http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/ , from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which is one of the leading research groups on world climate modeling and monitoring. Co-incidentally I was in the middle of preparing a reply using this very summation when you posted the diagram.

The summation starts out by noting that 2008 was the coldest year since 2000, and also one of the 10 hottest years on record -- ALL of which have occurred since 1997. That's a quick insight right there into the nature of both the long term trend and the short term variation. The conclusion of the summation repeats what I have been explained to you here as well.

Summary: The Southern Oscillation and increasing GHGs continue to be, respectively, the dominant factors affecting interannual and decadal temperature change. Solar irradiance has a non-negligible effect on global temperature [see, e.g., ref. 7, which empirically estimates a somewhat larger solar cycle effect than that estimated by others who have teased a solar effect out of data with different methods]. Given our expectation of the next El Niño beginning in 2009 or 2010, it still seems likely that a new global temperature record will be set within the next 1-2 years, despite the moderate negative effect of the reduced solar irradiance.​

That "southern oscillation" is ENSO -- precisely what I also identified as the major cause for a short term drop in temperature. Here's the recent timeseries for the index:

If you compare this plot with your extracted plot of temperatures, the similar features are striking.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[Saul]

Responding to two posts in one.

There was no name calling.

Looking over my article, I am satisfied it was entirely fair. The critical remarks were properly focused on ideas and writings, without name calling applied to persons. I stand by them without hesitation, and will repeat them as appropriate. I am not attacking you personally when I refute your claims. Some of what you say is absurd and completely counter factual, well beyond legitimate scientific disagreement. I back up all such assertions. There's nothing personal intended with it; don't take this as animosity.

Cheers -- sylas

The Southern Sea ice anomaly is the highest in the 45 year period shown. The anomaly is high in both spring and in winter.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg

The Argo ocean temperature data 2003 to 2008 shows cooling if the data is not adjusted.

The paper you quote shows flat ocean temperatures 1957 to 1990 and then a large increase which again flattens 2003 to 2008.

You provide no explanation as to why there is a sudden hockey stick warming for the period 1990 to 2003. Why was there no warming prior to 1990? Why has the warming suddenly stopped?

ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat08.pdf[/URL]

The global sea surface temperature shows cooling 2003 to present which supports the cooling interpretation of the Argo’s data.

I standby the assertion: the planet is cooling, the cooling trend will accelerate.

New data will either prove or disprove that assertion.

 

[Skyhunter]

The Southern Sea ice anomaly is the highest in the 45 year period shown. The anomaly is high in both spring and in winter.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg

The Argo ocean temperature data 2003 to 2008 shows cooling if the data is not adjusted.

What do you mean, "if the data is not adjusted"?

The paper you quote shows flat ocean temperatures 1957 to 1990 and then a large increase which again flattens 2003 to 2008.

It actually shows a positive trend from 1955-1990, followed by a steep warming trend from 1990-2000, and then a very large spike from 2001-2004, and then a leveling off.

You provide no explanation as to why there is a sudden hockey stick warming for the period 1990 to 2003. Why was there no warming prior to 1990? Why has the warming suddenly stopped?

ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat08.pdf[/URL]
[/quote]
How are these questions relevant to his argument?

I would suggest you take them one at a time and not imply that because they are not specifically addressed that it is indicative of a faulty argument.
[quote]
The global sea surface temperature shows cooling 2003 to present which supports the cooling interpretation of the Argo’s data.
[/quote]
The SST data shows only 2 years of cooling not 5.
[QUOTE]2003 0.4792
2004 0.4642
2005 0.4722
2006 0.4537
[b]2007 0.3784
2008 0.3714[/b]
[PLAIN]"ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/annual.ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat"[/URL][/QUOTE]
[quote]
I standby the assertion: the planet is cooling, the cooling trend will accelerate.
[/quote]
Maybe this will help.
[URL]http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL037810.shtml"[/URL]
[quote]
New data will either prove or disprove that assertion.[/QUOTE]
Current data does not support that assertion.

