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One Planet Only Forever at 07:39 AM on 1 February 2014The Oceans Warmed up Sharply in 2013: We're Going to Need a Bigger Graph
John Wise @ 3.
The important point is that the planet is capturing more solar input energy because of increased greenhouse gases, particularly the increase in excess CO2 resulting from the burning of fossil fuels and other human impacts.
Until the surface warms to a level that emits radiation at a rate that is balanced with the higher level of energy capture there will continue to be 'net energy capture'. When the ocean surface is cooler, warmth is taken from the surface into deeper ocean layers that 'do not emit heat out of the planet'. The result is energy capture in the oceans until such time as the deeper heat rises to the surface. The next strong El Nino, like the ones that occurred in 1997-98 or 1982-83, could produce very dramatic increases in the surface temperature records. There are similar currents in other oceans, but there is a strong correlation between the Pacific Ocean ENSO (El Nino, La Nina), and significant bumps and dips in the surface temperature.
So, the 2013 global surface average being almost as warm as 1998 while the ENSO is in a slightly cooler than neutral phase indicates that warming has continued.
p.s. In addition to creating excess CO2 the burning of fossil fuels creates other damaging impacts. And it is fundamentally unsustainable because (burning up non-renewable resources). So the CO2 impact on the climate is only one of many reasons this activity needs to be curtailed, the sooner the better.
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scaddenp at 07:20 AM on 1 February 2014The Oceans Warmed up Sharply in 2013: We're Going to Need a Bigger Graph
rocketeer - see discussion further up. here.
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Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
michael sweet - 0.3 W/m2 per decade, as stated in the opening post, is the current rate of increase in that anthropogenic forcing value.
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michael sweet at 06:35 AM on 1 February 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
KR,
Your graph is very useful for the discussion. I read the total forcing as 1.6 W/m2, not as 0.3 W/m2. Look at the brick red bar labeled "total net anthropogenic" and the graph at the bottom. That appears to be the total forcing since 1750. Where do you see 0.3 as the final number?
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John Wise at 06:25 AM on 1 February 2014The Oceans Warmed up Sharply in 2013: We're Going to Need a Bigger Graph
What has caused the heating of the ocean to increase and the heating of the atmpsphere to slow down in recent years?
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Magma at 04:31 AM on 1 February 2014The Oceans Warmed up Sharply in 2013: We're Going to Need a Bigger Graph
Clever cultural reference in the headline.
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rocketeer at 04:07 AM on 1 February 2014The Oceans Warmed up Sharply in 2013: We're Going to Need a Bigger Graph
Can anyone tell me what the heat content scale translats into in terms of average temperature increase? Easy calculation if I knew the mass of the ocean.
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citizenschallenge at 03:11 AM on 1 February 2014The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures
Mike that (conservamerica.org/) looks interesting, thanks for the link. Unfortunately, I noticed "ConservAmerica was founded in 1995 to resurrect the GOP's great conservation tradition and to restore natural resource conservation and sound environmental protection as fundamental elements of the Republican Party's vision for America." Tragically it seems they haven't had much impact on the GOP mind-set.
~ ~ ~Hope you don't mind me sharing a link myself:
Friday, January 31, 2014
"Dr. Richard Lindzen, scientist as fiction writer"
http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2014/01/dr-lindzen-scientist-as-fiction-writer.html
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Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
I believe that the 0.3W/m2 figure is for the sum of imbalance from 1750, the most commonly used IPCC baseline - the accumulated anthropogenic emissions forcing. Warming over the last 150 years has certainly cancelled out some of that imbalance, but it's not unreasonable to look at totals rather than year to year values when discussing GHG forcing.
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Phil at 23:05 PM on 31 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
Pierre Normandy, yes sorry. I misread your original compliant. Thanks to Tom @20 for attempting some quantitative analysis. My only contribution is qualatative; it is, of course, possible for the imbalance to increase - the rate of CO2 emission has to exceed the planets response. Tom calculation suggests that it does, but not as much as the figure quoted. I had assumed that this was a measured quantity, it would be interesting to know !
