Sea-surface Temperatures along the Great Barrier Reef
Posted by John McLean, January 5th, 2009 - under News, Opinion.
Tags: Climate & Climate Change, Coral Reefs
We’re often told that the sea temperature along the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is increasing and that soon the coral will be bleached and the reef be destroyed. But what’s the real story according to the data?
The USA’s National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a web page with recent data and maps, along with links to archived data of sea surface temperatures since 1982. The data is matched to grid cells of 1 degree Latitude and 1 degree longitude and from it I extracted the data applying to the GBR Marine Park and calculated the average across the park for each month.
The sea surface temperature (SST) clearly fluctuates throughout the year by about 5 degrees, typically with highest temperatures in January and lowest temperatures in August. It is also clear that The SST rises with the onset of El Nino events and falls with the onset of La Nina events.
Another method of examining temperature is via the anomaly, which is the variation from the long-term average for that month. The method is not ideal because occasional strong peaks or troughs can distort the average for a particular month and therefore the anomalies, but because global temperatures are usually expressed this way these monthly anomalies are shown in figure 2, along with the 12-month running average as above. The conventional period used for long-term averages is 30 years but because we only have 27 years of data the monthly averages are those for the entire interval.
More time is needed before reasons for the rise in the last few months of 2008 will become clear. At the present time (January 2009) the data might not be fully checked, the cloud cover over the reef may have changed, wind patterns may have altered, the discharge of heavy rainfall in rivers may be to blame and so on.
These graphs make it abundantly clear that the sea surface temperature along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef are not increasing at an alarming rate. The people who say otherwise have no evidence whatsoever to support their claims. These sea temperatures might rise in future but the historical evidence suggests that this will most likely be due to the natural forces of El Nino events.
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John McLean lives in Melbourne, Australia.
This note is republished from Mr McLean’s website with permission. The information at the website, as republished here, was updated on January 5 (today) and is relevant to yesterday’s related blog ‘Global Warming Unlikely Reason for Slow Coral Growth’ http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/global-warming-unlikely-reason-for-slow-coral-growth/
The photograph of Mr McLean was taken at the Australian Environment Foundation Annual Conference in September 2008, in Canberra, Australia, by Jennifer Marohasy.
Thank you Bob Tisdale, so the impact for this thread is that the Hadley SST’s quoted by De’ath et al would carry this error. And politicians / policymakers / AGW supporters claim the “science is settled”.
sod; you are either being disingenuous or you don’t know what you are talking about; noone said the GCM’s don’t look at regions but, as this thread shows, particularly the fine non peer-reviewed work of Bob, Warwick and Bill, what AGW then does with regional info is the problem; luke may hide behind the authority of the PR literature but until the very real issues of incomplete data and methods of adjusting that data are dealt with then AGW remains a tainted concept.
Anyway AGW is also tainted in theory as well; you obviously don’t appreciate that AGW and greenhouse theory are predicated on the assumption that the equilibruim temperature of a non-greenhouse atmosphered Earth is 255K and with the greenhouse atmosphere the GMST is 33K higher; it is this assumption which is the basis of AGW and the increased greenhouse effect allegedly being caused by extra ACO2 which is increasing the greenhouse equilibrium average temperature of 288K; all this was described in Arthur Smith’s ‘rebuttal’ of Gerlich and Tscheushner’s paper about there being no average temperature and greenhouse effect; see;
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0802/0802.432v1.pdf
Smith’s paper is deeply flawed for reasons including the criticism mounted in Pielke’s paper and Motl’s calculations, namely that Stefan-Boltzman based temperature regional differences in emitted IR can mean no net increase in IR [and therefore that IR available to be trapped by CO2] even while GMST based on regional anomalies is increasing. AGW has also predicted regional increases in temperature; this aspect of AGW, how the model predictions stack up against what actually happening regionally, was looked at by Koutsoyiannis;
http://www.itia.ntua.gr/getfile/850/3/documents/2008EGU_ClimatePredictionPrSm_.pdf
What utter utter bunk Cohenite
“the fine non peer-reviewed work of Bob, Warwick and Bill,” – barf ! – exactly what have they contributed to climate science actually? Quasi-scientific political rants more like it.