 

[Saul]

What do you mean, "if the data is not adjusted"?


http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL037810.shtml"

Current data does not support that assertion.

Skyhunter.

The ocean surface temperatures are colder each year after 2003. i.e. 2003 is the warmest year in the period. That is the definition of cooling. If the ocean surface is warming the temperature increases.

What is your definition of warming?


2003 0.4792
2004 0.4642
2005 0.4722
2006 0.4537
2007 0.3784
2008 0.3714

2008 is the coldest year of the 21st century.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/Fig2b.gif

 

[Skyhunter]

I think you are hyper focused on a very short term variation. There is a lot of water beneath the surface. That is why the ARGO measurements are such an improvement as a measure of overall ocean heat content since the diving robots measure a larger vertical column of water, where as the older buoys and ships just measured the top meter or so.

When surface temperatures are lower in the ENSO regions it is because cooler water is welling up from the bottom bringing with it rich nutrients. We know this is the case because fisherman and now biologists have been observing the link for centuries.

The cool water is displacing the warmer water. Water that was stratified during an El Nino event because the pump is turned off. That displaced warmer water is not radiating it's heat into space, therefore that heat is being stored in the ocean. Other parts of the ocean also oscillate at different cycles and perhaps for different reasons. The point I am making here is that it is very difficult to measure the oceans temperature. What is the temperature change in the deep southern ocean?

The ocean temperature measurements are just one data point. Those measurements are weighed against sea level rise minus glacial mass loss for an estimate of thermal expansion.

The long term trend is still quite positive even while solar activity is low and many major ocean oscillations are neutral to negative. The next El Nino will likely see record temperatures and then you will have the data point that you need.

 

[Xnn]

You're correct Skyhunter;

When cool water from the depths of the ocean wells up to the surface (as during La Nina conditions) then the ocean as a whole is warming more than they would be otherwise. The cooler surface waters are reflected as cooler global surface temperature, but this does not mean that the Earth as a whole is cooling off. On the contrary, less heat is being radiated to outer space. So, the planet is actually storing more heat.

The heat imbalance that the planet is experiencing (about 1.5 watts/m^2) will persist until atmopheric temperature rise significantly. However, since the oceans store most of the heat, we won't fully realize new equilibrium surface temperature until after the ocean have reached equilibrium too.

 

[sylas]

The heat imbalance that the planet is experiencing (about 1.5 watts/m^2) will persist until atmopheric temperature rise significantly. However, since the oceans store most of the heat, we won't fully realize new equilibrium surface temperature until after the ocean have reached equilibrium too.

I agree with the above, except that number 1.5 W/m² for current imbalance. Do you have a reference?

If you are talking about the whole planet, I am pretty sure the imbalance is substantially less than that. But if you can give a reference, I would be very keen to see it, seriously. I'd like to know the basis for the estimate, the time span used, and whether it is a planetary value or over a more limited region -- such as being limited to the ocean surface.

I've got another post in preparation, but I think the real value is probably about a quarter of that. (References and discussion, in [post=2186640]msg #3[/post].)

Cheers -- sylas

 

[Xnn]

I use the 1.5 Watt/m^2 as a rough approximation of the IPCC value:

the effect of human activities since 1750 has been
a net positive forcing of +1.6 [+0.6 to +2.4] W m–2.

See page 31 of the following link: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-ts.pdf

However, by satellite direct measurements it's larger:

The 5-yr global mean CERES net flux from the standard CERES product is 6.5 W m−2, much larger than the best estimate of 0.85 W m−2 based on observed ocean heat content data and model simulations.

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175/2008JCLI2637.1

 

[bellfreeC]

What do you mean, "if the data is not adjusted"?

I am kind of curious myself. This first technique I bolded is suppose to be a quicker study.