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Tom Curtis at 22:35 PM on 31 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
Pierre Normand and Phil, an decadal increase of 0.3 W/m^2 is equivalent to a 5.8% per decade, or a 0.57% per annum increase in CO2, ignoring other anthropogenic factors. That is low relative to the current emissions rate, but possibly a reasonable estimate once all anthropogenic emissions are included.
Assume a equilibrium climate sensitivity for doubling CO2 of 3 degrees, and a transient climate response of 2 degrees. That means for each 1 degree increase in temperature, there is a 1.23 increase in OLR. Further assume that the forcing increases by 0.3 W/m^2 per decade. From the transient climate response, it follows that temperatures increase by 0.16 C per decade on average, and hence the upward LWR from the increase in temperature increases by 0.2 W/m^2. In this scenario, therefore, the energy imbalance increases by 0.1 W/m^2 per decade. Thus, contrary to Pierre Normand, a constant, linearly increase in forcing will result in a an average increase in the energy imbalance, decade by decade. The increase, however, is much smaller than the increase in forcing. It is about a third of the increase in forcing on the assumptions used above, but will vary with different assumptions.
Given this, it is likely that the 0.3 W/m^2 figure quoted in the article is a mistake, but it is possible that expected increase in forcing is greater than 0.3 W/m^2 per decade; and also that different assumptions were used in the calculation, resulting in a much higher relative increase in energy imbalance for a given increase in forcing. It would be good if Rob Painting or Keven Trenberth could clarrify.
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Pierre-Normand at 21:33 PM on 31 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
Phil, you seem to be agreeing with all I said. This increase in surface radiation into space is proportional to what I called the "Planck response". If the anthropogenic forcing wouldn't keep increasing anymore (because we would manage to suddenly reduce CO2 emission to a level that merely compensates upkeep by sinks, somehow, and the atmospheric concentration would remain constant) then surface temperature would slowly rise until the TOA balance is restored (and then rise some more as slow feedbacks kick in). If, however, we just keep increasing the forcing, as we currently do, then the surface warming strives to restore the balance but can't keep up with the constantly increasing forcing (mainly because oceans are slow to warm) and the TOA imbalance is maintained. But it is not *increasing* by 0.3W/m^2 per decade as the article states. This would only occur if the surface did *not* warm, or warmed very little. Then there would be no Planck response and the imbalance would grow at a rate equal to the rate of forcing increase.
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Phil at 20:45 PM on 31 January 2014Corrections to Curry's Erroneous Comments on Ocean Heating
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Curry's comment about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics make an unreasonable assumption about what is going on ?
As I understand it, areas of the Planet such as the atmosphere, upper ocean, deep ocean etc. should, in a perfect(ly mixed) world increase in temperature uniformily (i.e. in step with each other). However kinetic processes can imped heat flows between these different areas, allowing localised heat gradients to temporarily occur. Presumably, eventually the gradient gets so steep that a tipping point occurs and the Planet shifts into another phase where another area of the Earth warms preferentially to the others.
However the 2nd law of thermodynamics would only be relevant if we knew the rate at which the deep ocean was warming (or whatever area of the Earth was relevant at the time) was still below the "uniform" rate. If it wasn't then we would expect the 2nd law to "encourage" heat to be released.
Curry's statement therefore implies to me that she knows the deep oceans are still "playing catchup". Is she justified in this ? Or am I misunderstanding something ?
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Phil at 20:17 PM on 31 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
Pierre-Normand @17. If the amount of energy received by the Earth from the Sun exceeds the amount the Earth radiates into space, then the only thing the Earth can do is increase its temperature, which in turn will increase the amount of radiation into space. This process will continue until these two energy fluxes are equal. In that time to reach a new equilibrium the amount of energy "stored" in the planet will increase, raising the temperature of the Earth.
Thus the rise of temperature of the surface (and all other portions of the planet) is caused by the global energy imbalance.