The lack of peer review probably means it’s mere opinion. Afraid to put the ideas to the test?
But then again there are so many ideas – which to choose from is a dilemma. It’s a veritable dog’s brekky mate. The world is cooling, but we don’t know the temperature so how can we know anything, it’s cosmic rays, no it’s solar torque, no “rebounding” from LIA, clouds from 50 different angles, no PDO building heat, volcanoes, it’s the moon, it’s my arthritis, it’s my dog …. spare us…
luke; the Pielke and Koutsoyiannis papers were peer-reviewed. And I don’t think someone who uses an avatar which looks like Quasimodo’s 1/2 brother should use the word “quasi-scientific”.
Luke
“spare us…”
I honestly wish you would.
Lately you have become an obnoxious bore.
Before you were just obnoxious.
Luke: ‘But then again there are so many ideas – which to choose from is a dilemma. It’s a veritable dog’s brekky mate. The world is cooling, but we don’t know the temperature so how can we know anything, it’s cosmic rays, no it’s solar torque, no “rebounding” from LIA, clouds from 50 different angles, no PDO building heat, volcanoes, it’s the moon, it’s my arthritis, it’s my dog …. spare us…’.
Yes your are right to say there are many ideas. Most of the ideas on your list are being explored by scientists, publishing in peer-reviewed literature (except for your arthritis or dog, as far as I am aware). This is how we acquire scientific knowledge Luke, which is different to dogmatic belief in CO2 as the primary driver.
John,
If he has questions about the method of averaging then simply asking a civil question about weighting would have received an answer. If you want answers then ask questions.
I just dropped you an email with a question on the data for SST graph. Apologies if my post came across as uncivil, it wasn’t intended that way.
Thomas
John,
I sent an email to the address on your page (john@mclean.ch), but it bounced with the following error:
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
john@mclean.ch
Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 5.1.1 … User unknown CRBL (state 14).
Can you drop me an email (thomasmooreis @ gmail.com) or provide an alternative contact email?
Thomas
AGW has also predicted regional increases in temperature; this aspect of AGW, how the model predictions stack up against what actually happening regionally, was looked at by Koutsoyiannis;
http://www.itia.ntua.gr/getfile/850/3/documents/2008EGU_ClimatePredictionPrSm_.pdf
cohenite, your use of scientific terms sometimes gets even me confused. so occasionally i really believe that you know, what you are talking about.
the paper you cite in this case, is comparing the results of a GLOBAL climate model to a LOCAL development.
http://www.itia.ntua.gr/getfile/850/3/documents/2008EGU_ClimatePredictionPrSm_.pdf
now if you find a single scientist, who believes that the global models will do well in tracking the temperature records of Albany (USA), drop me a line. the paper is complete rubbish.
(when i said “regional”, i was talking more about something approaching the size of a HEMISPHERE. as i mentioned as well…)
Marcus – don’t encourage me.
Cohers – but your gravatar seems to totally lack soul and content – does this reflect it’s owner.
Jen said my Courtney Love gravatar was disingenuous, so I thought the creep theme worked better. But surely I can be Courtney if I wanted to? Would you take my case?
And yes – Koutsoyiannis – well interesting stuff but I wouldn’t expect GCMs to check out at this level of scale. Poor test. So interesting but ho hum.
Hey did you see the neat ongoing educational series by RC – http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/faq-on-climate-models-part-ii/langswitch_lang/ja
and I haven’t posted an RC link for months – Ian Castles ticked me off last time …
SOD: “the paper you cite in this case, is comparing the results of a GLOBAL climate model to a LOCAL development.”
Non sequitur.