I have yet to google Arthur Robinson**. I suspect the petition could be signed by anyone, whether they call themselves a scientist or not.

Air-Sea CO2 Flux
by Eddy Covariance Technique in the Equatorial Indian Ocean
Fumiyoshi Kondo and Osamu Tsukamoto

"The raw CO2 fluxes by the eddy covariance technique showed a sink from the air to the ocean, and had almost the same value as the source CO2 fluxes due to the mean vertical flow, corrected by the sensible and latent heat fluxes (called the Webb correction). The total CO2 fluxes including the Webb correction terms showed a source from the ocean to the air, and were larger than the traditional bulk CO2 fluxes estimated by mass balance techniques."

EARTH SCIENCE STUDY GUIDE - Mustapha KANE, Ph.D.


-------
Last week[that was a year ago, I don't believe I heard anything about it through the broadcast medium-MrB.], Dr. Arthur Robinson of Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine announced at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. that over 31,000 American scientists signed a petition rejecting the theory of man-made global warming.

So why is the support for this theory evaporating among scientists? Perhaps it might be due to the fact that global temperature trends have remained flat for the past decade while the levels of carbon dioxide have risen 5.5%.

The foundation of the AGW theory is based on rising carbon dioxide levels producing higher temperatures. Perhaps this evaporating consensus might be due to the analysis of paleoclimate data that reach back hundreds of thousands of years through glacial/interglacial transitions. This analysis showed that changes in Earth's temperature always preceded changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide. How can that be? Well the oceans are a vast reservoir of carbon dioxide. As the oceans warm, it release this gas back into the atmosphere. The atmospheric carbon dioxide levels measured today are primarily of a natural origin rather than man-made.

Or perhaps the global warming theory is in trouble because it is based primarily on a complex computer climate model that is more hype than substance. This sophisticated model fails to include the effects of cloud-cover. Clouds are a major factor in modulating Earth's temperature. Clouds block sunlight, reflecting the light back into space thus lowering temperature. The intensity of the sun's magnetic field controls the rate that high energy particles, called galactic cosmic rays, hit the Earth's atmosphere. These particles seed cloud formation through ionization.

John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.), writing from Brisbane, Australia.
GREENIE WATCH: 05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008
-------

Speaking of Australia [[Tim Palmer was quoted in the above blog, which is how I came across the 800+kb blogspot a couple of days ago]]... I found this quote in a pdf[link] provided by someone at the ABC network's forum, "There is no sound theoretical basis to expect a reduction in infrared radiation to space in the relatively narrow CO2 wavelength bands to cause an increase in surface temperature."
HEARTLAND INSTITUTE
International Conference on Climate Change: 8-10 March 2009

Heartland Institute's impact level I know not. William Kininmonth does not deny the enhanced temperature effect of extra carbon dioxide [in one graph it is below seventy km]. He, like me, doesn't think there is going to be any out of balance time scale.
Carbon dioxide can be factors higher and only green the Earth. Climate change is basically beyond any worthwhile predictive time scale* or so fungible that it is gibberish.

MrB.
*And Tim Palmer has to call this a "radical" indeed, a "much more radical paradigm"? I think I know why... and I hope to eventually add that to the Physics of Global Warming thread. https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=294362

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm%3Ffuseaction%3Dwq.essay%26essay_id%3D231274 is a taste...
James Pollard Espy (1785–1860), the first meteorologist employed by the U.S. government, was a frontier schoolmaster and lawyer until he moved to Philadelphia in 1817. ...

His stature has been diminished, however, by his unbridled enthusiasm for rainmaking. Espy suggested cutting and burning vast tracts of forest to create huge columns of heated air, believing this would generate clouds and trigger precipitation. “Magnificent Humbug” was one contemporary assessment of this scheme. Espy came to be known derisively as the “Storm King,” but he was not *deterred.