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Pierre-Normand at 17:19 PM on 31 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
"What's more, continually increasing greenhouse gases increase the imbalance by about 0.3 W/m2 per decade even as the planet warms and radiates some extra heat back to space."
I don't get this at all. It seems prima facie false. I would have thought that it is, on the contrary, *only* if surface temperature does *not* increase at all that the imbalance will keep increasing in exact proportion to the increase in external forcing (isn't it the anthropogenic forcing change, and not the rate of increase of the imbalance, which precisely is 0.3 W/m^2/decade?).
When the surface temperature is allowed to keep up, in accordance to the transient climate sensitivity to the forcing change (i.e. TCR * delta_forcing(t)), then the imbalance should remain constant since the Planck response balances out the forcing increase. The existence of the sustained imbalance, averaged over a couple decades, is mainly a result of slow ocean diffusivity, and the steadily increasing forcing, while it (the imbalance) fluctuates around this average value as a result of internal variability (ENSO etc.)
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scaddenp at 17:07 PM on 31 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
Your number sounds more reasonable. Miscounted a zero somewhere.
The 9% is temperature. Increase of .37 on average temp of 3.9C. So make that 0.9% which sounds much more reasonable.
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jyyh at 14:26 PM on 31 January 2014It’s all a Question of Balance
"...and then, seeing the awesome power of living nature and the magnitudes of the cycles of local CO2 consentrations it produces, the physicist said, 'we may need an Earth System Model.'"
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jyyh at 14:22 PM on 31 January 2014Cowtan and Way: Surface temperature data update
At last, a longer temperature dataset fot the whole globe produced partly by a European working scientists. Thank you, all involved. Anyway the difference to the GISS data set is small but it's nice to have a European source for the global temperatures. The occasional cable breaks under the Atlantic are not an issue anymore.
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chriskoz at 13:26 PM on 31 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
scaddenp@14,
You'r off (exaggerated) by factor of 10.
1.3 billion cubic kilometres = 1.3E9 * 1E9 m3 = 1.3E9 * 1E9 *1E6 cm3
1cm3 takes 4.19J per 1K => total ocean heat content per 1K is: 1.3E9 * 1E9 *1E6 * 4.19 = 5.45E24J. So, according to this calculation dT of ocean would be 0.04K on average. However because we don't measure ocean heat content below 2000m (about half of the total volume), the OHC you cite applies to the top half volume only, so the average dT in this part of volume is just under 0.1K (0.08) consistent with the estimates.
However your statement:
change since 1970 [...] a bit under 0.4C. Still average ocean temp is 4C so that is 9%.
does not make sense both logistically and technically. Where did you take that "9%" from? I guess from the diference between ocean heat content over freezing point as opposed to the OHC change since 1970? Saltwater freezing point is about -2C rather than zero, so in that case you miscalculated your "9%". In any case such number does not make any sense in context of Earth energy imbalance topic at hand.
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scaddenp at 10:44 AM on 31 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
As a percentage change in temperature for entire ocean, it is small - because you need gigantic amounts of energy to shift the temperature of 1.3 billion cubic kilometres by 1 degree. 5.4E23J by my calculation, and change since 1970 has be 2E23J so I guess a bit under 0.4C. Still average ocean temp is 4C so that is 9%. More than I would have thought so perhaps someone should check my calculation. But so what? The measured change tells us what the energy imbalance for the earth is. Percentage change isnt a particularly useful indicator of hazard. Try increasing the percentage of cyanide gas around you by 0.027% for instance.
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Muzz at 09:59 AM on 31 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
I would like to know by what percentage the oceans are warming. Does anyone know the answer?