“your use of scientific terms sometimes gets even me confused”; pretentious, moi? You’re funny sod; Koutsoyiannis is “rubbish” because, I gather, he compares model global predictions with regional results; did you even read the paper? Koutsoyiannis breaks the model outputs into equivalent regional basis for his comparison; if the regional components of the models’ global predictions are woefully inaccurate, how can we take seriously the global predictions, putting aside the fatal problem with GMST which I have referred to? A ‘precise’ regional comparison between the models and a designated part of Earth is dealt with in this study;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/904914/A-comparison-of-tropical-temperature-trends-with-model-predictions?page=6
But really the lies and scams of Hansen and his temp ‘adjustments’ really means that any comparison highlighting the fallacy of the models is superflous beause Hansen simply manipulates data to achieve the desired result; eg;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/08/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-79-would-you-could-you-with-a-boat/#more-4455
This is just plain fraud and you are defending it.
You’re funny sod; Koutsoyiannis is “rubbish” because, I gather, he compares model global predictions with regional results; did you even read the paper? Koutsoyiannis breaks the model outputs into equivalent regional basis for his comparison; if the regional components of the models’ global predictions are woefully inaccurate, how can we take seriously the global predictions, putting aside the fatal problem with GMST which I have referred to?
i took a look at the presentation that i linked above. basically he is contradicting a claim, that nobody makes. a global temperature model can do VERY WELL; even if it gets the summer temperature for Paris in 2020 completely wrong…
A ‘precise’ regional comparison between the models and a designated part of Earth is dealt with in this study;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/904914/A-comparison-of-tropical-temperature-trends-with-model-predictions?page=6
this study at least is looking at a reasonable thing. i look at the graph on page 5, and i am still astonished at how good the models are.
there are good explanations for the discrepancies out there. but the models are sound.
But really the lies and scams of Hansen and his temp ‘adjustments’ really means that any comparison highlighting the fallacy of the models is superflous beause Hansen simply manipulates data to achieve the desired result; eg;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/08/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-79-would-you-could-you-with-a-boat/#more-4455
This is just plain fraud and you are defending it.
if you can proof fraud, please do so.
from my look at the picture, somebody parked a trailer next to the sensor. he shouldn t have done that. this will have no significant impact on the TREND of temperature, that will be measured.
Non sequitur.
sorry, but you don t understand logic at all. so you shouldn t claim logical fallacies.
the part of my post that you quoted, does NOT include a conclusion. so it cant include a false conclusion either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_(logic)
sod; you are delusional; the Christy and Douglass paper shows that the models are bereft of any connection with reality; at the surface, where there is a bare scant overlap with reality, it is because the models have not factored in an UHI effect which means their unreal warming trends was still more than the UHI effect; at the crucial CEL layer, which you don’t seem to understand given your recent support for the AGW predicted THS, there is no semblance of any consistency; you also do not understand that because the model or GISS has a similar trend to reality doesn’t mean they are doing something right; it does not mean this at all because even though over a short time the trend shapes will be similar over a longer period there will be marked divergence as this shows with Hansen’s fraudulent hysteria;
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3354
Your dismissal of the Watts link showing the Santa Rosa data before and after GISS gets its hands on it is facile and deserving of no respect at all; look at the graphs from NASA which are in blue and red; this consistent pattern of up-adjusting is mirrored at numerous locations and sites over the US; in addition the GISS record has been shown to have manipulated the whole US record to remove the fact the 1930s were hotter than any other period including post 2000; this sustained and repeated behaviour, which BoM is guilty of also, is indicative of either a peristent ignorance or a deliberate intent; it means that GISS and BoM etc are worthless in this debate; one further illustration of the uselessness of the models;
http://www.warwickhughes.com/hoyt/scorecard.htm
I note that CO2 Science has written about this paper.
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V12/N1/EDIT.php
Sod,
Who mentioned conclusions? Not I unless I wrote in in the white spaces between the words…..and that confirms your delusionality which cohenite has pointed out.