**I will endeavor to read thread #'s 245897 & 190230.

 

[sylas]

I use the 1.5 Watt/m^2 as a rough approximation of the IPCC value:

Ah! You are mixing up terms. The "forcing" is not the same as the "imbalance" currently being experienced. You are comparing numbers that are measuring completely different quantities.

The key background concept here is the Earth's energy balance. The Earth receives energy from the Sun, and emits energy back out to space, and these two fluxes are maintained in balance, because the Earth has no comparable internal source of energy.

Forcing

A forcing is a change to the balance of energy, but a forcing also produces a response to restore the balance.

The simple account of forcing is this. Suppose something changes to energy flow. It can either be a change in solar input, or in the amount of energy reflected (albedo) or in the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb radiation (greenhouse). The immediate effect is a change in the energy balance, so that there is a difference between what is absorbed and what is emitted.

The response of the planet is to heat up or cool down, and that changes the emission of thermal energy back to a state of balance again.

Forcing is thus a very useful way to quantify the impact of different things that drive temperature change.

A more precise definition of forcing is given in the IPCC 4AR WG-1 "The Physical Science Basis" (Chapter 2, section 2.2, page 133):

[Radiative forcing is] the change in net (down minus up) irradiance (solar plus longwave; in W m^-2) at the tropopause after allowing for stratospheric temperatures to readjust to radiative equilibrium, but with surface and tropospheric temperatures and state held fixed at the unperturbed values.​

Imbalance

The "imbalance currently experienced" is the actual difference at a point in time between incoming and outgoing radiation. The imbalance is thus a combination of forcing and response, whereas the forcing very deliberately omits the response of the climate system for restoring balance.

However, by satellite direct measurements it's larger:

The 5-yr global mean CERES net flux from the standard CERES product is 6.5 W m^-2, much larger than the best estimate of 0.85 W m^-2 based on observed ocean heat content data and model simulations.

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175/2008JCLI2637.1

First, this is not "larger" than the IPCC forcing, because it is measuring something different. Second, and more important, the 6.5 is not an accurate measurement of imbalance, but a demonstration of large errors in satellite derived estimates.

I think you have misunderstood what that paper is doing. The problem is that satellites are not anywhere near accurate enough to measure the imbalance. The fundamental problem being addressed in that paper is the 6.5 W/m² is wildly inaccurate, and they want to clean it up. Quoting the summary of the paper, with my emphasis:

Our best estimate of the average global net radiation at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), defined as the difference between the energy absorbed and emitted by the planet, is 0.85 +/- 0.15 W m^-2 (Hansen et al. 2005). Because of uncertainties in absolute calibration and the algorithms used to determine the earth’s radiation budget, satellite-based data products show a sizeable imbalance in the average global net radiation at the TOA, ranging from -3 to 7 W m^-2.

—Loeb, N.G. et. al. (2009) Toward Optimal Closure of the Earth’s Top-of-Atmosphere Radiation Budget, in Journal of Climate, Vol 22, Iss 3, Feb 2009, pp 748-766​

There's another important point here as well. Loeb et al are focused on clearing up the errors in satellite numbers, but they repeat Hansen's 0.85 estimate without any independent derivation of their own.

Addendum, added in edit. In my opinion, the above extract from Loeb et al should have been picked up in peer-review and sent back for correction. A range of -3 to 7 does NOT show a "sizable imbalance". Just the reverse. It means that no imbalance can be shown within the accuracy of the measurements. The phrase "show a sizable imbalance" should have been replaced by "have substantial differences". It might even be a typo, but as phrased it is nonsensical.

I noted back in [post=2186640]msg #3[/post] that Hansen's estimate is substantially greater that what is indicated from ocean heat content estimates, by Levitus, and Domingues, and others. Here, just for the record, are the relevant references.