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michael sweet at 07:12 AM on 31 January 2014A Historical Perspective on Arctic Warming: Part One
Maurice Winn,
I do not see where the 1938 map has ill defined areas of land. Please specify where you see ill defined areas. There are many Inuit settlements across the Arctic that observed the ice every year and towns in Russia. On September 12, 1876 no less than a dozen vessels were caught in the ice and abandoned northeast of Point Barrow. These were whaling vessels. In addition there were many trading vessels and as you mentioned air planes from the various countries in the area surveying the ice. This documents that dozens of ships traveled the Arctic every year tracking the ice. You are claiming ignorance of information when you are presented with data. You have not looked up what the sources of the data are.
Your last line summarizes your lack of knowledge. Look at the North West passage. It is choked with ice in 1938 (and all other years until 2006). In 2012 there is little ice. There is shorefast ice at Barrow in 1938 and hundreds of miles of open water in 2012. "not all that much different from 2012" is simply wishful thnking on your part.
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MauriceWinn at 06:47 AM on 31 January 2014A Historical Perspective on Arctic Warming: Part One
Oops, no edit function. Sorry. That should be: <<Since the land in 1938 was ill-defined, it seems a stretch to think that the ice, which changes constantly, every summer, would be anywhere near as well-defined as the land. >> I inadvertently reversed my meaning by adding a "not" where I should not have done. It isn't that I didn't put "not", it's that I did [I hope that triple inverted negative gets a small smile].
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michael sweet at 06:41 AM on 31 January 2014Corrections to Curry's Erroneous Comments on Ocean Heating
Tamino's post (noted by Wili) would be good here at SkS. I am sure he would agree to cross post it.
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MauriceWinn at 06:40 AM on 31 January 2014A Historical Perspective on Arctic Warming: Part One
Comparing the summer 1938 map of Arctic ice with the 2012 map of Arctic ice, the land mass surrounding the ice is ill-defined. Presumably the 2012 map is the correct definition of land in the Arctic. Since the land in 1938 was ill-defined, it seems a stretch to think that the ice, which changes constantly, every summer, would not be anywhere near as well-defined as the land.
To define the extent of ice in 1938 would require a lot of ships sailing around reporting ice extent. It looks as though there was a lot of interpolation - "There is ice here so there is probably ice further on, where we can't go, so let's just fill it in with ice". As is evident from the 2012 map of the ice, it would have taken just a bit more ice to block off the Bering Sea access which would lead people in the day to assume that everywhere beyond the beginning of the ice would be continuous ice, which was not the case in 2012, when there were satellites to easily take handy photos to remove all doubt.
To map the minimum of summer ice in 1938 would have been impossible, as ice changes quickly in the heat of summer. One day a lake has ice, a week or two later, hey presto it's gone. Ships couldn't be everywhere at the minimum. The date in August 1938 would be relevant to the comparison. Maybe they missed the minimum by 3 weeks.
There were of course no satellites in 1938 and not a lot of aircraft flying over the area to report on something which was far less interesting than the Japanese and German rampaging murderous expansions across the planet, not to mention the USSR writ large and dangerous.
The Great Depression was on too, so there were not the swarming hordes of wealthy people with the luxury of investigating all sorts of natural phenomena.
The land mass is inaccurate, the ice extent is bound to be.
In any event, even if the reported 1938 ice coverage was accurate, it's not all that much different from 2012.
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william5331 at 05:20 AM on 31 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
Presumably this heat in the oceans will make itself felt when, for instance, we have an El Nino. The inertia of the system implies momentum (actually the same thing in physics) and suggests that even if we ceased to warm the oceans, the effects of the warmer ocean will persis long after. Of course, even if we ceased to put carbon in the atmosphere tomorrow, the warming would continue until the various carbon sinks had time to reduce atmospheric carbon so we can't even stop the warming of the oceans if we wanted to. We truly are leaving a mess for our children.
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Andy Skuce at 05:09 AM on 31 January 2014Answering questions about consensus in a MOOC webinar
Actually, kanspaugh, the survey did include some articles from trade journals, such as the Oil and Gas Journal as well as from non-climate science journals such as the Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. The criteria for inclusion in the survey were that the article be peer-reviewed and that the papers appeared using our search terms.