• Domingues, C.D. et. al., (2008) Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise, in Nature Vol 453, pp 1090-1093 (19 June 2008) doi:10.1038/nature07080
• Hansen, J. et. al. (15 authors) (2005) Earth's Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications, in Science, Vol 308, no 5727, pp 1431-1435.
• Levitus, S. et. al., (2009) http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008GL037155.shtml, in Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L07608, doi:10.1029/2008GL037155.

I think the paper Hansen et al (2005) can be a bit confusing on this point. If you read it, it is clear that there's a difference between measurements and models, and the 0.85 is model based, higher than measurements, but within credible uncertainities. My own reading of the literature suggests that the mismatch is actually pretty substantial.

Since writing that, I have asked Gavin Schmidt about it, at his blog. Gavin was a co-author of Hansen et al 2005. In the responses I find that Hansen has indeed reduced his estimate in recent lectures, and draws a plain distinction between measurements and models. See, for instance, a talk given by Dr Hansen earlier this year:

Chart 14:

Modeled Imbalance: +0.75 +/- 0.25 W/m²
Ocean Data Suggest: +0.5 +/- 0.25 W/m²​

Now, the ultimate question: can we stabilize climate? We would need to restore the planet’s energy balance. The underlying imbalance (averaging over short-term fluctuations) is probably close to 0.5 W/m².

—Air Pollutant Climate Forcings within the Big Climate Picture, Talk given by J. Hansen at the Climate Change Congress, “Global Risks, Challenges & Decisions”, Copenhagen, Denmark, March 11, 2009​

Note that the error bounds here are quite large. He is quoting model numbers here that range from 0.5 to 1.0, whereas in Hansen 2005 the range was 0.7 to 1.0. Personally, I expect that as the dust settles we'll end up with a number a bit less than 0.5. That's not an expert opinion, but an amateur guess based on reading quite a number of different papers working towards nailing this down. I think nearly everyone agrees that the major part of this imbalance corresponds to heating within the upper 700m of the ocean; and the data on that is consistently hovering around 0.25. So it will be more than 0.25, when you consider contributions to stored energy on land and in the deep ocean, but I doubt it can be as much as 0.5.

This is by no means settled business, but it is converging towards a solution. Direct measurements of the heat content have been plagued by instrument problems, and that's still not cleared up.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[sylas]

Speaking of Australia [[Tim Palmer was quoted in the above blog, which is how I came across the 800+kb blogspot a couple of days ago]]... I found this quote in a pdf[link] provided by someone at the ABC network's forum, "There is no sound theoretical basis to expect a reduction in infrared radiation to space in the relatively narrow CO2 wavelength bands to cause an increase in surface temperature."
HEARTLAND INSTITUTE
International Conference on Climate Change: 8-10 March 2009

Heartland Institute's impact level I know not. William Kininmonth does not deny the enhanced temperature effect of extra carbon dioxide [in one graph it is below seventy km].

I've just pulled out a brief extract from the post. The problem is that you are mixing up all kinds of things here, ranging from first rate science to more or less insane pseudoscience.

It's really hard, I appreciate, to follow all the stuff that different people claim. It's hard for a nonexpert to tell what disagreements arise from actual open questions in science, and what disagreements arise from the clash between science and pseudoscience. You'll see both, in full measure, in popular writings and the internet. That's why we are required to use peer reviewed scientific sources here in physicsforums. It cuts out a lot of the nonsense straightaway.

Dr Tim Palmer is a first rate scientist, dealing with important open questions.

The Heartland Institute is a notorious and enthusiastic purveyor of pseudoscientific nonsense, dressed up as a parody of the real thing. They mix up good and bad without any apparent discrimination, and are completely unreliable as a source.

The quote you give here from Kininmonth (starting out "no sound theoretical basis") is scientifically on a par with claims that the Earth is 6000 years old.

It is impossible to overstate just how ridiculous that claim is.