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Rob Painting at 05:01 AM on 31 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
Barry @ 8 - " Consistent with prevailing theories on the 'pause' slower rate of surface warming?"
Yup. See old SkS posts:
1. The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
2. Ocean Heat Poised To Come Back And Haunt Us?
3. A Looming Climate Shift: Will Ocean Heat Come Back to Haunt us?
The stronger mixing of heat into the deep ocean during the negative (cool) phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) would seem to be the primary suspect for the slower rate of surface warming, but light-blocking aerosols (around 20% according to one estimate) and a cooler than normal sun are also factors.
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WheelsOC at 04:14 AM on 31 January 2014Corrections to Curry's Erroneous Comments on Ocean Heating
Fourth and most importantly, the argument is a non sequitur – the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise of the argument. Yes, global warming events have occurred naturally in the past, and sea level rose as a consequence, but that doesn't tell us anything about the causes of the current global warming. This is akin to seeing a dead body with a knife sticking out the back and arguing that it must have been a natural death because people have died naturally in the past.
I've often used the analogy to wildfires when somebody says that "climate's changed before, I guess it was the dinosaurs driving their SUVs?" or something to that effect. The reply is that wildfires happened before any of the first humans were born, then ask if this implies that no wildfires are casued by people today.
For people who aren't prepared to accept that there actually is a knife in the victim's back (that we KNOW the Greenhouse Effect is playing the principal role right now), this is a subtler way to undermind their confidence in the myth of "just natural warming."
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wili at 03:34 AM on 31 January 2014Corrections to Curry's Erroneous Comments on Ocean Heating
Tamino has a new and unusually good--even by his high standards--post on why there is no 'hiatus' even in atmospheric global temperatures.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/global-temperature-the-post-1998-surprise/#more-6942
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Prufrocks at 03:13 AM on 31 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
I am reminded of how often Pielke Sr. would dismiss surface air temperatures as a poor metric for global warming, in favor of OHC. His blog now long closed, Is he commenting or contributing elsewhere regarding the warming ocean? The last I've seen of him was in praise of Bob Tisdale who, I have to admit, sometimes give me pause and along with Judith Curry are pretty much my only remaining sources for "balance." (My impression is that Curry's recent Congressional statement regarding sea level rise is probably inaccuarate and dismissible but I don't think she addressed OHC specifically).
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Daniel Bailey at 02:48 AM on 31 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
In order for subaerial volcanoes to warm the ocean, they would have to be erupting on orders of magnitude larger than observed. This also would be affecting the acidification of the ocean, which we know is derived from human FF usages. Per Gerlach 2011:
"To create more than 35 gigatons per year of volcanic CO2 would require that magma across the globe be produced in amounts exceeding 850 cubic kilometers per year, even for magma hypothetically containing 1.5-weight-percent CO2. It is implausible that this much magma production—more than 40 times the annual midocean ridge magma supply—is going unnoticed, on land or beneath the sea. Besides, the release of more than 35 gigatons per year of volcanic CO2 into the ocean would overwhelm the observed acid-buffering capacity of seawater and contradict seawater’s role as a major sink for atmospheric CO2 [Walker, 1983; Khatiwala et al., 2009]. In short, the belief that volcanic CO2exceeds anthropogenic CO2 implies either unbelievable volumes of magma production or unbelievable concentrations of magmatic CO2. These dilemmas and their related problematic implications corroborate the observational evidence that volcanoes emit far less CO2 than human activities.
It is informative to calculate volcanic analogs that elucidate the size of humanity’s carbon footprint by scaling up volcanism to the hypothetical intensity required to generate CO2 emissions at anthropogenic levels. For example, using the 2010 ACM factor of 135 (Figure 1) to scale up features of present-day volcanism, Kilauea volcano scales up to the equivalent of 135 Kilauea volcanoes; scaling up all active subaerial volcanoes evokes a landscape with the equivalent of about 9500 active present-day volcanoes [Siebert et al., 2010]. Similarly, the seafloor mid-ocean ridge system scales up to the equivalent of 135 such systems. Of particular interest, though, is the roughly 4 cubic kilometers per year of current global volcanic magma production [Crisp, 1984], which would scale up to about 540 cubic kilometers per year. This significantly exceeds the estimated average magma output rates of continental flood basalt volcanism [Self, 2010], which range from about 10 to 100 cubic kilometers per year. Thus, annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions may already exceed the annual CO2 emissions of several continental flood basalt eruptions, consistent with the findings of Self et al. [2005]."
http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/2011EO240001.pdf
It's not subaerial volcanoes.
(emphasis added)
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gws at 00:41 AM on 31 January 2014Methane emissions from oil & gas development
Informative story on NPR this morning:
Much of North Dakota's Natural Gas is going up in Flames
Situation is similar in Texas.
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barry1487 at 21:54 PM on 30 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
chris & Glenn,
While ENSO maybe the primary factor in ocean/atmosphere heat flux, it is not the only mechanism. Trenberth's paper is trying to resolve the energy budget on interannual scale, but I am interested in decadal trends. (I'm not sure if the paper says that they are better resolved or not) There has been much discussion attributing the 'pause' in surface temps since the turn of the millenium to accelerated uptake of energy in the oceans. This would seem to be corroborated in the OHC data since the turn of the millenium. So I looked further back to see if that kind of correlation was evident, using OHC as the pacemaker.
For periods when there was a clear linear trend change in OHC (0-700 & 0-2000), there seems to be an inverse correlation with surface temperatures. I added a few more trend lines to surface data here.
The first 2 trendlines are sub-decadal and should be ignored (although they fit my hypothesis) , but the following 3 are decadal periods with distinct trends. ENSO is not factored because it is a component of total OHC.
The three decadal surface temp trends behave as I imagine for periods when OHC rises quickly or is flattish. OHC has a steep warming trend 1969 - 1979 (incl), has a much lower trend 1980 - 1990, and a steep trend again 2000 - 2014. Surface trend for those periods are, inversely, flattish, steeply warming, and flattish again. IIRC, long-term volcanic forcing is negligible, and solar influence is not a major factor (15% on decadal time scales according to Trenberth). I didn't attempt to run a trend for 1990 - 2000, as OHC trend for that period was hard to read.
I don't know if there may be something to accounting for surface/ocean trends on decadal scales, but I was interested in the possibility in light of the recent 'haiatus' in surface temperatures. From Trenberth's paper:
Several runs with the model under future emissions scenarios where the radiative imbalance is known exactly and a distinct energy imbalance at TOA was occurring nonetheless featured several stases in surface temperatures for more than a decade. Examination of the energy flows during such intervals for all ensemble members reveals a consistent picture. The net radiation at the TOA (RT) was on the order of 1 W m-‐2 into the climate system, yet there was a stasis in warming at the surface. Examination of the changes in OHC showed clearly that this was the main sink. Indeed, the full depth OHC continued relentlessly upwards with no hesitation at all. Hence the missing heat was being deposited mainly below 700m depth....
Consistent with prevailing theories on the 'pause'?
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chriskoz at 19:56 PM on 30 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
wwsyim@5,
No, we haven't "overlooked" the role of submarine volcanic eruptions.
The 'heat' of underwater volcanic eruptions you're presumably refering to, is part of earth's geothermal etnergy. The total geothermal energy was mesured as 0.1W/m2, which is much less than current toa imbalance. You can read about it, e.g. here:
What might be causing the imbalance? Might it be heat flowing from within the Earth? Apparently not. Pollack et al 1993 estimated total geothermal heat flows from within the Earth at 44.2 trillion Watts. This is only around 1/6th of the observed heat build-up
Out of that 0.1W/m2, volcanoes are only a part. Your volcanoes (underrwater) are still ~3/4 of total volcanoes on the globe. So I can confidently say that the heat of your volcanoes is at least 10 times smaller than the heat retained due to TOA imbalance. To have a little bit of understanding about the enormity of TOA imbalance, you can read further therin:It [imbalance] would now take all of 100 minutes to boil Sydney harbour dry
Any of your volcanoes would be able to do it? It would be an enormous volcano that no one has seen yet... Of course, one can find & claim that that some specific eruption warmed ocean water by several degrees and caused change of currents and that may have even contributed to the reversal of ENSO oscillations. But it's going to be only local and minor event. Globally, the biggest factor is imbalance due to GHG.