Any undergraduate course on radiation and the atmosphere will deal with changing absorption of thermal radiation with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. The impact of CO2 is one of the more straightforward. It has a large window of absorption close to the peak of Earth's thermal emission spectrum, and with increasing concentrations there is additional absorption primarily in the wings of the absorption band. The effect can be calculated, as a forcing, to quite good accuracy, using basic physics that is in no doubt whatsoever.

I have explained more about how absorption works in [post=2165483]msg #3[/post] of thread "Estimating the impact of CO2 on global mean temperature".

Please don't just drop large piles of random claims into the thread. Stick to legitimate scientific references, and try to relate it to some identifiable coherent point, directly related to the specific topic of the thread.

Cheers -- sylas

PS. I've looked up a bit more about William Kininmonth. He's a loony. He describes himself as "Director of the Australasian Climate Research Institute". That turns out to be a trading name set up by William Kininmonth, which he runs out of his own private residence. It is typical of the Heartland Institute that they'd pick up this kind of stupidity and include it uncritically in their ludicrous "conference".

 

[bellfreeC]

The Heartland Institute is a notorious and enthusiastic purveyor of pseudoscientific nonsense, dressed up as a parody of the real thing.

All right, don't hold back. :)

The quote you give here from Kininmonth (starting out "no sound theoretical basis") is scientifically on a par with claims that the Earth is 6000 years old.

It is impossible to overstate just how ridiculous that claim is.

<Snip=[on the more direct importance of "forcing" thread id:307685]++>

PS. I've looked up a bit more about William Kininmonth. He's a loony. ...

Well, a loon implies that he knows not[what he says] rather than a master magician who knows better.

Anyway, I see thread id:245897 is in forum=20. That maybe the place for any more comments on motives.

However, as I have read that thread{almost finished}, Andre is making much the same claim in that we know enough to have a paradigm dominance where measurements are not second class to climatic models.


Andre Sep22-08
t=245897msg=40
"with all due respect you have a motive for that. Physical realities don't have motives. It's just there, whether we like it or not. Remember Richards Müller most important observation:

Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate. I would love to believe that the results of Mann et al. are correct, and that the last few years have been the warmest in a millennium.

Love to believe? My own words make me shudder.

...

Moreover in the water vapor feedback to keep relative humidity constant, it can be calculated that this takes just about as much energy as was required to cause the extra warming."

Andre[Sep20-08] also points to his thread id:252066,
"CO2 cooling?".

I changed the quote slightly from what Andre provided of Müller.
The age of the Earth and Man's place on it does come in and more important for a true understanding of the Coriolis effect\cause can there be any real evidence that the Earth rotates with terms fixed on an energy budget?

MrB.

++Although, I would note that I chose that sentence of Kininmonth's because it spoke of narrow bands. This would be something basic. Further the word "shoulder" is also used for "wings" I know. But what don't I know...? And would the "CO2 cooling?" thread help draw down the loony quotient or does it do the opposite, Sylas? That is another thread I need to finish reading!

 

[joelupchurch]

I noticed that Roger Pielke Sr. comments extensively on Leviticus et al. in his May 18th blog entries http://climatesci.org/". I notice he refers to post 2003 trend as a "lack of warming", rather than a cooling.

Based on some things I read that indicate we are going into a new El Nino cycle, I expect a warming trend to resume next year, assuming we come out of the current solar minimum this year.

 

[Richard111]

Please excuse a confused layman's question.
I found this graph: http://omlc.ogi.edu/spectra/water/gif/segelstein81.gif

and similar here: http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/vibrat.html (scroll down)

It is possible (probable) I am misinterpreting this data. It appears to me that infrared radiation above 4 microns has no heating effect on water but possibly an increase in water vapour release.

This indicates to me that the oceans are heated by sunlight only (below 3 microns) and greenhouse gases play no part in heating over 70% of this planet. This would also apply to all rivers and inland waters.

Increased water vapour = increased cloud cover = reduced solar radiation at sea level = eventual reduction in ocean heat. All in all, a self regulating negative feedback system.

Regards

Richard