The "natural" CO2 emissions from all volcanoes are 100times smaller than human emissions, as you can read here. So the volcanic CO2 is also a minor factor.
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Rob Painting at 17:10 PM on 30 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
wwsyim - the global oceans are warming from the top down. There are many other lines of evidence, but this alone precludes submarine volcanoes as a culprit.
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wwsyim at 16:22 PM on 30 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
Submarine volcanic eruptions have always been an episodic natural contributor to ocean warming. For example the El Hierro submarine volcanic eruption in the Canary Archipelago, off the northwest African coast from October 2011 to March 2012.
How can we distinguish between ocean warming due to natural and anthropogenic causes? - or have we entirely overlooked the role of submarine volcanic eruptions.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 16:16 PM on 30 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
barry @1
Actually from your graph, 0-700 and 0-2000 OHC seems to have moved in lock-step from 57 - 83 with a blip around 75. Implying no long term heating in 700-2000. Then from 83-86 0-2000 rose faster implying heating in 700-2000. Then from 86 to 94 0-2000 matched 0-100 so no warming od 700-2000. Then from 94 onwards 700-2000 started warming continuously.
Perhaps 700-2000 actually started warming around 83 onwards with something suspending that from 86 to 94.
And what could cause these sorts of fluctuations? Winds. Increased winds in the tropics and mid latitudes can 'spin up' the mid-ocean gyres, increasing the rate at which water gets pumped down to mid depths through Ekman pumping, taking heat from the surface with it.
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R. Gates at 15:23 PM on 30 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
I think this general analysis is right on target and the "pause" in the accumulation of energy in the Earth climate system is indeed an illusion. Tropospheric sensible heat is a poor proxy for measuring the energy gain in the Earth system. It is only a partially good proxy over the longest time frames. The Earth climate system continues to gain energy from the geologically rapid build up of GH gases caused by human activity.
Having said all this however, let me correct what I think is a basic thermodynamic error that many make when saying the "heat is going into the oceans" from anthropogenic global warming. By a very very big margin, the net flow of latent and sensible heat is from ocean to atmosphere on a global basis. The atmosphere simply does not heat the ocean-- quite the opposite. What increasing GH gases do is alter the rate of energy flow from ocean to atmosphere to space. The oceans gain energy because this flow is reduced. Much of this addition energy in the ocean is advected to the poles (especially the north pole, due to the hemispheric energy flux differences). Thus we see much if the sea ice decline actually occuring from ice being melted from the bottom From warmer water. Thus, a slightly warmer atmosphere acts like a control knob to create a much warmer ocean and even faster warming polar region.
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chriskoz at 12:45 PM on 30 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
barry@1,
If you think about the fact that OHC trend is responsible for over 90% of warming due to TOA imbalance, you may reasonably expect the surface T changes (where only 3% of that imbalance energy goes) will not be very well correlated. It's hard to establish precise correlation from when other factors (volcanoe aerosols, sun's variability) are coming into play and influence TOA balance.
However your remark:
the cursory implication is that warming slows or stops at the surface for periods that OHC rises quickly
can be interpreted as an indication of LaNina conditions (ENSO minus zero) that may have prevailed during your periods. You would have to consider other effects (volcanoes & sun variability) to establish your correlation.
Trenberth et al. (2014) cited in the article is an excelent analysis of OHC/ENSO and TOA imbalance that may help you.
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barry1487 at 11:30 AM on 30 January 2014Warming oceans consistent with rising sea level & global energy imbalance
OHC trend was also relatively strong between 1969 - 1979, similar to the period since 2000.
For both periods HadCRUt4 shows flattish surface trends.
It's just two periods, but the cursory implication is that warming slows or stops at the surface for periods that OHC rises quickly. Is there a long-term correlation, and does anyone know of published literature on this?
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VictorVenema at 11:22 AM on 30 January 2014A Historical Perspective on Arctic Warming: Part One
It could be that the IPCC was right, but Curry was wrong. There is namely an important sentence missing from Curry’s quote h/t Steve Bloom:
“A question as recently as six years ago was whether the recent Arctic warming and sea ice loss was unique in the instrumental record and whether the observed trend would continue (Serreze et al., 2007).”
In other words, the IPCC was describing the way science saw the situation 6 years ago. Six years makes quite a difference as the temperature increase was strong the last few years. For more details see my blog.
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A Historical Perspective on Arctic Warming: Part One
These sea ice maps from 1938 (the summer with least sea ice during the ECWP) and the record year 2012 confirms what the temperature records say about the Arctic, namely that the warming around 1930-1940 was not comparable to the warming we see today.
And even if it was, it’s worth noting that the areas north of 60°N and 70°N cover no more than about 7% and 3% of the Earths surface, respectively. A significant warming here could easily be offset by an insignificant cooling in the rest of the world without affecting the global temperature.
Source: Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) and NSIDC.
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A Historical Perspective on Arctic Warming: Part One
An update on my previous post - Dr. Curry's Georgia Tech publication list shows about 154 titles, meaning that just under 1/3 (45) concern the Arctic. Again, she should know what she is talking about, making her Congressional testimony puzzling.
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A Historical Perspective on Arctic Warming: Part One
A quick look at Dr. Currys publication history shows two instances of 'Antarctic', and 45 of 'Arctic '. Only 5 on 'temperature', however (note: her publications go back to 1983, well over 100 listed). She appears to know a lot about the Arctic.
Given that publication history and the existing Arctic data, these postions in her testimony seem quite out of place.
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CBDunkerson at 05:42 AM on 30 January 2014A Historical Perspective on Arctic Warming: Part One
Albatross raises an interesting point. Curry has an extensive publication history... but I can't recall having seen her publish any peer reviewed 'research' on her climate denial talking points.
Her participation in the 'BEST' study would have been a perfect example... except that it wound up showing that her claims were false... and then, of course, she disavowed it.
Has she published 'denial research' that I have missed? Her claims on scientists (including her own BEST study) 'hiding the decline' were particularly egregious... yet she made her 'case' entirely in the field of 'journalism' rather than science.
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tkman0 at 04:03 AM on 30 January 2014A Historical Perspective on Arctic Warming: Part One
Thats a great Idea ^^
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:33 AM on 30 January 2014A Historical Perspective on Arctic Warming: Part One
Very good point Albatross, Willard's playing on words does not fool anyone. Curry's testimony in Congress had little more value than that of Monckton. Robert Way is one of many regular contributors to SkS who can claim publication in a serious journal. It is one more in a list that is becoming significant and continues to grow. I'm not sure if this is the right thread but I would like to propose a new tab on the upper left of the home page: "SkS authors/contributors climate science articles." Anyone else thinks it's a good idea? I'm not suggesting competiton with RC but something that would allow newcomers to see that this site is not to be given the same weight as clowns like Goddard or other internet junk...
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JoeT at 14:01 PM on 29 January 2014Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Hey Tom, thanks very much for a very cogent explanation. I appreciate it.
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Albatross at 13:28 PM on 29 January 2014A Historical Perspective on Arctic Warming: Part One
To be fair, I am going to issue a challenge to Dr. Curry. If Dr. Curry honestly believes that her opinions have scientific merit and/or are novel, then I challenge her to publish (as sole author) a paper on each one of her claims made to Congress in a reputable peer-reviewed journal such as Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Journal of Climate, or Climate Dynamics, or International Journal of Climatology or Geophysical Research letters.
Cowtan and Way did so....
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